Ignas Jonynas
Encyclopedia
Ignas Jonynas was a Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

n diplomat, historian, and university professor. As a diplomat he is known for negotiations with the Second Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

 and League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

 regarding Vilnius Region
Vilnius region
Vilnius Region , refers to the territory in the present day Lithuania, that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time,...

. As a historian he specialized in the history of Lithuania
History of Lithuania
The history of Lithuania dates back to at least 1009, the first recorded written use of the term. Lithuanians, a branch of the Baltic peoples, later conquered neighboring lands, establishing the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in the 13th century the short-lived Kingdom of Lithuania. The Grand Duchy...

 in the 13–16th centuries. He published little, but had a formative influence on subsequent generations of historians.

From 1904, Jonynas studied history at the University of Moscow under Matvei Kuzmich Liubavskii, an expert on Lithuanian Metrica
Lithuanian Metrica
The Lithuanian Metrica or the Metrica of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is a collection of the 14–18th century legal documents of the Chancellery of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania...

—medieval archives of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...

. Liubavskii's critical approach to historical sources greatly influenced Jonynas. Jonynas participated in the Russian Revolution of 1905
Russian Revolution of 1905
The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...

 and thus had to transfer to the University of Grenoble
University of Grenoble
University of Grenoble or Grenoble University was a university in Grenoble, France until 1970, when it was split into several different institutions:...

 to study French language and literature. He also attended lectures on history at the University of Berlin. Acquitted by Russian courts he returned to Moscow to finish his studies. After graduation in 1911 he worked as a school teacher in Noginsk
Noginsk
Noginsk is a town and the administrative center of Noginsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, located east of the MKAD ring road on the Klyazma River. Population:...

 and Moscow until 1919.

At the end of World War I, he returned to Lithuania and joined the People's Commissariat of Education of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (1918–1919)
The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic was an early short-lived Soviet republic declared on December 16, 1918 by the provisional revolutionary government, led by Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas...

. After the failure of the Soviet government, he lived in Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

, worked as a school principal, and opposed Polish ambitions in the city. For a few months in mid-1920 he was the chief Lithuanian commissioner in the Vilnius Region
Vilnius region
Vilnius Region , refers to the territory in the present day Lithuania, that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time,...

. After the 1920 Żeligowski's Mutiny
Zeligowski's Mutiny
Żeligowski's Mutiny was a sham mutiny led by Polish General Lucjan Żeligowski in October 1920, which resulted in the creation of the short-lived Republic of Central Lithuania. Polish Chief of State Józef Piłsudski had surreptitiously ordered Żeligowski to carry out the operation, and revealed the...

, during which Polish forces captured Vilnius, Jonynas moved to Kaunas
Kaunas
Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...

 and joined the control commission
Control commission
A control commission is an independent regulatory body. Control commissions are most often found in regulated industries and political organisations...

 of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

 to negotiate the dispute over the Vilnius Region. After the diplomatic efforts failed in 1922, Jonynas continued to be employed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania until 1929. From 1924 until his death he lectured at the University of Lithuania and Vilnius University
Vilnius University
Vilnius University is the oldest university in the Baltic states and one of the oldest in Eastern Europe. It is also the largest university in Lithuania....

, attaining professorship in 1932.

As a historian, Jonynas wrote little convinced that his works were not properly researched or that everything was already written by somebody else. He contributed articles on Lithuanian dukes, nobles, treaties, and other topics to the Lithuanian Encyclopedia, the first universal encyclopedia in Lithuanian language
Lithuanian encyclopedias
Lithuanian encyclopedias are encyclopedias published in the Lithuanian language or encyclopedias about Lithuania and Lithuania-related topics. The first known attempt to create a Lithuanian encyclopedia was in 1883, when Jonas Jacevičius failed to get permission from the Tsarist authorities for...

. He studied and translated from Latin De moribus tartarorum, lituanorum et moscorum (posthumously published in 1966). His most important work was a study on family of Vytautas, Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1392 to 1430. However, Jonynas helped to form a new generation of Lithuanian historians and raised their level of professionalism. He always critically analyzed primary source
Primary source
Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied....

s and dismissed secondary sources—thus helping to rid Lithuanian historiography of mistakes, medieval legends and myths, foreign biases and stereotypes.
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