Stasys Šilingas

Baron Stasys Šilingas (11 November 1885 - 13 November 1962) Lithuanian lawyer and statesman, was a significant figure in the history of Lithuania's independence.

One of the founding fathers of Lithuania's Independence from 1918 to 1938, he was a seminal force in the resultant revival leading to a flowering of Lithuanian art, literature, culture, and nationhood. When the independence of Lithuania was proclaimed on February 16, 1918, Silingas served first as vice-president and, in 1919, as president of the Council of Lithuania. 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. After the occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union, he was deported in 1941 to the Russian Arctic.

Šilingas was born in Vilnius. He was a Baron through his maternal grandfather, Count Stanislav Šilingas of Paberžė, who was exiled to Siberia and whose property and estate were confiscated by the authorities of the Russian Empire for his monetary support of the failed but great Uprising of 1863. Šilingas spurned the title using it only when it served to advance his country’s causes in giving him access to the Russian elite. He participated in the Russian Revolution of 1905, manning the barricades and even firing a pistol at the Imperial Russian Army.

Because Šilingas grew up in Vilnius which was then claimed by Poland as part of Polish territory, he spoke only Polish and Russian until he and Ramūnas Bytautas, his close friend, studied Lithuanian in Berlin in 1907. Šilingas learned Lithuanian to perfection. For this and for his oratorical skill, he was called "silver-throated" and "Cicero of the North" during his student years. He would go on to translate Lithuanian works into Polish and Russian, and other works into Lithuanian, including works by both Friedrich Nietzsche and Rabindranath Tagore.

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