Klaipėdos universitetas

The Lithuanian Taryba (Council of Lithuania), which was formed in September 1917, was the first body to concern itself with the foreign representation of modern Lithuania. After the peace treaty was concluded in Brest-Litovsk between Germany and the Bolshevik Russian government, and after Lithuania’s independence was recognised by the Kaiser (both in March 1918), the Taryba took up caring for war refugees and other issues. This involved dealing with former territories of European Russia to the east of the Ober Ost area, part of which had been occupied by Germany in early 1918, while in another part the Bolsheviks and the White Russians were competing for power in the emerging Russian civil war. The Taryba appointed authorised representatives for these purposes. The article examines how the Lithuanian Taryba and the German military authorities in the Ober Ost perceived the concept of an authorised representative, and explores the appointment, the responsibilities and the activities of two representatives of the Taryba, Teresė Prapuolenytė and Veronika Janulaitytė Alseikienė. The author examines whether their social status and education played any role in granting these women the power to represent the Lithuanian Taryba abroad.

The author of the article aims to distinguish and characterize the major stages in the development of the diplomacy centre in Klaipėda in 1920–1939; the author elucidates the circumstances of the pro-German and pro-Lithuanian consul group formation; discusses the cases of the Danish honorary consul Gerhard Schmaeling and the Swedish honorary consul Karl Wiese; the author also discloses the means by which Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Governor endeavored to restore the balance between pro-German and pro-Lithuanian forces in the consulate corps of foreign countries in Klaipėda. To clarify the above-mentioned issues, the author used the following sources: the materials from the Lithuanian Central State Archive, the periodicals of interwar Lithuanian as well as the latest historical researches.

The article is devoted to research on relations with the Scandinavian countries in 1918-1939 in Lithuania and Poland. It is based on analysis of publications edited in 1995-2005. Presented hereby research became a topic of our research because of three reasons: 1) to start tradition of analysis of publications in Lithuania which deals with relations between Lithuania and Scandinavian countries; 2) to ascertain, do the similar aspects and problems of the mentioned research in Lithuania and Poland exist; 3) to answer the question, if the dialog between Lithuanian and Polish researchers prevails. Objectives of the report are as follows: 1) to show the dynamic of research on relations with the Scandinavian countries in 1918-1940 in Lithuania in 1995-2005; 2) to present the issues of Polish historians written during the last decade on relations between Poland and the Scandinavian countries; 3) to make (quantitative and qualitative) analysis of issues of Polish and Lithuanian historians and compare the results.