Press release, 23 February 2016
Loreta Graužinienė, Speaker of the Seimas, attended a solemn general meeting of members of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences to mark the 75th anniversary of the Academy. In her welcome address the Speaker of the Seimas was delighted to note that free and progressive scientific ideas have been generated in the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences since its very foundation to this day.
“The Lithuanian Academy of Sciences commenced its activities after Lithuania had unfortunately lost its independence; however, even following a Soviet model, the academy generated progressive scientific ideas,” Mrs Graužinienė said, underlining that the institutes of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences had made many significant scientific achievements recognised on the global scale.
The politician observed that strict Soviet regulation of scientific activities and ideological pressure exerted on scientists could not undermine the free thought which was spread by Lithuanian scientists and which played a decisive role in the process of the restoration of Lithuania’s independence. “(…) it is not surprising that the institutes of the Academy gave birth to theoretical models of transition of Lithuania’s society from totalitarianism and command economy to liberal democracy and market economy. It was in the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences that the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania was drafted and it was in this hall that the initiative group of the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sąjūdis was established,” Mrs Graužinienė said.
In conclusion of her address, the Speaker of the Seimas emphasised the honour of the title of an academician as the highest acknowledgement of a scientist and extended her gratitude to the scientists of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences for their activities for the sake of the nation and the state.
Rosvaldas Gorbačiovas, Senior Adviser to the Speaker of the Seimas, tel. +370 239 6005,
+370 698 42 071, e-mail: [email protected]
