Steponas Kairys was a Lithuanian engineer, nationalist, and social democrat. He was among the 20 men to sign the Act of Independence of Lithuania on 16 February 1918.

Antanas Smetona was a Lithuanian intellectual, journalist and politician who served as the first president of Lithuania from 1919 to 1920 and again from 1926 until the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940. Referred to as the "Leader of the Nation" during his presidency, Smetona is recognised as one of the most important Lithuanian political figures between World War I and World War II, and a prominent ideologists of Lithuanian nationalism and the movement for national revival.