Rokas Šliūpas

Rokas Šliūpas (2 June 1865 – 26 May 1959) was a Lithuanian physician, co-founder and chairman of the Lithuanian Red Cross from 1919 to 1932.

Educated in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, Šliūpas began a private medical practice in Ariogala. At the same time, he actively supported Lithuanian book smugglers and was arrested by the Tsarist police in 1900 and exiled to Kazan. As a doctor, he was mobilized by the Imperial Russian Army during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–1905 and World War I in 1914–1918. In Lithuania, he was an active participant in the Lithuanian National Revival, organizing various societies including the cultural Daina Society (which he chaired in 1904–1906) and the educational Saulė Society.

He became the first chairman of the Lithuanian Red Cross and worked to establish three hospitals in 1919, organize health care for prisoners of war and war refugees in the difficult and chaotic post-war years. Šliūpas worked to establish Birštonas as a spa town, build a new hospital in Klaipėda (opened in 1933) and a tuberculosis sanatorium in Panemunė (opened in 1932). In 1932, he resigned as chairman of the Lithuanian Red Cross due to disagreements with the authoritarian regime of President Antanas Smetona and devoted his time to his private medical practice.

Early life and education Šliūpas was born in a well-off family in near Gruzdžiai, then part of the Russian Empire, on 2 June 1865. According to the memoirs of his brother, a noted Lithuania activist Jonas Šliūpas, the family told stories about their wealthy ancestors who traced back to the time of Grand Duke Vytautas (died in 1430).