Romualdas Ozolas
">ɔmʊˈɐɫdɐs ˈoːzɔɫɐs(31 January 1939 – 6 April 2015) was a
Lithuanian politician, activist, writer and pedagogue who taught at
Vilnius University
Vilnius University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow and ...
.
[Romualdas OZOLAS]
bio on the pages of Lithuanian parliament
He was a winner of the
Stasys Šalkauskis prize.
[
]
Political career
Member of the Lithuanian Communist Party: 1973–1990
Ozolas became a member of the Lithuanian Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the age of 34, a decision his close ones would deem as betrayal while he later on would recall as one of his greatest downfalls in his life.
Member of Sąjūdis: 1988–1990
Ozolas had a clear vision for Lithuania, which was an independent state and a free nation from the very start. According to the political commentator A. Ramonaitė, at the primary stages of Sąjūdis Ozolas was a key member of Sąjūdis that glued things together. He was well-known, had ties with various discussion groups, and had a well-grounded political vision. To quote his companion Arvydas Juozaitis
Arvydas Juozaitis (born 18 April 1956 in Vilnius) is a Lithuanian writer, philosopher, politician, cultural worker and former swimmer who won a bronze medal in the 100 meter breaststroke at the 1976 Summer Olympics. In 1988, he was a member o ...
, "We were all gathering under the flag of Ozolas who worked for the publishing office ''Thought'' at the time. I had participated in the discussions at his flat since 1982. I knew him very well. It was he who began talking about the necessity of creating, gathering into a movement for the independence."
Member of Lithuanian and Soviet parliaments: 1989–2000
In February Ozolas was elected to the Supreme Soviet of Lithuanian SSR
The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR ( lt, Lietuvos TSR Aukščiausioji Taryba; russian: Верховный Совет Литовской ССР, ''Verkhovnyy Sovet Litovskoy SSR'') was the supreme soviet (main legislative institution) of th ...
and served as its deputy for several weeks. In 1989 Soviet Union legislative election
In 1989, elections were held for the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union. The main elections were held on 26 March and a second round on 9 April. They were the first partially free nationwide elections held in the Soviet Union, a ...
Ozolas was elected People's deputy with support of Sąjūdis. He would remain as a People's deputy until Spring of 1990. He was elected to Supreme Soviet of Lithuanian SSR once again in February 1990.
From 1990 to 1991 he served as Deputy Prime Minister of Lithuania together with Algirdas Brazauskas in Prunskienė Cabinet Prunskienė Cabinet was the 1st cabinet of Lithuania since the declaration of independence in 1990. It consisted of the Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers ...
.
In 1992, he was elected to the Seimas
The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublikos Seimas), or simply the Seimas (), is the unicameral parliament of Lithuania. The Seimas constitutes the legislative branch of government in Lithuania, enacting laws and amendme ...
and served until 2000, when Lithuanian Centre lost almost all its representatives in Seimas after 2000 Lithuanian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Lithuania on 8 October 2000. All 141 seats in the Seimas were up for election, 71 of them in single-seat constituencies based on first-past-the-post voting; the remaining 70, in a nationwide constituency b ...
.[
From 2003 to 2007 Ozolas served as a councillor in ]Varėna district
Varėna (; pl, Orany; yi, אוראַן ''Oran'') is a city in Dzūkija, Lithuania.
History
The town was founded in 1862 near the Warsaw – Saint Petersburg Railway, south of Sena Varėna (Old Varėna). At that time it was a small settleme ...
.
He and his supporters formed the Lithuanian Centre Movement in 1992 (it would become political party, the Lithuanian Centre Union
The Lithuanian Centre Union, or Centre Union of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos centro sąjunga, LCS), was a liberalism, liberal list of political parties in Lithuania, political party in Lithuania that existed between 1993 and 2003.
History
It was estab ...
, in 1993) and was its chairman until 2000.[ From 2003 to 2007 he chaired the National Centre Party (NCP), since renamed the ]Lithuanian Centre Party
The People and Justice Union (centrists, nationalists) ( lt, Tautos ir teisingumo sąjunga (centristai, tautininkai)), formerly known as the Lithuanian Centre Party ( lt, Lietuvos Centro partija) is an agrarian-centrist political party in Lithuan ...
(LCP) in 2005.
Political views
Ozolas was against Lithuania's membership in the European Union as he believed this was incompatible with the country's vision of independence. According to Darius Kuolys, "R. Ozolas was a consistent supporter of the country's unlimited freedom all the way who had a hard time surviving the partial loss of Lithuania's independence within the European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
. He understood this as a strong restraint of Lithuania's sovereignty." He was also against the idea of Lithuania joining the eurozone
The euro area, commonly called eurozone (EZ), is a currency union of 19 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro ( €) as their primary currency and sole legal tender, and have thus fully implemented EMU polici ...
. In 2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...
, during an interview he had noted the differences between the original vision of Sąjūdis and the present situation, saying: "Back then n the 1990s
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''.
History
...
we had different values. Back then we were heading towards an independent national country. Today we are once more integrating into an international union. As a consequence, it is self-evident that the values of the state have to be reshaped and that is exactly what was being done during the process of Lithuania becoming a member of the EU."
Works
*''Stories about Philosophers and Philosophy'' (1988)
*''The First Years of Re-established Independence'' (1992)
*''Within the Sources of Rebirth'' (1996)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ozolas, Romualdas
1939 births
2015 deaths
Members of the Seimas
Vilnius University alumni
Vilnius University faculty
Lithuanian people of Latvian descent
Lithuanian nationalists
Journalists from Vilnius
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 4th Class