Jurgis Šaulys was a Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

n economist

Economist

An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

, diplomat, and politician, and one of the twenty signatories

Signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania

The signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania were the twenty Lithuanian men who signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania on February 16, 1918. The signatories were elected to the Council of Lithuania by the Vilnius Conference in September 1917 and entrusted with the mission of...

 to the 1918 Act of Independence of Lithuania

Act of Independence of Lithuania

The Act of Independence of Lithuania or Act of February 16 was signed by the Council of Lithuania on February 16, 1918, proclaiming the restoration of an independent State of Lithuania, governed by democratic principles, with Vilnius as its capital. The Act was signed by all twenty...

.

Šaulys attended secondary school in Palanga

Palanga

Palanga and beautiful sand dunes. Officially Palanga has the status of a city municipality and includes Šventoji, Nemirseta, Būtingė and other settlements, which are considered as part of the city of Palanga.-Legend:...

 and attended the Kaunas

Kaunas

Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...

 Theological Seminary. He was dismissed from the seminary for participating in the Knygnešiai

Knygnešiai

Book smugglers were people who transported Lithuanian language books printed in the Latin alphabet into Lithuanian-speaking areas of the Russian Empire, defying a ban on such materials in force from 1866 to 1904...

 movement, which disseminated materials published in the Lithuanian language

Lithuanian language

Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

, a practice outlawed at the time. After moving to Vilnius

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

 in 1900, he continued his political actitivites; he became one of the 12 Apostles of the independence movement, and was a one of the founders of the Lithuanian Democratic Party

Lithuanian Democratic Party

Lithuanian Democratic Party or LDP , established on October 17, 1902, was the second-oldest political party in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. It published newspapers Lietuvos ūkininkas and Lietuvos žinios . During World War I, the democratic party split into several other parties and...

. He left for Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 to study economics at the University of Bern, receiving his doctorate in 1912, but still contributed to these activities while abroad.

Returning to Vilnius in 1912, he edited the Lietuvos Žinios

Lietuvos Žinios

Lietuvos žinios is a daily newspaper in Lithuania. Established in Vilnius in 1909, it was a liberal newspaper representing the Lithuanian Democratic Party...

(Lithuanian News). After World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 broke out he served various charitable organizations. He was a member of the Vilnius Conference

Vilnius Conference

The Vilnius Conference or Vilnius National Conference met between September 18, 1917 and September 22, 1917, and began the process of establishing a Lithuanian state based on ethnic identity and language that would be independent of the Russian Empire, Poland, and the German Empire...

 and was elected Secretary-General of the ensuing Council of Lithuania

Council of Lithuania

The Council of Lithuania , after July 11, 1918 The State Council of Lithuania , was convened at the Vilnius Conference that took place between September 18 and 23, 1917. The council was granted the executive authority of the Lithuanian people and was entrusted to establish an independent...

, signing the Act of Independence in 1918.

Šaulys went into the diplomatic service immediately afterwards, serving as an envoy to Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, the Vatican

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

, and Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

. In the wake of the German invasion of Poland in 1939, he moved to Switzerland, acting as the Lithuanian ambassador until the legation was closed in 1946. From then until his death in 1948 he lived in Lugano

Lugano

Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...

 with his wife, an opera singer whose family owned property there.

A dedicated bibliophile, he donated much of his collection to the Vytautas Magnus University

Vytautas Magnus University

Vytautas Magnus University ) is a public university in Kaunas, Lithuania. The university was founded in 1922 during the interwar period as an alternate national university...

; the remainder of his collection is held at the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

.