 STAKELE
STANISLOVAS (1862-1930), Roman Catholic priest, major figure in
the Lithuanian national movement, born in Adamava, county of
Panevezys. Having graduated from the Samogitian Theological Seminary
at Kaunas in 1885, he was assigned as curate to Latvia. The Russian
police, discovering that he had been traveling
to Lithuania without permission, sentenced him to a two-year
confinement
at the Kretinga monastery (1890-1892). In 1895 he was again banished
to Kretinga, this time from the Lithuanian parish of Pasvalys, for
disseminating forbidden Lithuanian literature and operating a secret
school. But during this three-year confinement, he often
disappeared from the monastery to deliver the manuscript copy of the
monthly Tevynes Sargas (Guardian of the Homeland) across the
border to East Prussia to be printed there, and to organize groups of
booksmugglers. After the governor of Kaunas province refused to
approve his reassignment to a parish within the Samogitian diocese, he
transferred to the diocese of Vilnius; but the governor of Vilnius
province ordered him
to move from parish to parish, allowing him to serve only a short term
at each. Eventually his friends were able to bribe the governor of
Kaunas to permit him to be assigned indefinitely to the parish of
Dusetos as one of three curates. During the Wars of Independence
(1919-20) he organized volunteers for the Lithuanian army,
participated in the work of a number of Important organizations, gave
speeches, and wrote for the press. In 1927 the Lithuanian government
awarded him a pension for his contribution to the Lithuanian national
movement. Stakele was an irrepressible, dynamic fighter who knew how
to turn the psychology of the police as well as the legal system to
his own advantage; failing this, he occasionally resorted to the use
of physical force. He died in Ramygala on October 27, 1930.
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- Literature:
ENCYCLOPEDIA LITUANICA I-VI, 1970-1978, Boston
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