Kazimira Danutė Prunskienė () (born 26 February 1943) is a Lithuanian politician who was the first
prime minister of Lithuania
The prime minister of Lithuania ( lt, Ministras Pirmininkas; "Minister-Chairman") is the head of the government of Lithuania. The prime minister is Lithuania's head of government and is appointed by the president with the assent of the Lithua ...
after the declaration of independence of 11 March 1990, and
Minister of Agriculture
An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister ...
in the government of
Gediminas Kirkilas
Gediminas Kirkilas (, born 30 August 1951) is a Lithuanian politician who was Prime Minister of Lithuania from 2006 to 2008.
Life and career
Kirkilas was born in Vilnius in 1951. After returning from mandatory military service, from 1972 to 197 ...
.
She was the leader of the
Peasants and New Democratic Party Union
The Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union ( lt, Lietuvos valstiečių ir žaliųjų sąjunga, LVŽS)The party is also known as Lithuanian Peasant and Greens Union. is a green-conservative and agrarian political party in Lithuania led by Ram ...
and the
Lithuanian People's Party
The Lithuanian People's Party ( lt, Lietuvos liaudies partija) is a minor political party in Lithuania which describes itself as left-of-centre. It was founded in 2010 as a split from the Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union, and was led by the party ...
. From 1981 to 1986, she worked in
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...
.
She ran in the
2004 Lithuanian presidential election
Presidential elections were held in Lithuania in June 2004 alongside European elections. They were held following the impeachment of President Rolandas Paksas, who was elected in January 2003.
Background
Paksas was impeached for allegedly lea ...
against
Valdas Adamkus
Valdas Adamkus (; born Voldemaras Adamkavičius; 3 November 1926) is a Lithuanian-American politician, diplomat and civil engineer. He served as the 5th and 7th President of Lithuania from 1998 to 2003 and again from 2004 to 2009.
Adamkus' ...
, hoping to receive votes from supporters of impeached president
Rolandas Paksas
Rolandas Paksas (; born 10 June 1956) is a Lithuanian politician who was the sixth President of Lithuania from 2003 to 2004. He was previously Prime Minister of Lithuania in 1999 and again from 2000 to 2001, and he also served as Mayor of Vilniu ...
. She finished in second place in the first round and was defeated in the runoff.
Prunskienė is also a member of the
Council of Women World Leaders
The Council of Women World Leaders, created in 1996, is a network of 83 current and former presidents and prime ministers. It is the only organization in the world dedicated to women heads of state and government. The council's Ministerial Initia ...
, an International network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.
Early life and education
Prunskienė was born as Kazimira Danutė Stankevičiūtė in the village of
Vasiuliškė,
Ostland
The Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO) was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the western part of Byelorussian SSR. German planning documents i ...
(now
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
). Her father, Pranas Stankevičius, worked as a forest ranger and owned several hectares of land. Known as a jolly musician who played many instruments at country weddings, including the
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...
,
fiddle
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the ...
,
concertina
A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front.
The ...
, and a pipe of his own making, Stankevičius was killed by the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
in the Labanoras Forest when Kazimira was just one year old.
Prunskienė attended
Vilnius University
Vilnius University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow and ...
, earning her degree in economics in 1965 and later earned her doctorate from the same university in the same subject during the late 1980s. Afterwards, she stayed on at the university first as an instructor, then as a senior associate in the Department of Industrial Economics.
Before getting her first degree, Prunskienė married Povilas Prunskus. Between 1963 and 1971 she bore three children — a son named Vaidotas and two daughters called Rasa and Daivita. She would later divorce her first husband and remarry in 1989 to Algimantas Tarvidas.
Political career
Prunskienė shifted slowly from university to government circles. Joining the Lithuanian Communist Party in 1980, by 1986 she began acting as the deputy director for the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic's Agricultural Economics Research Institute. In 1988 Prunskienė helped found the grass-roots Lithuanian restructuring movement
Sąjūdis
Sąjūdis (, "Movement"), initially known as the Reform Movement of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Persitvarkymo Sąjūdis), is the political organisation which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was es ...
, which eventually grew into Lithuania's leading pro-independence group. In late 1980s Prunskienė became Deputy Chairwoman of Council of Ministers of Lithuanian SSR.
She was elected to the position of the Prime Minister of the
first government on 17 March by the
Supreme Council of Lithuania. By this, she became the first woman to become Prime Minister of Lithuania and first Prime Minister after 11 March 1990. She immediately faced the problems brought on by an economic embargo set in place by
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...
in an attempt to force Lithuania back under control of the crumbling USSR. Prunskienė flew to countries all over the world, including the United States, to try to gain support for negotiations with Gorbachev about the embargo through such committees as the
Helsinki Commission. After nine months in office, Prunskienė resigned and later headed the
Department of Agriculture in Lithuania.
In 1994 Prunskienė left the
Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania
Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos demokratinė darbo partija, LDDP) was the renamed Communist Party of Lithuania. It was a political party in Lithuania in the 1990s, which claimed to be social-democratic. The youth organization ...
. The next year she became leader of
Lithuanian Women Party. She was also the leader of the
Peasants and New Democracy Union, before leaving it in 2009. She established the
Lithuanian People's Party
The Lithuanian People's Party ( lt, Lietuvos liaudies partija) is a minor political party in Lithuania which describes itself as left-of-centre. It was founded in 2010 as a split from the Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union, and was led by the party ...
soon afterwards.
Writings
At the Vital Voices Conferences, held on 10 July 1997 in Vienna, Austria, Prunskienė published ''The Role Of Women In Democracy: The Experience Of Lithuania''. Here she addresses women's vastly unequal pay in comparison to men, the conservative tradition of a Catholic country, and the general status of women and their level of political influence in Lithuania.
[Prunskienė, Kazimira.]
The Role Of Women In Democracy: The Experience Of Lithuania
" 10 July 1997.
Notes
References
* Smith, David. The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Routledge. 2002
* Opfell, Olga. Women Prime Ministers and Presidents. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 1993.
* "Hearing before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe: Meeting with Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene of Lithuania." Implementation of the Helsinki Accords. One Hundred First Congress Second Session. 1990.
* Prunskienė, Kazimira. "The Role Of Women In Democracy: The Experience Of Lithuania." 10 July 1997
"Lithuania—Agricultural Minister keeps her position." The Baltic News Service 11 Sept 2007 1. 28 APR 2008* Torild Skard (2014) 'Kazimiera Prunskiene' "Women of power - half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide", Bristol: Policy Press
External links
Homepage of Kazimiera PrunskienėKazimira Prunskienė details at the ''Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania'' pageKazimira Prunskienė details at the ''Government of the Republic of Lithuania'' pageMinistry of Agriculture page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prunskiene, Kazimira
1943 births
20th-century Lithuanian women politicians
20th-century Lithuanian politicians
21st-century Lithuanian politicians
Female heads of government
Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Communist Party of Lithuania politicians
Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania politicians
New Democracy Party (Lithuania) politicians
Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union politicians
Lithuanian People's Party politicians
Living people
Ministers of Agriculture of Lithuania
People of the KGB
People of the Singing Revolution
Prime Ministers of Lithuania
Vilnius Gediminas Technical University faculty
Vilnius University alumni
Women government ministers of Lithuania
Women members of the Seimas
Women prime ministers
21st-century Lithuanian women politicians
Members of the Seimas