THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
THE HISTORY OF
THE LITHUANIAN NATION
The History of
The Lithuanian Nation
AND
Its Present National Aspirations
By
Kunigas Antanas Jusaitis
Master of Laws of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Translated from the Lithuanian
Published by
The Lithuanian Catholic Truth Society
1918
Copyright, 1918, by
LITHUANIAN CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY.
Translated from Lithuanian as published in a weekly maga-
zine, Zvaigzde, in 1917, by A. Milukas & Company, Philadel-
phia, Pa.
< >5K
* 5 I \
PROEM
>j Out of the depths there comes a cry from a
(J nation which for centuries has been forced to
be inarticulate. It is not a demand for privi-
lege, for territory to which it might have only
a historical claim; it is a cry for life, and if we
really believe in our own professions, if the
traditions of 1776 have not been effaced, if the
)k definition of self-determinism with which Pres-
c^ ident Wilson is changing the evil systems of
^v ^ lust and avarice in Europe and the rest of the
^^^ world — we Americans must listen to this cry
from the core of the hearts of the Lithuanians.
We cannot close our ears to it.
We know the story of Poland — when a
King's mistress stifled the protests of France,
and even the cynical Frederick of Prussia won-
dered how the Empress Maria Teresa could
square her conscience to her confessor; we
know the story of Ireland, of the terrible
wrongs which liberal-minded Englishmen re-
?^ gret as deeply as the Irishmen themselves, we
are beginning to understand by what horrible
^ oppression in Schleswig-Holstein the German
^ Empire made itself dominant, and developed
that system of autocracy toward which at times
every European nation has had tendencies;
but the story of the Lithuanians — blood-
brothers with us in their love of freedom — is
new to most of us.
191708
•^
vi PROEM
To me, dwelling in the centre of diplomatic
"conversations" for many years, it is an old
and appalling story. No man can know a
Lithuanian without discovering that a never-
dying passion for the independence of his
country is eating into his soul. And Why .?
This book tells us, with a simplicity and power
which no man who beheves in a national, as
well as an individual conscience, ought to
resist. This volutp e is short; it contains.^no
idle words, no mere rliet6nc;~TrTi=tts'TFiestory
of~a"v£ron^ed nation so convincingly that any
analysis of its contents in this little Preface
would be utterly superfluous. There is no
statement in it that is not true^
I, whom three Presidents of the United
States — Mr, Roosevelt and Mr. Taft and
President Wilson, have trusted to represent
the American people in a little nation, that of
Denmark, because both by inheritance and
conviction I believed that democracy could
only be true to its principles when it so applied
them that these little nations might be free to
develop their own culture — have a right to
speak for Lithuania as a nation, and to voice
the belief that, in the great reckoning which
the world awaits to-day, the demand of this
most oppressed of little countries shall receive
the tenderest sympathy and the most practical
support from her just and generous brethren,
the American people.
Maurice Francis Egan.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
The Nations of the Lithuanian (Aistian) Race; Their
Territory, Origin, Language, Religion, Char-
acter, Culture Before the Beginning of Their
History (Before 1200 A. D.) I
CHAPTER n
The History of the Lithuanian Nation and State
to the Death of Vitautas 11
CHAPTER HI
The Relations with the Poles which Began Under
Grand Duke Jagela; the Rulers of the same
Lithuanian Dynasty for both States; the Long-
Continued Personal Union of both States Re-
peatedly Renewed; Alliances with Poland Con-
tracted many Times; Weakening of the Supreme
Power of Government in Lithuania by the Intro-
duction OF Polish States Laws; the Spread of
Polonization in Lithuania and with It the De-
moralization of the National Consciousness of
THE Lithuanian People. The Consequences of
these Relations is the Polish-Lithuanian Union
AT Lublin 23
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV
PAGE
The Juristic Appraisement of the Bonds Between
Lithuanian and Polish States which Existed Be-
fore AND After the Union of Lublin .... 38
CHAPTER V
The Causes of the Downfall of the Polish (and with
It the Lithuanian) State; the Union with Lithu-
ania Is THE True Reason for the Growth of the
Polish Nation and State, but, at the same Time,
THE Cause of Internal Anarchy and the Down-
fall of that State 52
CHAPTER VI
The Survival of the National Consciousness of the
Lithuanians up to the Present Day Through the
Preservation of Their Own Language, Traditions,
and the Expression of that Consciousness in Their
Literature; the Rise and Expansion among the
Lithuanians of the Idea of National Indepen-
dence from Dangerous Foreign Influence; the
Present Cultural and Economic Growth of the
Nation 63
CHAPTER VII
The Present National Aspirations of the Lithu-
anians: THE Political Unity and Independence
of All Parts of the Lithuanian Nation now Un-
der Different Governments (Russian and Ger-
man); Freedom from Foreign Influences; the Pres-
ervation OF One and Sole Lithuanian Language
as the National Tongue; Relations with the
Poles, White Russians, and Letts 81
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER VIII
PAGE
Is Lithuania, as a State, Possible ? Ability of Lithu-
anians FOR Statesmanship; the Right to Inde-
pendence OF Nations which Have Lost or Have
Never FIad Their Own Government; the Fate of
Small Nations in Foreign States (viz., Russia);
Have the Lithuanians a Sufficient Number of
Educated Men to Conduct the Government of
State ? Area and Population of Lithuania Com-
pared with the Different Independent European
States 91
Appendix 109
CHAPTER I
THE NATIONS OF THE LITHUANIAN (AISTIAN) RACE;
THEIR TERRITORY, ORIGIN, LANGUAGE, RELIG-
ION, CHARACTER, CULTURE BEFORE THE BE-
GINNING OF THEIR HISTORY (BEFORE 1200 A. D.)
THE Lithuanians are among the smaller
nations of Europe. In the latter part
of the nineteenth century this nation
was so humiliated by the Polonization of its
higher classes and by suppression of its nation-
ality by the Russian Government that even its
name has been denied a place among the na-
tions of the world. Yet there was a time, in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when
Lithuania was one of the largest empires in
Europe.
In speaking of Lithuania one must consider
it in these three aspects: First, the mighty
Lithuanian state of the fifteenth century, the
historical Lithuania, which extended from the
Baltic Sea at Polangen and the mouth of the
Niemen River to the Black Sea between the
Dnieper and Dniester rivers, where now is
2 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
situated the city of Odessa, and from the Bug
River in the west to the river Oka in the east.
Second, Lithuania taken as a territory popu-
lated with descendants of the Lithuanian race,
where now a part of them use the White Rus-
sian language and a few, who live in scattered
groups, use the Polish, but where in the earlier
centuries the people were of the same Lithu-
anian blood, the same Lithuanian language, and
of the same Lithuanian religion and customs
peculiar to themselves — such is Lithuania in
a wide ethnographical sense. It embraces the
former Russian governments of Kovno, Vilna,
Suvalki, and Grodno, and East Prussia to
the River Alle and the city of Labiau on the
Baltic coast.
But in a strict ethnographical sense, and this
is the third aspect of the case, Lithuania is a
country where the population even now speaks
the Lithuanian language, has not forgotten its
glorious historical past, and is animated by the
same national ideal — the political unity of the
entire Lithuanian territory under one national
government, their own state authorit3^
That land which is even now Lithuanian in
its language and is the kernel of historic Lithu-
BEFORE 1200 A. D. 3
ania comprises the entire government of Kovno,
Vilna (except two counties in the east, Disna
and Vileika), a part of Grodno north of the
Niemen, Suvalki (except the county of Augus-
tovo), parts of the government of Courland,
and the northeastern part of Eastern Prussia
extending to the Pregel River.
The Lithuanians, together with their kins-
men, the Letts, who live in the governments of
Courland, Livonia, and Vitebsk, and the old
Prussians* (Borussi), who occupied the territory
to the west of the Lithuanians up to the river
Vistula, but a part of whom were annihilated
by the Teutons in the wars in the thirteenth
century and the remnants of whom were
definitely Germanized about the end of the
* The Prussians mentioned here are not to be identified with
the Prussians of modern times. Whenever the term Prussians is
used in this book it refers to the Borussians or Prussians from
whom the name of the modern Prussians is derived but with
whom they have no racial connection. The name came to the
present Prussians by conquest. The Encyclopaedia Britannica
in its article on the Lithuanians gives the Borussians or Prus-
sians as one of the three main branches of the Lithuanian stem in
the tenth century; but it states: "The Lithuanian territory thus
lay open to foreign invasions, and the Russians as well as the
German crusaders availed themselves of the opportunity. The
Borussians soon fell under the dominion of Germans, and ceased
to constitute a separate nationality, leaving only their name to
the state which later became Prussia."
4 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
seventeenth century, all belong to the Indo-
European nations. The Lithuanians are not of
the Slavonic race, nor are they of the German
race, with which they have as Httle in common
as they have with the Latins, Persians, or
Greeks. Their Lithuanian language with its
old forms is so important to the science of lin-
guistic study that it is placed in a class with
the Sanscrit. They are the aboriginal inhab-
itants of their land; no other race inhabited it
before them. Anthropological researches show
that the human skulls unearthed in the grave-
yards of Lithuania belong to people of the same
anthropological class as the present Lithua-
nians. The latest theory in history about the
first Indo-European settlements, supported by
archaeology, anthropology, and linguistic re-
searches, places these settlements in the middle
of Europe and in the south Russian steppes; it
rejects the first accepted supposition about the
coming of Indo-Europeans from Asia; they had
emigrated to Asia from Europe. The sup-
positions of some Lithuanian writers that Lithu-
anians had come from Asia Minor are not
sound.
Before their adoption of Christianity the
BEFORE 1200 A. D. 5
Lithuanians, together with their kinsmen, the
Letts and the Prussians,* had their own rehgion,
with an estabhshed hierarchy, in which were
different ranks of divines ruled over by a single
high priest. The supreme god was Perkunas,
god of the heavens and of thunder. He cor-
responds to the Roman Jupiter or the Greek
Zeus. There were other gods who were the
personification of nature and of places — of
homes, rivers, forests; and guardian deities of
the people's industries, such as farming and
hunting; and gods of love and of war.
Lately a foreigner who visited Lithuania,
which is now occupied by German armies,t
wrote of the character of Lithuanians:
**They are a quiet, polite people, peacefully
following their occupations of farming and other
work about their homes, and seeing them no
one could even think that this was the same
nation that in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries showed itself so valiant, that it cre-
ated such a great kingdom and conquered such
an extent of land."
* Not to be identified with the modern Prussians (see footnote,
P- 3)- ,
fThis article was written in 1917 when the German armies
were still occupying Lithuania.
6 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
In the beginning of the thirteenth century
the Lithuanians united in one state so as to
defend themselves from attack by the Slavs
and Germans, and began a fierce war with
their aggressors to save a place for themselves
in the world. During the thirteenth century
the Slav and German writers called the Lithu-
anians "the pagan-Lithuanians, wildmen, cruel,
plunderers, living as animals." Relying on
this statement a great many Poles of our day
remind the Lithuanians that they should be
grateful to them, because they, the Poles,
uniting with the Lithuanians, made them a
civilized people.
To this we may reply that these writings are
not the unbiassed opinions of neighbors but the
calumnies of enemies, who, attacking and mur-
dering the Lithuanians, received from them the
same treatment. We have reports concerning
the character of Lithuanians and their civiliza-
tion of those days from other more unbiassed
sources.
Duesburg writes (Script, rer. prus. I, 52)
that Zambia and particularly Sudavia were
wealthy and thickly populated (opulenta et
populosa). Sudavians occupied the southern
BEFORE 1200 A. D. 7
part of the government of Suvalki and a part
of Prussia farther to the west. Adam of
Bremen (De situ Daniae, cap. 227), in the elev-
enth century, and Helmhold (Chron. slavor., I,
cap. i) in the twelfth century, writing about
the same Lithuanians and Prussians,* call them
"homines humanissimi" and only regret that,
although they are so good, they are not Chris-
tians. Jornandes, Bishop of the Goths, who
wrote about the year 550 A. D., calls the Ais-
tians "pacatum hominum genus omnino" (De
rebus Geticis, V, 25). Tacitus (Germania, cap.
45) calls the Aistians (those same Lithuanians
and Prussians) peaceful and more industrious
than the Germans, and testifies that they em-
ploy themselves in growing grain and vegeta-
bles (frumenta ceterosque fructus), and also
navigate the seas.
The archaeology of the present day gives us
an idea of the culture of the old Lithuanian na-
tions. It is known that in the Neolithic times
(between 3000 and 1500 B. C.) all kinds of
grain — barley, rye, and oats — ^were grown in
Lithuania (Sitzungsberichte d. Altertumsgesell-
* Not to be identified with the modern Prussians (see footnote,
p. 3).
8 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
schaft, "Prussia," 1909, Heft 22, p. 502). In
the ruins of Mikenai, in Greece (about 1500
B. C.)) a quantity of beads made of Baltic am-
ber were found. Most of the amber is found
on the Baltic coast, where was the home of the
old Prussians and Lithuanians; a clear proof of
the commerce of the Lithuanians with these
far-ofF lands, the lands of early culture, if not
directly, then through intervening nations. S.
Mueller, Schumann, Oskar Montelius showed
that in the Hallstatt's period, in the first da3^s
of iron in Europe (1000 to 400 B. C.) not only
was grain grown in Lithuania but domestic
animals were kept, and linen as well as woollen
clothing was worn. In the cemeteries of middle
Europe of the Hallstatt's period likewise were
found ornaments made of amber.
The archaeologists, Tischler, Lissauer, Bez-
zenberger, and others show that, judging by
excavations of the cemeteries of Lithuania and
Prussia, beginning with the times of Christ and
up to the invasion of Prussia by the Teutonic
Crusaders, the wealth and culture of the Lithu-
anians stood very high. The Lithuanians had
weapons, farming and industrial implements,
and all kinds of expensive ornaments. The
BEFORE 1200 A. D. 9
number and variety of articles found in the buri-
al-grounds are astonishing ("unser Staunen er-
regen" — Tischler): iron knives, chisels, sickles,
spears, swords, bronze bridles, spurs, bracelets,
buckles, clasps, glass beads, and a number of
gold and silver ornaments. Especially well-
made things of bronze and other metals show a
highly perfected technic in metal-working (Hey-
deck). Tischler writes that excavations in the
cemeteries of the period when Prussian pagan-
ism was coming to its end — about the time when
the Crusaders made their appearance — furnish
evidences of a magnificent Lithuanian culture
(Ueber die GHederung der Urgesch. Ostpreu-
sens, p. 7); and Heydeck asserts that the Lithu-
anian and Prussian culture of those days was in
no way lower than that of Teutonic Crusaders.
If according to testimony quoted Lithuanians
in the sixth and also in the eleventh centuries
were "pacatum hominum genus omnino,"
"homines humanissimi," then they were not
robbers, nor wildmen, nor were they living
as animals. If before the coming of Teutonic
Crusaders to Prussia Lithuanian culture was
not inferior to that of Crusaders, then the
Lithuanian culture of twelfth and thirteenth
lo THE LITHUANIAN NATION
centuries could not have been low. But the
continuous wars, during centuries, with Slavs
(Russians and Poles) and with Germans, and
then with Tartars, greatly weakened the Lithu-
anians, diminished their numbers, destroyed
their material welfare, and lowered their cul-
ture.
CHAPTER II
THE HISTORY OF THE LITHUANIAN NATION AND
STATE TO THE DEATH OF VITAUTAS
THE Lithuanians, according to archaeol-
ogy, have Hved in the region they
now occupy for several thousand years.
The ancient writers called the Lithuanian na-
tion "Aistians." We find in Ptolemy's writ-
ings (III, 5) in the second century A. D. the
mention of Gahndae (Prussians) and Sudeni
(Lithuanians) as the names of two Aistian
tribes — names later used among Lithuanians.
The Lithuanians did not take part in the mi-
grations of the nations, except perhaps one or
another of the smaller tribes on the outskirts
of the inhabited territories of Lithuania which
may have joined the emigration of the larger
Teutonic tribes. The cause of this was the
state of the culture of the Lithuanians at that
period. The main occupation of all the Lith-
uanian nation was agriculture, which always
requires fixed settlements; and the wealth of
12 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
the nation, stored up in peace through many
centuries of hard labor, could not be taken with
them from one place to another after the
manner of barbarous nomadic tribes. On this
account, as we see in history, the civilized and
settled nations often are conquered by others less
civilized, but never change their settlements in
order to move away from the conquerors or to
conquer another country. For instance, the
civilization of Sumerians on the plains of Meso-
potamia in ante-Babylonian times was con-
quered several times by the nomadic hordes
from Arabia, until finally these people had
mixed with their conquerors and accepted
their Semitic\ language; the civihzation of
Greece and Rome was destroyed by the bar-
baric Teutons (Germans); the little kingdoms
of Chanaan were conquered by the nomadic
Hebrews; and the great civilized Chinese Em-
pire was conquered by the Mongolians.
During the first centuries of the Christian
era the Lithuanian nations had intimate deal-
ings with the German Goths. This is shown
by the various words, with a Gothic stem, which
are found in the Prussian and Lithuanian lan-
guages. Until the tenth century the Lithu-
TO THE DEATH OF VITAUTAS 13
anian nations lived without larger political or-
ganization. The one thing in common was the
same faith, similar language, and the same
customs. But during the tenth century the
Slavs began to harass the peaceful Lithuanians
from the south and east and this forced them to
form military organizations under the leader-
ship of their Dukes-Kunigas. At the beginning
of the thirteenth century we see from chron-
icles that in Lithuania proper, not including
Prussia, there were about twenty powerful
Dukes.
Duke Mindaugas (Mindove) was the first to
organize the greater part of the Lithuanian
territories in one state. He was the first author
of the Lithuanian state and the first organizer
of the Lithuanian nation.
Mindaugas did not succeed, however, in
uniting all the nation. There remained Jac-
vingi in the south and Samogitians in the
west who were not under his domain. He
pushed the boundary in the east beyond Smo-
lensk. His work of organizing was delayed by
the unceasing attacks of the German hordes
and the wars with the Galician Dukes, which
caused his untimely death. He was baptized
14 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
a Catholic; received the King's crown from
Pope Innocent IV, becoming the King of
Lithuania in the year 1253 A. D. He died in
1263, treacherously assassinated during a cam-
paign, just when he had arranged everything
for the hberation of Samogithians from the op-
pression of the Teutonic Order of Crusaders and
for uniting them under his rule.
After the death of Mindaugas a quarrel
arose among the local Dukes in Lithuania, but
the idea of a Grand Duke proved to be ineradi-
cable. Chaos did not cease until the beginning
of the fourteenth century. From 1315 to 1340
Gediminas ruled as the Grand Duke. Lithu-
ania had become so strong a nation during his
reign that all the neighboring states had to
acknowledge Gediminas. He united the entire
nation except the Lithuanians at the mouth of
the Niemen and by the river Pregel, who were
for a long time under the rule of the German
Knights. Through him Lithuania reached her
natural boundaries in the south and east to the
rivers Pripet and Dnieper.
The aim of the heirs of Gediminas should
have been to collect all of Lithuania's strength,
to overpower both Teutonic knightly Orders,
TO THE DEATH OF VITAUTAS 15
to free the Lithuanian neighbors, Letts and
Prussians, to unite all into one state. The
nation as it was left by Gediminas was suffi-
ciently powerful to accomplish these aims. The
Prussians and the Letts from the very time of
their subjection to the German Knights re-
volted more than once against them. Shortly
after Gediminas's death all the Letts revolted
against the Germans. It was the most sue
cessful revolt; with a few exceptions all the
towns were taken by the Letts. By the de-
struction of the Livonian Order and the free-
ing of the Letts the expulsion of the German
Order from Prussia would have been assured.
But the Lithuanians did not lend a hand to
their kinsmen, the Letts; the German Knights
from Prussia came to assist their brother
Knights in Riga, and they both suppressed the
revolt.
The successor of Gediminas, Algirdas, made
a capital error by not envisaging his true ob-
jective. Instead of occupying for Lithuania
the seashore from the Vistula to the Narva and
uniting the Prussians and Letts to Lithuania,
and thus strengthening the foundation of the
state by nations of the same race and similar
i6 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
language, he deputed his brother, the knightly
Kestutis, to protect Lithuania with the Samo-
gitians from the robber Orders, while he him-
self turned all the remaining strength of the
state to the east against the Slavs and Tar-
tars. True, b}' his victories he made Lithuania
a great empire, which covered almost half of
modern Russia, extending from the Baltic to
the Black Seas, but bv doing this he renounced
nearly half the nations of the Lithuanian race
and part of it, the Prussians, he left to per-
dition. On the other hand, he brought into the
state a greater proportion of foreigners than of
his own people and placed the Lithuanian na-
tion in peril of becoming a non-Lithuanian
state.
The son of Algirdas and his successor, Jagela
(Jagello), committed a great political error, if
we may so mildly define his dealings with the
Lithuanian state. The neighbors, the Poles,
of that time were ruled by a Queen, a j^oung
maiden, Hedwig. The Poles under the reign
of Louis the Hungarian had gained such ex-
perience by electing the ruler of another nation
their King as to know that if he continues to
live in his former state their nation is at best
TO THE DEATH OF VITAUTAS 17
as one without a King, and uprisings result, I
say at best, for the result may be more serious:
for instance, the territory may fall under the
influence of another nation and may lose its
independence.
The Polish magnates gave their Princess
Hedwig's hand in marriage to Jagela (Jagello)
on condition that he be King of the Poles.
The duty of the King of the Poles was to be
King of the Poles only, that is, to live in Cra-
cow, Poland, and to unite Lithuania to Poland;
to be definite, this meant that Lithuania would
be annexed to Poland as a Polish province. This
appeared to Jagela a small price, for as King of
Poland he would also govern the provinces.
To introduce the Catholic faith into Lithuania
v/as demanded by ordinary political wisdom,
for Poland being a Catholic nation would be
stronger if all her provinces should have one
and the same faith. That it was not an ideal-
istic task to destroy paganism in Lithuania we
gather from this, that various later privileges,
for instance, the citizenship of Lithuania, were
granted to Catholics only and the Lithuanians
of the Eastern rite (orthodox) were not granted
this privilege and were forbidden even to enter
1 8 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
into matrimonial relationship with Catholics.
Jagela agreed, and for the kingdom of Poland
he gave the Poles his native country, Lithuania,
founded by the works of the great leaders,
Algirdas and Gediminas, his father and grand-
father, and by the blood of Lithuanians. Hav-
ing been crowned King of the Poles, but not of
the Lithuanians, and having settled in Poland,
Jagela appointed a Viceroy to rule Lithuania,
and even stationed a Polish garrison in Vilna.
To call the ruler of a nation a traitor is not
befitting, and as it did not seem possible to the
Lithuanians of those times, but that they thus
understood the act of Jagela we see from the
fact that they arose against the King's Viceroy,
wishing to give the throne of Lithuania to
Vitautas, their leader, and by this to show that
they acknowledged Jagela as having been de-
prived of the Grand Duke's office. Jagela was
forced to recognize Vitautas as the Grand
Duke of Lithuania; with Poland there was left
only an agreement of mutual assistance in case
of war. The reign of Vitautas (i 392-1430) con-
stitutes the period of the greatest manifesta-
tion of Lithuanian power abroad. He combined
into one powerful state the whole empire of
TO THE DEATH OF VITAUTAS 19
Algirdas and all the Lithuanian dukedoms; the
authority of Grand Duke he made autocratic,
even toward the magnates. In the very be-
ginning of his reign opposition was made by
the more influential Dukes; but the more dan-
gerous of these he dispossessed, and those re-
maining were forced bHndly to obey his orders.
Having strengthened his power at home he
wanted to unite the Russians and their lords,
the Tartars, to Lithuania; but he was utterly
defeated by the Tartars at Vorskla in 1399.
Hedwig, wife of Jagela, died in that year. The
Poles, receiving no benefit from Jagela, their
King through marriage to Hedwig, could have
removed him from the rulership of Poland; but
this would have caused Vitautas uneasiness,
for Jagela might then have become a pretender
to the Lithuanian throne, and so, to assist him,
Vitautas, in 1401, made a treaty by which he
acknowledged Jagela his successor to the throne
of Lithuania.
Shortly after the Vorskla defeat Vitautas
succeeded in strengthening his power, and by
his diplomacy he so managed that the Tartars
were kept as his vassals during his reign; he
kept their Khans under his protection and they
20 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
accorded him their mihtary support. Now he
set his face against the deadly enemies of
Lithuania in the west, the Teutonic Knights
of the Cross. Within a few years he collected
his forces for the decisive war. It was difficult
for him to induce the Poles to wage war, but
the Knights of the Cross themselves helped
him in that respect by attacking the Poles.
Finally Jagela declared war. Vitautas drew
not only the Lithuanians into this war but the
Russians, the Tartars, and hired the army of
the Czechs from western Europe. He even
helped the Poles by sending them necessary
provisions for the war. The battle was fought
at Gruenwald and Tanenberg in Prussia (1410).
Vitautas arranged the armies for battle. He
was the most active leader in the battle, and by
his strategy victory was won. The power of
the Teutonic Order was crushed.
If this victory had been made the most of,
the Order of the Knights of the Cross would
have been completely destro3'^ed. But the Poles
occupying the Prussian cities immediately
united with Poland, and by their greediness
forced Vitautas to opposite action. Vitautas
himself saved the Order from utter ruin by not
TO THE DEATH OF VITAUTAS 21
assisting the Poles to wage war, and while tak-
ing part in the treaty of Thorn he arranged
the easiest terms possible for the Order. He
had to contend with the Poles in the future,
who continuously exhibited pretensions to-
ward the state of Lithuania. He did not wish
the Poles to grow considerably in strength.
The Order was necessary to him in his relations
with the Poles.
On October 2, 141 3, an important union was
made in Horodlo between the Lithuanians and
the Poles by which both parties remained
equal; both promised at the death of either
ruler to elect a new one in his place. At the
death of a PoHsh King his successor was to be
elected by the Polish magnates together with
the magnates of Lithuania and their Grand
Duke; and, vice versa, the Grand Duke of
Lithuania was to be elected by the Lithuanian
magnates together with the magnates of Po-
land and their King. Here the rights of both
were equal. Lithuania was second by title
only; Poland was a kingdom, Lithuania a
grand duchy. In a protocol, Lithuania as a
duchy was joined to Poland, a kingdom. Lithu-
ania's title was lower, although that duchy was
22 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
thrice larger than the Polish Kingdom and
much more powerful. But in the opinion of
those times the title meant much. This join-
ing of their country to a foreign country the
Lithuanians, as their attitude in the near future
showed, did not consider seriously.
At the end of his reign, having no son as an
heir who should insure Lithuania's indepen-
dence, making her in all things equal to Poland,
Vitautas decided to crown himself as King of
Lithuania; but the act of coronation did not
occur, as robbers sent by the Polish politicians
opposing Vitautas took away the crown, which
was being carried to Vitautas by the emissaries
of the Emperor Sigismund, and Vitautas died
suddenly during the festivities of his coro-
nation.
CHAPTER III
THE RELATIONS WITH THE POLES WHICH BEGAN
UNDER GRAND DUKE JAGELA; THE RULERS OF
THE SAME LITHUANIAN DYNASTY FOR BOTH
STATES; THE LONG-CONTINUED PERSONAL
UNION OF BOTH STATES REPEATEDLY RE-
NEWED; ALLIANCES WITH POLAND CON-
TRACTED MANY TIMES; WEAKENING OF THE
SUPREME POV/ER OF GOVERNMENT IN LITHU-
ANIA BY THE INTRODUCTION OF POLISH STATES
LAWS; THE SPREAD OF POLONIZATION IN LITHU-
ANIA AND WITH IT THE DEMORALIZATION OF
THE NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE LITHU-
ANIAN PEOPLE. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THESE
RELATIONS IS THE POLISH-LITHUANIAN UNION
AT LUBLIN
THE Lithuanian magnates did not desire
the union that was madebyjagela and
Vitautas at the instigation of Poles, and
at the first opportunity they showed that they
did not acknowledge it.
After the death of Vitautas the Lithuanians,
disregarding the Horodlo union, elected as
their Grand Duke, in 1430, Svitrigaila with-
out the PoHsh participation and against their
23
24 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
wishes. Svitrigaila did not acknowledge the
union during all his reign, and even made
King Jagela a prisoner because the Poles
took some cities of Podolia. He released Ja-
gela only after his promise to restore those
cities to Lithuania.
His rival for power, Sigismund, son of Kes-
tutis, in order to obtain the Polish aid in the
war with Svitrigaila, renewed the union in
1432; but this union was broken by the
Lithuanians after the death of Sigismund,
son of Kestutis, when they elected as their
Grand Duke, Casimir, son of Jagela. And
so it went on: the union was continually being
patched up by the Poles and always, at the
first opportunity, it was broken by the Lithu-
anians. Sometimes during the reign of the
same ruler these unions were made several
times, and there were innumerable quarrels
between Lithuanians and Poles at the special
conventions called expressly for the forma-
tion of these unions. That was so until the
last union at Lublin in 1569.
The Poles wanted a complete union of
Lithuania and Poland by the conversion of
Lithuania into a Polish province. This they
1430-1569 25
expressed openly at the convention at Lublin
in 1448; they proposed to make of both states
one Polish Kingdom; to make of Lithuania
a Polish province, the Lithuanians to become
Polish subjects on the same footing as true
Poles; all the gentry to enjoy the same priv-
ileges. The Lithuanians, on the contrary, did
not wish to renounce the independence of their
state; they only agreed to an alliance with Po-
land and to the defensive bond against their
foes.
But the continual proposals by the Poles
of union, the personal union with Poland of
a hundred years, except for two intervals, the
weakening of the government in Lithuania by
the privileges of the gentry, the long-established
relations of Lithuanian and the Polish gentry,
accomplished its purpose: the Polish designs
upon the independent prerogatives of Lithuania
as a separate state were partly successful.
The Polish magnates were very anxious to
gain possession of lands in Lithuania, but the
laws of Lithuania denied ownership to for-
eigners. Importunate demands by Poles that
Lithuanians give them Volinia and Podolia,
26 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
their nearest and most fertile lands, resulted;
and when the Lithuanians refused so to diminish
their state, the Poles demanded the abolition
of the boundary between Poland and Lithuania.
Here lies the true significance of the continual
PoHsh demands to unite Lithuania to Poland.
We find that having obtained at the Lubhn
union the most fertile lands of Lithuania, all
territory south of the Pripet River, the Poles
no longer approach the Lithuanians with proj-
ects for new unions.
After the death of King Vladislaus III in
1444, the Poles invited the Grand Duke of
Lithuania, Casimir, son of Jagela, to be their
King. Only after three years did the Lithu-
anians grant him permission to go to Poland;
and for forty-five years, till his death in 1492,
they remained without their ruler. In this
policy the Polish politicians must have seen
the easiest way to extinguish the separate rule
in Lithuania; for, as they proclaimed as their
King every Grand Duke elected by the Lithu-
anians, they deprived Lithuania of a ruler.
Polish privileges were constituted a bait with
which the Poles caught Lithuanian noblemen,
and kept them attached to themselves; a most
1430-1569 27
successful policy to render Lithuania power-
less, and thus to sweep aside all her opposition,
although used perhaps unwittingly by the
Poles only to weaken the supreme authority
of the state.
The first privileges were accorded to Lithu-
anian noblemen by Jagela in 1387. In the
union of 141 3 those privileges were confirmed:
the ownership of large estates; the release
from all active duties toward the Grand Duke,
excepting war service, and that of restoring
the fortified cities; the right to take part in
the council of the Grand Duke, and to choose
a ruler — the occupation of the throne was now
to be determined by election. These rights
served as a constitution for the country. At
first they were given to the Catholics, although
under Sigismund, son of Kestutis, they were
extended among the Orthodox; but later the
Orthodox were always isolated and wronged.
This separation between Catholics and Ortho-
dox had sown antagonism in Lithuania be-
tween the Catholic and the Orthodox citi-
zens; and from this had arisen in a short time
a civil war between Svitrigaila and the ad-
herents of Sigismund — in truth, between the
28 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
parties of the Catholics and Russians. Later
it served the Russians as a pretext to cHng to
Moscow.
Every later Grand Duke or King distributed
new privileges in order to keep himself on both
thrones — for example, by the renunciation of
fees, the state collected for the peasants be-
longing to noblemen; by the gift to the land-
owners of the right to administer justice to
their peasants and to exact the pecuniary penal-
ties; by forbidding peasants to possess land,
and so benefiting of noblemen; by the inter-
diction of children of bond-slaves from at-
tending schools and learning trades.
These privileges were diminishing the Grand
Duke's power and wealth by making noble-
men the absolute lords over their subject peas-
ants. About 1550 slavery in Lithuania and
Russia had already reached its highest degree:
in some places the peasants had to work for
their masters six days a week, and they be-
longed entirely to them. The nobleman did
with the peasant slave as he wished, and took
from him what he wished. Within twenty-
six years after the union of Lublin, there arose in
the Russian Provinces of Lithuania a formida-
1430-1569 29
ble insurrection of slaves against noblemen, the
insurrection of Nalivaika in 1595.
These privileges made peasants always more
dependent on the noblemen, and the noble-
men always less dependent on the supreme
government of the state. After the distribu-
tion of the Grand Duke's wealth and income,
the treasury of Lithuania was empty. Before
the Lublin union, the Lithuanian minister
of finances, Paul Naruszevicz, complained to
the King that the Lithuanian treasury needed
immediate help as means were lacking to keep
the fortresses on the boundary-line and their
garrisons. There was no income in the treasury;
he himself had even pawned his estates and
loaned money wherever possible. There were
no means to keep up the army; to defend the
borders of the state; to punish wrong-doers.
The state organization and discipline created
by the works of Gediminas, Algirdas, and Vitau-
tas was destroyed by the Polish unions and the
privileges; anarchy was spreading. This dis-
organization was encouraged by the fact that
Lithuania actually was without a ruler. The
Grand Duke resided in Poland, and was in-
terested in Lithuania's affairs only so far as
30 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
to distribute to his Polish favorites the estates
in Lithuania — the Lithuanian offices or towns.
During this time the Poles were trying by
various means to force themselves into Lithu-
ania. Polonism was spreading more and more
among Lithuanians, and began to undermine
Lithuanian nationalism.
At the convention in Brest, in 1542 and
1544, the Lithuanians complained to King
Sigismund I that the government offices in
the Lithuanian and Russian provinces were
distributed among the Poles. The greater
part of the clergy in Lithuania at that time
were Poles: the religious orders were under
the jurisdiction of provincials in Poland. At
the same time there was in Lithuania the
greatest religious anarchy. The Polish or
Polonized priests it seems were endeavoring
to locate themselves in Lithuania, but were
not taking the trouble to learn the Lithuanian
language but simply scorned it. They preached
in Polish to the Lithuanian-speaking people.*
What the condition of the Catholic faith was
among the people we may see from the letter
* Postilla Katholicke per Kun. M. Dauksa, Wilniiii, 1599, vide
preface.
1430-1569 31
of the saintly bishop of Varniai, Melchior Gie-
draitis, 1576 A. D., who wrote to the superior
of the Jesuits asking that he send to him at
least a few priests who were able to speak
Lithuanian, as in the greater part of his diocese
the people not only did not know the "Our
Father," nor how to bless themselves, nor
even to what faith they belonged.*
Protestantism, which began in the latter
part of the reign of King Sigismund, spread
from Poland into Lithuania, and during the
time of Sigismund August, reached its highest
pinnacle. Only the smaller part of the clergy
in some parts of Lithuania remained Catholic.
There sprung up several sects of Protestantism
patronized by different magnates; each sect
disturbed all the others. The people not know-
ing whom to believe, and not understanding
the Catholic faith, in many places returned to
paganism, and again started the holy fires to
the pagan god Pekunas on the summits of the
hills. The Polish order, the PoHsh speech,
and the Polish customs spread in Lithuania,
not because of any superior Polish culture or
* Lithuanicarum Soc. Jesu historiarum libri decern auctore
Stanislos RostOTski, Wilna, 1768.
32 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
civilization; from the beginning the speech,
customs, and methods of Lithuania were in
no degree inferior.*
The Lithuanians, having acquired so much
Slavic territory in such a short time, found it
impossible to impose on the inhabitants the
Lithuanian language. The whole Lithuanian
class, not excepting Grand Dukes, who were to
govern the conquered territories, were obliged
to learn the Russian (White Russian) language,,
and being continually among foreigners be-
came Slavonized. When after the transfer of
the Grand Duke's court to Cracow, Lithuanian
aristocracy was compelled to mix with the
Poles, its members, knowing the Russian lan-
guage, which is similar to Polish, and being
used to foreign customs and also to the foreign
language, were Polonized with greater rapid-
ity than the Slavs or Russians; so that the con-
quests in Russia prepared the Lithuanian aris-
* The Catholic Encyclopaedia, vol. 12, p. 184, states that at
the time of Kazimcr the Great, who died in 1370, the clergy was
the only educated class in Poland. Writing of the battle of
Gruenwald, the author of the article deems it necessary to men-
tion the following: "Until then Poland had been looked upon as
a semi-civilized country, where the natives were little better
than savages, and culture was represented by the German clergy
and colonists."
1430-1569 33
tocracy for a hastier Polonization. The first
and main cause of the spread of Polonism in
Lithuania was the transfer of the Grand Duke's
court to Poland. With the Polonization of the
aristocracy through the court of the Grand
Duke, the lesser gentry at home followed their
example in speech and other matters. Still fur-
ther, the Polonization of the Lithuanians was
advanced in the churches. The Lithuanian
writer of those times, M. Dauksza, in his pos-
tilla, published in 1599, complains of the
scorning of the Lithuanian language by the
upper class.
To such a peril Lithuania came, while the
nobility was rejoicing over their Polish privi-
leges and the aristocracy loaned their Grand
Duke to the Poles as a King. At home in Lithu-
ania there was no ruler. The wealth of the
Grand Duke, identical with that of the state,
was distributed and the treasury was empty,
for the taxes had been renounced in favor of the
nobility. The enemy, generally Moscow, threat-
ened Lithuania. The Polish King, though the
Grand Duke of Lithuania, looked only after
the interests of Poland. Instead of defending
Lithuania he knew only how to advise the
34 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
Lithuanian Convention that Lithuanians in-
stead of waging war should make one additional
union with the Poles; so did Casimir, son of Ja-
gela, on the occasion of the Moscovites occupy-
ing Novgorod, in 1478. Therefore the Grand
Dukes of Lithuania were only Polish Kings;
they did not reside in Lithuania, and were
solicitous only about Poland. Every one of
them made assignments presenting Lithuania
to Poland and forced the Lithuanian magnates
to sign these unions; the acknowledgment of
Lithuanian delegates at the convention for the
union in Parczevo, 1451, supports this.
So did even the last of those who for years
wore, unworthily, the Grand Duke Vitautas's
crown.
* * *
The efforts of the Poles, from the very be-
ginning of the reign of Sigismund August, to
make one more union, were not successful until
in 1562 the Polonized Lithuanian and Russian
small gentry formed a federation in the war
camp near Vitebsk for the purpose of a com-
plete union of Lithuania with Poland, so that
they might be equal in all privileges to the
Polish gentry. To satisfy their desire they
1430-1569 35
abandoned the Lithuanian aristocracy and
went over to the Polish side. At the Diet of
Lublin in 1569, when, after lengthy discussions
since January, the last loyal Lithuanians went
home on the ist of March, these conspirators
against the independence of Lithuania peti-
tioned the King that he, relying solely on their
consent, affirm the union according to the
wishes of the Poles. At the demands of the
Poles that Podlachia and Volinia be turned
over to them, the King, on the 12th of March,
published a proclamation which gave these
two Lithuanian provinces to Poland. The
magnates of Podlachia and Volinia, Dukes
Czarotoryski, Ostrozski, Visznewski, and Os-
taphius Volovicz, resisted, but receiving no
help from Lithuania and under penalty of be-
ing dispossessed swore their allegiance to Po-
land. The Lithuanian aristocracy, after break-
ing away from the convention, sent out a war
proclamation to all Lithuania, in order to main-
tain b}^ arms the independence of their coun-
try. On March 23 the Poles also announced
"pospolite ruszenie," mobilization. At the de-
mands of the Poles by the other proclamation
of June 5 the King gave to Poland the provinces
36 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
of Kiev and Braclav. The magnates of Lithu-
ania, seeing that war was impossible, as the
state funds from taxes had been distributed
and the treasury was empty, and the Polonized
gentry refusing to support war against the
Poles, even threatening revolt, they sent back
their delegates who on July I signed the union
demanded by the Poles.
By this last union Lithuania and Poland were
united forever. There was henceforth one
ruler for both, at the same time Polish King and
Grand Duke of Lithuania; one convention for
common interests. The treaties with foreign
states were made by both parties. But the ad-
ministration, laws and courts, army, and trea-
sury remained separate.
This union truly accomplished more than
any former one. It tore away from Lithuania
and gave to Poland all Russian land south of
the Pripet River. By acquiring this territory
Poland was more than doubled and Lithuania
was reduced to the boundaries of Gedimin.
The Poles finally received from Lithuania
such desirable Russian lands that they did
not suggest any further union; therefore, this
Lublin union was the last.
1430-1569 37
But the Lithuanians received this union
as former unions. Soon after the death of
King August the}^ endeavored to secure a
separate ruler, and invited Theodor, the son of
John IV of Moscow, to be their Grand Duke;
but the Czar promised to be ruler of Lithuania
in place of his son. Then the Lithuanians with-
drew. Failing to procure a separate ruler the
Lithuanian Convention of Vilna sent a delega-
tion (Christopher Radziwill) to Paris to Henry
of Valois, who had been lately elected Polish
King.
The Lithuanians asked him to be at the
same time the Grand Duke of Lithuania, with
the condition that he do not decrease the
independence of Lithuania and return to her
the provinces seized by Poland. From that
time Lithuania and Poland always had one
ruler for both.
191708
CHAPTER IV
THE JURISTIC APPRAISEMENT OF THE BONDS BE-
TWEEN LITHUANIAN AND POLISH STATES
WHICH EXISTED BEFORE AND AFTER THE
UNION OF LUBLIN
BY what legal terms of our time can we
describe the bonds between Lithuania
and Poland before the union of LubHn
and those existing after that union ? It would
not suffice only to examine the words of the
protocol of this or that union as well as the
terms of the treaty of the Lublin union of
1569, for we have seen that the Lithuanians
were not disposed to observe these unions
strictly. We would do better to remark in
the course of history how these agreements
were observed by both sides. This will show
us not only the relations desired by either side,
which were written into the agreement, but
the relations that existed in fact between the
two states.
The Poles would like to call Lithuania a
38
APPRAISEMENT OF THE BONDS 39
Polish province. They maintain that Jagela
gave Lithuania to the Poles by the pact of
1385 at Krevo. But when, soon afterward,
Jagela had ascended the throne of Poland
and sent his viceroy to Vilna, the Lithuanians
did not acquiesce; they rose against him and
proclaimed Vitautas as their ruler. Vitautas
becoming Grand Duke of Lithuania, a
friendly treaty was made in Ostrova, 1392, be-
tween Poland and Lithuania. This treaty we
might call the alliance of our times. There
was no submission of Lithuania to Poland
during all the reign of Vitautas. In 1398 the
Poles in the name of Hedwig had demanded
from Vitautas the payment of dues as ac-
knowledgment that Jagela had given Lithu-
ania to Poland. Vitautas called together all
the Dukes and nobility on October 2, of the
same year, 1398, proclaimed himself King of
independent Lithuania, and made a treaty with
the Crusaders for war against Poland.
In 1401, in order to strengthen Jagela on
the Polish throne after the death of his wife,
Hedwig, Vitautas acknowledged him and his
successors as his own successors on the Lithu-
anian throne by the treaty of Vilna. This
40 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
meant only the promise of a real union. In
141 3, when the Poles were importunate about
the union, a substantial friendly treaty was
made between Poland and Lithuania, by which
it was agreed that both nations should elect
together the rulers of their separate states.
This might be taken to mean duarchy in the
style of Rome under two Emperors, one ruler
to have the title of King, the other that of
Grand Duke, but in reality it was a shrewd
move on the part of Polish politicians to elect
always the same ruler for both states (Horodlo
Union). During the remammg part of the
reign of Vitautas this union proved to be
** Confederation d'Etats," but very loose, the
mutual relations of its parts being of an in-
ternational character.
After the death of Vitautas, the Lithuanians
elected their Grand Duke, Svitrigaila, without
the Poles, and by doing this, they broke the
Horodlo agreement. All the reign of Svitri-
gaila (1430-1432) was hostile to Poland. Sigis-
mund, son of Kestutis, becoming Grand Duke
of Lithuania in 1432, the union of 1401 between
Poland and Lithuania was renewed; this meant
that even the Poles themselves had repudiated
APPRAISEMENT OF THE BONDS 41
the union of Horodlo. In 1440 the Lithuanians,
by electing their ruler, Casimir, son of Jagela,
broke the treaty with the Poles of 1432; in
1447 the Lithuanians allowed their ruler, Casi-
mir, son of Jagela, to become also the King
of Poland, and by this they agreed to a simple
personal union. At his death in 1492 the
union with the Poles was dissolved, the Lithu-
anians electing as their ruler, Alexander, and
the Poles, John Albrecht. In 1499 the treaty
of Horodlo was renewed for the mutual aid
in wars — that of Lithuania with Moscow and
that of the Poles with the Turks and Tartars.
In 1 501 the Poles elected the Lithuanian ruler,
Alexander, as their King; again there was a
personal union until the death of Alexander
in 1506. When in October of that year the
Lithuanians elected as their ruler the younger
brother of Alexander, Sigismund, the Poles
hastened to proclaim him as their King in
December of the same year, and again a per-
sonal union subsisted.
During the reign of Sigismund, the Lithu-
anians elected his son, Sigismund August, as
their Grand Duke, but not till 1544 did the
ruler allow his son to take the reins of the gov-
42 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
ernment in Lithuania. After the death of
Sigismund, in 1548, the Poles proclaimed the
Lithuanian ruler, Sigismund August, as their
King, and again renewed the personal union.
Therefore, we see that the signature of Ja-
gela in 1385 at Krevo was annulled by the
Lithuanians through the rising of Vitautas,
and by his becoming the Grand Duke. Lithu-
ania was always an independent and sovereign
state, and did not wish to resign her sovereignty,
notwithstanding the signature of a ruler who
broke his fealty to the state. Until the union
of Lublin, Lithuania was never incorporated
with nor even vassal to Poland: not one of
her rulers took an oath as vassal of King of Po-
land, as did the last magister of the Crusaders,
Albrecht, on becoming the herzog of Prus-
sia. Not one of them was the vicer^^y of the
Polish King, although the Poles were demand-
ing that Casimir, son of Jagela, become such.
When the Lithuanians elected him their Grand
Duke the Poles themselves were complaining
that the Lithuanians broke their last treaty
of 1432, and the Grand Duke Alexander sent
to John Albrecht only the ordinary congratula-
tions of a friendly neighbor, by no means a
APPRAISEMENT OF THE BONDS 43
vassal's submission, when the Poles elected
the latter as their King. From the very elec-
tion of Jagela as King of Poland until the
union of Lublin the common tie between Po-
land and Lithuania was the same Lithuanian
dynasty of Gediminas: for Poland the branch
of Algirdas, and for Lithuania, at the beginning,
the branch of Kestutis, in the persons of Vi-
tautas and Sigismund, sons of Kestutis, and
later, the same branch of Algirdas for both
states. All these unions made between Poland
and Lithuania during all those times were only
friendly alliances — defensive alliances — in order
that one should help another in need. Toward
the end, through the efforts of Poles during
the reign of several rulers, those alliances be-
came a personal union.
* * *
What did the union of Lublin accomplish ?
First, it tore away from Lithuania all the
southern Russians (Ukrainians), and Lithu-
ania remained within the boundaries of Gedi-
minas; she retained only the territories of the
Lithuanians and the White Russians.
There was a change also made in regard to
the legal standing of Lithuania. But regard-
44 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
less of the wishes of Poles Lithuania was not
incorporated into Poland, even after the union
of Lublin. The treaty of Lublin, as well as of
other unions, in some of its parts expresses only
the desires of the Poles, which were not realized
later. Lithuania reserved to herself, complete
and separate from Poland, a state government
such as she had before the union of Lublin; a
complete administration with the highest gov-
ernmental institutions. This included the Con-
vention of Lithuania which, after the union of
Lublin, was called the General Convention of
Lithuania, apart from the common convention
of both states; her own separate code of laws
(the new revised third code of the Lithuanian
statute was published in 1588); her own courts;
a separate army and financial system.
After the union of Lublin, therefore, Lithu-
ania was not an autonomous province of Po-
land, but a sovereign and separate state as
before. Therefore, after the union of Lublin
we find in Lithuania all the essential character-
istics of a state; a separate territory under the
high dominion of the government of Lithuania
and even the rights of the international rela-
tions (jus foederum ac legationum).
APPRAISEMENT OF THE BONDS 45
After the death of Sigismund August the
Lithuanians sent a delegation to Moscow ask-
ing the Czar's son to be their ruler, and again
they sent another delegation to France invit-
ing Henry of Valois to their throne. Even the
convention at Lublin recognized the indepen-
dence of Lithuania from Poland by separating
from Lithuania and joining to Poland, Podla-
chia, Volinia, Podolia, Kiev, and Braclav, up to
that time Lithuanian territories. This would
not have been necessary if Lithuania had be-
come a PoHsh province, as after the union of
LubUn Kiev and Volinia became. This conven-
tion of Lublin acknowledged the fact of a sepa-
rate allegiance to Lithuania and Poland. On
the transference of these provinces into Polish
hands, v/hen the union was being consummated,
the inhabitants were obhged to take an oath of
allegiance to Poland; this was demanded ex-
pressly to show the transition from the Lithu-
anian allegiance to a Polish allegiance — only
states, never provinces, have a right to de-
mand the allegiance of the inhabitants of a
territory. That Lithuania was not an auton-
omous province of Poland but a state quite
separate from Poland is shown by the very
46 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
origin of the government of Lithuania over
her territory. Her territory and the power of
governing it Lithuania did not acquire from
Poland, as Poland did not possess them previ-
ously; but all this Lithuania as a sovereign
state possessed before the union of Lublin by
her own right, and in entering a convention
with Poland she reserved to herself that terri-
tory and jurisdiction over it. Therefore we
see at the unfortunate Lublin union that the
Lithuanian delegates, compelled to sign the
treaty of the union, on their knees begged their
Grand Duke that he should not destroy the
independence nor tarnish the honor of his own
native land, Lithuania. If Lithuania was a
sovereign state before the union of Lublin and
the Lithuanians did not wish to renounce her
independence, then the question is, how could
she become a Polish province, as Poles had
never conquered her ^
Until the fall of Poland, therefore, the Lithu-
anians considered themselves as constituting a
separate nation, the subjects not of Poland but
of the supreme Lithuanian Government, ex-
pressing the will of the nation. Before the actual
subjection of Lithuania to Russia (in 1794)
APPRAISEMENT OF THE BONDS 47
"the General Confederacy of the Grand Duchy
of Lithuania" speaks of "the will of the Lithu-
anian nation." Where is the province to be
found that expresses the will of the nation ?
The foreign diplomats even at the end of the
eighteenth century knew very well that Lithu-
ania was not a part of Poland, but an altogether
separate state. Prince V. N. Repnin, former
Russian ambassador in Warsaw, writes to
Dimitri Troschinski, a high Russian official, in
regard to territories acquired by Russia after
the partition of Poland-Lithuania: "Lithuania
should remain separate from Poland in her
government, in her domain and organization,
as she was before, a separate state from Po-
land."
* * *
What really was the bond between Poland
and Lithuania from the union of Lubhn until
the fall of these two states ? All that time both
states having their complete separate govern-
ments had in common only one ruler with the
double title — that of King of Poland and Grand
Duke of Lithuania. Each ruler was elected
for life at the common convention of both
states. The treaties of these sovereign states
48 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
touching the affairs of both states had to be
made by both in common. General conven-
tions of the delegates of both states were called
together in common to pass on the common af-
fairs of both states; from 1673 they were con-
vened alternately, first in Lithuania then in
Poland.
From what has been said we see that Lithu-
ania, a sovereign state, then in a personal union
with Poland, joined Poland as an equal at the
union of Lublin; so the relations between them,
even after the Lublin union, were those of co-
ordination not of subordination, of equality
of rights. The bonds betvveen states enjoy-
ing equal rights sometimes may be very
loose and temporary, as, for instance, an al-
liance for a certain stated time. Here in the
relations of Lithuania and Poland we see a
stronger bond — a community of certain state
organs and interests — but this bond never be-
came the bond of a so-called federal state
(etat Federal). Two bordering states did not
become one organized partnership, with a gov-
ernment exercising its constitution and its
rights over the territory of both, each of which
delegated to it certain of their sovereign rights,
APPRAISEMENT OF THE BONDS 49
as in the case of Switzerland's Eidgenossen-
schaft since 1848 or the German Empire since
1871. Lithuania and Poland did not possess a
new government created by the union superior
to the government of each. Therefore their
mutual relations were of an international char-
acter. In them we find only the community
of certain organs in each state, in this case in
one physical person, exercising the sovereignty
of both states — one ruler.
But here this personal union was not tempo-
ral — accidental — as sometimes happens through
rights of heredity converging in one person to
form a personal union in the strict sense. In
the case of Lithuania and Poland the union was
effected by agreement and in time by long en-
during custom — a stable union with the same
ruler for both states forever, and therefore a
real union.
The union of Lithuania and Poland fully re-
sembles the bond of Austria and Hungary of
the recent times. Austria-Hungary by the
Constitution of 1867 had one ruler, the Em-
peror of Austria and King of Hungary; he was
vested with the exterior sovereignty of both
states; he was also the chief commander of the
50 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
common army. In Lithuania and Poland there
was one ruler, the King of Poland and the
Grand Duke of Lithuania, but Lithuania and
Poland, as well as Austria and Hungary, had a
separate government and separate laws. On
account of the common interests of both states
Austria-Hungary has delegations from both
parliaments; Lithuania and Poland had the
common convention of the delegates of both
states to look after the common affairs.
* * *
So Lithuania after the Lublin union remained
a separate state, but remained in a real union
with Poland until December of 1795, when she
was finally divided between Russia and Prus-
sia. The political history of Lithuania after
the Lublin union is closely connected with the
history of Poland. The period from the
Lublin union till the fall of both extends over
more than two hundred years. In 1572 the
male Jagelon line of the dynasty of Gediminas
ended, and in 1772 there was the first division
of Lithuania-Poland. From 1572 until 1673,
if we omit Henry of Valois, who was in Cracow
only five months, only one man not Lithuanian,
Stephan Batory, was the King and Grand
APPRAISEMENT OF THE BONDS 51
Duke.* The other rulers were from the other
branch of the same Lithuanian dynasty. The
first male from the female Jagelon line was
one of the Vazas, of Sweden, and after them
came Michael Wisniowiecki, who is considered
as of the other line of Gediminas. Of the
others, the first was John Sobieski (1674) and
the last was August Poniatowski (1764) both
Poles; and between them are two Germans, the
Saxon Kurfuersts, August II and Frederick Au-
gust III, not counting the Pole Stanislaus
Leszczinski, who was proclaimed King and
supported for five years by Charles XII during
wars with Sweden.
After the Napoleonic wars and the Congress
of Vienna the fate of the Lithuanian nation
was determined as follows: All the territories
of the Letts and the greater part of the Lithu-
anian territory was apportioned to Russia and
only the smaller part of Lithuania at the mouth
of Niemen, toward the sea beyond the Pregel
River, was left to Prussia.
* He was elected King on the condition that he marry Anna
Jagelon, sister of August, who was elected Queen before him.
CHAPTER V
THE CAUSES OF THE DOWNFALL OF THE POLISH
(AND WITH IT THE LITHUANIAN) STATE ; THE
UNION WITH LITHUANIA IS THE TRUE REASON
FOR THE GROWTH OF THE POLISH NATION AND
STATE, BUT, AT THE SAME TIME, THE CAUSE
OF INTERNAL ANARCHY AND THE DOWNFALL
OF THAT STATE
THE cause of the partition of Poland and
Lithuania by their neighbors was the
same that led Lithuania to the Lublin
union, the weakening almost to extinction of
the power of the state at home and abroad.
The Poles, before forcing upon Lithuania the
privileges of the nobility, had extended these
privileges beforehand at home and continually
invented new privileges. The Grand Dukes
and Kings, continually renouncing preroga-
tives of their power in behalf of the gentry,
finally left to themselves no power either over
the gentry or over the other people depending
on gentry. As regards the power of the ruler in
Lithuania and Poland we observe a counterpart
52
CAUSES OF THE DOWNFALL 53
of what happened contemporaneously in Ger-
many with the imperial power, with the differ-
ence that fortunately for Germany the pre-
rogatives of the supreme power there were
surrendered to the governors of provinces by
heredity; to the Kurfuersts, to the Herzogs,
and the Grafs; as if in Lithuania the powers of
the Grand Duke had been distributed to the
smaller Dukes possessing the rights of heredity.
In Lithuania and Poland the prerogatives of
supreme power were divided among all the
members of the nobility possessing estates;
e^ ery one of these rich noblemen on his estates
w is equal to the German Kurfuerst, Herzog, or
G af. Finally, only a shadow of royal power
WaS left to the Polish King and Grand Duke of
Lithuania — no more power than was possessed
by his picture hanging on the wall. The legis-
lative power of the convention was destroyed
by the introduction of **liberum veto." The
army to defend the borders of the state con-
sisted of the gentry called together by "pos-
polite ruszenie" — the mobilization. But this
army could not remain in mobilization more
than three months and could not be led
over the border more than three miles. It is
54 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
evident that there could be no discipline in
such an army; often, as soon as it had collected
it dispersed without action. The handful of a
regular hired army was independent of the
King, and very often collected its pay by force.
In one w^ord, there was but a nominal central
government. There was a King, a Grand Duke,
and the Convention, but their action was para-
lyzed — reduced to zero; there existed practically
no executive power whatever; the defense of
the state from the external foe was practically
nil. The only way to accomplish something
for the welfare of the land was by the so-called
confederacy of the gentry, a kind of an agree-
ment for a definite aim. The convention of
such a confederacy made its resolutions by the
majority vote. But a confederacy was dan-
gerous; it always resulted in civil war; against
one confederacy there often arose another in
complete opposition. Therefore, generally, the
government could not have recourse to it. A
French publicist of those times, C. C. de
Rulhiere, called this liberty, these laws, and
the government of which the Poles were boast-
ing, barbaric: "Ainsi se sent perpetues depuis
un temps immemorial jusqu'a notre age, et chez
CAUSES OF THE DOWNFALL 55
une nation justement celebre, la liberte, les
gouvernements et les lois des barbares." *
The statesmen of Lithuania, long before the
downfall of their country, fully understood the
perniciousness of those Polish privileges and
condemned them, but they were unable to free
themselves from them. We have testimony to
this effect in the Confederation of Vilna of
November 29, 1700, which was signed by all
the highest officials of the Supreme Lithuanian
Government, from the Lithuanian Chancellor,
Duke Charles Radizwill, to the Supreme Com-
mander of the Armies of Lithuania (The Great
Herman of Lithuania) Duke Michael Korybut
Wisniowiecki. By this document the mag-
nates of Lithuania renounced and condemned
the liberties brought from Poland to Lithuania
and wished to return to the absolute power of
the Grand Duke as it existed in the times of
Gediminas and Vitautas; they declared they
were convinced that the Polish liberties were
leading to the perdition. But here, as in the
times of the LubHn union, what was evidently
pernicious to well-educated and broad-minded
* Histoire de I'anarchie de Pologne et du demembrement . . .
par Claude Carloman de Rulhiere, 1807.
56 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
magnates was desired by the egoistic mob of
uneducated, short-sighted small gentry of the
provinces.
When the power was scattered in Germany
among Herzogs and counts — not an ordinary
gentry (Rittern), but the rulers of provinces pos-
sessing rights of succession (Landesherren) —
there were among them ambitious and able men
who, enlarging gradually their wealth and in-
fluence, could create centres that in time would
unite again the whole wide-spread state and
nation. In Lithuania and Poland the reverse
happened. In Germany the power of the state
was transferred to Landesherren. In Lithuania
and Poland that power was simply destroyed.
Moreover, the magnates, estate owners, were
only the private possessors of real estate, not
the rulers of provinces, not Landesherren.
There were no centres that could unite the
\^' whole land. Therefore both countries, Lithu-
ania and Poland, collapsed into anarchy. Po-
land, abusing the weakened and half-dead gov-
ernment of Lithuania, in 1569 at Lublin broke
away and separated by force the provinces of
Volynia and Ukraine; the remainder of Lithu-
ania she did not make her province, but merely
CAUSES OF THE DOWNFALL 57
forced her into a union, only because she her-
self was weak as a military power and did not
wish to drive the Lithuanians into war. In
1772, 1793, and 1795 the same thing was re-
peated by the neighboring states, not only in
regard to Lithuania but also in regard to Po-
land, with this difference only — that the nego-
tiations about the unions were unnecessary.
With strong armies to back their decisions
strong neighbors did not fear the opposition in
Lithuania and Poland; they simply divided
them amongst themselves. The titles upon
which successful despoilers took the Polish
provinces are striking; they are neither more
nor less just than those titles upon which Po-
land took, at the Lublin union, the Lithuanian
provinces, Volynia, Kiev, and others. Prussia
and Austria, relying on old meaningless titles,
claimed that they were taking back what
"justly" belonged to them. But the most
adroit, perhaps, were the declarations of Cathe-
rine: "Apres les depenses considerables en hom-
mes et en argent qu'a coutees a I'empire de
Russie son assistance a la Pologne pour la
sauver de la fureur de ses propres citoyens . . .
il doit paraitre bien modere que sa Majeste se
58 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
borne . . . a se procurer la reparation de
dommage" (C. C. de Rulhiere). They di-
vided among themselves the Polish provinces
because they wished to save Poland from the
Poles !
* * *
The cause of the downfall of the Lithuanian
state, of the misery, of the decrease, and of the
weakening of the nation itself is evident. It
was association with the Poles. The identifica-
tion of the Grand Duke with the King of Po-
land; the distribution of Polish privileges among
the gentry; the influence of the Poles in Lithu-
ania through a King's court, through Polish
privileges, and through the Polish church and
the schools in Lithuania under its jurisdiction,
notably the University of Cracow before the
Lublin union, and later the Polish Academy
at Vilna: These were the means by which the
governmental power of the state in Lithuania
was weakened. The higher classes of the na-
tion were Polonized, and by the spread of
Polonism the patriotism of the nobility and
the spirit of nationality was demoralized; this
led the Lithuanians to the Lublin union. From
that time the influence of the Poles spread
CAUSES OF THE DOWNFALL 59
rapidly in Lithuania. The majority of the
gentry accepted the PoUsh language. The
greater part of the priesthood, already Polish,
now became a powerful factor in Polonizing the
people. Lithuanian patriotism, Lithuanian
nationaHty was mixed with the Polish. This
became a by-word: "gente Lithuanus, natione
Polonus." The Polish speech among Lithu-
anians became the speech of the educated class.
There was real danger that the Lithuanian
state would become a Polish province and that
the Lithuanian nation would perish with the
dying out of the Lithuanian language. On the
other hand, Poland became a great world power
only after the union with Lithuania. The small
Polish nation grew big by the union with Lithu-
ania. By the Polonization of the Lithuanian
gentry and educated classes the power of the
PoHsh literary, artistic, and upper classes, also
the influence of PoHsh culture, greatly increased.
The names of men of Lithuanian origin adorn
PoHsh history and literature, names Hke Mic-
kiewicz, Kosciuszko. Lithuanian magnates,
such as Radziwills, Pac'es, Sapieha's, and the
Czartoryski's, the princes of the Gediminas
family now became Polish magnates. Their
6o THE LITHUANIAN NATION
wealth was helping Polish culture and Polish
interests. This is the reason the Poles so
highly honor the "Jagellonians" and cling to
the Lithuanians, so that when the Lithuanians
of our time desire to realize their own inde-
pendent destiny the Poles per fas et nefas would
retain them in their care. It seems to the Poles
that the Lithuanians by fate itself are destined
to belong to them, so that they ma}^ grow and
become great on the ruins of the Lithuanian
nation.
Nevertheless this union with Lithuania and
this invitation to a Lithuanian dynasty to
rule over them, which contributed so much
toward the growth and fame of the Polish na-
tion, was the real cause of the downfall of their
state. A foreign dynasty invited to rule by the
nobility felt its dependence upon them and
did not feel as secure upon the throne as if it
had been a native Polish dynasty. We see
even in Jagela's hands a weak kingly power.
He and his successors felt that they reigned by
the grace of the nobility; that this nobility
might not choose their son to the succession.
Therefore every one of them at the beginning
of his reign, to insure the throne to his son,
CAUSES OF THE DOWNFALL 6i
diminished the power and the wealth of the office
and oppressed the lower classes for the benefit
of the nobility by giving privileges until there
remained only a shadow of a King's authority.
Among the nobility there sprung up magnates
equal to feudal Dukes of other countries. The
authority of the King collapsed altogether,
and each of the magnates looked out for his
own benefit; they began wars among themselves
or rose against the King; and during the elec-
tion of a King they began to call in the aid of
foreign governments.
This anarchy was increased by the unfor-
tunate union with Lithuania, a foreign nation
several times larger than Poland. The Poles
continually endeavored to incorporate Lithu-
ania with Poland, and the Lithuanians during
all this time were opposing these efforts; the
history of these centuries records continual
breaking of the unions by the Lithuanians:*
the open siding with Poland's foes in war-
* In 1655 the Government of Lithuania made a treaty with
Sweden against Poland during the latter's war with Charles
Gustav; Janusz and Boguslav Radziwills endeavored to separate
Lithuania from Poland; Prince Sapieha and his party waged
war against the King in 1700; the Russians of eastern provinces
in the wars with Moscow sided against Poland and joined the
state of Moscow.
62 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
time; religious strife between the Orthodox and
CathoHcs; such antagonism between the na-
tionahty of the Lithuanians and the Poles,
that even such Lithuanians as had adopted the
Polish language, until very recent times, en-
deavored to accentuate their Lithuanianism.*
Therefore the united Lithuanian-Polish state,
although in its time the largest in Europe,
never showed such a great power abroad as its
size warranted; and later on, through mutual
strife and anarchy, it gradually grew weaker,
until it finally collapsed.
So the union of Poland with Lithuania led
both to anarchy and to final collapse.
* Vide British Review, February, 1915. Autonomy of Poland
and Lithuania. J. Gabrys Lietuviu-Lenku Unija. The Lithu-
anian Polish Union.
CHAPTER VI
THE SURVIVAL OF THE NATIONAL CONSCIOUS-
NESS OF THE LITHUANIANS UP TO THE PRES-
ENT DAY THROUGH THE PRESERVATION OF
THEIR OWN LANGUAGE, TRADITIONS, AND THE
EXPRESSION OF THAT CONSCIOUSNESS IN THEIR
LITERATURE; THE RISE AND EXPANSION
AMONG THE LITHUANIANS OF THE IDEA OF
NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE FROM DANGEROUS
FOREIGN INFLUENCE; THE PRESENT CUL-
TURAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE NA-
TION
^T the end of the eighteenth century the
/-% Lithuanian state collapsed; but the Lith-
uanian nation, although very badly im-
paired and in the run of centuries decreased
by more than half, did not cease to exist. For
the state is not the nation. The state is only
an institution of a nation; that institution
without which the nation can live long, even
growing larger and stronger, as did the no-
madic IsraeHtes before the occupation of
Canaan. A nation can be defined as a com-
posite entity with customs, language, and a
conscious spirit by which it conceives of itself
63
64 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
as having a being distinct from that of any
other similar group of humanity. No one will
say that after the fall of the Polish state, even
after the last insurrection of the Poles in 1863,
when the Russian Government abolished the
last rights of PoHsh autonomy, there was no
longer a PoHsh nation.
There is to-day, as in the case of the Poles,
a Lithuanian nation; and there are many other
nations which as yet are not actual states, but
have their language, their traditions, and a
consciousness of their distinctness from other
groups of humanity and their peculiar spiritual
life. A state is, as we said, a national institu-
tion without which a civilized nation cannot
easily exist. A state is like the home of a
nation, a guarantee of her self-independence;
without it a nation, although it exists, is op-
pressed by others, robbed and often destroyed;
and serving a stranger, frequently forced to
defend its very existence, it finds it difficult to
achieve anything for the benefit of humanity.
The life of a nation manifests itself in its
traditions, which again are preserved in the
national language and reveal themselves in its
literature. Given a language and a literature,
NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 65
no nation can be considered to be dead or non-
existent, for she herself is conscious of her ex-
istence. But if it is not also a state, another
nation which compelled it to belong to it can
oppress it, but cannot say that it as a nation
does not exist.
Nearly all the literature of the European
nations, with the exception of the Greeks and
Latins, began after the adoption of Christian-
ity. Lithuania was the last European nation to
accept Christianity. There is evidence in pre-
historic times that the Runic writings were
known in Lithuania. After the founding of the
Lithuanian state the Latin language was used
in the Grand Duke's office in transactions
with western Europe, and the Slavonian church
language in dealings with the Russian Dukes.
In 1529 the code of Lithuanian laws was pub-
lished in the Slavic language.
The first books printed in the Lithuanian
language, which were of purely religious type,
appeared in the middle of the sixteenth cen-
tury. They were written by the clergy and
answered their purposes; for the priests, having
to deal with people that understood no lan-
guage but the Lithuanian, had to use this Ian-
66 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
guage in their books. Books of the belles-
lettres and worldly poetry could not be found
at this period, for few of the wealthy people
were educated in western Europe and they be-
came interested in Latin and various other
languages of the West. The first book pub-
lishers had established themselves with the
higher educational institutions. There had been
since 1544 a university at Konigsberg, which
was the first in the territory of the Lithuanian
nation. Here the first Lithuanian books were
printed.
Two editions of a small catechism in the
Prussian language were published in 1545, and
in 1547 M. Vaitkunas, pastor of Ragnit, pub-
lished the first book in the Lithuanian language
containing a short catechism, the first elemen-
tary reading, and some hymns. The book was
dedicated to the Grand Duke of Lithuania.
Luther's Enchiridion, or the Smaller Catechism,
was published in the Prussian language in
Konigsberg in 1561; in 1579 the same work
was translated into Lithuanian by B. Villentas,
the pastor of Konigsberg.
From 1578 we have evidence of official
Lithuanian writing.
NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS e-j
, In the meantime in Vilna, in 1566, the sec-
ond edition of the Lithuanian Statute was pub-
lished, and in 1588 the third edition, both in
the Slavic language. The third edition was
translated into the Polish language — a sign of
early Polonizing of the higher classes of Lithu-
ania.
About the year 1580 J. Bretkunas, a Lithu-
anian pastor of Labguva, later of Konigsberg,
translated the whole Bible.
The Hymn Book, by Bretkunas, was pub-
lished in 1589; in 1591 his Postilla (sermons).
In 16 1 2 L. Sengstock, pastor of Konigsberg,
published his Hymnal. About the middle of
the seventeenth century the Prussian Lithu-
anians had a conspicuous writer, D. Kleinis,
pastor of Tilsit. In 1653 he published Gram-
matica Lithuanica; in 1666 he pubHshed also
in Konigsberg the Hymn Book, one of the best
books of the kind in the Lithuanian language.
It was republished in 1685, 1705, 1869. In
1872 it was revised by Fr. Kurszatis. Up to
the present time it is the best of Lutheran
hymnals and prayer-books in Lithuanian.
In the latter part of the sixteenth century
Duke M. Radziwill founded a school with the
68 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
Calvin Church in Vilna, and Birze, and the
printing establishment at Nesviez. During
the Lublin Diet in 1569 the Jesuits obtained
permission to come to Lithuania, and in the
second year after that they opened their col-
lege at Vilna, which in 1578 was changed to an
academy, adding to it their printing establish-
ment. In Vilna, the heart of Lithuania, a
second publishing house arose for the printing
of Lithuanian books — CathoUc as well as Prot-
estant.
In 1595 appeared the Catechism of Ledesma,
translated by Michael Dauksas, a Samogitian
prelate.
In 1599, in Vilna, appeared Postilla, by the
same M. Dauksas.
In 1600 in Vilna was published the Lithuanian
Postilla (Calvinist), by Jacob Morkunas, a
newly revised edition. When the first edition
was printed is not known.
In 1605 the Catechism of Ledesma was pub-
lished in the eastern TJthuanian dialect.
At the beginning of the seventeenth centur}''
a famous writer, Reverend Constant Sirvidas,
a Jesuit, a professor of the Academy of Vilna
and a Lithuanian preacher of Saint John's
NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 69
Church, labored in Vilna. Of his books the
following were piibHshed in Vilna: in 1629 his
Book of Sermons; in 1644, Lenten Sermons,
Clavis linguae Lituanicae, a grammar; a dic-
tionary, Dictionarium trium linguarum, Lithu-
anian, Latin, and PoHsh — only the fourth edi-
tion of 1677 remams, the date of the first edition
is not known.
In 1737, in Vilna, appeared Typis Collegii
Academici Soc. Jesu Universitas linguarum
lituanicae in principali Ducatus ejusdem gram-
maticis legibus circumscripta.
In 1677, in Vilna, the Lithuanian translation
of the catechism of Cardinal Bellarmin was
published.
Adalbert Kojalowcz, a professor and rector
of the Academy of Vilna, wrote (i) Historiae
Lituaniae Pars prior to 1387, which was printed
at Danzig in 1650, and (2) Pars altera, printed
at Antwerp in 1669.
In 1705, in Vilna, the book of Gospels and
Epistles was published. It was reprinted in
171 1, 1750, 1803. This was the best Lithu-
anian book of the kind.
It is noteworthy that the Lithuanian lan-
guage in the books printed in Konigsberg, as
70 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
well as in Vilna, is grammatically perfect in
phraseology, the selection of words fitting ac-
curately to their meaning, etc., which shows
that the Lithuanian language was used in
literature a century previous to this.
With the weakening of Protestantism in
Vilna the publication of Protestant Lithuanian
books in Vilna ceased.
In the middle of the seventeenth century the
city of Keidany became the centre of Protes-
tant activity, the seat of the Calvinistic Synod.
In 1653, in Keidany, the book, Lithuanian
Prayer Book, dedicated to Duke Janusz Radzi-
will, was published. In 1553, also in Keidany,
Summa or the Explanation of Gospels was pub-
lished, and in 1653 -^ Prayer Book for All Year
Around.
From 1657 to 1666, through the efforts of
the Calvinistic Synod of Keidany, the Lithu-
anian edition of the Bible was printed in Lon-
don.
In 1701 the Calvins of Keidany published in
Konigsberg the New Testament in Lithuanian.
In Prussia, in the eighteenth century, the gov-
ernment assisted in a revision toward uniform-
ity in the prayer-book. In 1719 Doctor H.
NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 71
Lysius, at the order of the government, pub-
lished a small catechism of Martin Luther.
More difficulties were encountered with the
hymnals, the work upon them by the Prussian
Lithuanian clergy being carried over the greater
part of the eighteenth century. After several
revisions the consistory of eastern Prussia finally
published, in 1791, in Konigsberg, a Hymnal
containing five hundred and forty-two hymns.
This was revised and repubUshed many times
later.
Along with these religious works there ap-
peared in Prussia two well-known writers,
Philip Ruhig, pastor of Valterkiemis, who in
1747 published the Lithuanian dictionary, and
Kr. Donelaitis, the first Lithuanian poetical
genius. Among his productions is a great
poem, Metu Laikai, The Seasons of the Year,
in hexameter.
His work describes the life of the Lithuanian
peasant at the end of the eighteenth century
just as Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz, written in
Polish, tells of the life of the Polonized Lithu-
anian gentry from the beginning of the nine-
teenth century; each of these works is comple-
mentary to the other; but the Mickiewicz
72 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
picture of the Polonized Lithuanian gentry is
idealized and adorned in accordance with Polish
patriotism. Throughout, the best side is pre-
sented. The picture of the life of the gentry
as a whole is incomplete; their relations with
their bondsmen are hardly mentioned; but
the form and style of the whole work is perfect.
Donelaitis's picture of the life of the peasants
is altogether real, even in respect of their un-
cultured language and their unrefined be-
havior.
In the nineteenth century L. Reza, who
died in 1840, published Donelaitis's poems, and
in 1824 the complete edition of the Old and New
Testaments. In the same year he published
^-sop's Fables, and in the following year a col-
lection of Lithuanian Songs (Daina) with their
German translations. Immanuel Kant, the
great German philosopher, expressed high ad-
miration for the folk-lore contained therein.
F. Kurszatis, who died in 1884, revised and
published in 1854 the Lithuanian edition of
the New Testament and the Hymnal, as
well as the prayer-book for the Prussian army,
the catechism for the schools, the German
Lithuanian Dictionary, and the Lithuanian
NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 73
Grammar in German. From 1849 to il
he published in Konigsberg the newspaper
Keleivis, which was well liked by the Lithu-
anians.
* *
In the nineteenth century almost the entire
Lithuanian nation, arrested by the unfortunate
political tendencies of the Lithuanian Govern-
ment, beginning with Jagela and the unions
with the Poles, finds itself within the boundaries
of the Russian Empire. Only a smaller part
of the Lithuanians, Hving at the mouth of the
Niemen toward the Baltic Sea as far south as
the river Pregel, belonged to Prussia. On the
downfall of the states of Lithuania and Poland,
Polish patriotism first expanded and intensified,
so affecting the Polonized strata of the Lithu-
anian nation as to urge them to further Po-
lonization. The Vilna educational district,
with the University of Vilna and the Polish
schools throughout Lithuania, and two PoHsh
uprisings against Russia in 183 1 and 1863
greatly advanced the vehement Polonization
of Lithuania. In 1803 Czartoryski, the Polish
aristocrat, a descendant of the Grand Dukes
of Lithuania, was appointed president of the
74 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
educational district of Vilna, which extended
over almost the whole of Lithuania. He trans-
formed the Jesuit Academy of Vilna into a
university, and in connection with it also estab-
lished a grand seminary for the priests. He
ordered the monasteries to maintain elemen-
tary schools, about forty in number, through-
out Lithuania. All these schools were PoHsh
and were under the jurisdiction of the Polonized
university; they systematically conducted the
Polonization of Lithuania. The University of
Vilna, with these other schools, was abolished
by the Russian Government only after the
Polish uprising in 1830-183 1. The work of Po-
lonization of Lithuania was continued by the
churches, as before, and by the University of
Vilna and its schools. In many parishes the
Lithuanian tongue was replaced by the Polish.
Priests ignorant of the Lithuanian language
were intentionally sent to Lithuanian-speaking
parishes, and those speaking Lithuanian were
sent to Russian-speaking churches. Each up-
rising of the Poles was the cause of greater
intensification of Polish patriotism, and drew
more and more Lithuanians to the Polish side.
Nevertheless, the Lithuanian national spirit
NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 75
could not die as long as the language of the
nation lived. The glorious Lithuanian national
traditions were cherished even by the already
Polonized Lithuanians of the upper classes.
In the first part of the nineteenth century, and
later, we find a whole line of able Lithuanian
writers who wrote in Polish, such as Mickie-
wicz, J. I. Kraszewski, Narbutt, Kondratowicz,
Ign. Chodzko, Odyniec, Mary Radziewicz.
Some of their works only belong to Polish Hter-
ature because they were written in the PoHsh
language: their ideas and purport served to
revive the Lithuanian national consciousness.
This was the case with Mickiewicz's Grazyna
and Konrad Wallenrod; Kraszewski's Plaint of
Vitolis, Mindove, Vitautas's Battles, and The
History of Lithuania, and Narbutt's History of
Lithuania, etc.
In the nineteenth century Lithuanian writers
increase greatly in number. And after 1869,
when slavery was abolished by the Russian
Government, a great number of peasants' sons
joined the ranks of Lithuanian writers.
We have poems written in those times by
Dionysius Poszka, Reverend Anthony Draz-
dauskas and Reverend Simon Staneviczus,
76 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
rector of the ecclesiastical seminary at Varniai,
etc.
In 1832, in Prussia, the first Lithuanian
periodical was published by Fr. Kalkis.
The period of 1840 to 1870, of Daukantas
(1864), and Bishop Valanczauskis (1875), was
a golden one for the Lithuanian literature.
Both wrote and published many a Lithuanian
book. About this time L. Ivinskis, Dovi-
daviczus, Tatare, and Bishop A. Baranauskas
began to write, and Reverend A. Juszkeviczus
published a collection of 5,600 folk-songs, etc.
In 1847 L. Ivinskis began to publish his yearly
almanacs, so famous among Lithuanians.
In 1854 a famous linguist, Schleicher, pub-
lishes in Prague his great work. The Lithu-
anian Grammar (in German).
In 1880, in Tilsit, Prussia, the Lithuanian
Literary Society was organized, whose activity
encouraged so much the educated Lithuanians
in Prussian and Russian Lithuania to return
to the use of the language of their fathers.
In March of 1883 there begins to appear in
Ragnit, later in Tilsit, Prussia, the monthly,
Auszra, or The Dawn, to voice the patriot-
ism of the new era in Lithuania. The appear-
NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS ^j
ance of Auszra is the starting-point of the
Lithuanian national consciousness, and of
the organized national attempt for liberation
from injurious foreign influences.
Some call this period the revival. The term
is not strictly correct. The consciousness of
the Lithuanian nationalism and individuality
had never ceased to exist. The nation there-
fore was not asleep. But national conscious-
ness was passive; the nation did not defend it-
self. There had been no idea that foreign
influences were dangerous. But in the middle
of the nineteenth century, when the Poloniza-
tion had reached its highest mark in Lithuania
and the real peril of the extinction of the Lithu-
anian language became apparent, the more in-
telligent minds foresaw the danger to the na-
tion itself. Then did the nation understand
that it had been heretofore in a false position
and energetic persons began the work of or-
ganizing the nation. The movement started
with the defense of the Lithuanian language
and later concerned itself with the other aban-
doned interests of the nation. Before, there was
passive consciousness in the nation, now there
was full understanding; and to ward off" the dan-
78 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
ger the political programme was drawn up, pos-
itive action outlined, and organization perfected.
Auszra appears in Prussia, because after
the Polish insurrection of 1863 the Lithuanian
publications were forbidden in Russia. Only
after forty years of hardest unequal struggle
of the nation in behalf of the press was the ban
on the press lifted by Russia in 1904. The
martyrs of the Lithuanian national ideal had
suffered exile and imprisonment in Siberia and
other distant Russian provinces.
We have seen that the political union with
the Poles greatly injured the Lithuanian na-
tion; almost the entire upper class adopted the
Polish speech; entire districts of the territory
inhabited by Lithuanians in the south and east
became Polonized or Russianized. Neverthe-
less the Lithuanian idea — the national con-
sciousness — remained unimpaired to the last.
When, after long bondage, there sprang up
numerous Lithuanian educated men from the
peasant stock, these would not adopt a foreign
tongue. Turning to a pure national ideal they
counted every foreign influence over their
nation as dangerous, and began to urge entire
rejection of Polonism; though many who had
NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 79
adopted the Polish language before began to
renounce their Lithuanian nationalism, stand-
ing with the Polish nation and proclaiming
themselves Poles.
Since 1883, however, Lithuanian literature,
and with it the new national ideal, spread with
unbounded force through Lithuania. As time
went on new poets, writers of fiction, scientific
writers, philologists, and other writers appeared.
During the Russian revolution of 1905 the
national consciousness in Lithuania was so
strong and wide-spread throughout the land
that it was possible to call a national conven-
tion from all parts of Lithuania. This national
convention was held on December 4 and 5,
1905. It was there resolved by the district
and county conventions to remove from Lithu-
ania all Russian office-holders and to introduce
a Lithuanian government everywhere.*
The resolutions of this national convention
* During the twenty years previous to the lifting of the ban
against Lithuanian Hterature imposed by the Russian Govern-
ment (1886-1905), five Lithuanian publishing houses flourished
in the United States. Through the efforts of J. Panksitis, D. T.
Boczkowski, A. M. Milukas, A. Olszewski, Lithuanian Alliance
of America, and Society of Lithuanian Patriots, over four hun-
dred works were published, including masterpieces of Lithuanian
literature and translations of the classic of the English and
other literatures.
8o THE LITHUANIAN NATION
were disseminated in all Lithuania immediately
after the return of the delegates from the con-
vention. Only by the proclamation of martial
law and with the help of the army did the Rus-
sian Government subdue this movement of the
Lithuanians. But although the old order of
the government was resumed, more freedom
remained in the land; the Lithuanian language
was still used in the schools and in some lower
government institutions. Lithuanians were per-
mitted to take governmental offices in Lithuania.
Lately, after the revolution of 1905 and
after the national convention at Vilna, the
Lithuanian nation, enjoying more liberty, rose
considerably, both spiritually and economically.
The national consciousness and the desire
of full independence mastered the entire na-
tion. Literary and economic societies were
founded; private, elementary, and high schools
were established, as well as banks of credit and
trade exchanges. Farming associations, co-
operative trade associations, educational, scien-
tific, and artists' societies were founded. Lately,
the Lithuanian nation has grown considerably
in power, educationally and materiall}', and has
perfected its cultural and political life.
v^
CHAPTER VII
PRESENT NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS OF THE LITHU-
ANIANS: THE POLITICAL UNITY AND INDE-
PENDENCE OF ALL PARTS OF THE LITHUANIAN
NATION NOW UNDER DIFFERENT GOVERN-
MENTS (RUSSIAN AND GERMAN); FREEDOM
FROM FOREIGN INFLUENCES ; THE PRESERVA-
TION OF ONE AND SOLE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE
AS THE NATIONAL TONGUE ; RELATIONS WITH
THE POLES, WHITE RUSSIANS, AND LETTS
WE have learned of the past; let us
endeavor to examine the present
aims of the Lithuanian nation. Now
the Lithuanian nation is alive, self-conscious,
and eager to be completely free of foreign
tutelage, to become independent, to realize
itself. The ideal of every nation is the political
union of all parts of the nation in a single
independent state. Political unions forcing
different nations to combine into one state are
mistakes or misfortunes; they bring one or
several of those united nations to destruction.
The peril of such unions is demonstrated to us
by history. Even when populous and power-
82 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
ful nations receive into their state large foreign
elements and assimilate them by force or by
lapse of time and the influence of life, they
themselves degenerate into a different nation
and lose their former character and being.
The Latin nation which founded the world-
wide state of Rome perished by mixture with
the conquered nations, and degenerated into
several new and previously non-existent na-
tions; neither French, nor Italians, nor Rou-
manians are the old Latin nation that founded
Rome. The Bohemian nation has been for a
long time in a union of German nations, has
continuously accepted on her throne a succes-
sion of German princes, and finally entered
wholly into a personal union with Austria in
1526. But what advantage did she gain ? She
completely lost her kingdom and her inde-
pendence. Her territory, that formerly had
embraced Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, now
is half Germanized and even divided between
several German states; eventually she found
herself almost without hope of ever regaining
her independence. The same thing happened
to Lithuania. The error of Algirdas with re-
lation to the Russians and the still greater error
PRESENT NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS 83
of Jagela with relation to the Poles led us to
the same consequences as the Bohemians ar-
rived at. If after this war our nation is not
permitted to unite and to organize as a state,
in the course of future ages there may remain
only a small remnant of us, without hope, as
in the case of the Eastern nations: the Copts of
Egypt, the Syrians, Phoenicians, and Assyr-
ians. Denationalization of the foreign nations
received into a state is being accomplished in
the interests either of the dynasty or of the ruHng
classes of the compound state for the alleged
strengthening of the state, which these classes
or dynasties consider as their property. For-
merly the nations that found themselves in a
foreign state were always denationalized. The
same fate will befall such nations in the future.
And the Lithuanian nation, to be free from
such a danger, must necessarily separate itself
from the foreign nations and organize its own
state. Therefore the well-defined aim of our
patriots should be not the rebuilding of the
Lithuania that existed in the past, not the
union with other nations, whether Poles, White
Russians, or Russians, but the uniting of all
parts of the territory inhabited by the Lithu-
84 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
anian people which are now distributed among
the neighboring states, and out of this united
territory, the making of a new Lithuanian state
free of foreign influences.
It is absolutely necessary that Lithuanians
renounce all those parts of their former states
which are inhabited by pure White Russians
or Poles; but all the territory inhabited by
the Lithuanians must be united. From the
future Lithuania should be separated those
districts that are Lithuanian in a broad ethno-
graphical way; where there formerly lived
people of the same Lithuanian race using the
Lithuanian language, but who a very long
time ago adopted the White Russian or Polish
language, as, for instance, the territories of
Jacvingi to the south from the Niemen; or
the eastern countries of the government of
Vilna, where there is no wide area using the
Lithuanian language, and therefore no hope
of return to the Lithuanian language of their
forefathers. The more of those denationalized
sections that we receive into a Lithuanian
state the greater White Russian influence they
will exercise on the pure Lithuanian nation.
We must satisfy ourselves with the border-
PRESENT NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS 85
lands where the Lithuanian language is used
widely, if not entirel}^, wherever these border-
lands are absolutely necessary for the natural
and strategical frontiers of the state. The
state should include not onl}'^ the ethnographic
parts of Lithuania that belonged till lately
to Russia, but also the terrain at the mouth
of the Niemen, now under Prussia, where the
Lithuanian language is used. Control of the
mouth is essential to the future Lithuanian
state, because the Niemen is the only navigable
river that flows through Lithuania; the mouth
of the Niemen is Lithuania's only exit to the sea
and to all the world; and as the regions about it
are inhabited by Lithuanians, to take it from
Lithuania would he maliciously to shut off Lithu-
ania from communication with the world.
The Lithuanian state should comprise the
territories inhabited by the Lithuanian race
for thousands of years. If there are some
stretches with inhabitants who accepted other
languages, there remain between them other
stretches where the Lithuanian language of
their forefathers is preserved; and these very
same people, even though they use a different
language, are by race and blood Lithuanians,
86 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
as much so as those of the centre of Lithuanian
territory. They will not imperil the true Lithu-
anian nationalism; but without those border-
lands Lithuania cannot possess any satisfac-
tory natural frontiers to her national terri-
tory.
* * *
Let us by no means form a nation of many
languages. To do that would be to take the
road to disorder, denationalization, and final
national annihilation. A nation with several
languages can exist only through one common
religion, for which it is persecuted by others;
or through one government that has developed
in the course of ages: as soon as this govern-
ment falls, it is impossible to gather together
the parts that speak different languages. Let
us Lithuanians rather renounce those that are
denationalized already, and let us remain with
one language, the language that was not bor-
rowed from the foreigner, but was constructed
by our race and was formed through ages to-
gether with the formation of our Lithuanian
nation. The language is the life of our nation;
in it is preserved the living spirit of our fore-
fathers. We cannot, we should not, accept
PRESENT NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS 87
any Polish or White Russian language as OUJ"
national language. We should remember that
by introducing a few languages in a given terri-
tory we greatly burden the people in their
educational work and in their affairs with the
government. Not long ago, when Russia was
agitated by the question of Poland's autonomy,
the Poles demanded that the government of
Souvalki should belong to their autonomous
territory, and that the Polish language should
be used in common with Russian in this terri-
tory of the Lithuanian language, so that each
Lithuanian citizen would have been obliged
to know three languages, Lithuanian, Polish,
and Russian; otherwise, he would have been
left actually without rights, and could not
have taken part even in his township affairs. Is
it reasonable to demand of the peasants a knowl-
edge of so many languages, that in other coun-
tries is not demanded of even the well-educated
people ? Is it necessary to impose such a non-
sensical burden on those people in or^er to
satisfy the fantastic dreams of Polish poli-
ticians ?
Such is our attitude toward foreign lan-
guages and relations to our neighbors. Neither
88 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
with Poles nor with Russians should we have
any political ties. The Lithuanian nation
has already been bound to both of them by
such ties for several hundreds of years. Let
that suffice.
We have no special economic interest in
Poland. Ours is an agricultural country, Po-
land is the same. Our exports we shall market
better in other countries of western Europe.
Up to now we received our imports mainly
through Riga and Moscow. It would be more
wholesome for Lithuania if the cultural ties
with Poland were broken altogether. United
with Poles, we should fear undesirable influences
and the weakening of our independence. It
is clear, then, that the uniting of Poland and
Lithuania is not to the interest of Lithuanians.
We have spoken before about receiving White
Russians into the Lithuanian state. The Poles
and Russians are foreigners to us; let each of
us therefore live by ourselves, and if there is a
need for economic relations they could be ar-
ranged according to the practices of other neigh-
boring, sovereign and independent states.
On the other hand, our relations with the
Letts should be closer. If Lithuania and Lett-
PRESENT NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS 89
land both become states, then a union of both
these states would be mutually advantageous.
Lithuanians and Letts are people of the same
race, even their names are of the same linguistic
origin. Our languages even now are so closely
akin to one another that they differ no more
than various German dialects of the south
and north. The only difference is that history
has united the German dialects of north and
south, and divided the Lithuanian and Lettish.
True, history has made us different nations; we
could not be fully united, for then each one
would wish to have the upper hand, and we
should mutually injure ourselves. But we
could live together in two states, united on
equal terms, each one attending to its internal
affairs, and in external affairs both acting to-
gether, each exerting on the other a useful
national influence. In our economic affairs
we would agree. We occupy contiguous terri-
tory, the Letts holding the seacoast. In a
union with the Letts we would reap the bene-
fit of the sea trade, and their seaports would
have a larger hinterland. If both nations were
independent of foreigners and united more
closely, the mutual cultural influence would
90 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
strengthen them against foreign encroach-
ment, would purify and strengthen the Lithu-
anian-Lettish spirit, and also the language of
both. The national traditions forgotten by the
one or the other would revive by mutual influ-
ence. We are the only two sister-nations in the
world, and neither one is populous.
CHAPTER VIII
IS LITHUANIA, AS A STATE, POSSIBLE? ABILITY OF
LITHUANIANS FOR STATESMANSHIP; THE RIGHT
TO INDEPENDENCE OF NATIONS WHICH HAVE
LOST OR HAVE NEVER HAD THEIR OWN GOV-
ERNMENT; THE FATE OF SMALL NATIONS IN
FOREIGN STATES (VIZ., RUSSIA); HAVE THE
LITHUANIANS A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF EDU-
CATED MEN TO CONDUCT THE GOVERNMENT OF
STATE? AREA AND POPULATION OF LITHUANIA
COMPARED WITH THE DIFFERENT INDEPEN-
DENT EUROPEAN STATES
IS Lithuania as a state possible ?
That the Lithuanian nation can organ-
ize a state and direct it is amply demon-
strated by its history. The Lithuanian nation
in this has shown greater abilities than many
other European nations. With the exception of
the Franks it is the only example in Europe of
a comparatively small nation organizing itself
into a state and taking under its dominion na-
tions many times larger than itself. And in its
many conquests it is not submerged after mix-
ture with those conquered nations, as happened
91
92 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
in the case of the Franks. Lithuania has estab-
Hshed her government over others and has
composed a code of laws (Lithuanian Statute,
1529) when other European nations with older
states than hers were making only feeble at-
tempts in this direction. The Lithuanian
statute is not the amateur creation of an in-
dividual, such as Sachsenspiegel (about 1230
A. D.), but an authoritative code of laws pub-
lished by a state.
It was said by an American daily paper that
the Lithuanians, who had not formed a state
of their own for over five hundred years and
were only a part of Poland, now desired to be-
come a state. The implication is that the Lith-
uanians, who lost their statehood so long ago,
should not even now possess it and that the
most appropriate place for Lithuanians would
be within the borders of a Polish kingdom.
Every one can see in whose interest such ideas
are spread. Five hundred years ago in Lithu-
ania Vitautas was reigning, and he was the
most powerful monarch in all eastern Europe.
But here, perhaps, one remembers the dis-
position made by Jagela in Krevo. If history
is understood in such a way then there is no
LITHUANIA AS A STATE 93
use in argument. I have demonstrated that
Lithuania was a sovereign state until 1795 and
only after the union of Lublin (1560) had she
a real union with Poland.
If we deny the rights of a nation to be also
a state on such grounds, then Nor^vay in 1905,
without the least right, had desired to be in-
dependent, and separated from Sweden. From
the union of Colmar (in 1397) Norway was,
without an interval, in union with Denmark.
The Norwegian nation has acquired the Dan-
ish language, has forgotten its own Norwegian
language; and it is only one hundred years
since Sweden took Norway from Denmark by
war in January, 18 14. According to the author
of the opinion quoted about Lithuania, Nor-
way, if she does not wish to be with Sweden,
should be returned to Denmark. Finally, the
Norwegian nation is not numerous. On the
declaration of its independence it had in its
territory 2,240,000 inhabitants (according to
statistics of 1900), and these same people did
not know Norwegian, but were using the Dan-
ish language, just as some Lithuanians now
speak Polish in Lithuania. And yet Norway is
now independent.
94 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
Hungary and Bohemia, when the rights of
succession to the throne of both states rested
with Archduke Ferdinand, brother of Emperor
Charles V, entered into union in 1526 and have
remained in such a relation to Austria, as Lithu-
ania had to Poland, up to our times. Only in
1867 did Austria grant to Hungary the present
satisfactory constitution. After the collapse of
the Bohemian uprising at the White Mountain,
near Praga, in 1620, Bohemian independence
was altogether destroyed and the Bohemian
nation was the slave of Austria until now.
The Allied states, however, warring on the
Central Powers, recognize the just Bohemian
aspirations; they recognize the necessity of
freeing the Slovaks, who never have formed an
independent state, but belonged for over one
thousand years to Hungary. Not long ago
Slovak Louis Kossuth was the great patriot
of Hungary.
Serbians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, Greeks
have been under the severest oppression since
the victorious migrations of the Turks to
Europe after the fall of Adrianople (1365),
Kosovo battle (1389), and the capture of Con-
stantinople (1453); only in 1829 some of them,
LITHUANIA AS A STATE 95
and only in a small part of territory inhabited
by them, gained their partial independence.
The Congress of Berlin (1878) pushed slightly
forward the work of liberating and uniting
these nations. Even now, Serbia, Bosnia,
Herzegovina, and Croatia may not have the
right to unite for the sole reason that for many
centuries they were exploited and oppressed
by others, although all these provinces are
parts of a single Serbo-Croatian nation. The
Roumanians of Transylvania and Bessarabia
are the same as the inhabitants of Moldavia
and Wallachia; why should not they, being all
Roumanians, possess the right to unite and
govern themselves ^
The peoples of Italy had been disunited since
the fall of Rome. What right had the Italian
patriots in 1860-1870 to abolish all the small
states existing up to that time in Italy and to
form from them one Italy that had no existence
before, and to unite therein Italian peoples,
which until then had been always divided into
small dukedoms and little republics, or ruled
by foreign conquerors ?
All agree that the Finnish nation should be
independent, although Finland never was a
96 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
separate state. One hundred years ago Rus-
sia, by war, took her from Sweden and granted
her autonomy; before that Finland was only
part of Sweden.
If the Lithuanian nation should belong to
the Pohsh state for the reason that one hun-
dred years ago Lithuania was in union with
Poland, so much more should Poland belong
to the Russian state, because during the entire
last century she was part of Russia. But all
agree that the Polish nation has a right to form
its own independent state; then why should
the Polish politicians menace the freedom of
other nations.? The Lithuanian nation has the
same rights to the union of all its parts and to
independence as have all the other nations
cited. To Lithuanian demands for indepen-
dence the bureaucrats of Imperial Russia re-
joined that in that case it would be necessary
to grant independence to the Samoyeds. In
other words, there are in Russia larger and
smaller nations not of Russian extraction, and
the Russian state would suffer by returning to
them or granting them their former indepen-
dence. To this we answer, that there is no use
in speaking about the independence of Samo-
LITHUANIA AS A STATE 97
yeds, Chukchi, and Kamchadales who live in
Siberia on the shores of Behring Sea, so long as
these people themselves do not propose it and
are not conscious of having certain objects,
to satisfy which they would need indepen-
dence. We appreciate the difficulty of the
Russian statesmen in the solving the riddle of
foreign nationalities in such a way that they
shall not injure those nations or the Russian
nation. Independence will not be needed by
all the foreign nations of Russia, especially
those that are very small and hold a difficult
geographical position; for such, autonomy will
suffice, or even more or less home rule. But
we cannot refrain from demanding that which
belongs to us and which is practicable; to do
otherwise would be to sin against justice; being
injured by others we should injure ourselves.
Some Pan-Germans, answering the Lithu-
anian demands for independence, called Lithu-
anians "Bauervolk," the peasant nation, im-
plying that they had too few intelligent men,
skilful in administrative work, to direct the
state. Our answer is: The Bulgarians and
Serbians on the formation of their states were
a peasant people, and had fewer educated men
98 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
than the Lithuanians now possess. Let us
take, for example, the Bulgarians; from 1878,
the year of the Congress of Berlin, until 1912,
thirty-four years, they have become a complete
nation, and only lately they conquered their
former lords, the Turks ! The Bulgarian edu-
cated classes and their statesmen are not in-
ferior to the corresponding classes of Turkey.
Without independence, would the Bulgarians,
under the Turkish rule, have progressed so
much ? Armenia was doomed to remain under
Turkey, after the Berlin Congress. Could
she be compared now to Bulgaria .? True,
the Germans have not found many educated
Lithuanians in the conquered territory of Lithu-
ania lately, but we should remember the cir-
cumstances. Before the war there were a con-
siderable number of educated Lithuanians in
Lithuania, but they were mostly of the younger
generation, under obligation to serve in the
Russian army. True, there were not too many
Lithuanians experienced in the administrative
branch of government, and those few who
were in the heart of Russia, because until the
first revolution (1905) Lithuanians absolutely
were not admitted to any government position
LITHUANIA AS A STATE 99
in their own country, Lithuania. At the be-
ginning of the war all the younger generation
were drafted into the army. In the Russian
army there were numerous officers, doctors,
and other well-educated Lithuanians. Upon
the occupation of Lithuania by the German
army, the Russian Government had ordered
evacuation not only by the regular govern-
mental officials but by the officials of counties,
districts, private schools, banks, factories, and
indeed by all inhabitants. The German army
of occupation has found only those in Lithu-
ania who could not be brought to leave their
country except by force, and whom the Rus-
sian army had no time to drive out. If there
were some educated Lithuanians in the govern-
mental positions or private institutions, they
had to move upon the transfer of said institu-
tions to Russia; otherwise they would have
been left without the means of living. Not-
withstanding the present lack of educated
Lithuanians now in Lithuania, Lithuanians
have their educated classes in Europe as well
as in America; they have a number of officials
experienced in the administration in Russia
or in Lithuania, even officers of the army;
100 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
they have educated men working in the edu-
cational spheres and in manufacture. In the
period of greater freedom, since 1905, Lithu-
anians organized and were conducting their
private institutions of learning, their factories,
their trade, and their credit institutions. After
the war, when the Lithuanian nation is al-
lowed to organize as an independent state, all
the educated classes of that nation will return
to Lithuania, Even now, during a state of
war when the future of Lithuania is uncertain,
educated Lithuanians in Russia are organizing
for the return to their Motherland. To that
end all the energies of educated Lithuanians
in America will also be turned. Their present
state of mind indicates that numerous edu-
cated Lithuanians of America will return to
Lithuania even at risk of great loss in order
to help their Motherland in her first steps
toward independence. We acknowledge that
such doubts about Lithuania have arisen
in the minds of certain statesmen without
ill-will toward Lithuanians; but we must not
forget that the hidden desire of the stronger
nations to hold the weaker ones in subjection
though the latter would possess their national
LITHUANIA AS A STATE loi
self-consciousness and desire to be independent,
is not without influence, and very often sug-
gests objections against the freedom of the
weaker nations. It is hard for a man, a member
of a self-conscious but subjected nation, to
witness the degradation and the injuries of
his nation; but it is also difl&cult for a member
of a great and powerful nation, especially for
an individual directing the affairs of one, to
understand the needs of the weaker nations.
Seeing their nation powerful and exalted, it is
natural for them scornfully to regard those
that are weak and always humiliated, as not
worthy of anything better. They forget that
all men have the same nature; that in all na-
tions there are bad and good traits, and that
the power of the great nations depends mainly
on the extent of their population. Even among
nations there are Diveses who feast sumptu-
ously, and there are famished Lazaruses; but it
IS difficult to find Samaritans to extend their
helping hands to the wounded nations; nearly
every stronger nation, able to harm a weaker
nation, yields to the temptation to do so. But
democracy in all the phases of human life, even
in the policies of states and in the affairs of
102 THE UTHUANIAN NATION
nations, always progresses and expands. The
slogan of the present war was the overthrow
of the arrogant conquerors. Great honor is
due the statesman who said that Hberty should
be returned even to those that were conquered,
because **no people must be forced under
sovereignty under which it does not wish to
live."* Surely, the time must come when the
slavery of nations will be abolished as humanity
in its progress arrived at the abolition of indi-
vidual slavery.
As to the territory of Lithuania, her area
and the number of inhabitants are not at all
too small for the formation of a state. I will
quote the statistics for both from The States-
man's Year-Book of 1914. The area is com-
puted in the English square mile. Within the
boundaries of Lithuania is the whole govern-
ment of Kovno, two-thirds of the government of
Vilna, not all the government of Souvalki, but as
much is included from the Grodno Government
as is left out of Souvalki Government. There-
fore, we shall compute all the Souvalki Govern-
ment and shall not count the Grodno Govern-
* President Wilson's notable communication to the Russian
people, June, 1917.
LITHUANIA AS A STATE
103
ment. The area under Prussian rule is nearly
half as large as the Souvalki Government.
Area
Square
Miles
Population
Population
per Square
Mile
Kovno Government
Two-thirds Vilna
Souvalki and part Grodno
Governments
Prussian-Lithuania
Whole Lithuania about. .
15,518
10,787
4,750
2,375
1,819,000
1,326,600
693,000
300,000
116
121
143
33,430
4,138,600
125
average
Now we quote the area and inhabitants of
the Lettland:
Area
Square
Miles
Population
Population
per Square
Mile
Courland Government. . .
One-half Livonia Gov-
ernment
10,435
8,787
5,661
758,800
740,000
625,000
72
84
109
One-third Vitebsk Gov-
ernment
Whole Lettland
24,883
2,123,800
85
average
Let us now compare the statistics of smaller
European states, excluding the seven largest
states. I do not speak of San Marino, Andora,
104 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
Monaco, Lichtenstein; those are anomalies:
their people do not form a separate nation and
have no other raison d'etre; they are curiosities
of history. Nor should I mention the smaller
duchies in the German Empire having hun-
dreds of square miles and a few hundred thou-
sand inhabitants. These are merely adminis-
trative parts of Germany, and their Dukes are
the heads of counties with the right of succes-
sion. But let us take the states whose popula-
tions have the significance of a nation.
Greece before the war of 1912-1913 had an
area of 25,000 square miles and a population of
2,700,000. In 1 88 1, even with the recently ac-
quired Thessaly, there were only 1,974,000 in-
habitants.
Serbia before the war of 1912-1913 had an
area of 18,650 square miles and a population of
2,912,000, of whom 163,000 were not Serbians.
Only after the last war did Serbia equal Lithu-
ania, with an area of 33,890 square miles and
4,548,000 inhabitants.
Bulgaria before the war of 1912-1913 had
an area of 33,647 square miles with 4,337,000
inhabitants — an area and population almost
equal to Lithuania.
LITHUANIA AS A STATE 105
Denmark has an area of 13,580 square miles
(including the territory of Faroe Islands, north
of England, 540 square miles) and a population
of 2,775,000.
Norway has an area of 124,445 square miles
and 2,392,000 inhabitants; Holland an area of
12,650 square miles and 6,000,000 inhabitants;
in 1829 there were only 2,613,000 inhabitants.
Belgium has an area of 11,373 square miles
and 7,400,000 inhabitants; Switzerland an area
of 15,976 square miles and 3,781,000 inhabi-
tants, of whom 565,000 are foreign residents.
Portugal has an area of 34,254 square miles;
Bavaria an area of 29,290 square miles and 6,-
890,000 inhabitants; and newly created Albania
has an area of about 11,000 square miles, with
about 800,000 inhabitants.
But if Lithuania should form a federation
with Lettiand then there would be a large and
respectable state; Lithuania with 33,430 square
miles, 4,138,000 inhabitants, Lettiand with
24,880 square miles, 2,123,000 inhabitants;
both together, 58,300 square miles, 6,260,000
inhabitants.
Sweden has a population of 5,600,000.
Roumania covers 50,720 square miles and
io6 THE LITHUANIAN NATION
has a population of 7,000,000. In 1899 she had
only 5,956,000 inhabitants.
Lithuania's geographical position, especially
if she is federated with Lettland, could be
envied by many nations. One has only to look
at the map of Europe. The territory of Lithu-
ania-Lettland is in the very centre of Europe
on the way of the best communication by sea
between eastern Europe (Russia) and all the
western world; the navigable rivers of Niemen
and Dvina flow through all this territory; her
ports are Memel, Libau, Vindau, Riga. Would
it not be better if Lithuania, possessing the
largest autonomy, should remain united with
one of her neighboring large states, for instance
Russia .? Such a question is most injudicious.
No nation voluntarily goes under foreign rule.
If Lithuania's independence is possible, then
only a fool or a traitor would vote against her
independence. The nations are wronged and
eliminated not in their independence, but in
their subjection to other nations. If Lithuania
has any commercial or other affairs in Russia
or Germany then these affairs could be safe-
guarded better by international treaties, Lithu-
ania being independent from both of them
LITHUANIA AS A STATE 107
rather than a slave of either of them. The ideal
of the future of the Lithuanians is a complete,
united Lithuania, a free Lithuania; if possible,
in confederation with the equally independent
and undivided Lettland.
APPENDIX
AMERICAN SYMPATHY FOR THE
LITHUANIANS
The American Relief Fund for Lithuanian War
Sufferers, under its principal patron, late Cardinal
Farley of New York, collecting funds for war suf-
ferers, petitioned President Wilson to aid the Lithu-
anian war sufferers. A delegation of this fund,
with the aid of General Collins, of Elizabeth,
N. J., had an audience with the President early in
June asking him to proclaim by executive order the
day on which funds were to be collected for the
Lithuanian war sufferers. President Wilson, at this
audience as well as in his letter to the fund's secre-
tary, expressed his sympathy for the Lithuanians
but stated that without the resolution of Congress
he could not do this.
The American Relief Fund for Lithuanian War
Sufferers arranged for a series of mass-meetings in
and around New York. This was done in Penn-
sylvania by the Lithuanians with the aid of Con-
gressman Casey. The purpose being to bring the
misery of Lithuania to the notice of Congress, which
soon thereafter passed a resolution empowering the
President to proclaim a Lithuanian day for No-
vember I, 1916.
A Central Committee for the Relief of the Lithu-
109
no APPENDIX
anian War Sufferers was organized to collect funds
on this day. The sum of ^200,000 was collected.
LITHUANIANS INVOKE THE AID OF
PRESIDENT WILSON
Brooklyn, N. Y., June 6th, 1916.
The following resolution was drawn up by Alder-
man Gaynor, of New York City, N. Y., and was
presented by him and adopted at a mass-meeting
of the American Relief Fund for Lithuanian War
Sufferers, duly called and held at Brooklyn, N. Y.,
Monday, June 6th, 1916.
Whereas, In the great conflict between the nations
of Europe, our Fatherland has been devastated and its
inhabitants oppressed and large numbers slain as inno-
cent sufferers of the war; and. Whereas, The United
States of America, being the greatest of the neutral
powers of the world, wields a mighty influence with the
combatant forces;
Now, THEREFORE, We, the Rcv. A. M. Milukas and
the Rev. M. Pankauskas, duly authorized delegates of
the American Relief Fund for Lithuanian War Sufferers,
having migrated from our native land of Lithuania to
this land of freedom and independence, and ever pledging
our loyalty to this, our adopted country, sincerely be-
lieving and protecting the principles of America, being
nevertheless in sympathy with our unfortunate brothers
in the Fatherland, in the name of our people earnestly
pray and implore His Excellency, Woodrow Wilson, Presi-
dent of the United States of America, and the members
of his official family, to use their best efforts, powers, and
THE WH ITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
June 10, 1916
My dear Mr. Mllu}sa8:
I looked up the matter you mexrtioned
to me atout the Issuance of proclaniatioiis for
Polish and Jewish relief from my office and find
that such proclamations were Issued, as you
stated, hut "both in pursuance of special reso-
IVitions "by the Senate request iiig that I set a
day aside for those purposes. I have in no
case felt at liberty to issue such a proclama-
tion on my o-wn initiative; that is the reason
that niy recollection in that matter was so clear.
I am none the less sincerely sorry
that I oannot comply with a request to which my
heart accedes.
Cordially and sincerely yours.
Rev. A. M. Miluikas, Secretary, ^ ^ *^
American Relief Fund
For Lithuanian War Sufferers,
Etespeth, Long Island, New York.
APPENDIX III
influence to bring about an ending of this great war, or
at least to alleviate the suffering and to safeguard the
rights, homes, and lives of oppressed Lithuania by diplo-
matic negotiations, as in their wise discretion may seem
best;
And Be It Further Resolved, That a copy of this
resolution, engrossed and authenticated by the President
and Secretary of the American Relief Fund for Lithuanian
War Sufferers, be forwarded to His Excellency, the Presi-
dent of the United States of America, and he be asked to
set a day apart for the contributions of our people and the
friends of our undying race, the Lithuanians, to aid them
to survive this great conflict.
Attest: Rev. B. Zindzius, President.
A. M. MiLUKAS, Secretary.
THE AMERICAN RELIEF FUND FOR LITHU-
ANIAN WAR SUFFERERS PLEADING FOR
LITHUANIA
RESOLUTIONS PETITIONING BOTH HOUSES OF CON-
GRESS TO EXPRESS SYMPATHY FOR LITHUANIA,
IRELAND, UKRAINIA, BOHEMIA, POLAND, ETC.
During the months of June and July of 1916 the
American Relief Fund for Lithuanian War Sufferers
arranged for a series of mass-meetings in the States
of Nev\^ York, New^ Jersey, Connecticut, and Penn-
sylvania : in W^aterbury, Bridgeport, Newr Haven,
Brooklyn, New York, Elizabeth, etc. We wish to
call especial attention to the first of these meetings
— at Newark, N. J.
On June 17, 1916, the mass-meeting at Newark,
112 APPENDIX
N. J., was addressed by Major-General F. J. Col-
lins, of Elizabeth, N. J.; City Solicitor M. Eraser,
and Rev. A. Milukas, secretary of the American
Relief Fund for Lithuanian War Sufferers, the latter
presiding. More than five thousand Lithuanians
unanimously adopted the resolutions of the Amer-
ican Relief Fund.
These mass-meetings were addressed by the offi-
cers of the American Relief Fund for Lithuanian
War Sufferers (Revs. A. Kodis, J. Shestokas, A.
Milukas, M. Pankauskas).
The following resolutions were unanimously
adopted:
Whereas, In the great conflict between the nations of
Europe, our Fatherland has been devastated and its in-
habitants oppressed and large numbers slain as innocent
sufferers of the war; and
Whereas, The United States of America, being the
greatest of the neutral Powers of the world, wields a
mighty influence with the combatant forces;
Now, therefore, we, the Lithuanians of Waterbury,*
Conn., gathered at the mass-meeting under the auspices
of the American Relief Fund for the Lithuanian War Suf-
ferers, having migrated from our native land, Lithuania,
to this land of freedom and independence, and ever pledg-
ing our loyalty to this, our adopted country, sincerely be-
lieving and living up to the principles of America, being
nevertheless in sympathy with our unfortunate brethren
in the Fatherland, in the name of our people earnestly
pray and implore our State's representatives in both
* Or Bayonne, Bridgeport, New Philadelphia, New York,
Brooklyn, Long Island City, Newark, New Haven.
APPENDIX 113
Houses of Congress to use their best efforts, powers, and
influence to bring about an ending to this great war, and
to alleviate the suffering and to safeguard the rights,
homes, and lives of the oppressed Lithuania by diplo-
matic negotiations, as in their wise providence may deem
best.
And Be It Further. Resolved, That a copy of this
resolution, engrossed and authenticated by the officers of
the American Relief Fund for Lithuanian War Sufferers
(Rev. B. Zindzius, president; Rev. M. Pankauskas, vice-
president; Rev. A. Kodis, financial secretary; Rev. J.
Shestokas, treasurer; and Rev. A. M. Milukas, secretary);
also Messrs. Frank Luza and Anthony Karpaviczus,* be
forwarded to the Representatives from our State in both
Houses of Congress of the United States of America, and
they be asked to pass a resolution setting apart a day for
contributions to our suffering brethren, and that American
diplomatic agents be directed to use their best efforts at
the Peace Conference for the restoration of independence
to Lithuania, as well as to other oppressed nations, as
Ireland, Ukrainia, Bohemia, Poland, etc.
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
House of Representatives
Friday, July 21, 1916, pp. 13 191, 13 192
Aid for Lithuanians
Mr. Flood. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous con-
sent to take affairs to designate a day on which the
people of this country may express their sympathy
* In other localities other names were substituted.
114 APPENDIX
by contributing toward the relief of the Lithuanians
in the war zone.
The Speaker. The gentleman from Virginia asks
unanimous consent to take up House Resolution
258 to designate a day for taking up collections for
the Lithuanians in the war zone. Is there objec-
tion ?
Mr. Mann. Let us have the resolution reported.
The clerk read as follows:
House Resolution 258
Whereas, In the various countries now engaged in
war there are four millions of Lithuanians, the great ma-
jority of whom are destitute of food, shelter, and cloth-
ing; and
Whereas, Millions of them have been driven from
their homes without warning, deprived of an opportunity
to make provision for their most elementary wants,
causing starvation, disease, and untold suffering; and
Whereas, The people of the United States of America
have learned with sorrow of this plight of millions of
human beings and have most generously responded to
the cry for help wherever such an opportunity has reached
them;
Therefore be it resolved. That in view of the misery,
wretchedness, and hardships which these four millions
of Lithuanians are suffering the President of the United
States be respectfully asked to designate a day on which
the citizens of this country may give expression to their
sympathy by contributing to the funds now being raised
for the relief of the Lithuanians in the war zone.
The Speaker. Is there objection }
Mr. Mann. Reserving the right to object, I
APPENDIX 115
would like to inquire whether the Committee on
Foreign Affairs proposes also to report a resolution
into the House in reference to the American citi-
zens whose property has been destroyed and many
of whose families have lost a member, all having
been driven out of Mexico — whether we are going
to do anything for our own citizens driven out of
Mexico while we are doing something for foreign
citizens.
Mr. Flood. When the time arrives the Committee
on Foreign Affairs will report a resolution to take
care of American citizens who have been in Mexico
and whose rights of property and person have been
invaded.
Mr. Mann. American citizens who have been
driven out of Mexico and starving to death.
Mr. Flood. None of them are starving.
Mr. Mann. Oh, yes; many of them have noth-
ing to live on except charity.
Mr. Flood. The government has provided money
to bring them out, all who are in there; and my in-
formation is that those who are staying there are
getting along comfortably.
Mr. Mann. We have appropriated money to
bring them out, brought them up to the border,
and dumped them down, and there they are. Their
property has been lost and they have nothing to
live on; while we very properly are donating money
for the Lithuanians abroad, we are doing nothing
for our own people.
ii6 APPENDIX
Mr. Flood. Our people are being taken care of.
If the gentleman desires to introduce a resolution
and have it referred to the Committee on Foreign
Affairs I assure him that the committee will promptly
consider it.
Mr. Cannon. What does the gentleman mean by
saying that they are being taken care of.?
Mr. Flood. I do not think any of them are suf-
fering.
Mr. Cannon. Oh, in the hearing before the Com-
mittee on Appropriations to consider a bill to pay
the expenses of bringing American citizens out, it
appeared that nothing is added by way of sub-
sistence. They are released, substantially, when
they get into American territory and dumped upon
the charity of the communities where they are
brought.
Mr. Flood. Does the gentleman know of any
American citizens brought out of Mexico who are
now suffering for something to eat ?
Mr. Cannon. Oh, the evidence showed that they
came out without property and that all the gov-
ernment is doing is to get them out. I do not know
their names.
Mr. Flood. No; and they are not suffering.
They are taken care of just as indigent people in
this country are taken care of, and this resolution
does not propose that the government shall take
care of the Lithuanians. It simply proposes to
allow charitable Americans who feel so disposed to
APPENDIX 117
make contributions to a fund and to relieve their
suffering.
Mr. Cannon. I am in no sense opposing the
gentleman's resolution. I have no doubt that the
gentleman has Lithuanians in his district.
Mr. Flood. Not a single one.
Mr. Cannon. Well, there are a great many in
my district, and a great many throughout the
North. But there are many French people, there
are many Irish, there are many Belgians, there are
many English, though not so many, and there are
many Austrians and Hungarians, and why does not
the gentleman bring in a resolution suggesting to
the good people of America that wherever there is
suffering in the war zone on the other side of the
water they have the liberty to, and it is suggested
that they do, contribute to relieve that suffering,
because evidently from the standpoint of humanity
and Christianity and charity there is as much need
for the relief and suffering among those people
where they are fighting in concord or where they
are fighting each other. I shall not object to the
gentleman's resolution, but I suggest there are a
hundred million people in this country, and it
might be well to appeal to their charity, that
all of the suffering in the war zone may be re-
lieved.
Mr. Flood. The committee that reported this
resolution will be glad to consider any such resolu-
tion that the gentleman suggests.
ii8 APPENDIX
Mr. Britten. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman
yield ?
Mr. Flood. Yes.
Mr. Britten. Did I understand the gentleman to
say in reply to my colleague from Illinois (Mr.
Mann) that the Americans still living in Mexico are
living there comfortably ?
Mr. Flood. Yes.
Mr. Britten. What information has the gentle-
man or his committee that Americans living in
Mexico are living there comfortably to-day ?
Mr. Flood. I have information that comes from
the State Department that there are no Americans
who are suffering.
Mr. Britten. Then, why did we appropriate
$300,000 to bring them out, if they are living there
comfortably ?
Mr. Flood. Mr. Speaker, we appropriated the
money so that in case there was any trouble there
which would endanger their lives, they might es-
cape it.
Mr. Britten. The gentleman says that they are
living in a comfortable condition in Mexico, and
yet we appropriate $300,000 to improve those con-
ditions by taking them away from there.
Mr. Flood. And some of them are living in com-
fortable conditions here in this country.
Mr. Britten. Are we making their conditions more
comfortable in this country than in Mexico .?
Mr. Flood. I do not know about that. At the
present time those in Mexico may be more com-
APPENDIX 119
fortable than those here, but at the time the appro-
priation was made it was necessary to bring them
out of Mexico.
Mr. Britten. Why ?
Mr. Flood. I stated why to the gentleman, and
if he desires to object to the resolution, let him ob-
ject to it, but I am not going to reply to any more
silly questions.
Mr. Britten. The silliness all comes from that
side of the House.
Mr. Ferris. Mr. Speaker, I demand the regular
order.
The Speaker. The regular order is demanded.
Mr. Stafford. Mr. Chairman, I would like to
inquire of the gentleman about the character of the
resolution. The resolution we passed the other
day providing for a national tag day for the benefit
of the Americans was a concurrent resolution ^
Mr. Flood. It was.
Mr. Stafford. Why did not the gentleman in
this instance adopt the policy that these resolu-
tions calling upon the President to name a tag day
should be concurrent rather than a mere House
resolution, as this is .?
Mr. Flood. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman will re-
call that there was a Senate resolution, not a con-
current resolution, in reference to the Syrians and
the Jews and the Poles and a concurrent resolution
in reference to the Americans. The gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Casey), who introduced this
resolution, simply introduced the House resolu-
120 APPENDIX
tion, and the President having issued proclama-
tions on Senate resolutions therefore the committee
thought he could just as readily issue his proclama-
tion on a House resolution, and reported the House
resolution instead of a concurrent resolution.
Mr. Stafford. Does not the gentleman think
that in these matters both bodies should approve
the calling upon the President to name a day for a
tag for such a purpose ?
Mr. Flood. I think not. A concurrent resolution
may give more dignity, though I do not think it
makes any difference.
The Speaker. Is there objection ?
Mr. Buchanan {pi WVmo'is). Mr. Speaker, reserv-
ing the right to object —
Mr. Ferris. Mr. Speaker, I demand the regular
order.
The Speaker. The regular order is demanded.
Mr. Buchanan (of Illinois). I do not desire to
object, but I am seeking information, the same as
others.
The Speaker. But the Chair is bound to pursue
the rules of the House.
Mr. Buchanan (of Illinois). I would like to ask
who controls the territory in which these people
are ?
The Speaker. Is there objection. (After a
pause.) The Chair hears none. The question is on
agreeing to the resolution.
The resolution was agreed to.
APPENDIX 121
PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT
Whereas, I have received from the House of
Representatives of the United States a resolution,
passed July 21, 1916, reading as follows:
Whereas, In the various countries now engaged
in war there are four millions of Lithuanians, the
greater majority of whom are destitute of food,
shelter, clothing, and
Whereas, Millions of them have been driven
from their homes without warning, deprived of an
opportunity to make provisions for their most ele-
mentary wants, causing starvation, disease, and
untold suffering; and
Whereas, The people of the United States of
America have learned with sorrow of this plight of
millions of human beings, and have most generously
responded to the cry of help whenever such an op-
portunity has reached them;
Therefore he it resolved. That in view of the misery,
wretchedness, and hardships which these four mil-
lions of Lithuanians are suffering the President of
the United States be respectfully asked to designate
a day on which the citizens of this country may give
expression to their sympathy by contributing to the
funds now being raised for the relief of the Lithu-
anians in the war zone.
And whereas, I feel confident that the people of
the United States will be moved to aid a people
stricken by war famine, and disease;
122 APPENDIX
Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of
the United States, in compliance with the request
of the House of Representatives thereof, do appoint
and proclaim Wednesday, November i, 1916, as a
day upon which the people of the United States may
make contributions as they feel disposed for the aid
of the stricken Lithuanian people.
Contributions may be addressed to the American
Red Cross, Washington, D. C, which will care for
proper distribution.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand
and caused the seal of the United States to be af-
fixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this thirty-first
day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand
nine hundred and sixteen, and of the Independence
of the United States the one hundred and forty-first.
(Signed) Woodrow Wilson.
APPENDIX 123
APOSTOLIC DELEGATION
United States of America
18 II Biltmore Street,
Washington, D. C, October 8, 1917.
No. 4348-e.
This No. should be prefixed to the answer.
Rev. Fathers B. Zindzius, J. Shestokas, and A.
KODIS,
Of the American Relief Fund for Lithuanian
War Sufferers.
Reverend dear Fathers.
I sent your check of 30,000 Lire to the Holy Father
through His Eminence, Cardinal Gasparri, Secre-
tary of State to His Holiness, and asked him to
take charge of its being dispensed for the relief of
the Catholic Lithuanians who inhabit the territory
which was occupied or is occupied by belligerent
armies.
In answer I have received a letter from His
Eminence, the Cardinal Secretary of State, who in-
forms me that he has transmitted the sum in ques-
tion to the Executive of the Lithuanian Committee
of Lausanne, Switzerland, to be distributed in
favor of the Lithuanian war sufferers.
His Eminence also asks me to tell you that His
Holiness was very much pleased by your devotion,
and that he encourages you to continue the good
124 APPENDIX
work which you are doing, and that he sends you
his ApostoHc blessing.
With the kind regards and best wishes, I beg to
remain, Reverend Fathers,
Sincerely yours in Christ,
(Signed) John Bonzano,
Archbishop of Melitene, Apostolic Delegate.
(Extract from the article in Free Lithuania, describing the activi-
ties of American Relief Fund for Lithuanian War Sufferers.)
AMERICAN LITHUANIANS' PETITION TO
HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XV
We, the Roman Catholic Lithuanians, kneeling
at the throne of His Holiness, wish to express our
filial devotion to the Apostolic See and our gratitude
for all the favors that His Holiness has shown to-
ward the Lithuanian nation.
Your HoHness ! It is the great misery of our be-
loved brothers in Lithuania that has forced us to
approach your tender heart. Since the outbreak
of the European conflict our country has been the
arena of many struggles between the Russian and
German armies, and has become almost entirely
devastated. Our fathers and brothers are forcibly
enrolled in the two opposing belligerent armies,
while destitute aged people, women, and children
have no shelter and are enduring untold sufferings
of hunger and cold, many of them prematurely hav-
ing already gone to their graves. It is especially
APPENDIX 125
hard for the little ones who, on account of lack of
the proper food, cannot withstand the hardships of
the war.
Although the sufferings of Lithuania are much
greater than those of Belgium and Poland because
the two great armies several times have crossed
and recrossed the Lithuanian plains, destroying and
confiscating everything on their way, nevertheless
the charitable hand of the world, while helping
others, as Belgium, Poland, etc., has not been ex-
tended to Lithuania. Many individuals of different
nationalities have contributed for the suffering
Lithuanians, but as those donations were trans-
mitted through the Polish Committee in Vilna, they
did not reach the Lithuanian sufferers, the money
being used for the establishment of Polish schools in
Lithuania for the purpose of Polonizing our nation.
It is a sad fact that Lithuania has been lately so
little known to the world that even the name of
Lithuania has been erased from the map of Europe,
and not having representatives either at the courts
of the Great Powers or with the Apostolic See there
has been no way by which Lithuanian rights could
be defended, nor the misfortunes of that country
told to the world.
From the very beginning of the war we have or-
ganized relief committees among our own people,
but on account of the great army of destitutes we
are lacking power and means to bring the neces-
sary relief to them.
126 APPENDIX
Therefore, forced by the necessity and prompted
by your generous heart toward suffering humanity,
we most humbly ask Your HoHness to set apart a
day in which the CathoHc people, by generous do-
nations in the churches, could show their charity
to the starving widows and orphans of Lithuania.
We pray you. Holy Father, to bless us and our
country and further extend your paternal care.
This petition was obtained at and indorsed by
the convention of representatives from the Lithu-
anian National Council of America, Lithuanian
National Fund for the War Sufferers, Lithuanian
Roman Catholic Federation of America, Lithuanian
Roman Catholic Total Abstinence Alliance, Lithu-
anian Roman Catholic Federation of Labor, Lithu-
anian Roman Catholic Women's Alliance of Amer-
ica, and Knights of Lithuania, held on January
lo-ii, 1917, at Pittsburgh, Pa.
It was voted that a copy of this petition, through
the delegates, Rev. J. J. Jakaitis and Doctor J. J.
Bielskis, be presented to the Apostolic Delegate,
His Excellency Mgr. John Bonzano, of Washing-
ton, D. C, for transmission to His Holiness Pope
Benedict XV.
Rev. John J. Jakaitis,
President of the Lithuanian National
Fund for the War Sufferers.
Dr. Julius J. Bielskis,
President of the Lithuaiiian National
Council of America.
APPENDIX 127
AMERICAN LITHUANIANS' DECLARATION
(handed to the president of the united states;
the apostolic delegate and the ambassadors
of the european countries at washington,
d. c, in the month of january, i917.)
The Lithuanian nation, a separate branch of the
Indo-European race, has been dwelHng since pre-
historic times on the southwest coast of the Baltic
Sea in the basin of Niemen.
Of all nations living on the Baltic coast, Lithu-
ania alone was a powerful state in the thirteenth
century. In the fourteenth century the boundaries
of the Lithuanian state reached from the Baltic
Sea to the Black Sea. In times of her political
strength Lithuania stopped the advance of the Teu-
tons toward the east (1410), and by thus checking
the advance of the Teutons, assisted in maintain-
ing the equiHbrium of Europe. From the other
side Lithuania, with her own breast, protected
Europe's Christian civilization from the onflow of
the Tartar hordes.
Lithuania in such times did not know slavery.
For ages she formed her own political traditions and
her own independent customs. Although in the
sixteenth century, on account of the wars with the
Muscovites, Lithuanian noblemen were forced to
form a political union with the Poles (similar to
that now existing between Austria and Hungary),
128 APPENDIX
nevertheless, up to the partition of Poland and
Lithuania (latter part of eighteenth century) not
only did Lithuania maintain her national individ-
ualism, but she succeeded also in maintaining her
own political self-government.
Later, on, in times of great pressure from the side
of Russia, although all Lithuanian presses were
closed, and no papers or books were printed in the
country from 1864 to 1904, the Lithuanian desire
and hope for independence was not subdued. The
vision of independence was kept alive in the peas-
ant songs and in the literature printed outside the
Russian boundaries.
In the year 1905 the Lithuanian nation played a
great part in the movement for the emancipation
of different nationalities composing the Russian
Empire. The same year (November 21 and 22)
about two thousand Lithuanian delegates from all
parts of Lithuania gathered in the city of Vilna,
the old capitol of Lithuania. All Lithuanian po-
litical parties were represented and the delegates
unanimously demanded political freedom for Lithu-
ania.
Later, severe suppression on the part of Russia
prevented the attainment of independence. Never-
theless, the Lithuanians gained the right in some
degree to cultivate the field of literature and edu-
cation, and during ten years of peaceful cultural
work the people have shown unusual skill and adapt-
ness in writing and in organizing schools and edu-
APPENDIX 129
catlonal societies. Periodicals and literature in
general have circulated throughout the country,
educational and economic institutions have sprung
up, and the people have built up their own com-
merce and industry.
The great European war has found Lithuania
thus building itself up, while at the same time
politically divided between the two powerful gov-
ernments of Russia and Germany. Lithuanians
have been forced in retreating to devastate their
own native country, and in advancing have been
compelled to waste the country of their brothers
who are forced to serve in the armies of one or the
other of the belligerents.
At this critical moment, when the world is called
upon to solve a very important problem, namely,
that of establishing a humane, and assuring a last-
ing peace. We, the Empowered Representa-
tives OF THE Lithuanian Nation, assume the
privilege and duty of declaring that it is our sin-
cere belief that lasting peace can be established only
if every living nation be given the right to deter-
mine her own destiny.
IN THE NAME OF OUR NATION WE DECLARE
THAT;
Whereas, Lithuanians, since prehistoric times have
dwelt in the same place without seeking to add to their
territory by any form of conquest, and
Whereas, Lithuania has shown great power of organ-
ization and ability to rule herself upon her own soil, and
130 APPENDIX
Whereas, political freedom of Lithuania has become
an inalienable attribute of the Lithuanian life and spirit,
and
Whereas, Lithuania has had a glorious political part
and has made signal sacrifices on behalf of humanity, and
Whereas, Lithuania, in the thirteenth century, was
wholly united under one government, and for centuries
maintained its union and independence, and
Whereas, united and politically independent Lithu-
ania could accomplish her cultural and national ideals,
and be of real benefit to the whole of humanity, and
Whereas, divided and repressed Lithuania would be
a constant menace ever threatening European peace.
Therefore, Be It Resolved: That we, the empow-
ered representatives of the Lithuanian nation, demand
of the representatives of the governments that will, at
the close of the war, negotiate peace:
(i) That ethnographical Lithuania be united in one
political body, and
(2) That united Lithuania be given absolute political
independence, and
Be It Further Resolved: That the Reverend John
Zilius and Doctor Julius J. Bielskis be, and they hereby
are, empowered and instructed to present a copy of this
declaration to the ambassadors of all European countries,
and to publish this declaration in such manner as they
deem to be to the best interests of the Lithuanian people.
Lithuanian National Council of America,
By Its Component Representatives:
Lithuanian Roman Catholic Alliance of America,
By
National Fund,
By
APPENDIX 131
Lithuanian Roman Catholic Federation of America,
By
Lithuanian Total Abstinence Alliance,
By
Lithuanian Federation of Labor,
By
Lithuanian Roman Catholic Women's Alliance of
America,
By
Knights of Lithuania.
President, Dr. Julius J. Bielskis,
53 Capital Ave., Hartford, Conn.
Secretary, Dr. Fr. Augustaitis,
614 W. Mahanoy Ave., Mahanoy City, Pa.
CONVENTION OF THE LITHUANIANS OF
AMERICA
March 13-14, 1918, a convention of the Lithu-
anians residing in the United States of America
was held at the Madison Square Garden Theatre,
New York City. The 1,500 delegates, representing
1,000 organizations and colonies, assembled for the
purpose of declaring their determined will regard-
ing the future of their mother country, Lithuania.
The following resolutions were adopted:
Whereas, The Lithuanian Nation forms an ethno-
graphic, cultural, economic, and political inseparable
body; and
Whereas, The historic past of Lithuania and the pres-
132 APPENDIX
ent democratic development of the world reaffirms to
the Lithuanian Nation the undeniable right to re-estab-
lish its own sovereign State; and
Whereas, In the question of its ultimate political des-
tiny the Lithuanian Nation maintains the right to fol-
low its own national ideals; and
Whereas, Nations can successfully pursue their cul-
tural courses and develop their economic resources only
when in possession of their full political freedom; and
Whereas, Every nation has an inherent right to decide
its own political destiny; and
Whereas, The present war conditions have rendered
the recognition of Lithuanian political freedom of inter-
national importance and therefore it becomes a subject
to be deliberated upon at the international peace con-
gress; and
Whereas, Only the international congress can give a
true guarantee of the political sovereignty of Lithuania
and not any warring nation striving now to enslave Lithu-
ania; and
Whereas, Our highly esteemed President, Woodrow
Wilson, adheres to the principle declared by him to the
United States Senate, January 22, 1917, that
"No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not
recognize and accept the principle that governments de-
rive all their just powers from consent of the governed,
and that no right anywhere exists to hand people about
from sovereignty to sovereignty a's if they were property."
Therefore, the Convention of the Lithuanians of
America, after grave consideration of the present political
situation of Lithuania, resolved,
L — To respectfully request the President of the United
States and the allied as well as the neutral governments
of the world, to recognize the following demands:
I. That for the full and unhindered development of
Lithuania it is necessary that Lithuania become a sover-
APPENDIX 133
eign and independent democratic state within its own
ethnographic boundaries, with the necessary economic
corrections.
2. That the independence of Lithuania be assured by
the international peace congress, and that delegates of
Lithuania be given right to take part with full deliberative
powers.
IL — That these resolutions be respectfully presented
to our highly esteemed President, Woodrow Wilson, who
has unceasingly championed protection of the rights of
small and subject nationalities, and to all allied and neu-
tral governments.
Be It Further Resolved, That the President, Wood-
row Wilson, and the nations of the world, be respect-
fully requested that the right to a separate and delibera-
tive representation at the impending international peace
conference be given to the representatives of the people of
Lithuania.
LITHUANIANS PLACE THEIR HOPES OF
INDEPENDENCE ON PRESIDENT WILSON
AND POPE BENEDICT XV
The mass-meeting of Lithuanian residents of
counties of Queens and Nassau, of the State of New
York, was held on September 23, 191 7, at the
Parochial Hall of Transfiguration Church, Hull
Avenue and Remsen Place, Maspeth, New York
City.
The addresses were made by Rev. A. M. Milukas,
rector of Transfiguration Church, Rev. Dr. A.
Maliauskis, of Chicago, and Mn A. Novicki, of
134 APPENDIX
Maspeth. The following resolutions were unani-
mously adopted:
Whereas, The aggressions and outrages of autocracy
against the liberty of the people forced the United States
to take arms to defend the peoples' rights and liberty on
land and sea.
Whereas, The United States being morally, physic-
ally, and materially one of the most powerful countries
can accomplish great things in this direction.
Whereas, The United States entered the war with all
her powers will bring the victory for democracy.
Whereas, During this war the small nations suffered
the most and some of them are entirely devastated.
Whereas, Lithuania on eastern battle-front for three
years serving as a battle-field and contributing half a
million of her sons for the Allied armies, thereby taking
an active part in the war for liberty and justice.
Whereas, The most appreciated words of President
Wilson in the recent note to Russia and also the proclaimed
principle of nationalities by the Allies assure the restora-
tion of liberty for the small nations.
Whereas, We are especially grateful to President Wil-
son as well as His Holiness Pope Benedict XV for their
efforts to restore the freedom of peoples living in the ter-
ritories of the former Poland, that is the historical dual
Polish-Lithuanian state, but the experience of centuries
has amply proved that the union of peoples of different
nationality and race, as are Lithuanians and Poles, under
their dual and independent governments, could produce
only a continuous strife, disorder, and anarchy, the prin-
cipal cause of the final fall of both those united nations.
Therefore be it resolved. That we, the Lithuanians of
APPENDIX 135
the State of New York having immigrated from our na-
tive land, Lithuania, to this land of liberty, and ever
pledging our loyalty to this our adopted country, sin-
cerely believing and living up to the principles of the
United States of America, being nevertheless in sympathy
with our brothers in Lithuania.
(i) We appeal to the Congress of the United States
through the representatives of our State, that the Congress
of the United States discussing peace terms should include
the demand for the restoration of Lithuania not in union
with Poland, but as a separate state.
(2) That the Government of the United States support
the rights of all nations participating or affected in this
war, be they large or small. That these rights can only
be satisfactorily adjusted after considering the just
claims of the representatives of respective nations.
(3) We earnestly pray and implore the representatives
of our State in both Houses of the United States Con-
gress to bring to pass the above measure.
Be it further resolved, That Dr. J. J. Bielskis, be, and he
hereby is, empowered and instructed to present a copy
of this resolution to the representatives of the State of
New York in both Houses of the United States Congress
at Washington, D. C.
A. M. MiLUKAS, President.
rcg^^ I A. NoviCKi, Secretary.
Sworn and subscribed before me this 4th day of
October, 19 17.
Kazimier Brusak, Notary Public.
Notary Public, Kings Co.; Kings Co. Reg.
No. 9032; Kings Co. Clerk's No. 203.
136 APPENDIX
House of Representatives, U. S.
committee on military affairs
Washington, D. C, October lo, 1917.
Rev. a. M. Milukas.
Dear Sir: I have your copy of resolutions adopted
by Lithuanians and I am heartily in sympathy with
the ideas they convey. Am sorry Congress is not
in session or I would have them put in the Con-
gressional Record.
If there is any way in which I can be of service
to you, I shall be glad.
Sincerely,
Geo. R. Lunn.
July 4th, 1918.
His Excellency President Woodrow Wilson,
White House, Washington, D. C.
As it behooves good American Roman Catholics
of Lithuanian descent we began this day with pray-
ers in our church for the success of our armies on
the field of battle, and for the welfare of our dear
boys in our country's service. Now we are to start
on New York's loyalty parade, proudly carrying in
front of us Old Glory, and our church service flags
with 106 stars out of 500 male membership. We
turn to greet you as our Chief Commander, pledging
our lives and properties on the altar of our country.
We hope and pray that in the near future you,
Mr. President, as the leader of victorious allies will
APPENDIX 137
be able to vindicate the violated democracy, to re-
store with our Holy Father the Pope, the right and
justice, and that among other things you will help
to re-establish on the shore of the Baltic Sea a free
and independent Lithuanian state.
A. M. MiLUKAS, Rector,
Alex Grabauskas , ^
/ rustees,
Simon Cerebejus
Of Transfiguration Church, Mas-
pet h, L. I., New York City.
, , y^ o Washington, July 6, 19 18.
My Dear Sir: ^ j j > y
Allow me to acknowledge the receipt of your
telegram of July 4th and to say that I shall have
pleasure in bringmg it to the attention of the
President.
In his behalf let me thank you and all those con-
cerned for your friendly and patriotic assurances.
Sincerely yours,
J. P. Tumulty,
Secretary to the President.
Rev. A. M. Milukas,
Maspeth, Long Island, N. Y.
138 APPENDIX
THE RESOLUTION OF THE
LITHUANIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL
We, the Lithuanian National Council, represent-
ing the central organizations, comprising about
750,000 Lithuanians of America, in a joint session
held November 27th, 1918, in the Hotel McAlpin
in the City of New York, have unanimously adopted
the following resolution:
1. Whereas, Provisional Government of Lithu-
ania has been duly elected by the State Council of
Lithuania, consisting of Professor Augustinas Vol-
demaras as Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs;
Martinas Ychas, ex-member of Russian Duma from
Lithuania, as Minister of Treasury; Doctor Alexas
Alekna as Minister of the Interior; Major-General
Zukauskis as Minister of War; Doctor Jokantas as
Minister of Education; Engineer Stasys Liands-
bergis as Minister of Communication; Count Alex-
ander Tyskevicius as Minister of Agriculture; Judge
Krisciukaitis as Minister of Justice; Attorney Petras
Leonas, ex-member of Russian Duma from Lithu-
ania, as State Comptroller.
2. Whereas, The newly elected Government of
Lithuania possesses confidence of the majority of
the people and is able to maintain justice, to pre-
serve peace and order in the country and to per-
form necessary reconstruction work until the Con-
stitutional Assembly shall be convened at Vilnius.
3. Whereas, In Lithuania there has been
APPENDIX 139
formed an army consisting of 60,000 men or more to
enforce peace and order and to support Provisional
Government.
Therefore Be It Resolved, i. That we, represen-
tatives of the Lithuania National Council, recog-
nize the authority of the Provisional Government
and hereby pledge our fervent support to it.
2. That we respectfully request President Wood-
row Wilson, the Government and the people of the
United States to recognize the independence and
sovereignty of the Lithuanian nation and her Pro-
visional Government as the legal and official rep-
resentative body of Lithuania.
3. That representatives of the Government of
Lithuania shall be admitted to deliberations, de-
cisions and actions at the Peace Conference.
4. That we fully believe in principles of democ-
racy as expressed by President Woodrow Wilson
and are staunch supporters of creating a League of
Nations and that the Lithuanian nation shall be
admitted to the membership.
5. It is further Resolved, That a copy of these
resolutions be sent to President Woodrow Wilson,
Secretary of State Robert Lansing, and Chairmen
of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate.
J. S. LoPATTO, Chairman.
V. F. Jankauskas, Secretary.
140 APPENDIX
LITHUANIANS IN AMERICA PROVE THEIR
PATRIOTISM TO THEIR ADOPTED
COUNTRY
Treasury Department
second federal reserve district
Brooklyn Liberty Loan Committee
Headquarters District 93, 102 Montague Street,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
October 23, 1918.
St. George's Church,
207 York Street, Brooklyn.
Rev. a. p. Kodis:
Beg to advise you that total subscriptions re-
ceived from your church amount to ^10,950 for the
Fourth Liberty Loan.
Thanking you for your co-operation, we are
Yours for the Fourth Liberty Loan,
J. M. Heatherton,
Chairman Precinct 93.
P. S. — Your additional subscriptions received
to-day make a total amount of ^41,950.
Similar letters were received by nearly a hundred
of the Lithuanian Roman Catholic rectors in this
country. The official figures of the Liberty Loan
Committee show that Lithuanians are ahead of
many more numerous nationalities of the U. S. A.
in their patriotic works.
APPENDIX 141
LITHUANIANS AT THE INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE
June 27-29, 1916, at the International Conference,
Lausanne, Switzerland, where twenty-eight nations
were represented, five accredited Lithuanian dele-
gates were present — three from Lithuania and two
from the United States of America. During a ses-
sion of the conference a long Lithuanian declaration
was read, which, after reciting the historical events
in the Lithuanian state, presented the following
conclusion:
"Relying on these bases, the Lithuanian nation with its
own traditions, culture, national ideals and its individu-
ality, believe that the only way a nation can survive is
to acquire its own rights in all domains of life, and that
the nation should direct its own destiny. The young
Lithuania presenting the facts that for centuries Lithu-
ania was an independent state, and now asking for her
own rights, it is not her object to impose on the rights of
those nations which were included and formed a part of
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
"The Lithuanian nation, which for centuries experi-
enced so much disappointment, sees the guarantee of her
future and the sufficient guarantee of her freedom only
in the complete independence of Lithuania."
Over 200,000 Lithuanian refugees in Russia who
were forced to abandon their homes and flee to
unknown countries, to be scattered in all parts of
Russia, called a conference at Petrograd, May 27,
142 APPENDIX
191 7, to consider, through their delegates, the situ-
ation of their mother country, Lithuania.
The following is a conclusion of the adopted
resolutions:
Be It Resolved: i. That the ethnographic Lithuania
be established into an independent state, continually
neutral.
2. The independence and neutrality of Lithuania must
be guaranteed at the Peace Congress.
3. Lithuanian representatives must be admitted to the
Peace Congress.
LITHUANIA SEPARATED FROM RUSSIA
In 1915 Germany took the v^^hole of Lithuania
from Russia, established custom-houses and fixed
the boundaries between Lithuania, Germany, and
Poland. The people of this country are being called
citizens of Lithuania.
The only tie that bound Lithuania to Russia was
the Czar, as he had the title of Grand Duke of
Lithuania, but now that he is deposed, ipso facto,
Lithuania becomes separated from Russia. Russia
is now a republic, and the hands of Lithuania are
again freed.
In the latter part of 191 7 Germany transferred
the reins of government in Lithuania from the Ger-
man military to the Lithuanian civil government.
The Lithuanian Diet was called September 18-22,
1917, at the city of Vilna; 215 delegates, represent-
APPENDIX 143
ing all parts of the country and all political parties
in Lithuania, assembled to confer concerning the
destiny of Lithuania. The Valstijos Taryba (State
Council) composed of 20 persons, representing all
political parties, was organized.
A NATION MARTYR
(Rev. Dr. A. Maliauskis, in Philadelphia Press, 1916.)
The fearful European War has throttled with its
bloody hand the innocent, unoffending, peacefully
abiding, and patiently bearing Lithuanian people
under the rule of both Germany and Russia.
The idol of war, the inhuman desires of the op-
pressors, are threatening the Lithuanian nation
with final destruction.
Because many are not familiar with the misfor-
tunes of Lithuania we will briefly attempt to in-
form them.
Lithuanians are neither Slavs nor Germans, but a
separate branch of an Indo-European people. The
Lithuanian language is far more ancient than the
Slavonian and has a pedigree of nobility strikingly
resembling the archaic Sanscrit.
During the Middle Ages when Lithuania was
governed by her own rulers, Mindaugas, Gediminas,
Algirdas, Kestutis, Vitautas, Jagela, she was one
of the most powerful nations of Europe.
Her boundaries extended from the Baltic to the
144 APPENDIX
Black Sea. The Poles, her neighbors, wishing to
strengthen their domain, invited Jagela, the Lithu-
anian ruler, to the throne of Poland (1385). From
that time Lithuania and Poland had a common
King.
In 1569 a confederation was formed between
Poland and Lithuania. Poles, however, proved to
be not pleasant companions. They took away from
Lithuania the rich provinces of Podolia, Volynia,
and Kiev. That stirred up an internal discord
which naturally weakened the mutual power of both
nations. Finally Russia, Prussia, and Austria, tak-
ing advantage of that internal strife, toward the
close of the eighteenth century divided among
themselves the both nations. The large portion of
Lithuania was seized by Russia, the smaller by
Prussia.
From that time started a long and incessant op-
pression, Germany striving to Germanize Lithu-
anians and Russia to Russianize them.
In Russia there prevails a national orthodox re-
ligion. The fact of being orthodox implies being a
Russian. Russia overran Lithuania with its or-
thodox priests with the purpose of proselytizing
Lithuania to the national orthodox religion, and
thereby striving to induce them to be Russianized.
But the rude orthodox priests of Russia by their
conduct incurred rather the hatred of the people
than the conversion which they sought.
The Russian Government, however, attempted
APPENDIX 145
even stronger means of Russianizing Lithuanians. In
1864 she strictly prohibited the study of the Lith-
uanian language and abolished the Lithuanian press.
But the people, however, were anxious for edu-
cation. They could not forget their lost liberty.
Secretly and by stealth they brought Lithuanian
literature from Prussian Lithuania and disseminated
it among the people. Secretly and by night, hid-
den from Russian police and gendarmes, they read
these books and papers and taught their children
to read.
Woe befell them whom the Russian Government
found teaching to their children their own language
or spreading the Lithuanian literature. Upon such
they imposed enormous fines, imprisoned them, or
even sent them to Siberia, where they were com-
pelled to meet death by murderous hand or ferocious
beasts.
Thus suffered Lithuania for forty years. Finally
the Russian Government was convinced that not-
withstanding its ferocious persecutions and pro-
hibition of literature and education almost all the
Lithuanians were able to read and write in their
own tongue.
At the outbreak of the revolution the Russian
Government, in order to gain the Lithuanian good-
will and at the same time in order to prevent them
joining the revolution, on the loth of April, 1904,
allowed the restoration of the Lithuanian press.
Lithuania suffered not less even in the economic
146 APPENDIX
line. Russia, forming commercial treaties with
Germany, did not consider Lithuania. Lithuania
is almost exclusively an agricultural country. The
sources of its wealth are almost entirely in agri-
culture. But, thanks to commercial treaties, Lithu-
ania could not sell its produce in Germany nor pro-
cure from Germany necessary machinery or other
implements by reason of the exorbitant tariff, so
that Lithuanians were unable to sell their products
for obtainable profit and were obliged to pay ex-
orbitant prices for inferior machinery and other
implements manufactured by Russia.
The union of endeavor for economic improvement
was greatly discouraged and hindered by the Rus-
sian Government, and although through great
pressure organization could be perfected, still they
were not sure of permanent existence. Any higher
official or governor has legislative, executive, and
judicial power in Lithuania. This was abolished in
England in the fourteenth century. Those officials
can dissolve any organization according to their
whim, though without any reason.
All officials throughout, from the lowest to the
highest, were Russians sent from Russia, knowing
neither the customs of the people nor the demands
of the country, though the most learned Lithuanian
could not be an official in his own country.
The conditions have not improved even during
the war. The leading paper of Russia, Novoje
Vremia, time and again deplores that Russia is
APPENDIX 147
weak and not able to withstand the German in-
vasion because being composed of many national-
ities, whilst Germany is one.
And, above all, that paper maintains that Russia
must exert her utmost power to abolish after the
war a plurality of nations and have all nations com-
bined in one.
Of the same opinion is the strongest nationalist
party. Hence while Lithuania's children are shed-
ding their blood in defense of the Russian Power,
Russia is planning a final destruction for the Lithu-
anians.
Germany has the same designs over Lithuania.
Professor Dr. T. Kochler, in the Vossische Zeitung,
No. 145, of 1916, philosophically explains how to
denationalize Lithuania. The renowned German
writer, Dr. P. Rohrbach, in his work Russland und
Wir (Russia and We), (Stuttgart, 191 5), writes that
the aim of Germany is to Germanize Lithuania. To
accomplish this the government is to buy the
Lithuanian lands and to have them colonized by
Germans. When there will be in Lithuania more
Germans than Lithuanians then the denationaliza-
tion will be easily accomplished. Of the same
opinion is the German statesman, Broderic Kur-
mahlen, in his work. New Eastern Country, pub-
lished in Berlin in 1915.
Thus each promises to Lithuania nothing but
final destruction.
Because the great magnanimous American peo-
148 APPENDIX
pie have for their ideal the liberty and humanity of
all nations, the martyred Lithuanian nation is sup-
plicating for aid in the hope that the noble American
people, with their authoritative word, will help
Lithuania to destroy the iron bonds and throw
aside the oppressing yoke of the strangers.
1,000,000 LEFT HOMES AS RUSSIANS
RETIRED
LITHUANIAN PRIEST DESCRIBES HEAVY TRIALS OF
GREAT ARMY OF REFUGEES
A movement to help the hundreds of thousands of
Lithuanians, Letts, Poles, and Jews who were swept
along with the retiring Russian armies will be un-
dertaken here by Rev. Dr. Anthony Maliauskis, a
Lithuanian priest, w^ho reached here on Wednes-
day on the Norwegian steamer Frederick VIII.
Before he left Russia he went from Vilna to Petro-
grad and obtained first-hand information regarding
the conditions of these refugees, estimated at more
than 1,000,000 men, women, and children. Accord-
ing to the best estimates accessible, these refugees
include some 500,000 Lithuanians and 200,000 Jews.
More than 160,000 families are involved in this
exodus caused by the eastern war.
"A Russian general staff officer told me," said
Dr. Maliauskis, "that as these great crowds of
refugees were swept onward by the retiring move-
ments of the troops many of them fell exhausted
APPENDIX 149
and died of hunger by the roadside. Others tried
to ward off starvation by eating every green thing
to be found in the fields and forests. Even the
grass and shrubs by the roadside were devoured.
In the stress and confusion of the time it was im-
possible for the military to afford any aid whatso-
ever, as the latter could not provide for its own
needs.
"Some of the few Russian refugees found friends
or relatives, it is said. But the other homeless ones,
many of whom were swept forward to points as
distant as Moscow and even farther, found that no
provision could be made to shelter so vast a num-
ber or to feed them. A majority of them were from
the Russian Lithuanian provinces of Kovno, Su-
valki, and Vilna.
"I was told that thousands of women and chil-
dren were living in fields and forests without food,
many of them ill from privation and exposure on
the long and weary flight. All are helpless, for
everything they own has been wiped out. With
conditions as they are at present, and the vast num-
ber of persons to be cared for, it is extremely doubt-
ful if they can expect any aid from Russian charity
in the immediate future.
"The plight of these refugees from the eastern
battle-front appears to be far worse than anything
of the kind that afflicted the people of Belgium. I
have come over here to make an appeal direct to
the Lithuanians to aid them. There are about
ISO APPENDIX
500,000 Lithuanians in America and 10 per cent of
them are in New York. . . .
"The condition of many of the people in the
Lithuanian provinces of Russia, who have been
buffeted back and forth between the two great
forces in two invasions and many battles, is not a
great deal better than that of the refugees. In
many cases their homes and property are lost, and
they are without resources of any kind except the
bare land." — New York Times, October 30, 191 5.
400,000 FARMS RUINED BY FOE IN
LITHUANIA
150,000 Starving and Penniless Civilians Liv-
ing IN Cellars and Dugouts
Geneva, May 18. — The Lithuanian Bureau at
Lausanne has made public statistics received from
the region of Lithuania occupied by the Germans.
From these it appears that 150,000 civilians are
penniless and starving, living in cellars and dugouts.
Four hundred thousand farms in that region are
reported to have been devastated. The death-rate
is said to be growing alarmingly on account of the
unsanitary conditions under which the people are
living. — New York Times, May 19, 191 7.
APPENDIX 151
CASE OF LITHUANIA FOR
INDEPENDENCE
United States Senator Lodge in Favor of
Free Lithuania
We read in the Congressional Record, vol 57,
December 3, 1918:
Mr. Lodge. Mr. President, I have here a state-
ment of the committee representing the Lithuanian
associations in this country. Lithuania is a coun-
try for which, I am sure, any one who has examined
the facts feels deepest sympathy, which I hope will
be given independent government and freedom in
the terms of peace. I desire to present in their
behalf to the Senate their case for independence,
as they call it, and ask that it be printed as a public
document and be referred to the Committee on
Foreign Relations.
The Vice-President. Without objection, it is
so ordered.
152 APPENDIX
LITHUANIAN ORGANIZATIONS IN AMER-
ICA ENGAGED IN THE WORK OF RE-
STORING THE INDEPENDENT STATE
OF LITHUANIA
Lithuania National Council, representing:
Lithuanian Roman Catholic Alliance of America,
National Fund (raised over ^400,000), Lithu-
anian Roman Catholic Federation of America,
Lithuanian Total Abstinence Union, Lithu-
anian Federation of Labor, Lithuanian Roman
Catholic Women's Alliance of America, and
Knights of Lithuania.
Council on Lithuanian National Affairs.
Society of Lithuanian Patriots.
Lithuanian Labor Council.
Lithuanian Alliance of America.
Lithuanian National League.
Lithuanian Independence Fund.
Lithuanian National Fund.
Lithuanian Development Corporation.
Young Men's Circle.
Lithuanian National Treasury.
American Relief Fund for Lithuanian War Sufferers.
Liberation Fund of Lithuania.
Lithuanian Soldiers Aid Association.
Lithuanian Relief Fund for War Orphans and
Widows.
Lithuanian Central War Relief Committee.
APPENDIX 153
Lithuanian American Relief Committee.
Lithuanian CathoHc Truth Society.
Lithuanian Priests Association.
Lithuanian Educational Society Motinele.
BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS PUBLISHED IN
BEHALF OF INDEPENDENT LITHUANIA
"Lithuanica." Published under the auspices of
American Relief Fund for Lithuanian War
Sufferers, Zvaigzde, Philadelphia, Pa., 1916.
"A Memorandum upon the Lithuanian Nation,"
Paris, 191 1.
"A Sketch of the Lithuanian Nation," Paris,
1912.
*'The Lithuanian, Ruthenian, Jewish and Polish
Questions," London, 191 5.
"Lithuania and the Autonomy of Poland," London,
1915-
"The Lithuanian Review," Philadelphia, Pa.
"Pro-Lithuania," Lausanne, Switzerland.
"The Misery of the Lithuanian Refugees in Russia,"
Lausanne, Switzerland, 1915.
"Sidelights on Life in Lithuania," Washington, D. C.
"Free Lithuania." A collection of articles on
Lithuania and Lithuanians, A. Milukas & Co.,
Philadelphia, Pa., 1917.
154 APPENDIX
"Lithuania in Retrospect and Prospect," by John
Szlupas, M.D., New York, Lithuanian Press
Association of America, 1915.
"Essay on the Past, Present and Future of Lithu-
ania," by John Szlupas, Stockholm.
"The Lithuanians." Address of Charles L. Brown,
President Judge, Municipal Court, Philadel-
phia, Pa., January 4, 1917.
"Lithuania: Facts Supporting Her Claim for Re-
establishment as Independent Nation," Dr.
J. J. Bielskis, Washington, D. C.
"Case of Lithuania for Independence," Washing-
ton, D. C, 1918. (Also Congressional Record,
S. Doc. 305.)
French
"Memoire sur la Nation Lituanienne."
"La Nation Lituanienne," Paris.
"Lituaniens et Polonais," par A. Jakstis, Paris, 1913.
"L'Eglise Polonaise en Lituanie," par Mgr. C.
Propolanis, Paris, 1914.
"La Situation de I'Eglise Catholique en Lituanie,"
par Dr. J. Gabrys, Paris, 191 5.
"La Lituanie Religieuse," par A. Viskontas, Ph.D.,
D.D., Geneve, 1917.
"La Lituanie russe au point de vue statistique et
ethnographique," par A. Viskontas, Geneve,
1917.
APPENDIX 155
"La Lituanie," par A. Vilimavicius, Geneve, 1918.
"La Lituanie, le territoire occupe, la population et
I'orientation de ses idees," par A. Vilimavicius,
Geneve, 1918.
"Justice Allemande," par C. Rivas, Geneva-Nancy,
1918.
"Occupation Allemande en Lituanie," par C. Rivas,
Geneva, 1918.
"La Lituanie dans le passe et dans le present," par
W. St. Vidunas, Geneve, 191 8.
"La Lituanie sous la Botte allemande," par M.
Ragana, Paris, 1917.
"Ober-Ost, le plan annexionniste allemand en Litu-
anie," par C. Rivas, Lausanne, Switzerland,
1917.
"Les SoufFrances du peuple Lituanien," par P. L.
K., Lausanne, Switzerland, 1917.
"Pro Lituania," Lausanne, Switzerland.
"Carte de la Lituanie," Lausanne, Switzerland.
"La Haute Trahison de 44 Polonais," Lausanne.
"Les Lituaniens d'Amerique," Lausanne, 1918.
"L'Etat Lituanien et le Gouvernement de Suvalkai
(Suvalki)," Lausanne, 1918.
"Observations du Delegue du Conseil National
Lituanien," Lausanne, 1918.
"La Lituanie sous le Joug Allemand 1915-1918.
Le plan annexionniste allemand en Lituanie.
iS6 APPENDIX
C. Rivas, Librairie Centrale des Nationalites,"
Lausanne, 1918.
"Le Principaux Artisans de la Renaissance Nationale
Lituanienne, Hommes et Choses de Lituanie,
avec preface de Mr. Charles Rivet," Lausanne,
1918.
Lithuanian Catholic Truth Society
Rev. F. Jaksztys, President,
29 Davis St., Harrison, N. J.
Rev. a. Kodis, Treasurer,
207 York St., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Rev. a. M. Milukas, Secretary^
94 Hull Ave., Maspeth, L. L
rtp^
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