Zigmas Balevičius

Zigmas Balevičius (1907–1964) was born in Leipalingis, Seinai County, into a working-class family. During World War I, he evacuated with his parents to Mariupol, where he attended a Russian-Polish primary school from 1914 to 1918. After returning to Leipalingis in 1919, he graduated from a Lithuanian primary school. In 1920, Balevičius enrolled in Veisiejai Secondary School. After completing four grades, he entered a two-year teacher training course in Alytus. As he later stated in his autobiography, he was forced to leave the school due to his “progressive views”. In 1924, he joined teacher training courses in Lazdijai, where he was arrested and imprisoned for two months due to his “progressive ideas”. Balevičius continued his studies at Kėdainiai Teachers’ Seminary, graduating in 1925, and subsequently worked as a junior teacher at Alanta School. Following the coup d’état of 17 December 1926, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Varniai concentration camp. He was later transferred to prisons in Telšiai and Kaunas, where he remained incarcerated for around two years. Between 1928 and 1929, Balevičius served as a private in the army in Ukmergė. In 1930, he passed his final exams as an external student at Kaunas Gymnasium. That same year, he enrolled in the Faculty of Law at Vytautas Magnus University. From 1933 to 1934, Balevičius worked as a driver and served as an editor for the trade union newspaper “Lietuvos Auto”. He received his law degree in 1940. After completing his studies, Balevičius undertook various jobs, including writing five volumes of the textbook “Algebra”, compiling “Mathematical Formulas”, drafting the “Law on Bills of Exchange”, and preparing amendments to “Civil and Criminal Procedure Laws”. Additionally, he translated Leo Tolstoy’s “What For?” from Russian into Lithuanian, managed a laundry facility, and lectured on adult education courses. During the first Soviet occupation, Balevičius worked as a notary in Vilnius, head of a division at the People’s Commissariat for Labour, inspector at the People’s Commissariat for Education, and inspector at the 4th Kaunas Gymnasium. During the Nazi occupation, he and his family were persecuted by the authorities and were forced to hide in the forest of Lithuanian. According to his autobiography, stored in the Vilnius University archives, Balevičius changed residences 18 times and remained in hiding throughout the occupation. With the onset of the second Soviet occupation, he resumed work at the People’s Commissariat for Education and later at ELTA (Lithuanian news agency). Due to poor health, he sought an academic position at a university. On 1 October 1944, he was appointed a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Vilnius University. On 12 October 1946, Balevičius was promoted to Dean of the Faculty of Law, a position he held until 9 April 1948. That year, he became the head of the Department of Civil Law and Procedure. On 18 October 1949, he assumed the position of a senior lecturer in the same department. On 22 June 1951, by Order No 568 of the Rector, he was dismissed from his position as a senior lecturer at the Department of Civil Law and Procedure of the Faculty of Law for “failing to report to work”. That same year, he was arrested and sentenced to five years for “anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation”. Balevičius was imprisoned in a labour camp in the Altai Region until the death of Joseph Stalin. Upon his return to Lithuania, he struggled to find stable employment. From 1953 to 1958, he worked at the publishing house of the Republican Council of Trade Unions, and from 1958 to 1961, he was employed at the editorial office of the Soviet Lithuanian Encyclopedia. From 1961, Balevičius worked as a research fellow at the Institute of Economics.

Documents