Kazys Grinius (, 17 December 18664 June 1950) was the third

President of Lithuania The President of the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublikos Prezidentas) is the head of state of Lithuania. The officeholder has been Gitanas Nausėda since 12 July 2019. Powers The president has somewhat more executive authority t ...

, and held that office from 7 June 1926 to 17 December 1926. Previously, he had served as the fifth

Prime Minister of Lithuania The prime minister of Lithuania ( lt, Ministras Pirmininkas; "Minister-Chairman") is the head of the government of Lithuania. The prime minister is Lithuania's head of government and is appointed by the president with the assent of the Lithua ...

, from 19 June 1920 until his resignation on 18 January 1922. He was posthumously awarded with the Lithuanian Life Saving Cross for saving people during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

and was recognised as a

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

in 2016.

Early life

Grinius was born in Selema, near

Marijampolė Marijampolė (; also known by several other names) is a cultural and industrial city and the capital of the Marijampolė County in the south of Lithuania, bordering Poland and Russian Kaliningrad Oblast, and Lake Vištytis. The population of Mar ...

, in the

Augustów Governorate Augustów Governorate ( pl, Gubernia augustowska, lt, Augustavo gubernija, russian: Августовская губерния) was an administrative unit (governorate) of Congress Poland. It was created in 1837 from the Augustów Voivodship, and ...

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. I ...

, which was part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...

. He studied medicine at the University of Moscow and became a physician. As a young man, he became involved in Lithuanian political activities, and was persecuted by the

Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...

ist authorities. In 1896, he was one of the founders of the

Lithuanian Democratic Party The Lithuanian Democratic Party ( lt, Lietuvių demokratų partija, LDP) was a political party in Lithuania The original party was established in 1902. It published newspapers '' Lietuvos ūkininkas'' (1905–1918) and '' Lietuvos žinios'' (1909 ...

(LDP) and Lithuanian Popular Peasants' Union (LVLS) party. That same year he married Joana Pavalkytė. For some time they lived in

Virbalis Virbalis (, pl, Wierzbołów, yi, ווירבאלן ''Virbalen'') is a town in the Vilkaviškis district municipality, Lithuania. It is located west of Vilkaviškis. History It is frequently mentioned in historical as well in modern literatu ...

. In 1899, their son Kazys was born, and in 1902, their daughter Gražina was born. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

they lived in

Kislovodsk Kislovodsk (russian: Кислово́дск, lit. ''sour waters''; ; krc, Ачысуу) is a spa city in Stavropol Krai, Russia, in the North Caucasus region of Russia which is located between the Black and Caspian Seas. Population: Histor ...

. In 1918, during a

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

attack his wife and daughter were killed. They were buried in Kislovodsk cemetery.

Career

When Lithuania regained its independence in 1918, Grinius became a member of the

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

as a member of the Lithuanian Popular Peasants' Union party. He served as Prime Minister from 1920 until 1922, and signed a treaty with the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

. He was elected president by the

Third Seimas The Third Seimas of Lithuania was the third parliament (Seimas) democratically elected in Lithuania after it declared independence on February 16, 1918. The elections took place on May 8–10, 1926. For the first time the Lithuanian Christian D ...

, but served for only six months, as he was deposed in a coup led by

Antanas Smetona Antanas Smetona (; 10 August 1874 – 9 January 1944) was a Lithuanian intellectual and journalist and the first President of Lithuania from 1919 to 1920 and again from 1926 to 1940, before its occupation by the Soviet Union. He was one of the ...

, under the pretext that there was an imminent communist plot to take over Lithuania. When

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

invaded Lithuania in 1941, Grinius refused to collaborate with the Germans because of his opposition to the occupation of Lithuania by any foreign power. He fled to the West, when the Soviet army reoccupied Lithuania in 1944, and emigrated to the United States in 1947. He died in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, Illinois in 1950. After Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, his remains were returned and buried there.

References

External links

Information about Kazys Grinius

DEMOKRATIJOS KELIU: Kaziui Griniui – 150 (PDF)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grinius, Kazys 1866 births 1950 deaths Lithuanian emigrants to the United States Lithuanian physicians Lithuanian socialists People from Kazlų Rūda Municipality Presidents of Lithuania Prime Ministers of Lithuania Imperial Moscow University alumni Lithuanian Righteous Among the Nations

Early life

Career

See also

References

External links