Česlovas Gedgaudas (also known as ''Chester Gegaudas'', February 2, 1909 – July 19, 1986) was a

Lithuanian Lithuanian may refer to: * Lithuanians * Lithuanian language * The country of Lithuania * Grand Duchy of Lithuania * Culture of Lithuania * Lithuanian cuisine * Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Jew ...

diplomat, translator, polyglot, and amateur historian. He is best known for his pseudohistorical book ''In the Search for Our Past'', in which he promoted the claims of

Jurate Rosales Jūratė Regina Statkutė de Rosales is a Lithuanian-born Venezuelan journalist and amateur historian. She has published studies in Venezuela, Spain, the United States and Lithuania in which she claims that the Goths were not a Germanic but a Bal ...

and

Aleksandras Račkus Aleksandras Mykolas Račkus (7 June 1893 – 9 October 1965) was a Lithuanian physician and an active member of the Lithuanian American community known for his numismatic and other collection. In 1917, he co-founded the Lithuanian Society of Num ...

that the

Goths The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe ...

and

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal Kingdom, Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The ...

were

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

peoples, and not Germanic or Slavic.

Biography

Gedgaudas was born to the noble house of . His father, , was an artillery commander who participated in the

Lithuanian Wars of Independence The Lithuanian Wars of Independence, also known as the Freedom Struggles ( lt, Laisvės kovos), refer to three wars Lithuania fought defending its independence at the end of World War I: with Bolshevik forces (December 1918 – August 1919), Berm ...

. Gedgaudas attended and graduated from the Institute of Political Science at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

. He later worked at the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublikos užsienio reikalų ministerija) is a governmental body of the Republic of Lithuania that shapes the national policy, and organises, coordinates, and controls i ...

and the Lithuanian delegation in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. From 1945 to 1952, he lived in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, working as a translator at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in France. During these years, he expanded his knowledge of

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

at the Sorbonne (Gedgaudas wrote that he knew fourteen languages, nine of them classical). He was writing his doctoral thesis on

comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...

, but it was never finished. Gedgaudas moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1952,"New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925-1957," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:241P-Z58 : 2 March 2021), Ceslavas Gedgaudas, 1952; citing Immigration, New York City, New York, United States, NARA microfilm publication T715 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.). living in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Works

Gedgaudas' best-known work is the book ''In the Search for Our Past'' ( lt, Mūsų praeities beieškant), first published in 1972 in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

, and then republished in Lithuania in 1994 and 2018. In it, Gedgaudas talks about his theory that the Balts, or Lithuanians, inhabited a large part of Europe, and that the

and Veneti were actually a

people. To prove his theory, he compared a set of words and place names in different languages. It is considered a

pseudohistoric Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohist ...

work, and the linguist Zigmas Zinkevičius classifies Gedgaudas,

and

as being in the same school of thought.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ceslovas, Gedgaudas 1909 births 1986 deaths Diplomats from Kaunas People from Kovensky Uyezd Lithuanian emigrants to France Pseudohistorians University of Paris alumni Lithuanian emigrants to the United States