President of Lithuania biography. President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite: biography. Lady Cold War
Graduated high school named after Salome Neris in Vilnius. After school, for about a year, from 1975 to 1976, she worked at the State Philharmonic Society of the LSSR as an inspector in the personnel department.
Entered the evening department of Leningradsky state university named after A. A. Zhdanov and at the same time worked at the Leningrad fur factory No. 1 (now LLC Rot-Front-on-Smolenka). She graduated from the university with a degree in political economy in 1983. In the same year she joined the Communist Party of Lithuania.
Work in politics
Returning to Vilnius in 1983, 27-year-old Dalia worked at the Vilnius Higher Party School, where she taught a course in political economy until 1990. In 1988, at the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the CPSU (Moscow), she defended her dissertation for the academic degree of Candidate of Sciences (in Lithuania, the degree was nostrified (confirmed) as a doctorate).
From 1990 to 1991 she worked as scientific secretary of the Institute of Economics.
In 1991 she graduated from the executive program at the Institute of International economic relations Georgetown University (Washington).
In 1991-1993 she was Director of the European Department of the Ministry of International Economic Relations, then at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 1996-1999, Minister Plenipotentiary of the Lithuanian Embassy in the USA.
Best of the day
She held the position of Vice Minister of Finance (1999-2000 and led Lithuania’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund), then was Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs (2000-2001). In the government of Algirdas Brazauskas she was the Minister of Finance of Lithuania (2001-2004).
European Commission
After Lithuania joined the European Union in 2004, she was delegated to the European Commission. Commissioner of the European Commission for Budget and Financial Planning since 2004, candidate for the post of President of Lithuania (and therefore, since April 2009, she has not temporarily performed duties in the European Commission).
Presidential elections 2009
In the first round presidential elections 2009 won, gaining 69.05% of the vote (the maximum figure for all elections after the collapse of the USSR).
Personal life
Dalia Grybauskaite was not married. Has no children.
Speaks English, Polish, Russian and French.
Awards
Order of Vytautas the Great with chain (10 July 2009, in accordance with the law, upon taking office of the President of Lithuania)
President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite in in writing refused to give permission to publish her personal data stored in Russian archives. This request was made to Grybauskaite by signatory Zigmas Vaišvila, who has been accusing the presidente of working for the KGB for many years and demanding her impeachment. By refusing to publish archival materials that could once and for all put an end to the dark rumors about her past, Dalya Polikarpovna personally signed that these rumors were true and the published archival documents would confirm them and not refute them.
The biography of Dalia Grybauskaite is a continuous series of skeletons in archival cabinets. Soviet period the life of the President of Lithuania is a set of “dark spots”. And the “dark spots” in the literal sense: journalist Ruta Janutienė, while working on the book “Red Dalia,” discovered that pages six to seventeen had been torn out of Grybauskaitė’s personal file. Dalia Polikarpovna has a very complex and confusing relationship with archival documents. Archives could finally clarify all the controversial points in the biography of the Lithuanian president. Only there can you get an answer to questions that are non-trivial from the point of view of Lithuanian constitutional and criminal legislation.
How could Grybauskaite become the scientific secretary of the Vilnius school of the CPSU in 1990, if in 1989 she (according to her) left Communist Party Lithuania on the platform of the CPSU and joined the independent Communist Party led by Brazauskas? Where is the personally filled out form in which Dalia Grybauskaite signed to leave the KPL on the platform of the CPSU and join the independent KPL? In what year did Grybauskaite actually leave the CPSU and did this not happen after January 13, 1991? If so, then she is subject to lustration and criminal prosecution.
How did Grybauskaite from the Higher Party School get an internship at Georgetown University in the USA in 1991? Who signed her a referral for an internship from the USSR? Why on the official website of the President of Lithuania in the “biography” section was the year of assignment to Georgetown changed from 1991 to 1992?
And what is behind the numerous rumors about Grybauskaite’s work for the KGB, which are in his memoirs and interviews? If these rumors are true, then under the same Lithuanian legislation Grybauskaite is again subject to lustration and criminal prosecution.
Archives could shed light on these questions. But the archives are silent.
Dalya Polikarpovna herself forbade them to speak, refusing in writing to give permission to disclose her personal materials stored in the archives Russian Federation.
The signatory of the Act on the Restoration of Lithuanian Independence, Zigmas Vaišvila, who has been studying the “murky” past of the head of the Lithuanian state for many years, approached the Mrs. President with a request for permission to declassify the archives. Previously, Vaišvila had already initiated the impeachment of Grybauskaite, explaining that the presence of such a person at the head of the country is a moral disgrace and a threat to the security of Lithuania.
“It’s one thing when you hide your biography, okay with that. But if you lie on almost every issue, then where will we end up with such a leader?” – Zigmas Vaishvila was indignant. “The lie went so far that in the 2009 presidential candidate questionnaire she wrote that she was not a member of the Communist Party of Lithuania, led by Brazauskas and separated from the CPSU, and in this year’s questionnaire she wrote, on the contrary, that she was. But this is a lie, and the documents show it, and it contradicts itself in two official documents. There are also a lot of members of the Communist Party of Lithuania who organized this branch and who said that this was a lie,” the signatory said then.
Last year, Vaišvila undertook to investigate Grybauskaite's participation in the Soviet diplomatic delegation that visited the United States in 1991. What did the future President of Lithuania, who at that time was officially in charge of, do as part of this delegation? scientific activity Vilnius party school? Who included her in the delegation? What position did she hold there?
“I was Deputy Prime Minister of Lithuania in 1991–1992. And I know for sure that Lithuania did not send her to America. First of all, we needed money. Secondly, there was no US embassy in Lithuania to issue her a visa. She could only get to America with the help of the USSR,” the signatory explains his interest in this episode in the biography of President Grybauskaite.
Zigmas Vaišvila officially addressed all his questions to the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Embassy in Lithuania. The Russian Ambassador in Vilnius Alexander Udaltsov sent an official response to the signatory.
“Dear Mr. Vaishvila, your appeals to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, as well as the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Lithuania dated March 23, 2015 regarding the provision of information about possible work Mrs. Dalia Grybauskaite at the USSR Embassy in the USA in 1991 was carefully examined. According to Article 7 of the Federal Law of July 27, 2006 No. 152-FZ “On Personal Data,” operators and other persons who have access to personal data are obliged not to disclose to third parties or distribute personal data without the consent of the subject of personal data, unless otherwise provided federal law... Thus, information affecting the personal data of Ms. D. Grybauskaite can only be requested by Ms. D. Grybauskaite herself.”
Not at a loss, Zigmas Vaišvila turned to Mrs. D. Grybauskaite herself with a request to sign permission to disclose her personal information from Russian archives.
And on January 15 of this year, Mrs. D. Grybauskaite personally responded to the signatory of the Act on the Restoration of Independence of Lithuania, in writing categorically refusing to show her archival documents to the world.
“It turned out that the president responded in a letter dated January 15, saying in writing that she categorically refused her consent,” writes the Lithuanian portal Ekspertai.eu. “When asked about the reasons for the refusal, the presidency stated that there would never be any comments on this issue.”
With her refusal, Dalia Grybauskaite said much more than she expected. Negative result is also a result, a negative answer is also an answer. If Mrs. President agreed to the publication of her archival materials, then even before the publication itself this would be proof of her strength and rightness. A demonstration that the President of Lithuania has nothing to hide or fear.
Having forbidden anyone to get information about herself from Soviet archive cabinets, Grybauskaite personally confirmed that serious party and intelligence “skeletons” were hidden in these cabinets.
As a result, instead of denying rumors about " dark spots“In her biography, “red Dalia” with the stroke of her own pen proved the truth of these rumors. Now Lithuanian state propaganda has a serious problem: it is necessary to somehow justify the president’s decision. Surely this will not happen without “provocation of the Russian special services”, which will “plant their fakes in the Russian archives.” “Russian propaganda” and “hybrid war” will certainly be mentioned in vain.
But all these are too primitive and insufficient explanations. After all, it is so easy to refute all supposedly propaganda rumors - you just need to show the documents, and they must be convincing documents that put everything in its place. “The final piece of paper. Factual. Real. Armor!" But Grybauskaite doesn’t do this herself, and doesn’t give it to others. Therefore, the situation with Dali Polikarpovna’s past and her current dubious reputation is like in an old Soviet joke. “Stirlitz walked along the corridor and did not understand the sidelong glances of his colleagues. Stirlitz did not know that a long parachute trail was trailing behind him.”
Dalia Grybauskaite - Russophobe, famous political and statesman. He does not hide his support for the Bandera regime in Kyiv. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite has been the European Commission's Commissioner for Financial Planning and Budget since 2004. Her determination and skillful leadership earned her the nickname “Iron Lady.”
Childhood
Dalia Grybauskaite was born on March 1, 1956 in the Lithuanian SSR, in the city of Vilnius, into a simple family. Her father, Polikarpas Vladovich, participated in the Second World War. In civilian life he worked as a firefighter and served in the NKVD. Dali's mother, Vitalia Korsakaite, was a saleswoman in a department store.
Education
They lived in the city center, next to the prestigious Lithuanian school named after. Salome Neris. In this educational institution, Dalia received her primary education. At school she became a Komsomol member. Graduated from primary educational institution in 1975, having received secondary education.
At the age of 17, Dalia entered the prestigious Vilnius University, but without graduating, two years later she unexpectedly got a job at the State Philharmonic. In 1976, she left for Leningrad and entered the evening department at the Zhdanov University. In 1983 she defended her diploma with a specialty in “political economics”. Joined the CPSU. In 1988 she wrote her dissertation and became a candidate of science. In 1991 she studied at Washington's Georgetown University.
Labor activity
Dalia did not work at the Vilnius State Philharmonic for long. Then she left for Leningrad, where she got a job as a laboratory assistant at a fur factory. In 1983, Dalia returned to Vilnius and began working as a secretary at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. In 1983-1990 taught political economics in the party higher school Vilnius. She was the head of the agriculture office. From 1990 to 1991 worked as a secretary at the Vilnius Institute of Economics. Then she began to head the European Department of Economic Affairs at the Ministry. international relations Lithuania. Participated in trade negotiations with the European Union.
Political activity
Lithuanian President Grybauskaitė began her political career in 1994. Until 1995, she served as Minister Plenipotentiary and Ambassador Extraordinary at the Lithuanian Mission to the European Union. In 1996-1999 worked in the USA, at the Lithuanian embassy.
From 1999 to 2000 was vice minister of finance. Coordinated negotiations with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Then she joined the board of directors of Gossberbank for a short time. In 2000, the future president of Lithuania received the post of vice minister of foreign affairs.
A year later she became head of the Ministry of Finance in the government of A. Brazauskas. Dalia remained in this position until 2004. At this time, the budget deficit decreased significantly. After Lithuania joined the EU, Dalia Grybauskaite became a member of the European Commission.
Her responsibilities included coordinating education and culture. In the fall of 2004, Grybauskaite was appointed Commissioner for Financial Planning and Budget. In this position, she gained great popularity not only in her own country, but also abroad.
For her tough work, Dalia Grybauskaite received the nickname “Iron Lady” from the media. In the fall of 2005, she was named “Commissioner of the Year” for reforming the EU budget. In 2008, she received the title of “woman of the year” in Lithuania.
Presidential chair
In 2009, Dalia registered as a candidate for the position of “President of Lithuania.” She ran as an independent candidate. In this regard, Dalia Grybauskaite resigned from the post of European Commissioner for EU rules. In May, presidential elections took place in Lithuania. Dalia Grybauskaite won. Voters gave her 70 percent of the votes.
On July 12, 2009, Dalia Grybauskaite took the oath and took the chair of the head of state. She is the first female president of Lithuania. And the very first ruler of the Republic of Lithuania (even before the formation of the USSR) was Antanas Smetona. The first president after the collapse of the Soviet Union was Algirdas Brazauskas.
During election campaign Dalia promised to rid the country of corruption and the power of oligarchs. At first, she really began to make decisive personnel changes and implement the planned program.
But soon Dalia Grybauskaite changed a lot as a politician. She began to support the United States, although, being a Komsomol member, she fiercely condemned NATO militarism and American imperialism. But after taking office as the “President of Lithuania,” she sharply changed her policy in this regard. At the same time, it also started a cold war with its eastern neighbors. In 2014, the next presidential elections took place. Dalia Grybauskaite advanced to the second round along with Zygmantas Balcytis.
According to the results, she received almost 60 percent of the votes against 40 for her opponent. As a result, Dalia Grybauskaite became the President of Lithuania again. She is quite aggressive and does not hold back her tongue. Dalia Grybauskaite has repeatedly publicly condemned Russia for annexing Crimea to it. Linked the Russian Federation to the unrest in eastern Ukraine. The President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite, called Russia a terrorist state.
As a politician, the Lithuanian president has big disadvantages. A woman does not know how to communicate impromptu. It is necessary to agree on topics and questions with her in advance. She refuses to answer without “cheat sheets.” The President of Lithuania became famous for her extravagant statements and actions.
Personal life
The politician’s personal life has developed in such a way that she does not even have children. The President of Lithuania, whose photo is in this article, is currently single. The yellow press published data that Dalia Grybauskaite has a non-traditional sexual orientation.
But the President of Lithuania denies such information. The political lady just didn’t have enough time to settle down own family. But she is fluent in several foreign languages and has a black belt in karate.
Politics, by generally accepted standards, is an unclean, difficult and often dangerous business. Therefore, when women engage in it, it becomes clear to what extent they are extraordinary individuals.
The current president of Lithuania is leading her country for the second term, and her most implacable political opponents are forced to admit that she has not only purely feminine virtues.
Partisan's daughter
In countries that gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet colossus, especially in the Baltic states, even a distant connection with security forces communist regime. In order to eliminate an opponent in the struggle for power, it is often enough to dig out even a slight hint of cooperation with the authorities in the biography of him or his relatives. Moreover, for for a long time During the “Soviet occupation,” only a few managed to completely avoid interaction with such structures to build a career of any scale.
The resilience possessed by the current President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite, is surprising from this point of view, because she was born in the family of a participant in the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War, who fought in a Soviet partisan detachment, and then served in one of the regional departments of the NKVD. Polikarpas Vladovich Grybauskas, born in 1928, like many veterans throughout the Union, was on the 40th anniversary of the Victory awarded the order Patriotic War II degree.
A high-ranking daughter delicately claims that her father was just a driver in the fire department and did not accept active participation in hostilities or in repressions against opponents of the communist system. The positive aspect of this position is obvious: the current president of Lithuania has never publicly renounced her parent.
An example of a successful career during the USSR
Her mother, Vitalia Petrovna Grybauskienė, was a saleswoman by profession and gave birth to a daughter in the spring of 1956. Dalia graduated from high school in Vilnius without much success and was fond of basketball, which is considered almost a national sport in Lithuania. After school, she worked for some time as an inspector in the personnel department of the National Philharmonic and moved to Leningrad, where she managed to enter the Zhdanov State University.
She studied at the evening department of the Faculty of Political Economy, and during the day she worked as a laboratory assistant at a fur factory. The position of a laboratory assistant was considered a working profession; it was not subject to restrictions on admission to the party, as was the case with the intellectual stratum in Soviet society, so in 1983, the year she graduated from university, the future president of Lithuania became a member of the CPSU. This was a significant factor in accelerating a career in any field.
in political economy
From 1983, for seven years, Grybauskaite taught political economy at the Higher Party School in Vilnius, defending her PhD thesis in graduate school at the Academy of Social Sciences in Moscow in 1988. It was impossible to achieve such success without perseverance, willpower and determination even in times of the most moldy stagnation. It seems no coincidence that another of Dali’s sports hobbies - karate - is a source of courage, self-confidence and speed of reaction.
There is no doubt that if the CPSU had still remained the only ruling party in a huge country, the current president of Lithuania would have reached the highest levels of the party nomenklatura at the republican or even all-Union level - her political career developed so brilliantly under the “occupation regime”. But the Union collapsed, the Lithuanian Communist Party split, and Dalia Grybauskaite, a teacher at the Vilnius High School, was left without a job in 1990.
To a new orbit
It is impossible to return a ballistic missile that has already gained speed to the launch silo - it was also difficult to stop the career of the future leader of Lithuania. The driving force for her was, in addition to her outstanding personal qualities, her impressive knowledge of economics and command of foreign languages.
Algirdas Brazauskas appreciated Grybauskaite’s confident English - today ex-president Lithuania, and then a politician who was just beginning to form a personnel elite for the resurgent country. In 1991, Grybauskaite studied in the USA at the Institute of International Economic Relations.
Diplomat, minister, European Commissioner
Soon Grybauskaite, a professional in socialist political economy, became an expert in the processes occurring in capitalist economies, especially in the sphere of interactions between different countries. From 1991 to 2004, she held high positions in European structures and in the Lithuanian government:
- Director of the European Department of the Ministry of International Economic Relations;
- Minister Plenipotentiary of the Lithuanian Embassy in the USA;
- Vice Minister of Finance;
- Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs;
- Minister of Finance of Lithuania;
- Commissioner of the European Commission for Budget and Financial Planning.
Lady President
For such a politician, the highest post of executive power in the country - the President of Lithuania - became quite achievable. The biography of the presidential candidate in the 2009 elections, Grybauskaite, was almost flawless, and the fact that she was an elegant blonde may have become additional factor her victory, although among the 7 candidates, besides Dali, there were two more women - thus, she also won the beauty contest.
A little more than half of the voters took part in the elections, but Grybauskaite’s result - victory in the first round with an indicator of 68.2% - is the best for Lithuania in all post-Soviet times.
Victory in the elections four years later was more difficult. In the first round she failed to get more than half the votes, and in the second round she beat Social Democrat Balcytis by 17%. And yet, on July 12, 2014, she again assumed her high post. What is its success based on?
"Steel Magnolia"
She calls her ideal in politics the “iron lady” - Margaret Thatcher. And although the scale of their achievements is still difficult to compare, Dalia Grybauskaite firmly follows the principles of the most famous female politician. The protests of her opponents in Lithuania look like “pro-poor talk”, although they serve as an excellent illustration of her methods.
It is alleged that victory in the 2014 elections became possible due to reaching an agreement with the leaders of the Lithuanian opposition to provide them with solid positions in the government and in European structures, which they never received. An attempt to stir up a scandal due to the vagueness of some facts of Grybauskaite’s biography (they spoke about her training in closed KGB institutes, about the protection of the security forces at all stages of her career) failed due to strict censorship on the part of the Lithuanian presidential structures.
The fact is that she already long years(of which there are now 8) - the President of Lithuania, her skill in mastering the main tools of politicians in the post-Soviet space is “to blame”. The main ones are calls to overcome the heavy communist legacy in economics and politics, to grow into a united Europe, and to maintain national identity.
Fighter against “Russian expansion”
Among the updated slogans, the “Russian threat” is popular: the President of Lithuania is now at the forefront of the fight against Russia’s “imperial aggression”. Grybauskaite’s statements about the neighboring state as a “terrorist” state that has declared open war on the free world, and the declaration of Putin as a faithful disciple and successor of Stalin’s work look extreme even for staunch opponents of Russia’s strengthening role in Europe and the world.
It is difficult to say what is more in these speeches - personal convictions or pure politics, and what is their goal, but one of the results has been achieved - the Lithuanian president with the well-groomed appearance of a woman who successfully resists time, has the authority of a granite rock among the soft hills of European politics.
As usual, there is no harmony in the world...
“She is married to Lithuania” - this clumsy, from the point of view of the Russian language, expression was put into circulation by one of the advisers to the father of the new Lithuanian democracy, Vytautas Landsbergis, Ramunas Bogdanas. “Work, work and more work,” is how Dalia Grybauskaite likes to answer questions about his hobbies. The personal life of the president is under reliable protection from print and electronic media of varying degrees of yellowness. They are trying to develop the topic of her non-traditional sexual orientation (which Grybauskaite denies), but for tolerant Europe this is no longer a “bomb”.
The attitude towards the personality of this politician in different circles is understandably subjective, and the question of the absence of a family and children as a necessary sacrifice to achieve success in the career of a female politician merges with more philosophical discussions about happiness in life, and just as often does not have a clear solution. The fact of the existence of such a unique figure in many senses as the President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite, who has not yet said the last word, is immutable.
