Jurgis Smolskis

Jurgis Smolskis (, (Yuri Osipovich Smolski), ; 1881–1919) was a writer and socialist activist in the Rokiškis District, then part of the Russian Empire now Lithuania.

As a gymnasium student in Riga and a law student at the University of St. Petersburg, Smolskis joined the Lithuanian National Revival and started contributing his poetry and articles to Lithuanian periodicals, including Ūkininkas and Tėvynės sargas. He also joined an amateur theater troupe in his native Kamajai and performed in Grīva, Subate, Panevėžys, Rokiškis. Smolskis joined the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) and was a delegate at the Great Seimas of Vilnius. He was an active organizer of anti-Tsarist protests in the Rokiškis District during the Russian Revolution of 1905. He was arrested in Simferopol but managed to escape in summer 1907. He briefly lived in the Austrian Empire, Italy, and Switzerland before starting studies at the New University of Brussels in 1910. After graduation in late 1913, he returned to the Russian Empire and rejoined socialist activities. He was again arrested and imprisoned in May 1916 but was freed after the February Revolution. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) and participated at the Petrograd Seimas in June 1917.

In June 1918, following the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, he returned to his homeland and was elected chairman of a local committee of Rokiškis but soon the area was taken over by the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic led by Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas. When the Lithuanian troops of Colonel captured Rokiškis on 31 May 1919, Smolskis was arrested, tried by a military court, and sentenced to six years of hard labor. He was shot and killed by Petras Valasinavičius during a transfer to Obeliai allegedly because he tried to escape. His death caused a scandal in Lithuania and his widow sued in 1922. The court found Valasinavičius guilty and sentenced him to eight years of hard labor; he did not serve the full sentence as he received a presidential pardon.

Biography Early life Smolskis was one of thirteen children and the eldest of five surviving siblings in a family of farmers in Kamajai, then part of the Russian Empire. His Lithuanian last name is Smalstys, but due to Polonization it was recorded as Smolskis in his birth records.