Vytautas Alantas (born Vytautas Benjaminas Jakševičius, 18 June 1902 – 24 April 1990) was a Lithuanian writer, journalist, and political ideologue. Educated in France, Alantas worked as a journalist of the Lithuanian news agency ELTA and chief editor of the official daily Lietuvos aidas. Alantas was one of the leaders of Young Tautininkai, an organization of radical young members of the Lithuanian Nationalist Union in the late 1930s – this movement is also known as Vairininkai after the political magazine Vairas. A sympathizer with national socialism, Alantas is considered to be one of the chief ideologues of totalitarian nationalism in interwar Lithuania. During the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, he participated in the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and later emigrated to the United States where he dedicated his life to literary work. He was a prolific writer and published seven collections of short stories, six novels, fifteen plays, four non-fiction books, and one poetry collection. His writings primarily deal with patriotic themes and topics.
Biography
Early life and career
Alantas was the eldest of four children of a family of Lithuanian farmers in Sidabravas. Alantas' father briefly worked in the United States and managed to purchase of land from a former manor in near Radviliškis. His brother became a theater director. Alantas was taught by a daraktorius, a travelling Lithuanian teacher educating pupils in secret during the Lithuanian press ban. In 1912–1923, Alantas studied at the Šiauliai Gymnasium, with a half-year break in 1919 when he volunteered for the Lithuanian Army to fight the West Russian Volunteer Army in the Lithuanian Wars of Independence, despite being only 17 years old. From sixth grade onward, Alantas became immersed in literature, writing poetry and participating in the activities of the Ateitis Catholic Youth organization. Like many Lithuanian writers, he published his literature under a pseudonym, choosing Alantas, a tributary of the river Minija.
In 1923, he enrolled to study literature in the University of Lithuania, but quit a year later due to lack of funds, and worked as a teacher at a gymnasium in Plungė until 1926. He continued his studies at the University of Montpellier in France and graduated in 1929. Because of his knowledge of French, he worked as the chief of the French section of ELTA from 1930 to 1934. In 1934–1939, he worked as the chief editor of the state newspaper Lietuvos aidas, and officially changed his last name to Alantas in 1937. He was awarded the Order of Vytautas the Great (1936) and the Order of the Three Stars (1939).
Vairininkai ideologue
In the late 1930s, Vairininkai took control of the media and the party apparatus in Antanas Smetona's dictatorship – party newspapers such as Vairas, Akademikas and Lietuvos aidas were chaired by the radical youth, while the general secretary of the Nationalist Union and the chairman supported their ideas. They were unaligned with earlier extremist Lithuanian movements such as Voldemarininkai and presented themselves as an "opposition of goodwill". The Vairininkai were anti-semitic, anti-democratic, anti-communist, totalitarian and sympathized with National Socialism. They believed all political parties to be a hurdle towards creating a monolithic state with an unquestioned absolute leader at the top (cf. Führerprinzip) and saw democracy, in Alantas's words, as a "psychosis" which the young generation should rid itself of.
Alantas openly expressed extremist views arguing for aggressive nationalism without compromises. For example, he published an article in Vairas arguing in favor of an ethnic cleansing in the Vilnius Region after it was returned to Lithuania according to the terms of the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty – he cited Nazi Germany as an example writing that "the Germans turned the city of Gdynia into the most German city in their country through a fully mechanical process – people were moved out and other people were moved in". Alantas published selected articles and texts in his book (The Marching Nation), published in 1940. It was an apologetic work that defended the authoritarian regime of Smetona. He denounced international cooperation in favor of isolationist policies, and believed that national egoism, based on national solidarity, was the key to nations' survival. He believed that one's nation was superior and above others, and that citizens should sacrifice for their country (and not that a country should sacrifice for its citizens).