Antanas Smetona was a Lithuanian intellectual, journalist, and politician. He served as the first president of Lithuania from 1919 to 1920 and later as the authoritarian head of state from 1926 until the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940. Referred to as the "Leader of the Nation" during his presidency, Smetona is recognised as one of the most important Lithuanian political figures between World War I and World War II, and a prominent ideologist of Lithuanian nationalism and the movement for national revival.