EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, History, Lithuania, Markets and Companies

The following four telegrams are expected to be sold for EUR 95,000:

"MARIJAMPOLE. Rather large herds of wild boars have been noticed around the Balbieriskis town. Last year, they destroyed farmers' crops and potato fields. People often spot wild boar families of 10-12 members".

"VILNIUS. The Neris River in Vilnius has risen 6 metres above the normal level. Many streets in the city have been flooded. The water has also reached and undermined the Cathedral, the building is feared to fall down. 18 cm holes opened up in the walls. The Cathedral is closed".

"LONDON. English Board of Customs has changed their older decision and now ruled that monkeys are four-legged rather than four-armed creatures, therefore, they are not subject to any duties. The change has been made following extensive research".

"SYDNEY. Preparations for the opera Carmen were taking place but the show has been postponed because rats got into boxes with stagewear and destroyed nearly all clothes. The show was been postponed for a week".

The high auction price of the old telegrams is very symbolical: this year ELTA celebrates its 95th anniversary of activities, which started on 1 April. The auction location – Basel – is a symbolic sign of honour to ELTA's founder, Juozas Eretas (Jozeph Ehret) from Switzerland, who was born in Basel and was returned her for eternal rest.

ELTA was founded in 1920. Juozas Eretas, the first director of the agency, a literature professor, publicist, and public figure of Swiss decent sought to make the ELTA news wire as efficient and reliable as a Swiss watch. In 1920-1940, ELTA had cooperated closely with the most prominent foreign agencies – its five teletypes used to send news from REUTER, DNB, HAVAS, STEFANI and TASS.

The communication with the founder of the first Lithuanian news agency, Swiss doctor in philosophy Jozeph Ehret, were established thanks to the well-known public figure, publicist, priest Juozas Purickis, who went to study in Switzerland's University of Fribourg University in 1913. Being a big patriot, Purickis started working in the Lithuanian Information Bureau in 1916 which was seated in Lausanne at that time. The bureau aimed at spreading Lithuania's goal of independence.

Purickis also edited the magazine Litauen, issued in German language in Switzerland, and needed an assistant. For this position he chose Ehret. According to his contemporaries, the Swiss was active in the Lithuanian Information Bureau, wrote a book about Lithuania, communicated with the Lithuanians living aboard, and even started to learn Lithuanian language.

On April 1, 1920, the bureaus were joined and the Lithuanian telegram agency ELTA started working under the Foreign Ministry in Kaunas. Ehret was appointed to head the first Lithuanian news agency.

In its first months, ELTA worked with rather primitive means – the phone communication was imperfect, it was difficult to contact foreign countries, the attempts to find journalists who knew some foreign language could be equalled to Sisyphean work, there were no communication with foreign news agencies thus news reports were mostly taken from foreign newspaper and translated into the Lithuanian language.

In 1920, ELTA had 15 correspondents abroad and about 20 in the country. ELTA was called the telegram agency because the telegraph was the only means to transfer information.

There was also a phone to deliver news to Lithuania and the world. There were couriers who delivered ELTA's news, later on they modernized their work and mounted bicycles. There were also letters.

Already in the first years of its existence ELTA also established an office in Vilnius.

Gradually, the Lithuanian telegram agency strengthened its positions. ELTA started receiving news reports from Reuters, Italian telegram agency Stefani. ELTA's permanent correspondents began to work in London and Rome. Ehret headed ELTA until February 1922.

Until 1940, ELTA has grown into a strong news agency successfully cooperating with a number of well-known European agencies like Reuters, DNR, Havas, Stefani, TASS. Teletypes, a modern means of communications, were used. During the pre-war period, the Lithuanian news agency was very popular. Knowing that news from all over the world came there, people called ELTA to check on anything.

Information in foreign languages – English, German, French, and Russian – was easily translated into Lithuania. However, after the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940, the only language remained was Russian. The clutches of the occupation regime started restricting and adjusting the flow of information. ELTA became a unit of the Soviet news agency TASS and was blindly fulfilling the will of the party leaders.

The post-war ELTA director was called responsible manager. He and almost all reporters and editors were demobilized Russian soldiers, wearing military uniforms without shoulder-straps at work, speaking and writing in Russian. It is said that there was only one reporter who wrote the information in Lithuania making his colleagues angry because of that, as his information had to be translated into Russian and then back into Lithuanian.

Since 1953, the Russian speaking soldiers were replaced by Vilnius University graduates, however, the news by foreign news agencies were still coming only from Moscow and only in Russian.

When the Soviet regime came into force in Lithuania, thanks to the efforts of Lithuanian emigrants, an independent, not controlled by anybody ELTA division was established abroad. On December 14, 1944, in Berlin, the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania (VLIK) decided to set up a secret ELTA information bureau which aimed at informing foreign countries on the real situation in Lithuania. Antanas Valeikis was appointed head of the bureau. ELTA news bulletin that was issued daily since 1945, later was issued once in every two weeks.

In 1953, news bulletin ELTA Pressediens began to be issued in German in Reutlingen, in 1954 – " ELTA Press" in Italian language in Rome, in 1956 – ELTA Information Service in English in New York, in 1961 – in Spanish in Buenos Aires. News bulletins were issued in French, Portuguese, and Arabic. They were read by politicians, diplomats and media from various countries. In 1965, ELTA information service was moved from Germany to the United States, with departments operating in Munich and Rome.

Over the period of many years, news bulletins issued by ELTA abroad were the only regular, fairly objective source of information about Lithuania.

After the restoration of Lithuanian independence, the issue of ELTA news bulletins abroad was officially suspended. The last news bulletins were issued in December 1991.

When Lithuania regained its independence, ELTA also started recovering. In 1995, ELTA became a public limited company. ELTA was among the first to have its own website in Lithuania. The photo archives of ELTA contain over 100,000 negatives; there are about 250,000 digital photographs in the agency's photo bank.

Today, the 95-year old Lithuanian news agency ELTA is very experienced, but together very dynamic and youthful.