Antanas Merkys

Lithuania state institutions 1887–1955 → Died in the USSR, barred from returning

Last prime minister of independent Lithuania, who accepted the Soviet ultimatum of 1940, took the presidency and handed power to Paleckis

Born to a smallholding peasant family near Skapiškis, he studied law and was minister of defence (1919, 1926–1927), governor of the Klaipėda Region and mayor of Kaunas. After serving in autumn 1939 as government commissioner for the Vilnius region, he became prime minister that November, and in June 1940 he argued for accepting the Soviet ultimatum. When Smetona left the country he became acting president, announced on the radio the next day that he was now president in his own right, and on 17 June appointed Justas Paleckis prime minister and resigned. Lithuania regards this takeover of the presidency as unconstitutional. A month later he tried to escape to Sweden but was arrested in Riga and deported to Saratov; he was imprisoned in 1941. Released in 1954 but not allowed to return to Lithuania, he died in Vladimir in 1955.