Teodoras Daukantas (September 20, 1884 in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

– March 10, 1960 in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

) was a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, 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, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n military officer who served as Lithuanian Minister of Defense. In 1903–1918, Daukantas served in the

Imperial Russian Navy The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until being dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution and the declaration of ...

. He attended Naval Training School at St. Petersburg (1903–1906). In 1911–1914, Daukantas attended High Naval Training School at St. Petersburg from which he graduated with a Silver Star in Naval Tactics Training. In 1913, he published ''The Defense of Abu-Alaud'' and in 1916, ''Essays on Naval Tactics''. Later he published the articles "The Defense of Coasts", "The War on Rivers". He published the books ''The South of Brazil'' and ''Our Way to Vilnius''. After World War I, Daukantas returned to Lithuania in 1922. He was head of education section of the Senior Officers Academy in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

until 1924. Twice, in 1924–1925 and 1927–1928, he served as the Lithuanian Minister of Defense. In between serving as the Lithuanian Minister of Defense, he was the

Chief of the General Staff The Chief of the General Staff (CGS) is a post in many armed forces (militaries), the head of the military staff. List * Chief of the General Staff (Abkhazia) * Chief of General Staff (Afghanistan) * Chief of the General Staff (Albania) * C ...

of the

Lithuanian Army The Lithuanian Armed Forces () are the military of Lithuania. The Lithuanian Armed Forces consist of the Lithuanian Land Forces, the Lithuanian Navy, the Lithuanian Air Force and the Lithuanian Special Operations Force. In wartime, the Lithuan ...

. In his diary for 1927, American diplomat Robert Heingartner who served in Lithuania recorded that "Colonel Daukantas is said to be so powerful in the army that no government could last a day without his support." In 1928, he was promoted to brigadier general (in 1936, he was changed to

lieutenant general Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was norma ...

). He was Lithuanian Consul General in

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(1932–1935) and Minister Plenipotentiary of South America (1936–1939). On October 20, 1932, Daukantas co-signed a Treaty # 3542 with

Carlos Saavedra Lamas Carlos Saavedra Lamas (November 1, 1878 – May 5, 1959) was an Argentine academic and politician, and in 1936, the first Latin American Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Biography Born in Buenos Aires, Saavedra Lamas was a descendant of an early Ar ...

under the League of European Nations which insured a convention or treaty between the Argentine Republic and the Independent Republic of Lithuania concerning reciprocity with respect to the payment of compensation for industrial accidents signed at Buenos Aires on October 20, 1932. Daukantas was a Member of the States Council, Chargé d'Affaires for Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, (1930 -1935). In 1941 Daukantas was arrested, imprisoned, and tortured during the Soviet rule of Lithuania, and persecuted by the

Nazi German Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

in 1942-1944 during their occupation. He was liberated at the beginning of the

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a ...

, moved to Germany until 1949, and then to Argentina. He remained in Buenos Aires, Argentina until his death in 1960. His remains were reburied in

Karmėlava Karmėlava is a small town in Kaunas County in central Lithuania. In 2011 it had a population of 1,395. The town of Karmėlava is located north east of Kaunas and near the second-busiest civil airport in Lithuania, Kaunas International Airport ...

, Lithuania in 1997.

Academic experience

* (1925–1930 and 1935–1940) Associate Professor of Geography,

Vytautas Magnus University Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) (, VDU) is a public university in Kaunas, Lithuania. The university was founded in 1922 during the interwar period as an alternate national university. Initially it was known as the University of Lithuania, but ...

, Kaunas * (1935–1937) Lecturer of Spanish Languages, Vytautas Magnus University * (1941–1944) Associate Professor of Geography,

Vilnius University Vilnius University ( Lithuanian: ''Vilniaus universitetas'') is a public research university, which is the first and largest university in Lithuania, as well as one of the oldest and most prominent higher education institutions in Central and Ea ...

, special courses on South America, the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

and the importance of maritime for the State of Lithuania * Lecturer on Topography and Surveying at the High Military Officers Courses, Kaunas

Geographical voyages and travels

* (1906–1911) with Russian battleship ''Slava'' in North Atlantic, Arctic Sea and Mediterranean * (1919–1922) Captain in the English and Dutch Merchant Marine * (1924–1926) voyage to North Africa * (1929–1930) voyage to South America (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay)

References

*Baltisches biographisches Archiv icroform BaBA/ dvising editor, Paul Kaegbein;editor, Axel Freyl Published: Munchen:K.G.Saur Verlag,[1995-1998 *Eidintas, Alfonsas (2003). Lithuanian emigration to the United States: 1868-1950. Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas. Retrieved 15 September 2014. Current History and Forum .... C-H Publishing Corporation. 1928 *Encyclopedia Lituanica 6 Vol. Boston, (1970-1978) [112] *Gilbert, Martin; Porat, Dina; Michalowicz, Jerzy (1990). Surviving the Holocaust: The Kovno Ghetto Diary. Harvard University Press. pp. 365–. . Retrieved 15 September 2014. *Heingartner, Robert Wayne (2009). Lithuania in the 1920s: A Diplomat's Diary. Rodopi. pp. 116–. . Retrieved 15 September 2014 *Lithuanian National Guard in Exile, Naval Division, Klaipėda Co. Retrieved 15 September 2014 *Poland. Poland America Company. 1929 *Prunskis, Juozas (1982). Lithuania under Soviet occupation: eyewitness accounts of atrocities. Lithuanian National Guard in Exile, Naval Division, Klaipėda Co. Retrieved 15 September 2014. *Vilnius: Lithuanian Literature, Culture, History. Vilnius. 1995 *Who is Who at the Baltic University. (Pinneberg, 1949) 4 {{DEFAULTSORT:Daukantas, Teodoras 1884 births 1960 deaths Lithuanian generals Imperial Russian Navy personnel Ministers of defence of Lithuania Academic staff of Vytautas Magnus University Academic staff of Vilnius University Lithuanian emigrants to Argentina