Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas

Lithuanian writer

Date of Birth: 20-Sep-1869

Place of Birth: Maleišiai, Utena County, Lithuania

Date of Death: 29-Apr-1933

Profession: teacher, priest, literary critic, newspaper editor

Nationality: Lithuania

Zodiac Sign: Virgo


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About Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas

  • Juozas Tumas also known by the pen name Vaižgantas (20 September 1869 – 29 April 1933) was a Lithuanian Roman Catholic priest and an activist during the Lithuanian National Revival.
  • He was a prolific writer, editor of nine periodicals, university professor, and member of numerous societies and organizations.
  • His most notable works of fiction include the novel Pragiedruliai (Cloud Clearing) and the narrative Dedes ir dedienes (Uncles and Aunts) about the ordinary village folk. Born to a family of Lithuanian peasants, Tumas was educated at a gymnasium in Daugavpils (present-day Latvia) and Kaunas Priest Seminary.
  • He began contributing to the Lithuanian press, then banned by the Tsarist authorities, in 1889 or 1890.
  • He was ordained as a priest in 1893 and posted to Mitau (present-day Jelgava, Latvia).
  • In 1895, he was reassigned to Mosedis in northwestern Lithuania.
  • There he organized the publication of Tevynes sargas and the book smuggling into Lithuania.
  • His brother Jonas was caught with the banned publications and was sentenced to three years in prison and two years of exile.
  • Due to his Lithuanian activities and short temper, Tumas quarreled with his superiors and was frequently moved to increasingly more remote parishes.
  • However, in 1906, bishops of Samogitia and Vilnius agreed to allow Tumas to move to Vilnius to work as an editor of the daily Vilniaus žinios published by Petras Vileišis.
  • He edited the newspaper only for a couple of months but remained in Vilnius as editor of Viltis, co-founded with Antanas Smetona.
  • This new cultural newspaper hoped to unite conservative Catholic clergy and more liberal intelligentsia for the common good of the Lithuanian nation.
  • After publishing an article critical of the Diocese of Vilnius for suppressing the Lithuanian language in favor of the Polish language, Tumas was exiled to Laižuva in 1911.
  • In 1911, together with Konstantinas Olšauskas, he toured Lithuanian American communities collecting donations for the construction of the headquarters of the Saule Society.
  • During World War I, Tumas moved to Riga and edited Rygos garsas.
  • As a member of the Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers, he organized relief for Lithuanian refugees.
  • In 1917, as one of the founders of the Party of National Progress, he attended political conferences in Petrograd, Kiev, and Stockholm advocating for full independence of Lithuania.
  • He returned to Vilnius in 1918, but moved to Kaunas after the city was captured by Poland.
  • He edited Tauta, published by the Party of National Progress, and ran in the elections to the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania, but largely withdrew from politics when he was not elected.
  • He became rector of the Church of Vytautas the Great and organized its reconstruction.
  • From 1922 to 1929, he taught a course on the Lithuanian literature during the era of the Lithuanian press ban (1864–1904) at the University of Lithuania.
  • Tumas published several works on writers' biographies and amassed a large collection of material (manuscripts, correspondence, photos, etc.) about the writers.
  • On the basis of this material, he organized a literary archive at the university.

Read more at Wikipedia

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