VILNIUS — Along with the rest of the European Union and Russia, flags are flying at half-mast in the Baltic states Monday as a day of mourning for the plane accident that killed the Polish president and 96 other people, including many top military and government officials.
Candles flicker next to flowers left outside the Polish embassy in Vilnius Saturday evening. Photo by Nathan Greenhalgh/Baltic Reports
Outside Polish diplomatic buildings in the Baltic states sympathizers have left flowers and candles. The late Polish President Lech Kaczyński’s funeral will be Saturday, and the Baltic heads of state along with presidents and prime ministers from around the world are expected to attend.
Kaczyński was killed Saturday morning in a plane crash near Smolensk that claimed the lives of 97 people, according to Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations.
In addition to the president, Poland’s 88-member state delegation was on-board, which included the first lady, army chief of staff, central bank governor, Office for National Security chief, air force and navy commanders, several members of parliament and other government officials. All are confirmed dead.
The outpouring of grief and condolences is especially prevalent in Lithuania, the only Baltic state bordering Poland. Lithuania declared three days of mourning for its fellow Catholic neighbor and former partner in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, while top government officials attended special Saturday evening mass for the victims of the crash. Churches throughout the country held special services all weekend, especially in the southeastern region of the country that has a sizable ethnic Polish minority.
While the media in all three countries are covering the accident story, the Lithuanian press has been covering the accident the most in-depth. In Monday’s issue of the daily newspaper Lietuvos Rytas, former Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus described his personal relationship with Kaczyński in long Q&A article.
From left in the right-hand pew, Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaitė, Parliamentary speaker Irena Degutienė and former President Valdas Adamkus attend Saturday's special mass for the Polish tragedy.
“In the second term, we didn’t have just not only formal heads of state relations, we had a personal, purely human relationship,” Adamkus said. “During one of our last meetings Kaczyński told me: ‘We have met many times, that would be difficult to even count.'”
Adamkus said that Kaczyński was the European Union member state leader he trusted the most.
“He was (the EU leader I had the most trust in),” Adamkus said. “I was a sort of intermediary between EU leaders and the Polish president.”
Will spelling law change?
It remains to be seen whether the sympathy for the tragedy will prompt the Lithuanian parliament to reconsider changing the language law that bars ethnic Poles from using the original spelling of their names on passports. Currently passport holders are restricted to using letters in the Lithuanian alphabet, which does not include letters such as “w,” and the issue has angered Poland for years.
The opinion sections of many Lithuanian and Polish newspapers featured op-eds on the issue during the past few days. Only Thursday the Lithuanian parliament voted not the change the law, the same day Kaczynski met Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė in Vilnius. Rzeczpospolita columnist Jerzy Haszczyński wrote Friday that “Lithuanian and Polish relations have hit rock bottom … Poland is not a threat to your sovereignty, and Polish is not a threat to your language. Wake up before it’s too late!”
In Monday’s Lietuvos Rytas, columnist Rimvydas Valatka argued that the Seimas should reconsider.
“Who knows whether Lithuania would be free today in the absence of the 1956 Polish workers, Pope John Paul II — the elected Polish Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła, and Solidarity’s determination?” Valatka wrote. “Lithuania was the last country in which Kaczyński walked on the presidential red carpet. As it so happened Kaczyński, a friend of Lithuania, was left with a cold impression from Vilnius. The Seimas demonstrated its base diplomatic level.”
In a rebuke of the Seimas, Grybauskaitė said she wanted the law changed so relations could go forward.
“She wants to make the law and legitimize the spelling with letters that are actually already in the alphabet and in our official book of grammar, which says that the alphabet is like this, but there are also other letters, like w, x and so on, that could be used to spell foreign names — not just for people, but for any names,” presidential spokesman Linas Balsys told Baltic Reports on Friday. “The grammar is not the law, but it doesn’t contradict the law.”
“She supports the government’s proposal of the law that the name isn’t a question of linguistics, but of property. It is the property of the person and he should be able to spell it how he thinks is right,” Balsys added.
Seimas members against changing the law argue it threatens the sanctity of the Lithuanian language and complicates state record-keeping by including letters not normally used, pointing out that Chinese characters are not allowed, either.
Minister of the Interior Raimundas Palaitis said entering non-Lithuanian names into government records would would make databases hard to access and could cost up to 20 million litai (€5.79 million) in administration work.
“This will be additional expenses, as the possibility to print in other alphabets will have to appear. We are talking about Polish characters now, but after we make this step, Chinese, other nationals might require the same,” Palaitis said.
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