Konstantinas Olšauskas

1. Kaunas Prison
   Dates unknown

Konstantinas Olšauskas (1867–1933) was a Lithuanian Roman Catholic priest active in public life and convicted of murder in 1929. After graduating from the Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy in 1892, he was assigned as chaplain to the Liepāja Gymnasium and parish priest in Debeikiai and Rozalimas where he joined Lithuanian cultural life and helped distribute the banned Lithuanian books. In 1904, on the eve of the Russian Revolution of 1905, he was transferred to the Holy Cross Church, Kaunas. In Kaunas, Olšauskas organized the Workers' Society of St. Joseph as a counterbalance for various socialist organizations. He became long-term chairman of the Saulė Society that was organized in 1906 to establish and maintain Lithuanian schools in the Kovno Governorate. For three months in 1911, Olšauskas and Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas toured Lithuanian American communities to collect donations for the construction of Saulė headquarters that was completed in 1914. Olšauskas also joined the Lithuanian and Belarusian Constitutional Catholic Party, established by Bishop Eduard von der Ropp, and was this party's candidate to the first State Duma. He also joined the Society of Saint Zita and Society of Saint Casimir, and helped publishing Viltis newspaper. After the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers and organized Lithuanian school evacuation to Voronezh. He organized funding and operations of ten different Lithuanian educational institutions in Voronezh until allegations of misappropriation of funds forced him to resign in September 1916. Olšauskas went to Rome to obtain permission from Pope Benedict XV for a worldwide donation drive in churches for the benefit of Lithuanian war refugees. In Lausanne, Switzerland, he chaired a six-person committee organizing the drive on 20 May 1917 that raised an estimated 1 million litas. He worked with the Council of Lithuania to negotiate German recognition of independent Lithuania and briefly represented Lithuania at the Paris Peace Conference. Olšauskas returned to Lithuania in spring 1919. He became a prelate and chaplain of Kaunas Cathedral. He returned to the Society Saulė organizing various schools and later defending them from the authoritarian regime of Antanas Smetona. He visited United States again raising capital for Galybė company pursuing ideas of building hydroelectric power plants on the Neris and Neman Rivers. On 16 September 1928, the body of Stanislava Danilovičiūtė-Ustijanauskienė was found strangled in Birštonas. Olšauskas soon became the primary suspect and was arrested in March 1929 and sentenced to six years imprisonment in October 1929. The case caused a media frenzy in Lithuania. The court, based on circumstantial evidence, argued that Danilovičiūtė-Ustijanauskienė gave birth to Olšauskas' son in 1899 and used the relationship to blackmail Olšauskas for money. Church officials refused to defrock Olšauskas or take his case to Church Tribunal and his continued imprisonment violated the Concordat of 1927 that specified that active members of the clergy were to be imprisoned separately and tried by an ecclesiastical court. Thus, Olšauskas received a presidential pardon and was released in February 1931. He lost his house to a suspected arson in February 1932 and was shot dead in June 1933. A local man confessed to the murder but never adequately explained his motives.

External references

• Wikipedia
• Wikidata (Q16456752)