Antanas Viskantas: a Lithuanian with Polish friends
ENThe Reverend Antanas Viskantas (1875-1940) is a mysterious figure in Lithuanian history during World War I and in the inter-war period. Biographers usually preferred to emphasize only Viskantas' "personal relationships" with influential leading personalities owing to which he could significantly contribute to the protection and dissemination of Lithuanian culture in Vilnius occupied by Poland. In historiography, however, there were no attempts to explain the character of these "personal relationships". There is good reason to say that the period from 1915 to 1918 in Viskantas' biography is worthy of special attention in answering the abovementioned problem. The stormy events of World War I took him to Fribourg, Switzerland. Here Viskantas tried to establish ties between the movement raising humanitarian aid for war-stricken Lithuania and the similar Polish movement. He made use of his consequent contacts, "personal relationships", not only during the war, but also later, when Vilnius was occupied by the Poles. The other organization the priest started to co-operate with already in 1915 was the Lithuanian Information Bureau in Lausanne, headed by Juozas Gabrys. Their co-operation was rather problematic, since from the very beginning they became obvious rivals.The third organization widening the range of his acquaintances was the Eastern Committee, founded on May 12, 1918 together with the French-Swiss journalist, Edmond Privat. The organizers tried to unite the representatives of Lithuanians, Poles, Belorussians and Ukrainians whose task would have been to explain all facts concerning the rights of the nations represented by them and the reasons for the conflicts among them, and to convince the representative organs of the mentioned nations and the future Peace Congress about the rightness of their conclusions. Unfortunately, the Eastern Committee was soon undermined by personal conflicts. The article also discusses the events of 1919, when Viskantas, having returned to Vilnius, approached the supporters of Józef Piłsudski - Leon Wasilewki and others. The Lithuanian priest informed them of his wish to see co-operation in the territory of the former GDL between Lithuanians and Poles instead of their constant conflict. He even showed Wasilewski his correspondence on this issue with the Warsaw Apostolic Nuncio, Achille Ratti, who was to become Pope Pius XI. Viskantas' activity from 1915 to 1919 did not yield significant results. His philanthropical efforts remained unsuccessful, the Eastern Committee came to an end and even his 1919 intrigues with the supporters of Piłsudski remained fruitless.
