VMU Researchers on March 11th, the Signatories‘ Jokes, and the Singing Revolution
“In my closest circle of acquaintances, a simple, clear-cut belief was prevalent: what’s most important is to declare the restoration of the independent Republic of Lithuania. After that, as God wills. Maybe we would succeed, or maybe we would all be interned like the heads of the Solidarity movement were after Wojciech Jaruzelski’s coup. Or perhaps we would be deported to Siberia or simply shot. What mattered was to do everything in our power to give Lithuania a chance to become not just a free but also a democratic state”, recalls Rimvydas Valatka, a signatory of the Act of Independence, journalist, and professor at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU), reflecting on the mood of March 1990.
Valatka says that his entry into the Supreme Council (SC) was purely coincidental—he had not put forward his candidacy and had never even considered such a possibility. At the time, he was working as the deputy editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Gimtasis kraštas. However, in January 1990, a group of people from Palanga came to the editorial office and asked if he would agree to be a candidate of Sąjūdis (the Lithuanian reform movement which led the struggle for the country’s independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s), in Palanga—the city where he had finished high school—and in several districts of Klaipėda. The future signatory made up his mind quickly.
Rimvydas Valatka was elected to the Supreme Council (Reconstituent Seimas) of Lithuania, whose deputies voted on March 11, 1990, for the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania: 124 voted in favour, and six abstained. For the next two years, the Supreme Council served as Lithuania’s highest governing authority.
Prof. Rimvydas Valatka
Joking about the Signatories’ Grove in 2030
Valatka says that working in the Supreme Council was highly eventful, there was no lack of curious situations and even jokes that he and his young colleagues created during the long sessions—some lasting from morning until midnight. “We certainly weren’t writing a heroic epic, least of all about ourselves. We liked to poke fun—both at our colleagues and ourselves, as well as the situation that Lithuania found itself in after March 11. The empire could no longer stop us, but Lithuania had not yet fully broken free from the grip of Moscow,” Valatka remembers.
“I remember one joke we came up with over wine. It’s 2030, Lithuania is celebrating the 50th anniversary of March 11. All the signatories are dead. In the ‘Signatories’ Grove’ of busts, the last surviving signatory, Gintaras Ramonas, is rambling incoherently to a group of scouts about how we built independence. The joke always ended there because we would burst into uncontrollable laughter—especially at the thought of that grove of busts,” the professor says. Sadly, Gintaras Ramonas was one of the first signatories to pass away, in 1997, at the young age of 35.
Despite the uncertainty of the time, Valatka says he felt no anxiety. “I don’t agonize over things beyond my control. Let the enemy do that. And in this case, the Russians certainly had more reason to worry. Neither I nor my close colleagues in the Supreme Council fantasized about the future. In situations like these, the ones who think about the future are only the fools and narcissistic politicians, who are constantly concerned with how they look, whether they said the right thing, and whether they’ll be remembered in history,” he insists.
The Most Important Thing: Not Just Freedom, but Democracy
While working in the Supreme Council, Valatka did not dwell on what Lithuania’s future would look like—his main concern was ensuring that it would not only be free but also a democratic state. He was convinced that Lithuania would struggle greatly to build a free, Western-style economy and would remain a poor country for a long time, but despite that, people would always remain patriotic.
“As you can see, I was terribly wrong. We managed to turn our economy around much faster than expected. The fact that Lithuania has now surpassed countries like Portugal, Slovakia, and Hungary in terms of wages and living standards—not to mention the former Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria—proves it. Yet, many people still complain, longing for the days of collective farms, Russian factories, and empty stores,” Valatka notes.
The signatory openly admits that March 11 is more important to him than his daughters’ birthdays. “Not because I don’t love my daughters—I do, and I celebrate their birthdays. But without March 11—Lithuania’s birthday—their birthdays would be bleak, perhaps even grim, like in my generation’s youth. To me, March 11 is everything encompassed in the word ‘Freedom,’” the VMU professor reveals.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rytis Bulota
Perestroika as a Turning Point
Dr. Rytis Bulota, a political scientist and associate professor at VMU’s Dept. of Regional Studies, emphasizes that perestroika—the reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev when he became General Secretary of the USSR in 1985—was a crucial factor that helped Lithuania break away from the Soviet Union. Ironically, Gorbachev assumed power on March 11. Before these reforms, the regime’s grip was much tighter, and public movements like Sąjūdis were not allowed. However, nationalist and anti-Soviet sentiments were already present in Lithuania, even before perestroika—for example, at basketball and football matches.
“Before then, even if all Lithuanians had taken to the streets, it would not have been enough to bring about change. The ‘Solidarity’ movement in Poland had 10 million members and widespread public support, yet General Jaruzelski declared martial law and suppressed it,” VMU associate professor points out.
The scholar also notes that Lithuania’s path to independence was shaped not only by Sąjūdis but also by other underground movements, cultural activities, and music. Under Soviet rule, music was heavily censored, and terms like “rock music” or “rock band” were not even used—Soviet authorities referred to them as “vocal and instrumental ensembles.” Before perestroika, rock music was strictly underground—even one of Russia’s most popular rock bands, Aquarium, which formed in 1972, only released its first official vinyl record in 1987.
“There was a list of bands that were ‘not recommended for Soviet listeners’ because their music was considered harmful. For instance, The Clash was banned because they played punk rock—ironically, punk bands were often quite leftist, even strongly so, but from the Soviet perspective, they were seen as dangerous,” Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bulota explains.
Music as a Conduit: The March of Rock and the Singing Revolution
In the Baltic states, music played a very significant role in the struggle for independence: the period between 1987 and 1991 is called the Singing Revolution, particularly due to the patriotic songs performed at rallies, new music that reflected the political moods of the time, and the banned genres such as rock which became a form of resistance against the Soviet regime. In Lithuania, the Roko Maršas festivals (The March of Rock), initiated by the band Antis’ frontman Algirdas Kaušpėdas, significantly contributed to spreading the idea of independence.
“Music was a kind of conduit. The first Roko Maršas in 1987 was still apolitical, but the mere fact that musicians performed their own songs, without prior approval from censors, was a breakthrough of freedom. By 1988, musicians were traveling across Lithuania together with Sąjūdis members; one of them, Arvydas Juozaitis, delivered speeches on stage; everyone sang the Lithuanian national anthem, and previously banned Lithuanian symbols were used,” explains Dr. Bulota, who has studied Sąjūdis’ formation and the circumstances that led to its success in his doctoral research.
The VMU associate professor is also a member of the alternative rock band Mountainside and has been performing music since the late 1980s (Lithuania’s rebirth period). When he was sixteen, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bulota founded the band Pionieriaus Garbės Žodis, which participated in Purvinoji Žiema, one of the first Lithuanian underground music festivals, in 1988.
The Rush to Sign the Act was Deliberate
Discussing the Act of March 11th, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rytis Bulota notes that it was signed quickly for a good reason. On 10 March, after electing the Supreme Council deputies, they received a message from Lithuanian diplomats abroad urging them to act fast—because from 12 to 15 March, the Soviet Union’s Congress of People’s Deputies was set to meet.
“It was clear that at this congress, Gorbachev would be elected the first President of the Soviet Union. The president would have the authority to impose direct rule over Soviet republics and amend the Soviet Constitution, making secession significantly more difficult,” he explains, recalling the historical circumstances.
According to the political scientist, the society of that era embodied a strong desire for freedom, responsibility, and unity. However, in his view, these qualities are still present in Lithuanian society today as well, even if they are harder to notice at times.
“A lot of information that we receive is quite distorted—because of the social media bubbles and so on. I do not believe that there is no patriotism in Lithuania. Still we could learn some things from the politicians of Sąjūdos and from those who declared the independence of Lithuania: things like resolve and determination to do what was beneficial to Lithuania”, concludes Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bulota, whose recent research was focused on the circumstances of Sąjūdis’ inception in Kaunas.
