Pirmasis Lietuvos nepriklausomybės pripažinimo prašymas 1918 m. vasario 8-9 d.: tekstas ir kontekstas

LTStraipsnyje analizuojama Lietuvių Tautos Tarybos (Lozanoje) 1918 m. vasario 7 d. Vokietijos pasiuntiniui, o 1918 m. vasario 9 d. Antantės ir neutralių šalių pasiuntiniams Berne įteikta nota, kuria pirmą kartą prašoma pripažinti Lietuvos valstybės nepriklausomybę remiantis 1917 m. gruodžio 11 d. Lietuvos Tarybos (Vilniuje) pareiškimo pirmosios (I) dalies modifikuotu tekstu; atskleidžiamas notos atsiradimo ir įteikimo kontekstas. Pateikiamas notos vertimas į lietuvių kalbą, teksto turinio analizė ir interpretacija, parodomos notos įteikimo sąsajos su vyskupo Pranciškaus Karevičiaus ir prelato Konstantino Olšausko vizitu Berlyne. Daroma išvada, kad jungtinėmis koordinuotomis pajėgomis pavyko inicijuoti Lietuvos valstybės nepriklausomybės pripažinimo teksto projekto atsiradimą 1918 m. vasario 10 d. Vokietijos kanclerio kanceliarijoje. [Iš leidinio]

ENThe secession from Russia, the declaration of independence, and the request to recognise the independent state of Lithuania were the three steps which had to be made by the Council of Lithuania (in Vilnius) in order to bring Lithuania back into the international community after 120 years of occupation. The first two steps were made after all members of the Council of Lithuania signed the Statement of 11 December 1917, but it was not made public anywhere. Part I of the Statement was the Declaration of Independence, which declared the termination of all state ties which formerly bound the state to other nations and proclaimed the re-establishment of the independent state of Lithuania. Another step that ensued the secession and the declaration of independence had to be a request for the recognition of the independent state of Lithuania for it to become a full-fledged member of the international community. However, first and foremost, it had to be announced publicly. The article publishes the note handed over by the Lithuanian National Council (in Lausanne) to the German envoy on 8 February 1918 and to the envoys of the Entente Powers and neutral states on 9 February 1918 and analyses its text and context. The text of the note in French is identical. The note includes the first request to recognise the independence of the Lithuanian state based on the modified text of Part I of the Statement of 11 December 1917 signed by the Council of Lithuania (in Vilnius). The note dated 7 February 1918 was submitted to the German envoy in Bern and the note dated 9 February 1918 was handed over to the diplomatic and consular representatives of the Entente Powers (France, Great Britain, the USA, Italy) and neutral states (the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden) in Switzerland and the Swiss Political Department.Historiography includes no mention of the note delivered to Gisbert von Romberg, the German envoy in Bern, on 8 February 1918. The démarche made by Pranciškus Karevičius and Konstantinas Olšauskas at the same time, on 7–9 February 1918, to Gen. Erich Ludendorff and the German Chancellor Georg von Hertling in Berlin is not mentioned either. Both démarches, one by the Lithuanian National Council (in Lausanne) in Bern and the other by the two Lithuanian priests in Berlin, were, in fact, coordinated. The reaction to the note and the evaluations of the démarches found in historiography are similar, but the fact that on 10 February 1918, in the aftermath of the said démarches, the Chancellery of the German Chancellor prepared the draft document on the recognition of Lithuania’s independence has not been known before. The aim of the research is to investigate the context and the text of the first request to recognise Lithuania’s independence expressed on 8–9 February 1918, to reveal the reaction towards it and the results achieved. The chronological boundaries of the research cover the period from the sitting of the Lithuanian National Council (in Lausanne) of 25 January 1918, which put forward the idea to issue a memorandum with annexes, to 25 February 1918, when the German Military Administration completed the investigation into the circumstances of authorising the Lithuanian National Council (in Lausanne) to represent Lithuanian affairs abroad.The research employed the logical-analytical method (the notional analysis of the content of the note and the information provided by the sources in German, French, Norwegian, English languages was conducted), synthesis (the new material of the sources was supplemented with the information circulating in historiography), comparison (the facts from Lithuanian, German and Norwegian archives and the Lithuanian, German and Swiss press were compared), comparative analysis (the texts of documents in different languages were compared), descriptive, inductive, and interpretive methods (the idea and meaning of the content of the sources was reconstructed with regard to the question wording). gard to the question wording). The research consists of three parts. The first part analyses the context of the origin of the note (25 January 1918–7 February 1918) and concludes that: (1) the uncoordinated efforts of the Lithuanian National Council (in Lausanne), the Council of Lithuania (in Vilnius), and the Supreme Lithuanian Council in Russia to send Lithuanian delegates to the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk clearly demonstrated the equal rights of all three councils in representing the interests of the Lithuanian nation without any of them being more superior than the others; (2) the Lithuanian National Council (in Lausanne) and the Council of Lithuania (in Vilnius) sought to declare the independence of Lithuania and to obtain the recognition of Lithuania’s independence first from Germany and then from the Entente Powers and neutral states on the basis of the Statement of 11 December 1917; only the (non)presentation of the parts of the text in the documents of the notification of the Lithuanian National Council (in Lausanne) and the Council of Lithuania (in Vilnius) and the wording of different text parts differed; [...]. [From the publication]