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Silingas (Stasys) papers
2007C56  
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Table of contents What's This?
  • Access
  • Use
  • Acquisition Information
  • Preferred Citation
  • Biographical/Historical Note
  • Scope and Content of Collection

  • Title: Stasys Silingas papers
    Date (inclusive): 1905-2008
    Collection Number: 2007C56
    Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
    Language of Material: Lithuanian
    Physical Description: 3 manuscript boxes (1.2 Linear Feet)
    Abstract: Correspondence, identification documents, printed matter, miscellany, and photographs, relating mainly to imprisonment of Stasys Silingas in Siberia after 1940.
    Creator: Šilingas, Stasys, 1885-1962
    Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives

    Access

    The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.

    Use

    For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

    Acquisition Information

    Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2007.

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item], Stasys Silingas papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

    Biographical/Historical Note

    Born in Vilnius on November 11, 1885, Baron Stasys Šilingas, a Lithuanian lawyer and statesman, was a significant figure in the history of Lithuania's independence.
    He graduated from Moscow University in 1912 with a degree in law, and later became one of the founding fathers of Lithuania's Independence from 1918 to 1938. Silingas served first as vice-president and then, in 1919, as president of the Council of Lithuania after the independence of Lithuania was proclaimed on February 16, 1918. Between World War I and World War II he was twice minister of justice, from 1926 to 1928, and from 1934 to 1938. From 1920 to 1926 he was director of the Fine Art association. He also served as vice-chancellor of the Order of Vytautas the Great.
    His lifelong interest in the arts led him to become a seminal force in the revival of a flowering Lithuanian art, literature, culture, and nationhood. Aside from assembling a large collection of art himself, he also cofounded the M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum in Kaunas.
    Among his other accomplishments, he drafted the Constitution of Lithuania which was adopted in 1938 and organized the National Guard which successfully repelled an attempted Russian invasion in 1918, during the Lithuanian Wars of Independence. In 1934 he was named Minister of Justice a second time serving until 1938 at which time he withdrew from public life after delivering his "Testament to Lithuania" speech before a convention of the National Guard.
    He married Emilija Bytautaitė who was the sister of his closest friend Ramūnas Bytautas, a philosopher. He and Emilija had nine daughters. When he retired from public life in 1938, he moved with his family to Misiūnai, part of an old estate which he had purchased in 1925.
    On June 14, 1941, the Soviets arrested him, his wife Emilija, and daughter Raminta. They were separated before being deported to Siberia, where his wife and daughter both died of disease within a couple of years. Šilingas learned of their location only after Emilija's death, and he never saw any of his family again. He spent over 20 years in exile: in camps and prisons of Siberia, and 7 years incarcerated at an Invalid Home in the Ukrainian SSR. Finally allowed to write letters in 1956, he was able to communicate for the first time with his surviving daughters who now lived in the United States, Australia, and Canada, and with former colleagues who had been allowed to return to the Lithuanian SSR. His voluminous letters are philosophical, scholarly, and historical and reveal some details of his life in exile.
    Allowed to return to the Lithuanian SSR only in 1961, he died at Kelmė within a year, on November 13, 1962.
    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasys_Silingas

    Scope and Content of Collection

    Correspondence, identification documents, printed matter, miscellany, and photographs, relating mainly to imprisonment of Stasys Silingas in Siberia after 1940.

    Subjects and Indexing Terms

    Lithuania -- History
    Statesmen -- Lithuania