Tariami ir tikri faktai apie piniginio vieneto lito pavadinimo kilmę

LTPagrindiniai šio straipsnio tikslai yra išsiaiškinti lito pavadinimo kilmės problematiką – nustatyti, kada ir kam kilo mintis apie tokio piniginio vieneto pavadinimą, ir nurodyti, kokie buvo kiti pavadinimų variantai ir dėl kurių buvo balsuota Steigiamajame Seime. Straipsnyje aiškinamasi ir dėl laiko, kada pirmąjį kartą Lietuvos vyriausybė iškėlė savosios valiutos įvedimo klausimą ir dėl ko nuosavi pinigai nebuvo išleisti anksčiau. Pagrindiniais straipsnio šaltiniais yra to laiko periodinė spauda – dienraštis „Lietuva“, Lietuvos vyriausybių posėdžių protokolai ir 1922 m. Steigiamojo Seimo posėdžių stenogramos. [Iš straipsnio, p. 19]

ENOn October 1, 1922, the litas monetary unit was introduced into circulation in Lithuania for the first time. Before that, on August 9, 1922, the Constituent Assembly (Seimas) of Lithuania adopted the Law on the Monetary Unit, which established that the name of the national currency of the Republic of Lithuania would be litas, and the cent would be its hundredth part. The origin of the litas’ name has been covered many times before, but there have been no detailed studies on this topic. This has led to the publication of unconfirmed pseudo-facts. It is well known that the name litas is derived from the first three letters of the English-language name of Lithuania, lit, and the ending -as. In miscellaneous literature, it is often written that this name was invented by Vaclovas Vaidotas, a former member of the Constituent Assembly. In 1955, he wrote in his memoirs that while he was working in the Economic Commission of the Seimas in 1922, all suggestions were unsatisfactory when considering the name of the currency, and he came up with the name litas. However, the name litas was mentioned and discussed before this date. Work on creating Lithuania’s own currency began in January 1919, with the first name chosen for the currency being lita. This name, in the feminine form, corresponded to the name of the state of Lithuania. A similar name, lyta, was also considered in July 1919. The author of lita could have been Vytautas Petrulis, who later introduced the litas into circulation. Primarily, however, the names of lita or lyta did not meet the desire of the Minister of Finance, Jonas Vileišis, to have a muštinis (pound), which was approved on August 12, 1919.The name litas reappeared in January and February 1922, when the Economic and Financial Union organized lecture evenings on Lithuanian economics and finance at Kaunas University, and economist Alfonsas Moravskis, following the example of the Latvian lats, mentioned the names of Lithuanian litas and cents in discussions about the Lithuanian currency. Much has been written about various other variants of this name, such as auksinas, lietas, muštinis, and a whole series of others proposed in 1922. However, some of the names mentioned in various works of literature were never officially considered. The name kriptukas was mentioned only once by a member of the Seimas from the hall, for example, and gulden, franc, and mark were mentioned only for comparison, not as suggestions. Names such as kaltas or muštas, rublis, arfa and grašis were mentioned only as possibilities. Litas, auksinas, muštinis, lyra, lietas, dorelis (the rural name of the dollar) and vytis were the only names discussed and voted on.