In 1974 the ninth and tenth issue of the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church (LCC Chronicle) came out.
The material in this section is mainly based on the information contained in these issues. For brief summaries of the ninth and tenth issues of the Chronicle LCC, see CCE 32.21 [1].
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The Trial of the Five
As reported by Chronicle LCC No. 10, from 15 February to 5 March 1974 the Lithuanian Supreme Court tried the case of Sarunas Žukauskas, Antanas Sakalauskas, Isidorus Rudaitis, Vidmantas Povilonis (all arrested at the end of March 1973, CCE 29.9) and Alois Mackevicius (arrested, it seems, on 23 October 1973).
They were charged with anti-Soviet activities, in particular with agitation (Article 68, Lithuanian SSR Criminal Code); with misappropriation; and with foreign currency transactions. The indictment also mentions the collection of funds to help the family of Simas Kudirka (CCE 20.6).
The chairman of the court was Ignotas; the People’s Assessors were Kavaliauskaite and Tamulionis. The prosecution’s case was presented by deputy chief procurator of the republic, Bakucionis. The defence lawyers were: Kudaba, for Žukauskas; Barvainis, for Sakalauskas; Gavronskis, for Rudaitis; Mrs Matiosaitiene, for Povilonis; and Vaicekauskas, for Mackevicius.
Besides a specially assembled public, only the closest relatives of the defendants were allowed into the courtroom.
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Sarunas Žukauskas (b. 1950), a sixth-year student at the Kaunas Medical Institute, was charged with the following:
- forming an anti-Soviet underground organization, the members of which took an oath and paid dues, and of leading the organization; with being the author of a proclamation dedicated to Lithuanian independence day (16 February);
- with duplicating (in two copies) the 15th volume of the Lithuanian Encyclopaedia (evidently published before 1940);
- with circulating anti-Soviet literature; with the acquisition of parts for an Era duplicating machine; with trying to enlist Mackevicius in an underground organization;
- with helping Sakalauskas to steal four typewriters;
- with complicity (which, seemingly, expressed itself in incitement) in the misappropriation of wooden folk sculpture and church plate undertaken by Mackevicius. It is believed that the last charges were based entirely on the contradictory evidence of Mackevicius.
During the judicial investigation Žukauskas did not deny that he had been the leader of an organization, the aim of which was the collection of literature and self-education. Acting within a legal framework, he aimed to promote the correction of errors committed by the authorities, He admitted that he had circulated works that had not been officially published, for example The Trial of S. Kudirka, but said they did not contain fabrications and were not anti-Soviet.
He was convinced that the misappropriation of typewriters with which he was charged had not caused anyone material loss, as they had been written off. Žukauskas categorically denied that he had participated in the theft of church property and folk art works. He did not intend to take responsibility for the crimes of Mackevicius.
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Anastas Sakalauskas (b. 1938), a teacher of German at the Kaunas polytechnic institute, sentenced in 1957 to two years of imprisonment for trying to escape abroad in a canoe, was charged with belonging to an underground organization; with possessing anti-Soviet literature (including two numbers of the Chronicle LCC, A Question of Madness by Zhores and Roy Medvedev, Hitler’s Mein Kampf and other items); with the intention of transmitting a collection of his verse to the West; and with organizing the misappropriation of typewriters.
At the trial Sakalauskas confirmed that he belonged to an organization and paid membership dues. He stressed that the aim of the organization was self-education.
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Izidorius Rudaitis (b. 1912), a doctor, was charged with supporting, in particular financially, an underground organization; with facilitating the duplication and circulation of anti-Soviet literature and the proclamation concerning 16 February; with preparing to publish an underground journal (or collection?), New Bell [Nauiasis Varpa], of which he was to become the editor; and with foreign currency speculation.
In the course of the judicial investigation he stated that he knew nothing about any underground organization or alleged underground publication. As for the material which was confiscated from him during a search and which had not been published in the official press, an educated man should be acquainted with different viewpoints, including critical ones. Rudaitis testified that he had acquired the foreign currency by chance.
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Vidmantas Povilonis (b. 1947), a technological engineer, was charged with belonging to an underground organization; with possessing and circulating anti-Soviet literature, in particular the proclamation about 16 February; and with participating in the preparation of a publication called New Bell.
Povilonis denied that he had been involved in the circulation of any works whatever, and stated that he knew nothing about the plan for the New Bell or about an organization. His only connection with Zukauskas was their common interest in local history and folklore.
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Aloiz Mackevicius (b. 1949), a former candidate member of the Communist Party, a skilled worker of the Highways Department, was charged with stealing folk art works at the instigation of Žukauskas; with robbing a church in Tirksliai and taking the stolen goods to Žukauskas; and with joining an underground organization.
Mackevicius pleaded guilty to the thefts and the robbery of the church; his motive was that he liked to dress well. He testified that Žukauskas was his accomplice. However, in the course of the judicial investigation Mackevicius partially changed his evidence and said that he had robbed the church on his own, wanting to prove to Žukauskas that he was capable of independent action.
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About 90 witnesses were cross-examined at the trial. However, the court did not examine the substance of the texts with which the defendants were charged in order to check thoroughly whether they contained libellous fabrications.
In his speech, prosecutor Bakucionis singled out Mackevicius, expressing regret that he had found himself the victim of a deception.
In a lengthy final speech 5. Žukauskas said that he was not an enemy of socialism but did not regard Soviet authority in Lithuania as democratic, as it had been forcibly imposed from without, both in 1918 and in 1940. He spoke about the terror, the expropriation of the kulaks, the arrests, the mass banishments and the partisan battles, all of which had cost Lithuania about 300,000 human lives, and about the Russification of Lithuania. Žukauskas stated that he did not consider his actions to be criminal in the eyes of his people, and that he was not asking for a mild sentence, but was demanding acquittal.
The court sentenced S. Žukauskas to six years of strict-regime camps and confiscation of property; A. Sakalauskas to five years of strict-regime; V. Povilonis to two years of strict-regime; I. Rudaitis to three years of strict-regime and confiscation of property; and A. Mackevicius to two years of ordinary-regime.
Mackevicius is serving his sentence in Pravenigkiai (in Lithuania); the rest are in the Perm Region (except for Žukauskas, who is being kept in a KGB prison until, it is rumoured, the autumn).
On 17 March 1974 a report about the trial was published in the newspaper Tiesa (Truth) in an article headed ‘In whose name?’ The newspaper reports that the defendants published and circulated leaflets of an ‘anti-Soviet character’. It also reports that Rudaitis circulated recordings of foreign radio programmes. The article did not specify the sentences.
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ARRESTS
At the end of 1973 a Ukrainian Catholic priest, Father Vladimir Prokopiv (b. 1914), a resident of Vilnius, was arrested in Lvov.
Prokopiv received his higher theological education in Rome, served as a priest in the Ukraine, and was banished to Kazakhstan. When he returned from exile he settled in Lithuania and worked as a manual labourer. As Chronicle LCC No. 9 reports. Father Prokopiv secretly engaged in pastoral activities amongst believers in Lithuania and the Ukraine.
Not long before his arrest Father Prokopiv travelled to Moscow with representatives of the Ukrainian Catholics of the Lvov Region who have been petitioning for the opening of a Catholic church. A request to open a church was signed by about 1,200 people. When he returned to Vilnius Father Prokopiv discovered traces of a search in his fiat. Apparently the flats of the Ukrainians who took the statement to Moscow had also been searched.
It is reported that at approximately the same time a Ukrainian priest, Mitskevich, who worked in the town of Stryi (Lvov Region), was arrested [2].
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On 9 April 1974 Virgilijus Jaugelis was arrested in Kaunas (CCE 30.11).
He was interrogated on 18 January by Iinvestigator Lazarevicius. The investigators wanted to learn from whom Jaugelis had obtained the materials for a rotary press. Jaugelis refused to answer, as the Constitution guaranteed freedom of the press and the confiscation of matrices was illegal. During the interrogation the following day samples of his handwriting and his fingerprints were taken.
On the day of his arrest a search was carried out at Jaugelis’s flat, led by Captain Pilelis. Jaugelis was charged under Article 68 (Lithuanian Criminal Code = Article 70, RSFSR Code). He is at present being held in the Vilnius KGB prison.
On 24 April 1974 Juozas Grazys was arrested in Kaunas after a search, in the course of which parts of an Era duplicating machine, paper and several copies of the book Yet the Holy Scriptures are Right were found.
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SEARCHES
On 20 November 1973, A. Patrubavicius, a resident of Ezerelis, was arrested after a search. An Era photocopying machine and a typewriter were confiscated from him. At the same time, his neighbour Zareckas was subjected to a search. Additional information about searches at the end of November 1973 (CCE 30.11) is given below.
The following were subjected to searches:
19 November 1973: Vytautas Vaiciunas (Kaunas), an official of the Kaunas Soviet executive committee. Books and articles of a religious nature and on moral philosophy, prayer books, the New Testament, journals, newspaper cuttings, notebooks, plans and technical descriptions of ‘Era’ printing blocks and other items were confiscated. The search, led by Major Limauskas, lasted two days. At the beginning of the search Povilas Petronis (CCE 30.11), who was in Vaiciunas’s flat at the time, was arrested. Vaiciunas declared that the articles confiscated from him belonged to Petronis. After the search Vaiciunas was interrogated for four days.
19 November 1973: Kazimieras Gudas (village of Slenava, Kaunas district). 2,500 unbound prayer books, an uncompleted home-made ‘Era’ machine and other items were confiscated. During the search Gudas was beaten up.
19 November 1973: Janina Lumbiene (Kaunas). A typewriter, a poem about Romas Kalanta and a copy of the memorandum to the UN Secretary-General with 17,000 signatures (CCE 25.7 [5]) were confiscated. After the search she was summoned to an interrogation.
20 November 1973: Jonas Gudelis (Kaunas). Religious literature, notes and copies of the Chronicle LCC were confiscated. After the search he was interrogated in Vilnius and Kaunas.
21 November 1973: Marija Vilkute (Kaunas). Books were confiscated.
On 19 and 20 November searches were carried out at two more flats in Kaunas, in the course of which 280 kilograms of print, a home-made printing machine, 1,000 unbound prayer books, a guillotine cutting device and other items were confiscated.
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CASE 345
Information is available on several searches carried out in March and April 1974 in connection with Case No. 345 (the case on the publication of the Chronicle LCC and religious literature). The following were subjected to searches:
On 20 March — a Ukrainian priest, Father Vladislav Figolis.
On 20 March — Miss Bronja Kazelaite (Kaunas). About 400 copies of a prayer book were confiscated.
On 20 March — a priest, S. Tamkevicius (Simnas). Two issues of the LCC Chronicle, religious works and recording tapes were confiscated.
On 4 April — Matulionis (Vilnius). Searches were carried out in Druskininkai, where he was receiving treatment, and in his flat in Vilnius. Religious literature was confiscated. At an interrogation Matulionis confirmed the evidence of employees at the reproduction section of the republican library, Obulskis, Chudakovas and Ciplis, that he had commissioned them to prepare 2,000 catechisms in the Russian language. (The KGB found these books in the library.) Matulionis explained that he had ordered them to use as presents.
On 8 April — Mrs Ona Volskiene (Kaunas). A typewriter was confiscated.
On 9 April and then on 10-11 April — Miss Salomea Miksyte (Kaunas). A room rented by Miss Miksyte in Kulautuva was searched and typewriter and religious books were confiscated.
On 24 April — Vilius Semashka (Kaunas). Religious and other valuable prewar books were confiscated. The people conducting the search contended that someone had formerly been working on an ‘Era’ duplicating machine in one room of the house.
Semashka and the owners of the flat in which he lives were interrogated for three days in Vilnius.
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Many inhabitants of Lithuania were interrogated in connection with Case 345 between January and April 1974.
They were questioned about the people arrested in this case (CCE 30.11), about the LCC Chronicle, about homemade publications of religious literature, about an underground seminary, about the priest Juozas Zdebskis [3], whom, it is believed, the KGB regard as one of the leaders of independent Lithuanian Catholics, and others, J. Zdebskis was interrogated for two days.
According to rumours, several investigators believe that the investigation of Case 345 will last about a year.
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EXTRAJUDICIAL PERSECUTION
In Lithuania there are, as before, frequent cases of extra-judicial persecution of believers. Some of these are listed below,
The education department in Vilnius forced a day-nursery worker, Miss Aldona Matuseviciute, to resign ‘at her own request’, as she was suspected of belonging to a Catholic order of nuns. She was dismissed on 13 October 1973.
For the same reason Miss Monika Gavenaite was dismissed from the publishing house Sviesa (Light) in Kaunas, also ‘at her own request’.
Miss Marite Medauskaite, a typist in a finance department in Panevėžys, was dismissed from her job in April 1974 on suspicion of being a nun.
The manageress of a chemist’s shop in Ignalina, Miss Albina Meskenaite, and a doctor, Miss Vitalija Juzenaite, attended the funeral of a priest, Vincentas Mishkinis, the pastor of Melagenai parish, on 30 October 1973.
After an investigation of the matter in the district Soviet executive committee (at which the chairwoman of the committee, Mrs Gudukiene, said that people with a non-communist ideology could not be the heads of institutions and referred to the inadequacy of the political work in the chemist’s shop), A. Meskenaite was dismissed on 13 November by the chief pharmaceutical board. She was told that she would not get a job in her profession in Ignalina district. Doctor V. Juzenaite received a reprimand.
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Miss Laima Atkociunaite (now Mrs Starkiene), the director of a house of culture in Jakutiskiai, was dismissed from work in the summer of 1973 after she got married in a church. On 10 January 1974 the Ukmerge district paper Native Land reproached her with betraying the Komsomol.
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Zenonas Mistautas, a student at the polytechnic in Siauliai, was forced to postpone the defence of his graduation dissertation for a year and was deprived of his grant. In January 1974 his marks were downgraded on the order of the polytechnic’s director, Zumer, ‘for non-fulfilment of social obligations he had accepted and for failure to give a lecture on atheism’. Mistautas had refused to give a lecture on atheism at a building site where he was doing his pre-diploma practical work.
The minister of higher and secondary special education in Lithuania, Zabulis, to whom Mistautas addressed a request to be allowed to defend his diploma, confirmed the decision of the pedagogical council. It is assumed that such harsh educational measures as those taken by the teachers and the minister himself are connected with the fact that Mistautas was subjected to interrogations regarding a cross that was carried up Meskuiciai Hill by young people from Siauliai on 19 May 1973 (CCE 30.11).
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NOTES
- Summaries of the LCC Chronicle were omitted in this and subsequent issues of the Chronicle of Current Events, while providing material for regular reports on Lithuania. Sequels to many of the episodes reported here can be found in CCE 34.7 [10], CCE 35.5 and CCE 36.7.
English translations of the Lithuanian Chronicle were published as booklets by the Lithuanian Roman Catholic Priests’ League of America, New York.
↩︎ - The Soviet paper Lvovskaya Pravda later reported on his conviction and trial, but did not give his sentence. See the lengthy account in The Guardian, London (28 August 1974).
↩︎ - On Zdebskis, see CCE 18.10 [18], CCE 21.9, CCE 22.8 [6], CCE 23.8 [1], CCE 27.3, CCE 27.12 [13] and Name Index.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 