Antanas Jurgelionis

Antanas Jurgelionis’ family moved to St. Petersburg, where he studied at the Military Medical Academy there until 1918. After the October Revolution, he served in the Lithuanian army during the struggle for independence. From 1921-25, Jurgelionis studied medicine at the Sorbonne University in Paris, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on sports medicine. This made him the first sports scientist in the country. In 1926 he returned to Lithuania and worked as a doctor in Kaunas. There, he also worked for the Military Sanitary Office as an inspector of physical education and taught at the teachers’ seminary.

Jurgelionis was one of the founders of the Lithuanian Sports Federation (equivalent to the Lithuanian National Olympic Committee) and was its president from 1926 to 1930. In 1928 he headed the country’s delegation to the Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, and in 1932 he was on the jury for music of the arts competitions at the Los Angeles Olympics. Jurgelionis organized the sports movement “Sporuta” and the Society for Physical Education, which was to become a methodological center. In 1931 he founded the scientific magazine Physical Education and drafted a law on physical education. From 1933 he was the family physician of the President and Prime Minister of Lithuania.

In 1937 Jurgelionis was appointed head of the Lithuanian men’s basketball team, which won the 2nd European Basketball Championship in Riga.

Jurgelionis established a laboratory of advanced physiology and medical control, and from 1938 worked as a senior assistant at the Vytautas Magnus University’s Department of Physical Education. He published several books and numerous articles on physical education. In 1939 he was appointed physician of the Vilnius district.

After World War II, Jurgelionis headed the Lithuanian Antimalarial Station and made an important contribution to the eradication of malaria in the country. Until 1969, he worked at the Institute of Epidemiology, Microbiology and Hygiene, where he founded the Department of Gerontology and Geriatrics. He was also chairman of the Scientific Society of Gerontologists and Geriatricians, which was also his initiative.

In 1964, Jurgelionis was awarded the title of Meritorious Physician of the USSR. His brother Kleopas Jurgelionis (1886-1963) was a poet, critic, translator and journalist.