ROTARY IN LITHUANIA
LITHUANIA is one of the three Baltic Republics. It lies immediately south of Latvia, west of Belarus, north of Poland and east of the Baltic Sea which divides the 3 Baltic Republics from Sweden.
HISTORY OF ROTARY PRE SOVIET OCCUPATION
In 1934 the current Capital of Lithuania, Vilnius, was situated in what was then part of Poland.
Kaunas was then its Capital, and thus it seemed appropriate that the first Rotary club in Lithuania should be the Rotary club of KAUNAS it was legally incorporated on 6 November 1934. It received its charter on 5 May 1935 from the then District Governor of Finland in the Kaunas Town Hall.
Its Charter President Karolis Zalkauskas, a lawyer by profession remained the clubs president until the club was forced to close down in 1940, when Soviet forces having occupied Lithuania and the other Baltic countries, forbade all Rotary activities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Mr. Zalkauskas, who was Minister of Internal Affairs in the Republican Government was also Governor of the province of Klaipeda (known in German, times as Memel) and Chairman of the Kaunas Supreme Court. In his Rotary life Karolis was a member of the European Rotary Consultative Committee and he represented all Rotarians of Lithuania. Latvia and Estonia there.
One of the members of Kaunas RC was a young architect Vytautas Landsbergis, who was the clubs secretary in its last year of existence. Vytautas would be the ONLY member of that club which survived to see his country's independence from the Soviet Republic. What's more it was Vytautas Landisbergis who stood up against Mr Gurbachov and demanded and obtained his country's independence. Thus it was a Rotarian who rose to the occasion and became Lithuania's first post Soviet President of independent Lithuania.
The Kaunas Club clearly was the most prestigious pre war club in the country. In 1937 a second club was formed in SIAULIAI. In 1939 the KLAIPEDA Rotary Club was operational and the VILNIUS CLUB was started.
The town of KLAIPEDA became a war casualty, the town was totally destroyed and its citizens were eradicated virtually in total, hence little is known about that club. In 1939 the town of Vilnius was returned by Poland to Lithuania, and it resumed being that country's capital once more.
By the time that Rotary was closed down in 1940 there were 85 Lithuanian Rotarians in 3 Clubs left after the 30 Rotarians of Klaipeda had lost their lives as casualties of war, making a total Rotary strength of 115 prior to the Klaipeda disaster.
Records supplied by Lithuanian Rotary suggest that the vast bulk of Lithuanian Rotarians were either executed or sent to Siberia by the occupying Soviet regime.
Together with Latvian and Estonian Rotarians, Lithuanian Rotary formed a Baltic District, which worked for greater cultural and political cooperation between the Baltic countries.
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The New Zealand Exhibition at the Vilnius International Rotary Conference |
"The English Speaking Club" |
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Swedish DGs Lund & Grantinger, our one and only Icelandic DG, World President Herb Brown & Henk Aalders from Kumeu RC NZ |
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Lithuanian Woman selling her wares in Vilnius Street |
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Amazing Lithuanian Musical Intruments |
Lithuanian Folk Dancers |
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More of the same |
| Lithuania Post Era |
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