As Lithuania celebrates its State Restoration Day, few still remember that on July 11, 1918, the Council of Lithuania proclaimed the German nobleman Wilhelm von Urach as King Mindaugas II of Lithuania. He never came to Lithuania and was never crowned, but his coronation received the Pope’s blessing, and the proclaimed king had already begun to learn the Lithuanian language.
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His election as king was determined by several key factors: he was a Catholic (the dominant religion in Lithuania), he did not belong to the Hohenzollern dynasty (the family of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, who wanted to make Lithuania a monarchy in union with Prussia), he was a highly accomplished military officer, and if Germany had won the war, Lithuania under his rule could have expected reliable protection from the ambitions of the Russian Empire.
The invitation established a Provisional Constitutional Basis, according to which the king was to be the head of the executive branch, and a bicameral parliament, consisting of the Seimas and the Council, was to be the legislative authority. Nothing was mentioned about the judiciary, leaving this aspect for a later period.
Although the provisional constitutional basis included point VI, stating that “The King promises to observe religious tolerance during his reign,” this point should be understood in the context of the meaning of “tolerance” at the time, which actually meant only tolerating other religions, but not allowing public worship for non-Catholic religions.
The king’s actions were to be limited by the constitution and, in certain cases, by the approval of parliament. In this sense, it would have been a constitutional monarchy, but from today’s perspective, it still would not have been a completely powerless monarch, like the vast majority of today’s monarchs, except for the Prince of Liechtenstein, who still holds full power with the ability to dissolve parliament.
The Kingdom of Lithuania was supposed to cover a much larger territory than the current Republic of Lithuania—reaching Molodechno, Baranovichi, Białystok, and almost to Lithuanian Brest. It was to be a state with 6 million subjects!
It is worth noting that the Lithuanian Council’s decision to restore Lithuania as a constitutional monarchy, although for most of its members it was probably opportunistic and unacceptable to some who left the Council, nevertheless showed that for most Lithuanians, monarchy seemed a natural system in which they felt comfortable.
Unfortunately, after the defeat of the Central Powers, the monarchist option was also defeated. The United States, which decisively won World War I, encouraged the creation of republics in Central Europe, which clearly influenced the subsequent decisions of the Lithuanian Council, which were by no means monarchist—liberal and republican, and to some extent even socialist tendencies prevailed.
However, subsequent events in the fourth decade of the 20th century showed that the societies of Central Europe were closer to the concept of strongly personalized power, and more or less authoritarian regimes became established in all these states. But monarchy is usually different from the regime of self-proclaimed dictators.
Behind the monarchy stands a higher sanction—in Catholic countries, the coronation in the name of the Pope, by his legate. This means that the king is morally bound by Catholic doctrine, which essentially softens the autocratic regime.
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Unfortunately, Lithuania of that time failed to maintain the monarchical system, which even today shows the weakness of the Lithuanian state, where it is rather groups and clans that rule, taking advantage of the weaknesses of the representative-parliamentary system and the omnipotence of the systemic media, manipulating public opinion.
Aleksandras Stralcou