Bronius Kazys Balutis (1880–1967) was a Lithuanian diplomat. He worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania in 1919–1928 and was involved in many of the major international negotiations of the period. He was the Lithuanian envoy to United States (1928–1934) and to the United Kingdom (1934–1967).
With the help of his uncle, Catholic priest Juozas Židanavičius, Balutis graduated from a teachers' seminary in Skępe (Poland) and a school for land surveyors in Pskov (Russia). He was drafted for the Russo-Japanese War but decided to escape to the United States where his uncle had founded a Lithuanian parish in Amsterdam, New York. In the United States, Balutis worked as a cartographer at Rand McNally for six years and as editor of the Lithuanian weekly Lietuva for seven years. He joined the cultural life of Lithuanian Americans and was a member of the Lithuanian Alliance of America (SLA) and chairman of the Association of Lithuanian Patriots ().
Balutis started his diplomat career when he was delegated to represent Lithuanian Americans at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The delegation was recalled in December 1919 and Balutis was offered a job dealing with "particularly important matters" at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kaunas. Balutis was involved in negotiating essentially every major international agreement in the difficult post-war years. He was involved in negotiating the Latvia–Lithuania border and the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty of July 1920. During the Polish–Soviet War, Balutis was a member of the Lithuanian delegation that concluded the Suwałki Agreement of October 1920 with Poland. After Poland staged the Żeligowski's Mutiny and captured Vilnius Region, Balutis represented Lithuania at the mediation efforts by the League of Nations. When Lithuania staged the Klaipėda Revolt in January 1923 and captured Klaipėda Region, Balutis and Vaclovas Sidzikauskas negotiated the Klaipėda Convention which was concluded in May 1924.
Though Balutis sympathized with the Lithuanian Nationalist Union, he stayed away from party politics and survived many cabinet changes at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was offered the post of the Minister of Foreign Affairs at least three times, including during the coup d'état of December 1926, but he refused. Pushed by Prime Minister Augustinas Voldemaras, Balutis agreed to join the Lithuanian Diplomatic Service and become the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States in 1928. In 1934, he was reassigned as the envoy to the United Kingdom. When Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940, the Lithuanian diplomats refused to accept the new Soviet rule and continued to represent independent Lithuania thus preserving the legal continuity of the Lithuanian state. Balutis continued his duties as the Lithuanian envoy until his death in 1967.
Biography Early life and education Balutis was born on though later in life Balutis always indicated that he was born on 29 December 1879. He was the eldest surviving child (an older sister died in infancy). His parents were educated and his first cousin once removed was painter Antanas Žmuidzinavičius. His birth record recorded his surname both in Polish (Balewicz) and in local Dzūkian dialect (Baliucis); he started consistently using Balutis when he moved to the United States.
He attended a primary school in Ūdrija for five years. Balutis' uncle Juozas Židanavičius, a Catholic priest, took Balutis to Skępe (Wymyślin) where he was teaching at a pedagogical seminary. With uncle's help, Balutis graduated from the pedagogical seminary with distinction in 1898. After the graduation, Balutis worked as a teacher in the Płock district and helped his brother to attend the same seminary. In 1901, Balutis applied to a school for land surveyors in Pskov and graduated in 1904. He was drafted to the Russo-Japanese War but decided to escape to the United States where his uncle Židanavičius had founded a Lithuanian parish in Amsterdam, New York.
Balutis arrived to the United States in February 1905 and lived with his uncle. In early 1906, Balutis enrolled into the Valparaiso University which provided introductory English courses, charged low tuition fees, and provided an opportunity to cover some of the tuition by manual labor. Therefore, it was a favorite university among the newly arrived Lithuanian Americans who struggled with English and with finances. Balutis studied English and calculus used in civil engineering. He joined a Lithuanian student society and became its chairman. The university agreed to establish a two-hour daily class on the Lithuanian language and, when the first lecturer left for another job, Balutis became the teacher.
Cartographer After six months at Valparaiso, Balutis got a job at Rand McNally as a cartographer and worked there for six years. He later used his mathematical education to decode and develop his own diplomatic ciphers. As a cartographer, Balutis decided to prepare and publish a detailed map of ethnographic Lithuania in Lithuanian. He wanted to mark every inhabited locality and geographic object (lakes, rivers, etc.). In this effort, he was hindered by the lack of a list with Lithuanian typographic names – there were some maps and lists but they were in Russian, German, Polish. Therefore, Balutis spent considerable amount of time – he estimated some 5,000 hours – collecting data on the proper and accurate Lithuanian place names. He interviewed Lithuanian immigrants, corresponded with local parish priests to determine locality's ethnic composition, etc.
Unable to cover entire Lithuania, he published a color map of Suvalkija, his native ethnographic region, in 1915. Its scale was 1:252,000 and it is the only known Lithuanian map to use the Paris meridian. It marked about 3,000 inhabited locations and drew a line between Lithuanian and Polish-inhabited areas. However, due to World War I, the map was not noticed or utilized by the Lithuanian society and maps of other parts of Lithuania were never published.
Lithuanian American activist Balutis joined the Lithuanian American cultural life. He attended a Lithuanian conference in Philadelphia on 22 February 1906, which was inspired by the Great Seimas of Vilnius and organized by Jonas Šliūpas and Jonas Žilius. After the conference, Balutis delivered public speeches in Amsterdam and Schenectady about the event and raised money for Lithuanian textbooks to be published by Jonas Basanavičius in Vilnius. He joined the Lithuanian Alliance of America (SLA) and attended its congress in Chicago in May 1906. He delivered a speech on the importance of education which was well received. The following year, he returned to the SLA congress as a deputy secretary and member of the literary commission. He returned to SLA congresses in 1908–1910 and 1914 working to draft SLA's constitution and otherwise improve its organization and procedures.
He also joined the Association of Lithuanian Patriots () which was established in 1896 but suffered a decline. Balutis became its chairman in 1907. Together with Juozas Gabrys, he undertook an ambitious project to collect and publish all writings of Vincas Kudirka, editor of Lithuanian newspaper Varpas. The six volumes (a total of 1,770 pages) were published in 1909. Balutis further organized events to commemorate the 50th birth anniversary of Kudirka thus invigorating the society, but resigned as its chairman in 1910. Balutis also joined the Birutė choir established by Mikas Petrauskas.
Newspaper editor
In March 1912, he became deputy editor of the Lithuanian weekly Lietuva edited by Juozas Adomaitis-Šernas. Balutis effectively took over the newspaper and edited it until June 1919. He disliked both major branches of the Lithuanian movement – the socialist and Catholic camps – and advocated for the "middle road", i.e. Lithuanian nationalism. As an editor, Balutis stayed away from party politics and instead valued fact checking, polite discussions, and arguments based on facts. A the same time, Balutis studied at the Chicago-Kent College of Law and graduated with a master's degree in 1916. During World War I, Lietuva published a daily two-page supplement with news from the war and Lithuania that was also edited by Balutis.
In 1919, Lithuania Americans inspired by the American Liberty Bell decided to gift a bell to Lithuania. The bell was decorated with the coat of arms of Lithuania and a quatrain by Balutis declaring that those who do not defend liberty are not worth it. The Lithuanian Liberty Bell reached Lithuania in 1922 and is kept at the Vytautas the Great War Museum.
International negotiator After the outbreak of World War I, Balutis joined the Lithuanian National League of America (), organized by Jonas Šliūpas in October 1916. When the Council of Lithuania declared independence of Lithuania on 16 February 1918, Balutis was a delegate at the large conference organized on 13–14 March 1918 in New York to support the declaration. The conference elected the Lithuanian Executive Committee chaired by which was supposed to lobby for the Lithuanian political aspirations in Washington, D.C. Balutis attended meetings of the Lithuanian National League of America and the Lithuanian Executive Committee, and, together with Jonas Žilius, was delegated to represent Lithuanian Americans at the Paris Peace Conference. He departed to Europe on 9 July 1919. The Lithuanian delegation in Paris, headed by Augustinas Voldemaras, was not officially recognized or invited to the Peace Conference. Balutis was in charge of monitoring the press and trying to publish pro-Lithuanian articles. He later became delegation's secretary responsible for note taking, archives, and finances. He also worked to obtain economic aid (financial loans, medical supplies, weapons for the newly established Lithuanian Army) until the delegation was recalled in December 1919.
Balutis was offered a position at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kaunas. He was assigned "particularly important matters" putting him third in the ministry's hierarchy after minister Augustinas Voldemaras and deputy minister Petras Klimas. In this capacity, Balutis negotiated with Poland regarding an exchange of prisoners of war and with Latvia regarding the Latvia–Lithuania border. In March 1920, he was promoted to director of the Political Department of the ministry. Balutis was in charge of maintaining direct contact with the Lithuanian delegation that negotiated the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty which was concluded in July 1920. When the Red Army captured Vilnius, the proclaimed capital of Lithuania, Balutis had to negotiate with the Soviets regarding the status of the city and Red Army's breaches of Lithuania's neutrality in the Polish–Soviet War. While Lithuanian and Polish armies clashed in the Suwałki Region, diplomats sparred at the League of Nations. Balutis was a member of the six-men Lithuania delegation that concluded the Suwałki Agreement with Poland on 7 October 1920 under pressure and supervision of the League. During the negotiations, every evening, Balutis had to drive to Kalvarija to confer with the Lithuanian government. The lead Polish negotiator, Mieczysław Mackiewicz, was Balutis' classmate from the primary school in Ūdrija. Poland began the Żeligowski's Mutiny just hours after the Suwałki Agreement was concluded and captured Vilnius starting a long and bitter diplomatic fight over the Vilnius Region. When the League proposed to hold a plebiscite in Vilnius, Balutis headed a Lithuanian delegation to outline the logistics on how and when the plebiscite should be carried out. His primary task was to break the negotiations without putting Lithuania at fault. He used the same tactics when he negotiated with Poland regarding the Hymans' Plans that called for some sort of union between Poland and Lithuania in the spirit of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.