With a Doctorate in Humanitarian Sciences, historian Jonas Vaičenonis was born in 1969 in Kaunas. From 1990 to 2003, he studied at Vilnius University and Vytautas Magnum University. In 2003, he defended his thesis for a Doctor of Humanitarian Sciences’ (History) degree at Vytautas Magnum University on the theme: Kariuomenės vaidmuo politiniame Pirmosios Lietuvos Respublikos gyvenime 1927-1940 m. (The role of the army in the political life of the First Republic of Lithuania from 1927 to 1940). In 2004, he published two monographs: Lietuvos kariuomenė valstybės politinio gyvenimo verpetuose (1927-1940) (The Lithuanian army in the vortex of state’s political life (1927 to 1940) and Lietuvos karių uniformos ir lengvieji ginklai XX amžiuje (The uniforms and the light armament of Lithuanian soldiers in XX century). Since 1987, he has worked at the Vytautas the Great War Museum and from 2004 – as a lecturer in the Department of History’s Humanitarian Sciences faculty at Vytautas Magnum University. Over a span of several years, he has published scientific and popular articles in both the Lithuanian and Polish press. Since 2001, he has collaborated with the editorial teams of the Universal Lithuanian Encyclopaedia and the Encyclopaedia of Lithuania Minor. Since 2003, he has been the head of the Lithuanian History of War Society.

Main areas of scientific research: the history of the army of the Lithuanian First Republic’s army. He is especially interested in national minorities in the army, the history of uniforms, the history of the armament, the army’s social life, the history of the separate units of the army, the prisoners of war and the history of Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union.

The photo is from the author’s personal archive.