Vytautas Landsbergis
Garbės daktaras / Honorary Doctor (Suteiktas vardas 1991-09-18)
Professor Vytautas Landsbergis, a Habilitated Doctor of Humanities and signatory of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, was awarded VMU honorary doctorate regalia in 1992.
Prof. Landsbergis is a politician, art, music, and culture historian, publicist, and public figure, who has written over 140 books, initially focusing on the works of the renowned Lithuanian composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, and later on Lithuanian and international political issues. He has also published poetry books and memoirs, and edited and published all of M. K. Čiurlionis’s works for piano.
Prof. Landsbergis was born on 18 October 1932 in Kaunas, where he completed his secondary education and attended the Juozas Gruodis Music School. In 1950, he enrolled at the Lithuanian State Conservatory (now the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre) in Vilnius. In 1952, while still a student, he took up a teaching post and held it until March 1990: he taught piano at Vilnius M. K. Čiurlionis Music School, the State Conservatory, its Klaipėda faculties, and at Vilnius Pedagogical Institute. In 1969, he defended his dissertation titled “M. K. Čiurlionio kompozitoriaus kūryba” (Composer M. K. Čiurlionis’ Creative Work), and in 1975, he received a State Prize of the Lithuanian SSR for his monograph “Čiurlionio kūryba” (Čiurlionis’ Works of Art). He earned a second State Prize of the Lithuanian SSR in 1988 for his monograph “Česlovo Sasnausko gyvenimas ir darbai” (The Life and Works of Česlovas Sasnauskas). From 1978 to 1990, he served as a professor at the Lithuanian Music Academy, where he defended his habilitated doctoral dissertation in 1994.
On 3 June 1988, Prof. Landsbergis was elected to the Sąjūdis Initiative Group, and at its Constituent Congress, he was elected to its Seimas and Seimas Council. From 25 November 1988 to 21 April 1990, he chaired the Sąjūdis Seimas Council, and from 15 December 1991, he served as its Honorary Chairman. On 26 March 1989, he was elected a USSR People’s Deputy, and on 24 February 1990, Deputy of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania. On 6 August 1989, in Gotland, Sweden, he signed the Gotland Communiqué with Lithuanian and diaspora representatives, declaring that “the vital goal of all Lithuanians worldwide is the restoration of an independent Lithuanian state,” thus laying the foundation for the declaration of Lithuania’s independence.
On 11 March 1990, Vytautas Landsbergis was elected Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania and headed the Parliamentary session during which the restoration of Lithuanian independence was declared. Under the Provisional Constitution, he became the highest official of the state, i.e., the head of state. From 1990 to 1992, he was one of the heads of the Council of the Baltic States, and from 1990 to 1991, he chaired the Commission on Drawing up the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania. Under his leadership, the draft Constitution was finalised for voting in the autumn of 1992 and, following its approval in a referendum, the Constitution of Lithuania was promulgated on 6 November of that year. Additionally, from 1990 to 1991, Prof. Landsbergis chaired the State Delegation for Negotiations with the USSR.
In 1992, Vytautas Landsbergis was elected as a member of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania. He also served as a member of the Lithuanian delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Baltic Assembly. On 1 May 1993, following the establishment of the Lithuanian Conservative Party, he was elected as its chairman, a position he held until 2003 after being re-elected in 1995, 1998, and 2000. In the 2000 elections, he was elected to the Lithuanian Parliament for the fourth time and again served in the Seimas delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Baltic Assembly until 2004. In 2003, he became the chairman of the Homeland Union’s Political Committee and a member of its Presidium. He was elected to the European Parliament on 13 June 2004 and re-elected for a second term in 2009.
Professor Landsbergis holds honorary doctorates from numerous universities, including Loyola University Chicago, Yale University, Law University of Lithuania (now Mykolas Romeris University), Klaipėda University, the University of Helsinki, Sorbonne University, and the Vilnius Academy of Arts. He is also an academician of the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science and an honorary member of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University and Cardiff University (UK). Vytautas Landsbergis was a long-standing member of the Board and Secretariat of Lithuanian Composers’ Union, chairman of the Čiurlionis Society, and remains the honorary chairman of the Lithuanian Chess Federation, the honorary chairman of Sąjūdis, and a member of the Homeland Union’s presidium. From 1995 to 2008, he chaired the Council of the International M. K. Čiurlionis Piano and Organ Competition.
For his academic, cultural, and political activities, Vytautas Landsbergis has received numerous awards, including the Norwegian People’s Peace Prize, the International Freedom Foundation Award (UK), the Hermann Ehlers Prize (Germany), the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana (Estonia), the French Order of the Legion of Honour of the Second Class, the Order of Vytautas the Great of the First Class, the Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, the UNESCO Medal for Contribution in Democracy and the Fight for Human Rights, the Grand Cross of Merit of the Order of Malta, the Grand Cross of the Order of Honour (Greece), the Order of Vytautas the Great with the Golden Collar, the Saxon Constitutional Medal (Germany), the Saint George’s Order of Victory (Georgia), and the Medal of Honour of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs “Lithuanian Millennium Star”. In 2005, he received the Robert Schuman Medal, named after the author of the concept of a united Europe, for his contributions to democracy, human rights, and European integration. Professor Landsbergis was also awarded the 2009 Lithuanian Enlightened Personality Award by the M. K. Čiurlionis Foundation.
Based on information provided by VMU Library.
