Act of Independence of Lithuania

The Act of December 11 was the second stage in the progression towards the final Act of Independence. The first draft, demanded by chancellor Georg von Hertling, was prepared by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 1 December.[13] Further changes were jointly prepared by the German chancellery and by a delegation of the Council of Lithuania. The delegation's members were Antanas Smetona, Steponas Kairys, Vladas Mironas, Jurgis Šaulys, Petras Klimas and Aleksandras Stulginskis.[14] After discussion amongst the parties, a compromise was reached on the document's text. The German representative, Kurt von Lersner, insisted that not one word be changed in the agreed-upon text and that all the Council members sign the document.[14]

After the delegation returned to Vilnius, a session of the Council was held on December 11 in order to discuss the Act. It was adopted without any further changes. Fifteen voted in favor of the Act, three voted against it, one member abstained, and one did not participate.[14] It is not entirely clear whether every member of the Council signed this document.[14] The Act was written in German, and apparently no official Lithuanian translation was prepared. Therefore, different sources provide slightly different translations.[14] The Act of December 11 pronounced Lithuania's independence, but also asked the German government for protection (clause 2) and called for "a firm and permanent alliance" with Germany.[10] Since the Act specified that the alliance was to be formed based on conventions concerning military affairs, transportation, customs, and currency, many Lithuanians argued that the Council had overstepped its authority: the September resolution adopted by the Vilnius Conference clearly demanded that a constituent assembly decide these crucial matters of state.[13]

Jonas Basanavičius, the chairman of the Council when the Act of February 16 was signed

When peace talks started between Germany and Russia in 1918, German authorities asked the Lithuanian representatives to prepare two notifications of independence—one for Russia, in which Lithuania's ties with Russia would be denounced and nothing would be mentioned about an alliance with Germany, and a version to be released in Germany that would essentially repeat the Act of December 11.[14] The Council decided to amend the first part of the Act of December 11. Petras Klimas included a sentence calling for the Constituent Assembly.[15] Another important development was the statement that democratic principles would be the basis of the new state's governance,[14] something that was declared by the Vilnius Conference, but omitted in the Act of December 11.[16] The second part, mentioning the "firm and permanent alliance with Germany", was completely omitted.[15] Its final version was approved on January 8, 1918, the day that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points. In its essence, the Act of January 8 did not differ from the Act of February 16.[16]

However, Ober Ost, the German military administration, rejected the changes. On January 26, in compliance with the earlier request, the two versions of the notification were approved, but they did not include the changes of January 8.[15] The texts were prepared based on the Act of December 11. These concessions to the Germans created tensions among the council members.[17] Four members – Mykolas Biržiška, Steponas Kairys, Stanisław Narutowicz and Jonas Vileišis – resigned from the Council in protest.[13] Chairman Antanas Smetona, who supported the Act of December 11, stepped down.[16] Jonas Basanavičius, who would later be called the patriarch of independence, was elected chairman.[18]

Germany failed to recognize Lithuania as an independent state, and the Lithuanian delegation was not invited to the Brest-Litovsk negotiations that started on December 22, 1917, between the Central Powers and Russia in order to settle territorial claims.[17] During the first and final official joint session between the Council and the German authorities, it was made clear that the Council would serve only as an advisory board.[15] This situation gave additional backing to those Council members who were seeking independence without any ties to other countries. The prime concern at this point was to invite back those members who had left the Council. Negotiations were undertaken that led to the reformulation of previous versions of the Act.[13]

Hand-written originals of the Act of Independence of Lithuania in the Lithuanian (left) and German languages (right), exhibited in 2022

The four withdrawn members demanded that the Council return to the Act of January 8 and omit the mention of any alliance with Germany.[14] After heated debates that lasted for several weeks, on February 15, at 10 am, the new revision of the Act was ready. It included, with minor stylistic changes, the wording of the Act of January 8 and promulgation and notification, drafted on February 1. Promulgation and notification do not carry legal weight and do not change the meaning of a legal document.[14] The Council, including the withdrawn members, was invited to return the next day for its finalization. On the next day, February 16, 1918, at 12:30 pm, all twenty Council members met in the room of the Lithuanian Committee for Support of the War Victims, at 30 Didžioji Street in Vilnius.[15] The building has since been known as the House of the Signatories (Lithuanian: signatarų namai) and houses a museum. The Council first voted to approve the first part, the first two paragraphs up to the word drauge, of the Act. This section was approved unanimously.[4] The second part, however, did not receive support from the four withdrawn members because they were not satisfied with the word "finally" in describing the duties of the Constituent Assembly (in "... the foundation of the Lithuanian State and its relations with other countries will be finally determined by the Constituent Assembly ...").[4] They were afraid that this word would give a pretext for the Council to usurp the powers of the Constituent Assembly, while the majority argued that the word simply expressed the non-negotiable and non-appealable nature of the future Assembly's decisions.[14] Therefore, the Act was unanimously approved en bloc but did not have full-fledged support from all twenty men.[4]

The front page of Lietuvos aidas with the text of the Act. The bulk of the issue was confiscated by German authorities.

Soon after the signing, the Act was taken to Germany and handed to parties in the Reichstag. On February 18, the text was reprinted in German newspapers, including Das Neue Litauen, Vossische Zeitung, Tägliche Rundschau and Kreuzzeitung.[2] In Lithuania a text of the proclamation was prepared for printing in newspapers, particularly in Lietuvos aidas, the Council's newspaper established by Antanas Smetona; but the German authorities prohibited this publication. Although the majority of the copies of the issue were confiscated, the newspaper's editor, Petras Klimas, managed to hide about 60 of them.[15]

On March 3, 1918, Germany and the now-Bolshevik Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It declared that the Baltic nations were in the German interest zone and that Russia renounced any claims to them. On March 23, Germany recognized independent Lithuania on the basis of the December 11 declaration.[2] However, in substance, nothing had changed either in Lithuania or in the Council's status: any efforts to establish an administration were hindered.[17] This situation changed when the German Revolution started and Germany lost the war in the fall of 1918 – it was no longer in a position to dictate terms. The Council of Lithuania adopted the first provisional constitution on November 2. The functions of government were entrusted to a three-member presidium, and Augustinas Voldemaras was invited to form the first Cabinet of Ministers of Lithuania.[13] Complete international recognition took several years; the US affirmed it on July 28, 1922.[21]

Two copies of the Act were signed: the original and a duplicate. The original was given to Jonas Basanavičius to safeguard and protect. The original was never published or used in any public matters; its existence was first mentioned in the press in 1933.[22] The duplicate was used in day-to-day business and was stored in the president's archives until June 15, 1940, the day when Lithuania received an ultimatum from the Soviet Union and lost its independence.[22] After that date the document disappeared. Both the original and the duplicate were missing for decades; historians and adventurers hunted for them. In 2006, a team of engineers searched the walls of the former house of Petras Vileišis.[23] Two facsimiles of the duplicate were produced, one in 1928 and the other in 1933. The 1928 facsimile is a closer reproduction of the Act in its original state. It contains spelling errors and the background is visually "noisy", while the 1933 facsimile shows the Act in an "improved" condition.[22]

In 2017, Lithuanian businessman Darius Mockus offered a 1-million-Euro reward to anyone who could find the original document and give it to the State of Lithuania. The offer's deadline was set to February 16, 2018, when Lithuania will commemorate the 100th anniversary of its declaration of independence.[24] On March 29, 2017, Vytautas Magnus University professor Liudas Mažylis announced he had found the original document in the Federal Foreign Office Political Archive in Berlin, Germany, hand-written in the Lithuanian language and signed by the twenty.[25] He also announced that he had found the German-language version of the February 16, 1918 document and the Act of December 11, 1917. The latter displays nineteen signatures (without that of Pranas Dovydaitis).[26][27] Germany confirmed the documents' authenticity on the following day and they were displayed publicly by two officials — Michael Roth, the German Minister of State for Europe, and Deividas Matulionis, Lithuania ambassador in Germany.[28][29] On October 7, 2017, Lithuania Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius and Germany Minister of Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel signed an agreement that the original Act of Independence will be displayed for five years in the House of the Signatories where it was originally signed, making it the main symbol of the Lithuania's Centenary of the Restoration of the State celebrations.[30] On December 22, 2017, experts from the Lithuanian Police Forensic Research Center after a thorough analysis announced that the hand-written act was written by one of the signatories Jurgis Šaulys hand.[31][32]

On December 22, 2017, yet another version of the Act of Independence of Lithuania was found by historian Darius Antanavičius in the Vatican Secret Archives that was sent to the Holy See. This version of the Act was printed in German language and signed by Antanas Smetona, Jonas Vileišis, Jurgis Šaulys and Justinas Staugaitis.[33][34]

Most of the signatories of the Act remained active in the cultural and political life of independent Lithuania. Jonas Vileišis served in the Seimas and as mayor of Kaunas, temporary capital of Lithuania;[35] Saliamonas Banaitis was involved in finance, opening several banks.[36] Among the signatories were two future Presidents of Lithuania, Antanas Smetona and Aleksandras Stulginskis. Jonas Basanavičius, chairman of the Council of Lithuania, returned to an academic life, pursuing his research in Lithuanian culture and folklore.[37] Five signatories died before World War II started; three died during the Nazi occupation. Those who did not emigrate to Western countries became political prisoners after Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union.[38]

Aleksandras Stulginskis and Petras Klimas were sent to prison in Siberia by Soviet authorities, but survived and returned to Lithuania;[39] Pranas Dovydaitis and Vladas Mironas were also sent to Siberia but died there.[40][41] Kazys Bizauskas disappeared during the summer of 1941 while being transported to a Soviet prison in Minsk; he is presumed to have been shot along with a number of other prisoners.[42] Donatas Malinauskas was deported to Russia on June 14, 1941 during the massive June deportation.[43][44]

Several of the surviving signatories emigrated. Jurgis Šaulys and Kazimieras Steponas Šaulys died in Switzerland.[42][43] Antanas Smetona, Mykolas Biržiška, and Steponas Kairys emigrated to the United States and are buried there.[45][46][47]