After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, he returned to Lithuania and became director of the Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
[1] He returned to Lithuania in fall 1918 and joined the board of the Catholic Action Center and traveled across Samogitia organizing its local chapters.
In March 1919, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent Turauskas to Bern in Switzerland to work at the Lithuanian legation with Vaclovas Sidzikauskas.
At the same time, he underwent treatments to improve his poor health and studied philosophy and later law at the University of Fribourg.
When Sidzikauskas was moved to Berlin in June 1922, Turauskas headed the Lithuanian legation in Switzerland until it was closed in August 1923.
[2] During his studies, he met Hungarian Hevesi András [hu] who depicted him as a character in his novel Párizsi eső (Paris Rain).
[4] He also met French writer and journalist Jean Mauclère [fr] and inspired him to write more than 200 articles and several books on Lithuania.
In January 1927, Turauskas became editor of the daily Rytas [lt] newspaper published by the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party.
In 1934, he organized a trip of Lithuanian writers and journalists across Russia and participated in conferences leading to the formation of the Baltic Entente.
He was elected chairman of the central committee of the Ateitis Federation during a conference on 17–18 September 1926 and was reelected in July 1927 and June 1930.
He also returned to the Catholic Action Center and joined the Lithuanian section of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.
[5] On 1 September 1934, Turauskas returned to the Lithuanian Diplomatic Service – he was appointed as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Czechoslovakia with residence in Prague.
Stasys Lozoraitis, Minister of Foreign Affairs, suggested Riga, Latvia, but Latvians did not want to accept Turauskas.
In this capacity, he had to respond to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the outbreak of World War II as well as the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty and the transfer of Vilnius Region to Lithuania.
[1] Since he had been planning his departure since March, unlike President Antanas Smetona who had to flee within hours, he was able to take some important government archives with him.
[5] In 1954, VLIK published his book Le Sort des états baltes (The Fate of the Baltic States) in French.