"" (; 'National Song') or "" ('Anthem of Lithuania'), also known by its incipit "" ('Lithuania, Our Homeland'), is the national anthem of Lithuania. The music and lyrics were written in 1898 by Vincas Kudirka, when Lithuania was still part of the Russian Empire. The fifty-word poem was a condensation of Kudirka's conceptions of the Lithuanian state, the Lithuanian people, and their past. Shortly before his death in 1899, the anthem was performed for Lithuanians living in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
The first public Lithuanian performance of the anthem took place in Vilnius in 1905, and it became the official national anthem in 1919, a year after Lithuania declared its independence.
"Tautiška giesmė" was reinstated in 1989 shortly before the reestablishment of Lithuanian independence and confirmed in the National Anthem Act of 21 October 1991. It was automatically included as the national anthem in 1992, when the new Constitution was ratified after independence from the Soviet Union was achieved. The status of "Tautiška giesmė" as the national anthem of Lithuania was further confirmed in 1999 with the passage of a national law stating this.
Creation
At the time when the poem Lietuva, Tėvyne mūsų was written, Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire. Kudirka, a medical student at the University of Warsaw, was writing as a columnist for the newspaper Varpas ('The Bell'). In his Varpas columns, Kudirka urged Lithuanians to take pride in their heritage, discussed the problems the Russian Government was causing the Lithuanian population, and denounced those who wished to work for the Tsarist autocracy. In the course of writing for Varpas, he wrote down his thoughts on what Lithuania was and what it should be, resulting in the fifty-word poem Lietuva, Tėvynė mūsų.Poems by Vincas Kudirka members.efn.org - Retrieved 22 October 2007
The poem described the heroic past of Lithuania and exhorted its people to care for the land, care for humanity, and live in honor. Kudirka also urged the country to become a source of enlightenment and virtue. Without a melody, Kudirka took the time to compose the music just before dying of tuberculosis. Both the melody and the lyrics were printed in Varpas in September 1898. Upon his death in 1899, Kudirka's tomb was engraved with the second stanza of the anthem (later destroyed by the authorities).Vincas Kudirka biography from The Lithuanian Word - Published sometime between 1970 and 1978 as part of the ENCYCLOPEDIA LITUANICA. spaudos.lt - Retrieved 28 July 2007.
The third stanza's second part says "Ir šviesa, ir tiesa / Mūs žingsnius telydi" (Both light and truth / Lead our steps). Kudirka, who spent two years in the Sejny Priest Seminary, knew the Traditional Latin Mass texts, which start with Psalm 43 (Iudica me Deus), where the third stanza of the prayer says "O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me". Thus, Kudirka subtly paraphrased a part of the Bible and the Catholic Mass into the Lithuanian national anthem.
Religion There is an alternative version of the anthem that mentions God instead of the sun in the first two sentences of the third stanza, which would give "Tegul Dievas Lietuvoj / Tamsumas prašalina" (May God in Lithuania / Darkness dispel).
In 1942–1943, during the German occupation of Lithuania during World War II, when the German occupation authorities criticized the singing of non-religious hymns, namely the Lithuanian national anthem, in Catholic churches, the word "sun" in the Lithuanian anthem was replaced with God. This was done particularly in the St. Johns' Church in Vilnius, where Fr. preached his sermons.
On 22 October 1991, the Reconstituent Seimas deputies , Alfonsas Svarinskas, Virgilijus Čepaitis, Romualda Hofertienė ir Albertas Miškinis unsuccessfully proposed to replace the mention of sun with God.
Albinas Kurtinaitis claims that Kudirka's first draft in late 1897 mentioned God instead of the sun, but that Kudirka was allegedly convinced by his atheist colleagues from the Varpas newspaper and in March 1898 he changed the mention of God to sun in order to be more inclusive. However, Renata Vitkauskienė argues that the mention of sun was there from the start, because that's the version that was printed, whereas the hymn's manuscript and notes are missing.
History
Pre-independent Lithuania Before Kudirka's death, the first performance of the poem occurred in 1899 at a concert in St. Petersburg, Russia. The concert was conducted by Česlovas Sasnauskas and was attended by Lithuanians, which St. Petersburg had the largest population of at that time. The anthem was first performed in Lithuania during the Great Seimas of Vilnius on 3 December 1905.
Independent Lithuania
When Lithuania declared its independence from Russia in 1918, the song was declared the national anthem.Act of Independence of Lithuania (February 16, 1918) neris.mii.lt - Retrieved 22 October 2007 It held this status until Lithuania was annexed into the Soviet Union during World War II.Music and lyrics omnitel.net - Retrieved 22 October 2007 During the interwar period, there had been suggestions to modify the words to include a reference to God. It was decided, in Kudirka's memory, that the lyrics should remain as he had written them.Encyclopedia Lituanica, "National anthem", volume IV, pages 24-26Klimas, Antanas. Two Lithuanian Encyclopedias completed , Lituanus: Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences 25(4), Winter 1979. ISSN 0024-5089. lituanus.org. Retrieved 30 August 2006.
Usage in German-occupied Lithuania In 1942, between May 9 and May 12, the Marijampolė Commissariat took 580 young men as labour for the German Army Transportation Service. At the barracks, about 3,000–4,000 appeared, about two thirds of women and girls, and began to shout out: "We are not Germans, do not go to the front." At that time, about 70% of the troops returned to the barracks yard to support the demonstration as well as students from the Marijampole Teachers Seminary and the Marijampole Gymnasium. The demonstrators sang Lithuanian liberation songs and "Tautiška giesmė". When threatened with a fight by several insufficiently armed local commando soldiers, the protest turned violent with members of the crowd breaking some windows. Finally, the crowd gathered on the street to walk to the city. In that direction, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht stoned the truck.
While singing the national anthem, the Lithuanian policemen paid homage, and weighed on two of them. The soldiers of the 1st Police Battalion in the Marijampolė were completely passive, with regard, to the crowd.Nacionalistų talka hitlerininkams, 1970, p. 91–92.
Usage during the Soviet occupation
1940–1941 Immediately following the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, the government of the Lithuanian SSR published a new constitution, the Stalinist Constitution of the Lithuanian SSR, that regulates the usage of the new flag and the new coat of arms as a symbol of the socialist identity. However, in this constitution, there was no regulations on a regional anthem for the Lithuanian SSR. According to Soviet custom, all of the republics of the Soviet Union had the "Internationale" translated into their own language as regional anthems.
The officially-introduced "Internationale" in Lithuania was unpopular and the majority of the population of Lithuania disliked it as most Lithuanians then still remembered the "Tautiška giesmė" as being their actual national anthem. This was particularly evident when the authorities gathered all of the teachers in 14–15 August 1940 at the Lithuanian Teachers' Congress in Kaunas. The congress was attended by more than 10,000 primary and secondary school teachers and high school lecturers. Of all the speakers, only the Prime Minister of Lithuania, Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius, reminded the audience of the Lithuanian national anthem, concluding his speech: "Light and truth all along, guide our steps forever." At the end of the congress the orchestra began playing the Internationale. A teacher began to sing the Tautiška Giesmė. Other teachers joined in singing the anthem, and shortly all of the teachers that attended the congress sang along, thus publicly testifying about "their determination to serve their homeland, but not the occupier". Inspired by them, the orchestra followed them standing.
1944–1950
The issue about the anthem was raised again after the re-occupation of the Baltic States, after Lithuania was forcibly re-incorporated into the USSR as the Lithuanian SSR. A new anthem of the USSR was made, and the lyrics of the anthem were translated to the languages of the USSR republics. The original plan was to use the translated anthem as the temporary anthem, until a new, more socialist anthem was made.
During the translation process, Antanas Venclova as the translator, expressed worries over the lyrics. The lyrics mentioned Великая Русь (), which he translated to Didžiosios Rusios. He feared that the part of the lyrics would be badly accepted in Lithuania, because the lyrics showed the superiority of the Russian nation in Lithuania, and the spirit of national revival that was suppressed after the occupation of Lithuania. The translation of the anthem itself was submitted on 5 January 1944, and was approved two days later.
On 26 January 1944, in the session of the Supreme Council of the USSR, the council adopted a resolution about the rights of all of the Soviet republics to hold their national military formations and Foreign Affairs Commissariat. The resolution was an attempt by the USSR to provide a semblance of independent statehood for the Soviet republics and create places for each of them in the UN. Even before the session, Justas Paleckis proposed to the USSR Commissioner for Foreign Affairs of the People's Commissars, Vyacheslav Molotov, to consider whether the Soviet republics were allowed to have their own anthems. Molotov reported that the Politburo had decided to offer the Soviet republics to create their own anthems.
With the offer from the USSR government, the question of the Lithuanian anthem was re-discussed. The first proposal of the anthem was the song "Mes su Stalinu" ('We Are with Stalin'), which was proposed by G. Alexandrov to Kazys Preikšas. Other proposals proposed by G. Alexandrov was Tautiška giesmė, and other popular songs, including a poem by Petras Vaičiūnas "Ei, pasauli, mes be Vilniaus nenurimsime".
On 1 June 1944, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania prepared a draft resolution of the national anthem of Lithuania: "At the present political situation, it is expedient to use the national anthem of Lithuania, in the Lithuanian SSR, to use its popularity and the opportunity to turn it into a weapon of strengthening the Soviet power to create a national anthem of the Lithuanian SSR ..."
The main points of the decree were: To allow the performance of music and text of the old Lithuanian national anthem, Tautiška giesmė, created in the end the 19th century by Vincas Kudirka as the National Anthem of the Lithuanian SSR To delay the question about the creation of the anthem of the Lithuanian until the time when it will be possible to attract all creative forces of the nation, and to create a hymn that reflects a new era in the life of the Lithuanian nation and the changes of the country's economy, culture and people's minds.
In the same draft resolution, it was envisaged that the lyrics and the melody of the Tautiška giesmė will be approved by the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.