Voldemaras Vytautas Čarneckis (9 January 1893 – 4 November 1942) was a Lithuanian politician and diplomat. He served as the acting minister of finance (December 1918 – March 1919), minister of communications (April 1919 – June 1920), and minister of foreign affairs (June 1924 – September 1925).
Čarneckis joined the Lithuanian cultural life as a student at the Electrotechnical Institute of Emperor Alexander III. In 1916, he was drafted to an engineering unit of the Imperial Russian Army. In December 1917, he became the commander of the Separate Lithuanian Battalion in Rivne which had about 500 men by February 1918. Čarneckis returned to Lithuania and was coopted by the Council of Lithuania in November 1918. As the minister of communications, he worked on taking control over the mail, telegram, telephone, roads, and railroads from the retreating German army. Čarneckis was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania in April 1920 and was a member of the Lithuanian delegation negotiating the Suwałki Agreement in October 1920. He resigned from the Constituent Assembly in November 1921 to pursue diplomatic career.
Čarneckis was the first Lithuanian representative to the United States (1921–1923) and briefly represented Lithuania in the United Kingdom. He became the minister of foreign affairs in June 1924. He worked on the ratification of the Klaipėda Convention, increasing cooperation among the Baltic states, responding to the Concordat of 1925 which resulted in the termination of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, and conducting negotiations with Poland which proved to be highly unpopular and forced the resignation of the cabinet in September 1925. He was then posted as the Lithuanian envoy to Italy until 1939.
Čarneckis returned to Lithuania in 1940 to work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was arrested during the June 1941 deportation and imprisoned at . NKVD accused 15 Lithuanians, including Čarneckis, of organizing an armed mutiny inside the Gulag. Čarneckis was sentenced to death and executed in November 1942.
Biography Early life and education Čarneckis was born on 9 January 1893 in near Marijampolė in Congress Poland. His father Antanas was a forester who had completed distance courses at the Saint Petersburg Forestry Institute. He worked for the owners of the Aštrioji Kirsna Manor and later for the in the Mogilev Governorate. The family had eight children, but five died in their youth.
Čarneckis attended a primary school in Mockava and . In Suwałki, he lived with the family of , the future general in the Lithuanian Army. He graduated in 1911 and chose to study at the Electrotechnical Institute of Emperor Alexander III in Saint Petersburg.
As a university student, Čarneckis was a roommate of Aleksandras Stulginskis and Jonas Vailokaitis who encouraged him to join Lithuanian political and cultural life. In 1912–1916, he was chairman of a local chapter of Ateitis, a Catholic youth organization, and a member of a mutual aid society of Lithuanian students. After the outbreak of World War I, he was an active member of the Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers. In June 1915, he was a member of a commission tasked with opening a shelter–workshop for refugee children in Vilnius but the plans were not realized. In 1916, he worked with the Lithuanian Society in Saint Petersburg.
Military service In 1916, he was drafted to an engineering unit of the Imperial Russian Army and sent to the Eastern Front. He continued to participate in Lithuanian activities. On 2–4 December 1917, he chaired a meeting of Lithuanian soldiers in Rivne. The meeting adopted several resolutions, including one calling for full independence for Lithuania, and decided to organize the Separate Lithuanian Battalion commanded by Čarneckis. Permission to organize a transport battalion was given on 12 January 1918. By the end of February, the battalion had about 500 men. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 3 March 1918, Russian units retreated from Rivne and Ukraine, but the Lithuanian unit remained. The unit guarded warehouses and other strategic objects. Its commander Čarneckis was replaced by Edvardas Adamkavičius in May 1918 as the government insisted that the unit was to be commanded by an officer.
Council of Lithuania Čarneckis returned to Lithuania in July 1918. He joined a commission on refugees of the Council of Lithuania. It was chaired by Aleksandras Stulginskis and worked on organizing Lithuanian refugee return to Lithuania. On 27 November 1918, Čarneckis, as a member of the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party, was coopted by the Council of Lithuania. He became a member of the organizational committee of the Second Conference of the State of Lithuania which was held on 16 January 1919 in Kaunas. On 14 March 1919, Čarneckis became the first secretary of the presidium of the Council of Lithuania, but presidium resigned on 4 April 1919.
At the end of December 1918, when the prime minister Augustinas Voldemaras and minister of finance Martynas Yčas departed to Germany to negotiate a government loan, Mykolas Sleževičius formed a new government and tasked Čarneckis with the administration of the Ministry of Finance. In January 1919, Čarneckis signed law that residents should pay pre-war (i.e. Tsarist Russian) taxes until Lithuania implemented its own tax system. He also implemented postal and import tariffs. On 1 March 1919, together with other ministers, Čarneckis signed a treaty with Latvia that allowed Lithuania to use the port of Liepāja in exchange for a loan of 5 million German marks. On 13 March 1919, he was replaced by Vytautas Petrulis in the short-lived cabinet of Pranas Dovydaitis.
Minister of communications
On 15 April 1919, Čarneckis became the minister of communications in the 4th government of the prime minister Mykolas Sleževičius. In the government of Ernestas Galvanauskas, Čarneckis was offered the role of the minister of interior but he refused due to inexperience and continued as the minister of communications until 19 June 1920.
He worked on organizing the ministry and on taking control over the mail, telegram, telephone, roads, and railroads from the retreating German army. It was a difficult task since most means of transportation were destroyed or neglected during the war and there was a severe lack of qualified Lithuanian workers. On 4 July 1919, Sleževičius and Čarneckis signed a treaty with Germany regarding the control of railroads. In March 1920, the ministry opened the first steamboat line between Kaunas and Jurbarkas. The ministry worked to expand postal service. In about a year, 81 new post offices were opened and regular international mail service was established with all countries, except Poland and the Soviet Union.
In the early morning of 28 August 1919, Čarneckis warned the Lithuanian government that several lines of telephone and telegraph were cut which signified the planned start of the Polish coup attempt in Lithuania. His sister Aldona Čarneckaitė was instrumental in obtaining documents that allowed the Lithuanian intelligence services to liquidate the Polish Military Organization in Lithuania.
Constituent Assembly On 21 July 1920, Čarneckis was elected to the city council of Kaunas. He resigned on 20 May 1921 and was replaced by Matas Šalčius.
In April 1920, Čarneckis was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania as a representative of the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party. At the assembly, he worked with the fraction of the Farmers' Association. He was a secretary of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and a member of the parliamentary committee on economy. He was a member of a committee drafting the statute of the Constituent Assembly and presented it to the assembly. As a member of the economy committee, Čarneckis assisted with the drafting of the law on the introduction of the Lithuanian litas. During the assembly sessions, he most frequently spoke on foreign affairs.
He was a member of the Lithuanian delegations that negotiated with Poland in Kalvarija on 16–18 September 1920 and in Suwałki where the Suwałki Agreement was concluded on 7 October 1920. However, the following day, Poland staged the Żeligowski's Mutiny and captured Vilnius Region. In November 1920, Čarneckis accompanied Augustinas Voldemaras to the League of Nations which attempted to mediate the dispute between Lithuania and Poland.
Due to the conflict with Poland, Lithuania's de jure recognition was delayed. Therefore, in February 1921, the Constituent Assembly sent a delegation, which included Čarneckis, to Estonia and Latvia in hopes of gaining their recognition and support. Čarneckis continued to work on the idea of a Baltic alliance when he became the minister of foreign affairs. Due to his pursuit of diplomatic career, Čarneckis officially resigned from the Constituent Assembly on 4 November 1921.
When the Constitution of Lithuania was adopted in August 1922, Christian Democrats proposed Čarneckis, Mykolas Krupavičius, and Aleksandras Stulginskis as the President of Lithuania. Čarneckis and Krupavičius refused, thus Stulginskis became the president.
Diplomat in Washington D.C. and London
On 15 April or 15 June 1921, Čarneckis became the Lithuanian representative in the United States. His main task was to get de jure recognition of Lithuania's independence from the United States. Since Lithuania was not officially recognized, Čarneckis did not have an official status and had to work informally through personal connections. He visited communities of Lithuanian Americans and rallied them to petition their representatives. He also allied with the Jewish community (at the time, Lithuania had granted significant autonomy to the Lithuanian Jews). He founded the Baltic American Society and drafted a petition in the name of several university professors arguing for the recognition of Lithuania.
United States recognized Lithuania de jure on 28 July 1922 and Čarneckis became the chargés d'affaires ad interim and worked to organize the official Lithuanian legation in Washington D.C.. He presented his letter of credence to the U.S. State Department on 11 October 1922. Čarneckis became an honorary member of the Academy of Political Science and the Metropolitan Club.
Čarneckis was a candidate to the First Seimas in the October 1922 election but was not elected. He was elected to the Second Seimas in May 1923 election but refused the post due to his diplomatic work. While in Washington D.C., Čarneckis met Eleonora Šaltenytė, a Lithuanian American activist, and they wed in 1923.
In November 1923, Čarneckis was reassigned to London. There he worked on a trade agreement with the United Kingdom and ensuring England's support for the Klaipėda Convention.
Minister of foreign affairs On 18 June 1924, Čarneckis became the minister of foreign affairs in the government of Antanas Tumėnas. He returned to Lithuania on 6 July 1924. In its program, the new government outlined the following tasks: ratification of the Klaipėda Convention, conclusion of international trade agreements and particularly of a loan from the United Kingdom for the construction of Lithuanian railway, increase cooperation among the Baltic states, strengthening of consular services.
Klaipėda Region