Vytautas Vičiulis (16 October 1951 – 3 March 1989) was a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, 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, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n painter and antiques restorer, better known for his

self-immolation Self-immolation is the act of setting oneself on fire. It is mostly done for political or religious reasons, often as a form of protest or in acts of martyrdom, and known for its disturbing and violent nature. Etymology The English word ' ...

for political reasons, who was born 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 ( or sometimes , or ; ), is an Eastern Baltic language spoken primarily in Samogiti ...

and died in

Klaipėda Klaipėda ( ; ) is a city in Lithuania on the Baltic Sea coast. It is the List of cities in Lithuania, third-largest city in Lithuania, the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, fifth-largest city in the Baltic States, and the capi ...

. Protesting against the Soviet

occupation of the Baltic States The occupation of the Baltic states was a period of annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by the Soviet Union from 1940 until its Dissolution of the Soviet Union, dissolution in 1991. For a period of several years during World War II, Naz ...

, he burned himself in

close to the monument of

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

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 () consists of a horizontal tricolour of yellow, green, and red. It was adopted on 25 April 1918 during Lithuania's first period of independence (1918–1940), which ceased with the occupation first by the Soviet ...

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 Artists 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 Suicides by self-immolation

See also

References