Vincas Kudirka, Martynas Jankus, Jonas Šliūpas and the Making of Modern Lithuania
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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Dissertations Department of History Summer 2013 Lithuanians in the Shadow of Three Eagles: Vincas Kudirka, Martynas Jankus, Jonas Šliūpas and the Making of Modern Lithuania Charles C. Perrin Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss Recommended Citation Perrin, Charles C., "Lithuanians in the Shadow of Three Eagles: Vincas Kudirka, Martynas Jankus, Jonas Šliūpas and the Making of Modern Lithuania." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2013. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss/35 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LITHUANIANS IN THE SHADOW OF THREE EAGLES: VINCAS KUDIRKA, MARTYNAS JANKUS, JONAS ŠLIŪPAS AND THE MAKING OF MODERN LITHUANIA by CHARLES PERRIN Under the Direction of Hugh Hudson ABSTRACT The Lithuanian national movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was an international phenomenon involving Lithuanian communities in three countries: Russia, Germany and the United States. To capture the international dimension of the Lithuanian na- tional movement this study offers biographies of three activists in the movement, each of whom spent a significant amount of time living in one of the three “parts” of the Lithuanian nation: Vincas Kudirka, Martynas Jankus and Jonas Šliūpas. The biographies focus on the following questions. To what extent did each of the three activists assimilate into a “foreign” (i.e., non- Lithuanian) culture and was this a voluntary process? How did they free themselves from for- eign cultural dominance? How did they understand nationality in general and Lithuanian nation- ality in particular? What goals did they incorporate into their nationalist agendas? What causes of anti-Semitism and philosemitism can be identified by analyzing their discourse about Jews? The conclusion puts the answers to some of these questions into comparative perspective. This study uses published and archival sources in seven languages from libraries and archives in sev- en countries—some of which have never been used before. It is the first to use the unpublished typescript of Jonas Šliūpas’ 1942 autobiography, which, until recently, was unavailable to re- searchers. INDEX WORDS: Lithuania, Vincas Kudirka, Martynas Jankus, Jonas Šliūpas, identity for- mation, Polonization, Germanization, anti-Semitism, nationalism, socialism LITHUANIANS IN THE SHADOW OF THREE EAGLES: VINCAS KUDIRKA, MARTYNAS JANKUS, JONAS ŠLIŪPAS AND THE MAKING OF MODERN LITHUANIA by CHARLES PERRIN A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2013 Copyright by Charles Christopher Perrin 2013 LITHUANIANS IN THE SHADOW OF THREE EAGLES: VINCAS KUDIRKA, MARTYNAS JANKUS, JONAS ŠLIŪPAS AND THE MAKING OF MODERN LITHUANIA by CHARLES PERRIN Committee Chair: Hugh Hudson Committee: David McCreery Olavi Arens Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2013 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study would not have been possible without the support, encouragement and assis- tance of many people. The members of my dissertation committee —Hugh Hudson, Olavi Arens and David McCreery—read and provided helpful comments on each chapter. Translation assis- tance was provided by Dovilė Budrytė, Sigita Remekienė, Justina Gučaitė, Julija Litvaitytė, Justinas Brikys, Rūta Mikšytė, Helga Perrin, Anna Rulska and Google Translate. Several people helped with research. Kristina Lapienytė at the Lithuanian World Archives in Chicago and To- mas Bindokas graciously provided copies of rare newspaper articles, Klaus Richter provided me with a copy of his dissertation and Björn Felder alerted me to the existence of an obscure journal article by Jonas Šliūpas. The Association of Georgia State University Historians provided two travel grants to do research in Lithuania. Thank you, Labai ačiū, vielen Dank and Dziękuję bardzo. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... vii LIST OF MAPS ............................................................................................................... viii 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Sources .................................................................................................................. 6 1.2 Historiography ..................................................................................................... 10 2 THE LITHUANIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT IN RUSSIA, GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES ............................................................................................. 17 2.1 Tsarist Lithuania (Lithuania Major) .................................................................... 17 2.2 Prussian Lithuania (Lithuania Minor) ................................................................. 28 2.3 Lithuanians in the United States.......................................................................... 43 3 VINCAS KUDIRKA: A POLONOPHILE LITHUANIAN NATIONALIST ........... 59 3.1 Early Life in Tsarist Lithuania ............................................................................ 60 3.2 At Warsaw Imperial University .......................................................................... 69 3.3 Later Life in Tsarist Lithuania ............................................................................ 84 3.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 97 4 MARTYNAS JANKUS: A PEASANT WITH A PRINTING PRESS ...................... 99 4.1 Early Life and Intellectual Development .......................................................... 101 4.2 Family................................................................................................................ 114 4.3 Publishing and Book-Smuggling ...................................................................... 115 v 4.4 The Birutė Society ............................................................................................. 135 4.5 Political Activity ............................................................................................... 139 4.6 Deportation to Russia and Return ..................................................................... 141 4.7 The Memel “Uprising” and Later Life .............................................................. 151 4.8 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 165 5 JONAS ŠLIŪPAS: THE CHAMELEON ................................................................. 169 5.1 Early Life........................................................................................................... 172 5.2 The Awakener of Lithuanianism in the United States ...................................... 187 5.3 Public Speaking, Writing and Translating ........................................................ 201 5.4 Promoter of Freethinking in the United States .................................................. 208 5.5 Activities at the Dawn of Independence ........................................................... 211 5.6 Life in Lithuania ................................................................................................ 228 5.7 Flight to Germany and Death ............................................................................ 249 5.8 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 250 6 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 254 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 261 Archival Sources and Special Collections .................................................................. 261 Newspapers and Popular Journals ............................................................................... 262 Published Primary Sources.......................................................................................... 263 Secondary Sources ...................................................................................................... 269 vi LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1 Lithuanians as a Percentage of the Population in Prussian Lithuania, 1825-1910 ............ 41 Fig. 2 Lithuanian Immigration to the United States, 1899-1914 ................................................. 44 vii LIST OF MAPS Map 1 The Deportation of Martynas Jankus and His Family in December 1914. .................... 143 Map 2 Untitled Map Showing a Future Lithuanian-Latvian Republic as Envisaged by Jonas Šliūpas in 1915 ................................................................................................................ 225 viii 1 INTRODUCTION Miroslav Hroch, the author of a classic study of the revival movements in the small na- tions of Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, observed that the members of the oppressed nationalities were