Michał Pius Römer (later using the Lithuanian form Mykolas Römeris) (1880 in – 1945 in Vilnius) was a Lithuanian-Polish lawyer,łPiusRö scientist and politician.
Biography
Early years
Römer was born in Lithuania into a Polish noble family of Baltic-German (Livonian) origin. He was one of szlachta members loyal to the heritage of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, referred to as Krajowcy. His father was Michał Kazimierz Römer and mother was Konstancja Tukałło.
He attended the Law School in Saint Peterburg (1893–1901) and later studied history in Kraków (1901–1902), after that he moved to Paris to study in École des sciences politiques (1902–1905). In Paris, he belonged to the organisation "Spójnia", where he headed the group "Lithuania", and was closely related to the . He gave the lecture on cultural-ethnographic situation in Lithuania in Café Voltaire, together with another Lithuanian activist, Tadas Ivanauskas. It was later published in Kraków by "Krytyka" under a title: Stosunki etnograficzno-kulturalne na Litwie.
In 1905, he returned to Lithuania, where he began to work for the restoration of Lithuanian statehood, not dominated by any nationalism. As he put it, he tried to persuade the Poles settled in Lithuania to have "a common national citizenship () without renouncing cultural and national distinctions". To this end, he and founded the "Gazeta Wileńska", which was published from 15 February 1906. The radical paper was soon closed, on 7 July that year, although it already had 2,000 subscribers. Romer had to flee to Kraków, for fear of being arrested.
In 1908 he wrote Lithuania: Study of national revival (Litwa: studium odrodzenia narodowego). In his work he justified the rights of Lithuanians to their own statehood. He refuted accusations that Lithuanian activists were Russian agents. He also defended the right of Lithuanian Poles to preserve their own identity in the future Lithuanian state.
Later that year he came back to Vilnius, when he continued his publicist work. He wrote works on Poles in Lithuania and Ruthenia and on Lithuanians in East Prussia (Litwini w Prusach Książęcych, 1911). He joined the Society of Friends of Science in Wilno and accompanied Ludwik Krzywicki on his archaeological work in Samogitia.
First World War
At the outbreak of World War I, Römer maintained contacts with independence and socialist circles in Warsaw, and distributed leaflets in Lithuania. He worked on the editorial board of the re-established "Przegląd Wileński". Römer took an oath as a lawyer in early 1915.
In March 1915, he took the Lithuanian politicians Mykolas Sleževičius and Jurgis Šaulys to Warsaw for a meeting with Stanisław Patek. Römer left Vilnius on May 27, 1915 and went via Odesa to Romania and then to Galicia. At the delegation of the Supreme National Committee (NKN), he was accepted into the Polish Legions and sent to the Press Office of the Military Department of the NKN in Piotrków. In August, he submitted an extensive memorandum to the Supreme National Committee entitled Lithuania at War (). On August 28, 1915, he left Piotrków, wanting to take part in the armed struggle. On September 14, 1915, after a personal conversation with Józef Piłsudski in Kovel, he was assigned to the 1st Legions Infantry Regiment and, under the pseudonym , took part in the Volhynia campaign as a private. He soon fell ill and was hospitalized for a longer period - in Rzeszów, then Kraków, where he stayed until February 1916.
After a period of service in the Military Department of the NKN, in September 1916 he returned to the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Legions Infantry Regiment to the front to Grywiatka, then with the regiment to Baranavichy and Łomża. During the Oath crisis in July 1917, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the German Emperor and on July 18, 1917, he was interned in the camp in Szczypiorno. In August 1917, thanks to the efforts of his Warsawian friends, he was released from the camp and was nominated as a justice of the peace in Kolno in the Kingdom of Poland, and after a year he was transferred to the position of district judge in Łomża.