Jims Jottings~ Yesterday (March 11) was Lithuanian Independence Day and last night Diane and I attended the festivities on the Cathedral Square. It was comparable to our annual celebration on the Fourth of July on the national mall in Washington DC – only on a much smaller scale. I say smaller, although there were surely several thousand people gathered, as opposed to the tens of thousands who gather in Washington. I think last nights program was also broadcast on national TV. We were deeply moved by the large drapes with the photo copies of the Lithuanian independence documents, first from 1918, and again in 1990. I have to admit that I got teary-eyed as a young man sang Lithuania, Our Homeland, the national anthem. This nation has been through so much in the last seventy-five years! Although the entertainment was fun, the highpoint of the evening was the appearance early-on of independent Lithuanias first president, Vytautas Landsbergis, and later of the current president, Dalia Grybauskaite. (Earlier in the afternoon we had seen dozens of police officers in the area, so we wondered if some high official – maybe even the president -- might appear.) Landsbergis was president at the time of Lithuanias independence from the Soviet Union from 1990-1992. He was a university professor with two earned doctorates. Grybauskaite was elected in a landslide in 2009. She also has a Ph.D. in political economy (from St. Petersburg), speaks Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, English and French, has a black belt in karate, and was once (like many others) a member of the Communist Party. As we participate in the life of this ancient, yet very young nation, we are constantly moved by their history, their pride and their resiliency in the face of suffering and injustice. We are honored and humbled to be guests in this nation.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 08:01:26 +0000
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