Petras Stauskas was born 20 June 1919 in Talovka [ru], Novouzensky District.[1] His great-grandparents were deported from Lithuania to the Samara Governorate for participating in the anti-Russian Uprising of 1863. His great-grandmother Rožė Stauskaitė was the love interest of the poet Antanas Vienažindys.[2] In 1922, the family returned to Lithuania and settled in their original village of Jaskoniškės [lt] near Dusetos where Stauskas attended a primary school. He further studied at the progymnasium in Antalieptė and gymnasium in Rokiškis.[1]
He graduated in 1939 and enrolled at the aspirant courses at the War School of Kaunas. There he was classmate with painter Algirdas Petrulis. At the same time, he enrolled at the Kaunas Art School.[1] After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940, the War School relocated to Vilnius. As a result, Stauskas transferred to the Vilnius Art School (present-day Vilnius Academy of Arts) where his teachers included Viktoras Vizgirda and Jonas Šileika.[3]
Stauskas was arrested and deported during the June deportation in 1941. He reached Sevurallag [et] in November 1941 where he was forced to work cutting down trees and processing timber.[3] For a time, his bunkmate was painter Adomas Smetona [lt] (nephew of President Antanas Smetona).[4] NKVD officials started investigation in 1942 and in March 1943 determined that they had the wrong person – they were looking for the policeman Povilas Petras Stauskas and not student Petras Stauskas. Student Stauskas was released from the Gulag, while policeman Stauskas was arrested in 1946.[3]
For a few months, he worked at a tank factory in Nizhny Tagil before joining the Lithuanian 16th Rifle Division of the Red Army. He fought with the division and helped Soviets retake Lithuania until he was injured near Katyčiai. After recuperating, he was deployed to Manchuria where the Soviet Union was preparing to fight against Japan.[1]
Stauskas was demobilized in 1946. He returned to Vilnius and resumed his education at Vilnius Academy of Arts where his teachers included Justinas Vienožinskis [lt], Vladas Drėma, Petras Aleksandravičius [lt], Antanas Gudaitis [lt].[5] He graduated in 1950 and joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[6] In March 1951, we was appointed as the director of the M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum. He held this position until he was fired by the Minister of Culture Jonas Bielinis [lt] on 15 March 1988.[3] Reportedly, he was dismissed because he protested plans to relocate the museum for its historical premises so that the War Museum could expand.[7]
As museum director, Stauskas quietly resisted Sovietization efforts. Using his reputation as a war hero, he employed and protected former political prisoners or deportees who managed to return to Lithuania but struggled finding employment.[1] According to witnesses, he even had a secret hand signal to warn employees if a KGB agent came to visit the museum.[3] Stauskas also hid and protected from destruction various politically unacceptable items from the interwar Lithuania (for example, a set of Lithuanian state orders, property of coin mint, sport awards, memorabilia of various institutions and societies)[1] or religious items (for example, wooden folk sculptures of Jesus or saints).[4] He also acquired new art that did not comply with the official requirements of Soviet ideology. He worked to preserve original interiors of Pažaislis Monastery and Church of St. Michael the Archangel, Kaunas.[3]
During his tenure, the museum opened subsidiary museums: a branch in Druskininkai (1963), Vincas Grybas museum in Jurbarkas (1960), Žmuidzinavičius Museum (1966) and Ceramics Museum (1978) in Kaunas.[3]
Stauskas died on 28 February 2003 in Kaunas and was buried at the Petrašiūnai Cemetery.[8]
