Konstantinas Olšauskas (1867–1933) was a Lithuanian Roman Catholic priest active in public life and convicted of murder in 1929.
After graduating from the Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy in 1892, he was assigned as chaplain to the Liepāja Gymnasium and parish priest in Debeikiai and Rozalimas where he joined Lithuanian cultural life and helped distribute the banned Lithuanian books. In 1904, on the eve of the Russian Revolution of 1905, he was transferred to the Holy Cross Church, Kaunas. In Kaunas, Olšauskas organized the Workers' Society of St. Joseph as a counterbalance for various socialist organizations. He became long-term chairman of the Saulė Society that was organized in 1906 to establish and maintain Lithuanian schools in the Kovno Governorate. For three months in 1911, Olšauskas and Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas toured Lithuanian American communities to collect donations for the construction of Saulė headquarters that was completed in 1914. Olšauskas also joined the Lithuanian and Belarusian Constitutional Catholic Party, established by Bishop Eduard von der Ropp, and was this party's candidate to the first State Duma. He also joined the Society of Saint Zita and Society of Saint Casimir, and helped publishing Viltis newspaper.
After the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers and organized Lithuanian school evacuation to Voronezh. He organized funding and operations of ten different Lithuanian educational institutions in Voronezh until allegations of misappropriation of funds forced him to resign in September 1916. Olšauskas went to Rome to obtain permission from Pope Benedict XV for a worldwide donation drive in churches for the benefit of Lithuanian war refugees. In Lausanne, Switzerland, he chaired a six-person committee organizing the drive on 20 May 1917 that raised an estimated 1 million litas. He worked with the Council of Lithuania to negotiate German recognition of independent Lithuania and briefly represented Lithuania at the Paris Peace Conference. Olšauskas returned to Lithuania in spring 1919. He became a prelate and chaplain of Kaunas Cathedral. He returned to the Society Saulė organizing various schools and later defending them from the authoritarian regime of Antanas Smetona. He visited United States again raising capital for Galybė company pursuing ideas of building hydroelectric power plants on the Neris and Neman Rivers.
On 16 September 1928, the body of Stanislava Danilovičiūtė-Ustijanauskienė was found strangled in Birštonas. Olšauskas soon became the primary suspect and was arrested in March 1929 and sentenced to six years imprisonment in October 1929. The case caused a media frenzy in Lithuania. The court, based on circumstantial evidence, argued that Danilovičiūtė-Ustijanauskienė gave birth to Olšauskas' son in 1899 and used the relationship to blackmail Olšauskas for money. Church officials refused to defrock Olšauskas or take his case to Church Tribunal and his continued imprisonment violated the Concordat of 1927 that specified that active members of the clergy were to be imprisoned separately and tried by an ecclesiastical court. Thus, Olšauskas received a presidential pardon and was released in February 1931. He lost his house to a suspected arson in February 1932 and was shot dead in June 1933. A local man confessed to the murder but never adequately explained his motives.
Biography Early life and career Olšauskas was born on 22 April 1867 to family of well-off Lithuanian farmers. As such, the family had adopted Polish culture and often spoke Polish at home. He attended Russian primary schools in Plungė and Tauragė and the Gymnasium in Liepāja. In 1884–1888, he studied at the Kaunas Priest Seminary. His schoolmates included Jonas Mačiulis-Maironis, Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas, (Dėdė Atanazas), Aleksandras Dambrauskas-Jakštas. As a gifted student, he was sent to the Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy which he graduated in 1892 with a master's degree in theology.
On 12 April 1892, Olšauskas was ordained priest and assigned as chaplain of the Gymnasium in Liepāja. There Olšauskas joined the resistance to the Lithuanian press ban – he would receive prohibited books from Juozapas Viksva, priest in Palanga, and would distribute the books among the Lithuanian students and other activists. In 1894, Olšauskas supported Catholic gymnasium students in their protest against mandatory Eastern Orthodox services in honor of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.
In fall 1894, he was assigned to Debeikiai where he was joined by his younger brother and sister. He hired Stanislava Danilovičiūtė, a graduate of the Riga Gymnasium, as their private tutor starting a relationship that ended in both of their murders. In 1899, he was transferred to Rozalimas where he worked until 1904. Rumors spread that the transfer was due to the inappropriately close relationship between Danilovičiūtė and Olšauskas. Olšauskas continued to distribute the banned press, taught children in Lithuanian, organized church repairs, established a shelter for the elderly, advocated teetotalism. In 1904, on the eve of the Russian Revolution of 1905, he was transferred to the Holy Cross Church, Kaunas.
Various societies in Kaunas Olšauskas' new parish in Kaunas had many poor workers of the nearby factories. Therefore, he adopted ideas of the Catholic social teaching laid out in the Rerum novarum, encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. On 1 June 1906, he founded the Workers' Society of St. Joseph () as a counterbalance to various socialist and revolutionary societies. About 1,000 workers, both Poles and Lithuanians, signed up. The society organized lectures, operated a small library and reading room, staged music and theater performances, provided financial assistance in case of an accident, etc. Socialists viewed the society as a treason to the revolution and accused Olšauskas of loyalty to the Tsar and being too friendly with Tsarist authorities (he knew the Governor of Kaunas since they were neighbors in Debeikiai). In 1907, when revolutionary moods dissipated, Olšauskas attempted to introduce Lithuanian language and agenda to the St. Joseph Society but was met with passionate protests. He resigned as chairman in September 1907 and soon the society split into three based on ethnic lines: Polish, Lithuanian, and Polish–Lithuanian.
After the Russian Revolution of 1905, the Tsarist authorities removed some of the restrictions on education in the native language. Legal Lithuanian-language schools became a possibility. The first Lithuanian primary schools were established in Šančiai, Žaliakalnis, and by the Holy Cross Church in summer 1906. On 12 June 1906, Olšauskas and others established Saulė Society (officially registered on 25 July) to organize and maintain further Lithuanian schools in the Kaunas Governorate. The society's program was quickly revised to emphasize that it is a Catholic organization open only to Catholics. Olšauskas was elected its chairman in September 1906. Saulė quickly organized primary schools and they numbered 45 by 1910. Local chapters were encouraged to establish libraries and reading rooms. Saulė also organized training courses for teachers and bookkeepers. In 1911, Olšauskas and Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas toured 55 Lithuanian American communities for three months to collect donations for the construction of Saulė headquarters in Žaliakalnis. They collected about $19,000 () or 34,000 rubles. More donations were collected in Lithuania and the headquarters, a three-storey brick building at a cost of 155,000 rubles, was completed in 1914.
Olšauskas also joined the Lithuanian and Belarusian Constitutional Catholic Party, established by Bishop Eduard von der Ropp, and was this party's candidate to the first State Duma. In advance of the Great Seimas of Vilnius, he also worked on the program for the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party, but the party was established only 1917. Olšauskas supported and was board member of the Society of Saint Zita for Lithuanian female servants and Society of Saint Casimir for book publishing. When newspaper Vilniaus žinios was discontinued due to financial difficulties, Olšauskas and others decided to establish new newspaper Viltis. Olšauskas was elected to the council of a credit union established by Saliamonas Banaitis and lawyer Antanas Petraitis in October 1911. Olšauskas also wanted to establish an organization advocating against Lithuanian emigration to United States, but plans were interrupted by World War I. Due to his various activities, Russian police kept an eye on Olšauskas. He was tried in January 1910 for the failure to comply with a circular of the Ministry of Internal Affairs that mandated a certain registration procedure for those wishing to convert from Eastern Orthodoxy to Catholicism. Olšauskas was one of about 400 members of the clergy facing the same charges. He defended himself and was acquitted.
In 1914, Pranciškus Karevičius, new Bishop of Samogitia, appointed several Lithuanian priests, including Olšauskas, to the capitula. These appointments were protested by the Polish clergy and Karevičius had to explain himself to cardinal Eugenio Pacelli.
Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers
At the start of World War I, Olšauskas and several others, as politically unreliable persons, were deported from Kaunas to Vilnius by the commandant of the Kaunas Fortress. He worked to reestablish Saulė educational courses in Vilnius and succeeded getting government permission only in the name of Antanas Vileišis. The Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers was officially registered on 27 November and its founding meeting took place on 4 December 1914, and Olšauskas was elected to its Central Committee. As a member of the Lithuanian Society, he worked on establishing local society chapters in towns and villages (including Skuodas, Šiauliai, Kuliai, Tverai, Tryškiai), headed an informational bureau, organized shelters–workshops for youth, evacuated Saulė pedagogical courses to Vilnius, etc.
In March 1915, Olšauskas and Petras Leonas petitioned Kazimierz Mikołaj Michalkiewicz, administrator of the Diocese of Vilnius, to allow Lithuanian-language services and Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola in the Churches of St. Peter and St. Paul and Holy Spirit, but were refused. When Archbishop of Mohilev refused to intervene, Olšauskas responded by placing a public advertisement in the Russian newspaper – since the Diocese of Vilnius did not care about the faithful, he was searching for a hall large enough to accommodate 1,500 people. It was an insult to Michalkiewicz who suspended Olšauskas from performing masses or other duties and threatened other priests. Three priests heeded Michalkiewicz's warnings and resigned from the Lithuanian Society. However, Lithuanian public started sending protest letters and Michalkiewicz was forced to relent. Lithuanian language was allowed not only at the St. Peter and St. Paul, but in other churches as well.