Press release, 3 May 2021

On 3 May 2021, a remote festive commemoration of the 230th anniversary of the 3 May Constitution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Mutual Pledge of the Two Nations and the awarding ceremony of the Prize of the Two Nations were held jointly at the Lithuanian and Polish Parliaments.

Elżbieta Witek, Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, and Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, Speaker of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, welcomed the participants of the festive event. Speeches were also delivered by the President of the Republic of Lithuania, Gitanas Nausėda, while on his visit to the Polish Parliament, and the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda.

On the occasion, the Prize of the Two Nations was awarded to Kristina Sabaliauskaitė, a writer, and Eduardas Piurko, a translator/interpreter, pursuant to the decision of the Delegation of the Lithuanian Seimas to the Bilateral Assembly, as well as to Jan Malicki, Head of the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw, and Krzysztof Czyżewski, Director of the Borderline Centre of art culture and nations in Sejny, pursuant to the decision of the Delegation of the Polish Sejm and the Senate to the Bilateral Assembly. 

Paulius Saudargas, Deputy Speaker of the Seimas and Head of the Seimas Delegation to the Assembly of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and the Sejm and Senate of the Republic of Poland underlined that Kristina Sabaliauskaitė had made a considerable contribution in recent years to strengthening good Lithuanian-Polish relations and implementing projects of cultural, societal, scientific and political cooperation on the bilateral level.

Book 1 of the novel Silva Rerum by Sabaliauskaitė that was published in the Polish language in 2015 has received great acclaim from Polish literary critics, historians of art and literature, Polish historians, and general public and made it to the final of the ANGELUS Central European Literature Award, the most important award in the field of creative prose translated into the Polish language. Books 2 and 3 of her novel Silva Rerum that were published in 2018 and 2021 respectively have also been well received.

According to Mr Saudargas, Kristina Sabaliauskaitė has been a guest at major Polish literary and art festivals, as well as radio and television programmes, where she has presented not only her own work but that of other Lithuanian writers and artists and has spoken of Lithuanian history, culture and major Lithuanian figures, thus contributing to the promotion of Lithuanian culture and art in Poland.

When awarding the Prize to Eduardas Piurko, a Polish language translator/interpreter, the Deputy Speaker of the Seimas pointed out that in his capacity as a Polish language translator/interpreter at the Seimas since 1991, Mr Piurko had interpreted at all the meetings of the Assembly of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and the Sejm and Senate of the Republic of Poland, the Consultative Committee of the Presidents of the Republic of Lithuania and the Republic of Poland and the Government Council of the Republic of Lithuania and the Republic of Poland. Since 1991, Mr Piurko has done translation and interpreting not only for the Seimas but also for the President, the Government, the Constitutional Court, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as other ministries, bodies and institutions, and the Lithuanian National Television.

‘It is noteworthy that Eduardas Piurko demonstrates a particularly high quality of both interpreting and translation. He has been acknowledged by the professional community and is a long-standing member of the Board of the Lithuanian Translators Association.

As an active citizen, Mr Piurko, was engaged, from 1988, in the Lithuanian Cross-national Coordination Association and later worked for the Nationalities Council under the Nationalities Department as a representative of the Foundation of Polish Culture in Lithuania. On the fatal days of January 1991, he stood guard of the Parliament and distributed to the crowd several thousand commemorative postcards featuring the symbols of the Vytis, an armoured knight on a silver horse, and the White Eagle and a bilingual motto “For your freedom and ours”.

Eduardas Piurko has translated a number of publications of importance to the Lithuanian-Polish cultural ties, including Lietuvos ir Lenkijos santykiai 1917–1994 (Lithuanian-Polish Relations between 1917 and 1994), Römeriai Lietuvoje XVII–XX a., (The Römer Family in Lithuania in the 17–20th Centuries), the material from the joint conferences of the Constitutional Courts of the Republic of Lithuania and the Republic of Poland and numerous books. In 2008, Mr Piurko made the first translation of the Books of the Polish Nation and of the Polish Pilgrims by Adam Mickiewicz,’ said the Deputy Speaker of the Seimas.                             

The Prize of the Two Nations is awarded to individuals or groups of individuals whose engagement has substantially contributed to building and deepening the cooperation between Lithuania and Poland. The award was previously given to such famous figures as Czesław Miłosz, Tomas Venclova, and Alfredas Bumblauskas among others. The Prize was first given in 1999.

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To mark the anniversary, the Seimas has proclaimed 2021 as the Year of the 3 May Constitution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Mutual Pledge of the Two Nations. The Constitution of 3 May 1791 was the first written constitution in Europe adopted by parliament and the second written constitution in the world.