According to the President, Professor Brzezinski was an outstanding public figure, unwavering defender of freedom and democracy, true patriot of his country, and faithful friend of Lithuania and Europe who worked for strengthening partnership ties between the United States and Europe. “His deep and vast experience and analysis of political developments were greatly appreciated by the academic and political communities as well as by society. Professor Brzezinski’s legacy will live on as an enduring source of inspiration to many young scholars and experts focused on international politics,” Dalia Grybauskaitė wrote in her message of condolences.
The President offered her sincere condolences to Zbigniew Brzezinski’s family, friends and the academic community.
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Zbigniew Brzezinski was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1928. His family hailed from Brzeżany in Galicia in the Tarnopol Voivodeship of then eastern Poland (now in Ukraine). The town of Brzeżany is thought to be the source of the family name. Brzezinski's parents were Leonia (née Roman) and Tadeusz Brzeziński, a Polish diplomat who was posted to Germany from 1931 to 1935; Zbigniew Brzezinski thus spent some of his earliest years witnessing the rise of the Nazis. From 1936 to 1938, Tadeusz Brzeziński was posted to the Soviet Union during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge. Israel later praised his father for having helped Jews escape from the Nazis.
In 1938, Tadeusz Brzeziński was posted to Montreal as a consul general. In 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was agreed to by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union; subsequently the two powers invaded Poland. The 1945 Yalta Conference between the Allies allotted Poland to the Soviet sphere of influence. The Second World War had a profound effect on Brzezinski, who stated in an interview: "The extraordinary violence that was perpetrated against Poland did affect my perception of the world, and made me much more sensitive to the fact that a great deal of world politics is a fundamental struggle."
