Jonas Basanavičius

Who is Jonas Basanavičius?

Jonas Basanavičius was a Lithuanian physician, folklorist, and one of the most influential leaders of the Lithuanian National Revival in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Trained as a doctor, he spent years practicing medicine in Bulgaria before devoting himself increasingly to the cause of Lithuanian cultural and political awakening. In 1883 he founded and edited "Aušra" ("The Dawn"), the first Lithuanian-language newspaper, published abroad to evade the tsarist Russian ban on printing in the Latin alphabet, and it became a rallying point for a generation of Lithuanian activists. He chaired the Great Seimas of Vilnius in 1905, a landmark gathering that demanded Lithuanian autonomy from the Russian Empire. On 16 February 1918 he served as chairman of the Council of Lithuania and was the first signatory of the Act of Independence of Lithuania, which re-established the modern Lithuanian state. For these contributions he is honored as "Patriarch of the Nation" (tautos patriarchas), and his birthday is commemorated as a national holiday.

Sources: Alfonsas Eidintas, Vytautas Žalys, and Alfred Erich Senn, Lithuania in European Politics · Lithuanian Institute of History, biographical archive on Jonas Basanavičius · Act of Independence of Lithuania, 16 February 1918 (official document)