Mrs Irena Degutienė, Speaker of the Seimas,
congratulated Prof. Vytautas Landsbergis, first Head
of State in the re-established independent Lithuania, on the occasion of his
venerable 80th birthday.
Prominent figures
like you are sometimes referred to as the living witnesses of history. Yet you
should be referred to as a former and current creator, rather than a mere witness,
of history. You were engaged in the activities of the Sąjūdis and the Reconstituent Seimas. You were
the leader and the defender of genuine values in the Lithuanias politics. And
you have always remained an uncompromised advocate of truth, for which you were
sometimes rightly appreciated and unjustly insulted at other times. You
remained faithful to the truth no matter how uncomfortable this truth was and
irrespective of the forces willing to erase your name from, or at least to
undermine its significance in, Lithuanias history.
The Speaker
of the Seimas underlined that the Lithuanians who are
intellectual, who appreciate and defend their freedom, and who are committed to
conscience and truth will always know who should be acknowledged for the
declaration and protection of independence on 11 March 1990, for our resistance
on 13 January 1991, as well as for preventing Lithuanias politics from
becoming a mere art of bargaining and for making it adhere to the principles of
decency, conscience, and truth.
I extend my
sincere thanks to you for your lessons of moral strength and courage, as well
as for your unique contribution to the struggle for and consolidation of
Lithuanias freedom. I thank you for your every spoken and written word that
has always been and still is aimed at the single objective: a free person in a
free state. Thank you for serving our culture, for seeking to ensure
completeness of national memory, and for your continuous efforts to make
Lithuania brighter, fairer, and wiser.
The Speaker
of the Seimas extended to Prof.
Landsbergis her wishes of physical and moral strength, good health, success, as
well as warmth and love in the family.
