ONE YEAR ONLINE!

VilNews Honorary Council!

By: Aage Myhre, Editor-in-Chief
aage.myhre@VilNews.com

Dear VilNews readers,

We are today proud to present you to our ‘Honorary Council’ – composed of distinguished individuals, all born in Lithuania before World War II, all having extraordinary lives and careers – some in Lithuania, some in exile due to the Soviet occupation of their motherland.

The members of the Honorary Council, wish to contribute, embody, and set standards that enhance the progress and development of Lithuania as a great nation based on dignity, wisdom, tolerance, multiculturalism, and respect for each other.

Lithuania is today a free and independent nation with norms, values, and visions that are deeply rooted in our country’s long and proud history, and it is these outstanding qualities that define the country and our people as the nation called Lithuania.  These are the traits that have made Lithuania a great, progressive, and prosperous force in human history.

Now our nation needs to pull together so that we can confront boldly the challenges we face and take responsibility for our own future again.

The dignitaries participation in the Honorary Council does not imply that they, either as a group or as individuals, necessarily agree with all of the opinions the publication’s editorial staff, readers, and other parties may express in articles, comments, or other published content, but they do affirm and advocate freedom of the press, speech, and other forms of legitimate expression as among the inviolable rights of a democratic Lithuania, based on the ethical standards outlined in the publication’s own “Code of Ethics” (ref VilNews Section 3).

They encourage Lithuanians and readers around the world to express their opinions and views through VilNews with the common goal of contributing to a better and more prosperous future for the worldwide Lithuanian community and the nation called “Lithuania!”

Irena Veisaite – Valdas Adamkus  – Jonas Kronkaitis – Stasys Backaitis
Vytautas Slliupas – Tomas Venclova – Romas Katilius  – Siminoas Alperavicius – Vytas Gruodis

TO READ MORE, GO TO OUR SECTION 2

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VilNews became an online e-publication
15th of February 2011 

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Today: 250.000 readers in 175 countries
in absolutely all world corners!  

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If VilNews was printed on paper, it would become
a book of more than 6.000 pages

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Coronation of King Mindaugas, Lithuania’s first and only king, 6 July 1253.
“The Coronation of King Mindaugas” is the only historical picture out of half a
thousand works that were painted by Adomas Varnas (1879-1979). Varnas was
Lithuanian, a graduate of the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts and the Geneva
High School of Painting, and lived abroad most of his life. He worked on
the painting of King Mindaugas in Chicago, USA. The size of the picture is
1,65 m x 1,3 m. It portrays the climactic scene of the King’s coronation.
Varnas painted the canvas when he was over 70 years of age, in 1952.
He consulted several scientists to avoid historical mistakes.

VilNews went online 15 February 2011. Our goal was to get 100,000 visitors in one year. This target was reached already after six months, and now, after one year, we are very pleased to announce that we have reached 250,000 visitors – one quart million readers in no less than 175 countries! Around 1,000 persons are now reading VilNews every single day, a new reader every 1,5 minute in other words…

Experts told us in advance that a ‘niche product’ like this could expect a readership of 10,000 – 15,000 per year. Skeptics said that we were too optimistic. They were thoroughly wrong …

VilNews is a unique combination of blogs, news, historical articles, etc – a news media and social media under same umbrella, including a huge information base providing background articles on history, politics, economy and much more.

As far as we know VilNews is now the world’s most comprehensive online presentation of Lithuania and Lithuanian topics, be it with regard to history, politics, economy, culture, tourism and more. Had VilNews been printed on paper it would be a book of more than 6,000 pages, thicker than the Bible, Old and New Testament together.

To make reading easier, we have divided VilNews into 24 specialty sections. Below we have described them all. To get to the sections you can now today simply press the LEARN MORE buttons to the right, but normally you have to use the buttons on top of the front page of VilNews.

Note also the search box at the top of the front page. Enter any keyword and click SEARCH to find articles from our very extensive archive.