Rimantas Grigas

Rimantas Grigas (1958–2015?) was born in Šiauliai into the Grigai family – his parents, Balys and Vanda, were civil servants. In 1972, he became a member of the Komsomol (Communist Youth League). In 1976, Grigas graduated from Vilnius 39th Secondary School. He attended the “Fotonas” Young Physicists’ School. In 1976, Grigas applied and was accepted to study Economics and Organisation of Material-Technical Supply at the Faculty of Trade of Vilnius Vincas Kapsukas State University. In January 1977, he was expelled from the university “for behaviour incompatible with the status of a Soviet student.” A report provided by the university on 4 February 1977 reads: “In the autumn semester, by the Order of the Rector, Grigas was refused a scholarship for the month of December due to his absence from lectures on 6 November. He passed the winter examination session with merely satisfactory grades and needed to retake the exam on the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He attended the events and meetings organised by the faculty and his group. During the short period of study at the Faculty of Trade, neither Grigas organisational or personal abilities nor his views manifested themselves. As researchers of the history of Vilnius University concluded, the reason he was expelled was because he and his schoolmates took down a Lenin bas-relief from the Vilnius Central Post Office, removed it from the building and later dumped it into the Neris River. Grigas, thought to be one of the main perpetrators of this incident, was imprisoned in the Lukiškės Prison, held in the Naujoji Vilnia Psychiatric Hospital, and sentenced to ten months of incarceration.

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