Adomas Prūsas

Adomas Prūsas (23 November 1878 – 6 April 1939) was a Lithuanian economist, one of the founders of the Party of National Progress and the Lithuanian Commercial and Industrial Bank, the first Lithuanian commercial bank, and deputy leader of the Bank of Lithuania from 1922 to 1926.

Early life
Adomas Prūsas was born on 23 November 1878 to poor farmers Elijošas Prūsas and Anelė Prūsienė in the village of Grikiapeliai, then the Kovno Governorate of the Russian Empire. It is thought that the Prūsai family were refugees from the Baltic Prussian lands, who were gradually conquered by the Teutonic Order or assimilated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Prūsas was the penultimate son of a family of six children, growing up with two other brothers and three sisters. Prūsas's mother was described as very religious, while his father as diligent and crafty. A Lithuanian émigré encyclopedia notes that Prūsas was educated in a secret school in Grikiapeliai, however Prūsas himself claims that instead he was driven to a saint in a church to learn behavior. In 1890, at the age of twelve, Prūsas began attending the Svėdasai primary school, which he graduated in 1893. As Prūsas's parents were poor, they could not afford to send him to a gymnasium. His older brother financed his employment in the Aluotas office. Despite that, his wage was still poor, and Prūsas decided to travel to St. Petersburg in search of a better job.

Work in Russia
After working as a delivery boy for a few days, with the help of his father, he got a job in the dispatch office of Rodina magazine, where he did simple technical work like making lists of subscribers, writing their addresses and bills of lading. After about a month Prūsas wished to become employed for the daily newspaper Birzhevyie Vedomosti in which he'd earn twice the wage, so he decided to attend accountant courses, which, according to him, helped significantly in his later life. Prūsas fell sick, so he shortly traveled to Białystok to work as a steward's assistant on an estate belonging to a local noble, working there from 1898 to 1903. In 1902 he was mobilized and completed mandatory 28 days training in the Suzdal Infantrymen Regiment. In 1903 Prūsas returned to St. Petersburg and began working in the local committee of an economic society of Moscow. In 1905 he completed six class exams and in 1906 completed the Babenka accounting courses. Prūsas also worked in the nearby developing committees of representatives of joint-stock land and commercial banks, however by 1908 Prūsas would leave one of them. Around 1908 he also started working in the credit office of the Ministry of Finance, in which he became an accountant – the highest rank for a person of non-noble origin. Prūsas used the knowledge he gained in accounting in creating the Lithuanian Land Bank in the future, as well as making a speech for the Lithuanian Scientific Society's convention of 1913. During his tenure in Russia, he prepared the statutes of several mutual credit societies as well as the statute of the Land Bank of Lithuania, and tried to establish them.

After the October Revolution Prūsas and other finance ministry workers participated in strikes against the Bolsheviks. Those who protested received wages from a special fund. According to Prūsas, after the funds were drained out, opposition to the Bolsheviks ended. However, in the works published by Russian scientists at that time, bank managers, the most active members of the resistance, were arrested by soldiers at night and taken to Smolny for "interrogation" by Felix Dzerzhinsky. After establishing the Party of National Progress, Prūsas was offered a high-ranking place in the People's Commissariat for Finance, but due to ailing health, Prūsas refused and decided to return to Lithuania.

Return to Lithuania and establishment of the Lithuanian bank
In 1918, along with other Lithuanian intellectuals such as Kipras Petrauskas, Stasys Šilingas and Justinas Zubrickas, Prūsas reached Vilnius after a month-long journey, living mainly by exchanging older money into local currency. When their monetary supply began to run out, Prūsas along with Juozas Strazdas established a colonial goods store. Soon Prūsas began organizing the first commercial bank of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Commercial and Industrial Bank along with banker Česlovas Landsbergis, lawyer Juozas Landsbergis, as well as Martynas Yčas and Saliamonas Banaitis. Prūsas became the director of the bank. The bank performed functions like organizing Lithuanian international settlements and helping to prepare staff for national banking. Many of the employees of this bank would join the Bank of Lithuania in 1922. In 1919 Prūsas was offered to head the state control department, and later the Ministry of Finance. In a meeting of representatives of credit companies held in Kaunas, then the capital of Lithuania, he proposed to liquidate all companies of this type that operated in Lithuania, and instead prepare new laws letting small credit societies, commercial and lank banks to develop; the government did not adopt this proposal. Prūsas was described as the leading expert in finance within the finance ministry, appointed by the first government to manage the state treasury and organize the state bank.

In 1922 Prūsas was appointed deputy head of the Bank of Lithuania's head, Vladas Jurgutis, assisting him strongly in the creation of emission banking. In 1923 or 1924 he joined the bank's Central Discount Committee, which made decisions on granting loans and guarantees. He was a part of the committee that established the Litas. Prūsas was supposed to represent the Bank of Lithuania and defend its interests within the committee. When there was a public debate on the monetary policy guidelines of the Bank of Lithuania, in which criticism of the strict restrictive policy prevailed, Prūsas spoke in favor of its liberalization. Prūsas retained his advisory position for one term, noting in his memoirs that as a member of the Lithunian Nationalist Union, he will not be elected for a second time. Around 1926 the bank crashed, and members of the bank were investigated for criminal behavior, but the case was closed in 1936.



Later years
Prūsas consequently was appointed the director of the Marijampolė division of the Bank of Lithuania in 1926, although he remarked that it was akin to deportation. In addition to his banking work, Prūsas participated in the establishment of various joint stock companies like Lietuvos Loida and Nemunas, and was elected to their boards. In 1930 the Lithuanian Merchants', Industrialists' and Craftsmens' Union elected him as a member of their revision commission. Prūsas was also elected chairman of the Mažturčiai Society three times in a row. Prūsas was elected head of the Lithuanian Nationalist Union's local division. For seven years Prūsas was elected to the Marijampolė city council. He was an honorary philistine of the Fraternitas Baltiensis corporation. Prūsas would visit the countryside with Jonas Basanavičius. Prūsas's was married to the Latvian writer Emilija Dzenytė-Grietinia-Prūsienė, best known for her novel The Priest Kairys (Kunigas Kairys), published in 1933, and staged as a play in 1936. They had one son named Algirdas.

Adomas Prūsas died on 6 April 1939 in Kaunas.