On Monday, Lithuania commemorates the so-called January events and the Day of the Defenders of Freedom will be marked at the Seimas by awarding the Freedom Prize.
In the morning, flowers will be laid at the Žinia monument commemorating March 11, 1990 at Independence Square, and schools across the country will hold a Light of Victory campaign during which candles of unity, memory, and victory will be lit in their windows for ten minutes.
Later, the Freedom Prize will be awarded to the Soviet-era resistance fighter, political prisoner, Franciscan priest Julius Sasnauskas during a solemn sitting in the Seimas.
He will receive a symbolic statuette based on the sculptor Juozas Zikaras’ monument Freedom and 14,000 euros.
At noon, a ceremony will take place in Independence Square to raise the national flag, the memory of the fallen will be honoured in Antakalnis Cemetery, and in the evening, a mass will be celebrated in the Vilnius Cathedral.
On Monday, members of the Lithuanian Armed Forces’ National Defence Volunteer Force will pay their respects to the defenders of freedom buried in the cemeteries of Alytus, Kaunas, Kėdainiai, Marijampolė, Rokiškis, and Vilnius.
Other cities will also host events dedicated to the Day of the Defenders of Freedom, including commemorations, concerts, excursions, and exhibitions.
January 13 is commemorated in Lithuania as the Day of the Defenders of Freedom, honouring those who died on January 13, 1991, during the Soviet aggression in Vilnius.
On that day, 14 people were killed and about a thousand injured when Soviet troops stormed the Vilnius TV Tower and the Radio and Television Committee building.
The Soviets attempted to overthrow by military force the legitimate government of Lithuania, which had declared its independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990.
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