Lithuanian Independence Day

Today, 16 February, is the anniversary of Lithuanian Independence Day - the date of Lithuaia's independence from German, Austrian, Prussian, and Czarist Russian occupation, in 1918.

With my family name of Cizauskas, I fly the flag this day every year, to honor my grandparents' families, both sides of which emigrated from Lithuania in the early 20th century.


For many years, on 16 February, my father would lay a wreath at the statue of Thaddeus Kosciusko in Lafayette Park across from the White House. He began this tradition a few years after our family's return in the mid 1960s from overseas US Foreign Service duty. He only stopped when illness prevented him.

11 March 1990 is the date of independence from the Soviet Union.