Vytautas Vičiulis (16 October 1951 in

Skuodas district Skuodas District Municipality is one of 60 municipalities in Lithuania. It is the only territory whose Council is using the Samogitian language Samogitian ( sgs, žemaitiu kalba, link=no or sometimes ', ''žemaitiu šnekta'' or '; lt, že ...

– 3 March 1989 in

Klaipėda Klaipėda (; ; german: Memel; pl, Kłajpeda; russian: Клайпеда; sgs, Klaipieda) is a city in Lithuania on the Baltic Sea coast. The capital of the eponymous county, it is the third largest city and the only major seaport in Lithuan ...

) was a

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

n painter and antiques restorer, better known for his

self-immolation The term self-immolation broadly refers to acts of altruistic suicide, otherwise the giving up of one's body in an act of sacrifice. However, it most often refers specifically to autocremation, the act of sacrificing oneself by setting oneself o ...

for political reasons. Protesting against the Soviet

occupation of the Baltic States The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were invaded and occupied in June 1940 by the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Stalin and auspices of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that had been signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet ...

, he burned himself in

close to the monument of

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...

in the late evening of 2 March 1989. Severely burned, he died in hospital at 9 pm on 3 March. Vičiulis used fuel to set himself ablaze. Remains of the

flag of Lithuania The national flag of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos vėliava) consists of a horizontal Triband (flag), tricolour of yellow, green, and red. It was adopted on 25 April 1918 during Lithuania's first period of independence (in the 20th century) from 191 ...

were found on his body.

References

1951 births 1989 suicides 1989 deaths People from Skuodas District Municipality Lithuanian anti-communists Soviet dissidents People of the Singing Revolution Painters who died by suicide Self-immolations in protest of the Eastern Bloc Suicides in the Soviet Union Suicides in Lithuania 20th-century Lithuanian painters {{Lithuania-painter-stub

See also

References