Liudas Mažylis

Garbės profesorius / Honorary Professor (Suteiktas vardas 2018-02-15)

Liudas Mažylis is a scholar, professor at Vytautas Magnus University, politician, and public figure, who on 29 March 2017 found the Act of Independence of Lithuania of 16 February in the Political Archive of the German Federal Foreign Office.

In 1972, he completed his education at Kaunas 5th Secondary School, and in 1977, he graduated from Vilnius University. He holds a Doctorate in Chemistry, a Habilitation in Management and Administration (2007), and is a Professor at VMU.

Mažylis comes from a well-known pre-war Kaunas intelligentsia family. His maternal great-grandfather, Jonas Bliūdžius, was a book smuggler and public figure in the Marijampolė region. His paternal grandfather was Pranas Mažylis, the founder of Lithuanian obstetrics in the inter-war period.

Between 1977 and 1990, while working at the Institute of Cardiology, Liudas Mažylis published 15 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and conducted searches for new biologically active compounds. He is also a co-author of six inventions.

Since 1997, Mažylis has been teaching at the VMU Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy. In 2002, he completed an internship at the University of Cambridge. He held the position of associate professor starting in 2000, later becoming a professor in 2008.

He has published 20 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, exploring topics related to European integration, local government policy, and administration.

Liudas Mažylis is also politically active; he has been a member of the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party (later Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats or TS-LKD) since 1995 and participated in the 1996 and 2000 elections to the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania.

In recognition of his discovery in Germany in 2017 of the original document of the Act of Independence of Lithuania of 16 February, he was honoured with various awards, including Lithuania’s Progress Award, the Commander’s Cross of the Order for Merits to Lithuania, the Stasys Lozoraitis Journalism Prize, and the title of Honorary Citizen of Kaunas.

The regalia of Honorary Professor were awarded to Prof. Liudas Mažylis on 15 February 2018, during VMU’s special event celebrating the Day of the Restoration of the State of Lithuania, the centenary of statehood, and the University’s 96th anniversary.

Speech by Prof. Liudas Mažylis during the ceremony for awarding the Regalia of Honorary Professor.