Word: smetona
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Would Anton Smetona persist in refusing to be King of Lithuania? That was the core of the diplomats' argument, and they recalled his career...
Career. Anton Smetona, now 53 years of age, is conceded to be one of the greatest Lithuanian patriots of all time. For 20 years he worked for Lithuanian nationalism and independence against the oppression of Tsarist Russia. A diminutive man, dark, with narrow, beady eyes, a stubby goatee spread over his chin and a bushy, drooping moustache hanging orderly from his upper lip, he is an excellent, forceful speaker, sound, indurate, potent...
Scholar, lawyer, publicist, Anton Smetona threw his very soul into a fight for Lithuania against the Russian autocracy. But, hounded by Tsarist secret police, branded by many as a conspirator, blackened as an opportunist, he stood no chance against the arrayed might of Imperial Russia?not until...
With the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 Anton Smetona, like Thomas Garrigue Masaryk of Czechoslovakia, with whom he is frequently compared, began to wage a private war for Lithuanian republicanism. The signal chance for the Lithuanian minority in colossal Russia had dawned. By spoken and written word Smetona worked fearlessly for the liberation of his people from the yoke of despotism, resisting equally the Germans, who at one time threatened to end his cherished ideal of a free Lithuania...
With the collapse of Russia and the defeat of Germany his crusade for independence virtually came to an end?Anton Smetona put Lithuania on the map. A Lithuanian government had been elected at Vilna as early as 1917 and the formal independence of the nation was proclaimed on Feb. 16, 1918; the Armistice set the seal of permanency on the young state. Again Lithuania had secured independence...