Lithuania holds state funeral for former prime minister Prunskienė

Lithuania on Thursday held a state funeral for Kazimira Danutė Prunskienė, a signatory of the Act of Independence and the first prime minister of independent Lithuania, LRT reported. Her urn was taken from St John’s Church to Antakalnis Cemetery, where she will be buried on Signatories’ Hill.

A guard of honour gathered around the urn at noon as friends and political allies paid their final respects.

Arvydas Juozaitis, a member of the Sąjūdis initiative group, said Prunskienė and Meilė Lukšienė had been the only women in the group. He highlighted Prunskienė’s visits to the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and France, where she built relations with Western countries during Moscow’s economic blockade of Lithuania.

“You became the most prominent woman of the Sąjūdis and national revival period,” Juozaitis said, recalling her emergence in a political environment dominated by men.

Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, a signatory of the Act of Independence and a member of the European Parliament, said Prunskienė had been assessed controversially because of allegations that she collaborated with the KGB. However, he said all prominent historical figures had been and would continue to be judged in different ways.

Andriukaitis said Prunskienė’s role in Lithuania’s history was undeniable. He described her first term as prime minister as a difficult challenge during a period of upheaval marked by the economic blockade, difficult reforms and meetings with world leaders to break through the blockade imposed by the Soviet Union.

Calls for greater presence of current politicians

Lauras Bielinis, a professor at Vytautas Magnus University, said in an LRT television special that relatively few representatives of contemporary politics had attended the public farewell.

Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius, Seimas Speaker Juozas Olekas and several ministers did attend the ceremony.

Bielinis said that political forces, even when they disagreed, formed one state. Diplomat, historian and writer Alfonsas Eidintas agreed, saying that the country’s first leaders had achieved more than seemed possible at the time, working practically from nothing.

Eidintas said the first government’s most important tasks had been establishing diplomatic relations and organising national defence, although the government did not yet have a defence ministry. It also had to deal with the shock suffered by industry after Lithuania’s separation from the Soviet Union, problems with raw material supplies and the economic blockade.

Prunskienė, who held a doctorate in economics, had a team that included experts and intellectuals. Bielinis said her academic understanding of changing situations and how to manage them allowed her to delegate powers to ministers rather than concentrate everything in her own hands.

In Moscow, Prunskienė was viewed as a familiar and non-hostile figure. Although this led to criticism, particularly from the political right, Bielinis said a right-wing prime minister would probably have faced stronger opposition from Russia.

He said Russian media at the time criticised Lithuania over its independence, but did not target Prunskienė, who was seen as a kind of buffer. This, he said, may have helped the government resolve some issues that were otherwise extremely difficult or practically impossible to address.

Contemporaries also highlighted Prunskienė’s meetings with world leaders before Lithuania received international recognition, including United States President George Bush and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.