Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen (born 6 August 1983) is a Lithuanian politician and chess player who is currently the speaker of the Seimas. Awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 2010, she was European women's champion in 2011, and is a two-time Lithuanian champion.

Čmilytė-Nielsen began her career in politics in 2015, when she was selected to replace Remigijus Šimašius in the Seimas for the Liberal Movement, and later was reelected in the 2016 parliamentary election. She began to gradually rise in the ranks of the Liberal Movement, becoming the Seimas opposition leader in 2019, and being elected chairperson of the Liberal Movement later that year. She led the party into the 2020 parliamentary election, where they won 13 seats.

Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen was born in Šiauliai.^[1] She began playing chess at age six, and was coached by her father Viktor Ivanovič Čmil (Viktoras Čmilis), a KGB active reserve officer of Russian ethnicity and the head of the Šiauliai Chess Club.^[2][3][4] After graduating, Čmilytė-Nielsen moved to Riga to enroll in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Latvia. She graduated with a degree in English philology in 2007.^[5][6]

Čmilytė-Nielsen spent her early chess career being coached by her father. In 1993, she won the European Youth Chess Championship in the under-12 girls category, and later won the 1995 World Youth Chess Championship in the same category.^[7]

In 2000, at the age of sixteen, Čmilytė-Nielsen won both the women's and absolute national championships of Lithuania, held in Vilnius. She won the latter edging out Grandmasters Darius Ruželė, Viktor Gavrikov and Aloyzas Kveinys, and International Masters Vaidas Sakalauskas and Vytautas Šlapikas on tiebreak.^[8] Čmilytė-Nielsen won the absolute championship again in 2005 in her home city, on tiebreak from Šarūnas Šulskis.^[9]

She finished second to Jovanka Houska in the 2000 European Junior (Under-20) Girls Championship in Asturias. By 2001, she was ranked number one by FIDE amongst girls. In the same year she won the Corus Reserve Group tournament at Wijk aan Zee.^[10]

Čmilytė-Nielsen took the silver medal at the European Women's Individual Championship in 2003 (Silivri), 2008 (Plovdiv) and 2010 (Rijeka). She won the European Women's Rapid Chess Championship in 2007.^[11] She was awarded the Grandmaster title in 2010, having gained the required norms in the 2008 Gibraltar Chess Festival, 2009 European Team Chess Championship and 2010 European Women's Individual Championship.^[12] In 2011, Čmilytė-Nielsen finally took the gold medal in the European Women's Individual Championship.^[13][14]

Čmilytė-Nielsen competed in the Women's World Chess Championship for the first time in 2000, when she reached the third round. In 2004 she was defeated in the quarterfinals by former Women's World Champion Maia Chiburdanidze. In 2006, Čmilytė-Nielsen reached the semifinals and lost to the eventual runner-up, Alisa Galliamova. In 2008 and 2010 she was eliminated in the second round, while in 2010 and 2015 she went out in round three.

In addition to her native Lithuanian, she is also fluent in English, Russian, and Spanish.^[5]

Čmilytė-Nielsen married Latvian-Spanish chess player grandmaster Alexei Shirov in 2001, until divorcing in 2007. In 2013 she married Danish chess player grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen. She has four children.^[5]