Romualdas Ozolas (1939-2015) was a Lithuanian philosopher, politician, activist, writer and lecturer at Vilnius University. He was a member of the Communist Party from 1973 to 1990. During Soviet times he occupied high formal positions: in 1975-1980 he worked as an assistant to the deputy chair of the Soviet Lithuanian Council of Ministers, and in 1980-1989 he was deputy director of Mintis (Thought), one of the biggest publishers in the republic. Nevertheless, he was very active and involved in informal networks that took initiatives to promote Lithuanian culture and history. During Gorbachev’s perestroika period, he expressed the opinion that cultural opposition should not be limited to cultural work only, and encouraged making political claims against Moscow. He was a member of the Lithuanian independence movement Sąjūdis from 1988 to 1990. From 1990 to 1991, he served as deputy prime minister of Lithuania. He joined the Lithuanian Centrist Union in 1993, and was its chairman until 2000. In 1996, he was elected to the Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament, and served until 2000. From 2003 to 2007, he chaired the National Centrist Party (NCP), which has since been renamed the Lithuanian Centrist Party in 2005.