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Lithuania’s long-lost Declaration of Independence is going to be returned back to Lithuania just in time for its Centennial celebration.
There is one catch however; the historic national document is set to be LOANED to Lithuania for 5 years by the German government.
Although an act of political generosity and good will, some Lithuanians see this as a slight against what is rightfully theirs. There are 2 views on this that are up for debate.
The first position is that since this declaration of independence is the only surviving copy of the 1918 “Act of Independence of Lithuania” that created the modern country of Lithuania, it should naturally be in the possession of the Lithuanian people.
Although Lithuania as a country and political powerhouse goes back to medieval times, the 1918 document being loaned by Germany to Lithuania is in no uncertain terms a national treasure and what most are calling its “birth certificate.”
The counter position to this argument is that copies of this declaration of independence were given out to various countries in recognition of Lithuania’s 1918 independence as legal, administrative evidence of that fact. It’s the same as how all parties to a contract get to keep copies for themselves.
The claim by Germany is that this declaration of independence is their contractual copy, irrespective of how many other extant copies there are or aren’t.
Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė has been working with her counter head-of-state in Germany to negotiate the presence of this historic document in Vilnius for the Centennial of Lithuanian Independence taking place on February 16, 2018.
On January 17, 2018 German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to loan the declaration of independence to Lithuania for a period of 5 years until 2023. At least it will make it for the centennial celebration!
The backstory of what I call the Miraculous Declaration is one of the best stories I’ve ever heard. Originally signed in 1918 after 123 years of occupation, several copies were made of Lithuania’s declaration of independence which remained in Vilnius until 1940.
With the threat of WWII looming and an eventual German and Russian occupation, any original copies were all thought to have been destroyed as national treasures such as this document would have left the country for safe keeping. Lithuania did not deoccupy from Russia until 1990, that’s 50 years of successive occupation at which time the fate of the ‘miraculous declaration’ was completely unknown.
Fast forward to 2017 when a professor from Vytautas Magnas University in Kaunas, Liudas Mažylis, finds his country’s birth certificate tucked away in a German national archive in Berlin.
Needless to say this was earth-shattering news for Lithuania, doubly so since it was only 11 months before Lithuania’s centennial celebration of independence. The guest of honor was finally ready!
My hope is that during this 5 year interim when the Lithuanian declaration of independence will be returned for its centennial celebration, negotiations will take place that will allow for a permanent transfer back to its home country.
Perhaps a viable copy can be made which could be housed back a the German national archives in exchange for Lithuania retaining the original copy.
#AtkurtaiLietuvai100, #RestoredLithuania100 #Lithuania
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