Stanisław Narutowicz ( ) (2 September 1862, Brewiki, Kovno Governorate – 31 December 1932, Kaunas, Lithuania) was a lawyer and politician, one of the twenty signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania and brother to the first president of Poland Gabriel Narutowicz. He was also the only Polish–Lithuanian member of the Taryba, the provisional Lithuanian parliament formed in the later stages of World War I. Biography The Narutowicz family, which had its roots in Lithuanian nobility, received a coat of arms in 1413, changing its name from Noručiai (singular Norutis) to Narutowicz in the process. He was a self-declared Samogitian, Lithuanian and a Pole. His parents, Jan Narutowicz and Wiktoria née Szczepkowska were landowners and ran a manor. His father took part in the January Uprising of 1863, which was a revolt that took place in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth against Tsarist oppression. While studying at the Liepāja Gymnasium and later at the St. Petersburg University, he collected Lithuanian folklore and distributed Lithuanian language books whenever he returned home on his vacations. He graduated from the faculty of law at Kiev University. During his studies in Kiev, Narutowicz joined the Polish circle of students and became a member of the II Proletaryat, an underground socialist-revolutionary party and the predecessor of the Polish Socialist Party. However, his beliefs were much less radical than those of his colleagues, and with time his contacts with the far left weakened. Early in his life Narutowicz married Joanna née Billewicz, owner of the Brėvikai manor and a cousin of Józef Piłsudski. After 1907, the couple created and maintained a secondary school for girls in Telšiai. It was the first such school for girls in Russian Empire where teaching in Lithuanian and Polish was permitted. In the period preceding World War I Narutowicz published articles in various Polish language newspapers. He also was the publisher of the first issues of the Tygodnik Powszechny weekly. The couple were also involved in several educational programs whose goal was increasing learning skills among the Lithuanian peasants, and their children who inhabited the area. Politician As a politician, Narutowicz was a mild socialist or a social-democrat. He was a supporter of independence of Lithuania rather than of restoring a Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, mostly from fear that the far more populous Poland would gain the upper hand in such a union. On the other hand, he supported a loose union between