Jonas Šliūpas, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Jonas Šliūpas

Lithuanian writer

Date of Birth: 23-Feb-1861

Place of Birth: Rakandžiai, Šiauliai County, Lithuania

Date of Death: 06-Nov-1944

Profession: writer, literary critic, philosopher

Nationality: United States, Lithuania

Zodiac Sign: Pisces


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About Jonas Šliūpas

  • Jonas Šliupas (6 March 1861 – 6 November 1944) was a prominent and prolific Lithuanian activist during the Lithuanian National Revival.
  • For 35 years, he lived in the United States working to build national consciousness of Lithuanian Americans.
  • He edited numerous periodicals, organized various societies, and published some 70 books and brochures on various topics.
  • His sharp criticism of the Catholic Church made him highly controversial and unpopular among the conservative Lithuanians. Šliupas was educated at home and by his relatives before he enrolled in the Mitau Gymnasium in present-day Latvia.
  • There he read works by John William Draper that Šliupas credited for laying the foundations for his lifelong dedication to freethought, promotion of science, and criticism of the Catholic Church.
  • His studies at the Moscow University and Saint Petersburg Imperial University were cut short when was imprisoned for participating in a student riot in 1882.
  • He was released due to an illness and, fearing conscription, he fled to Switzerland and later East Prussia.
  • He accepted an offer to edit Aušra, the first Lithuanian newspaper.
  • Šliupas edited eight issues in 1883–1884 and introduced some socialist ideas.
  • German police detected some elements of Pan-Slavism in his writings and forced him to leave.
  • Šliupas arrived to New York City in June 1884 and, despite severe financial hardships, he began publishing Lithuanian newspapers Unija and Lietuviškasis balsas and helped establishing the first Lithuanian parish that was separate from Polish.
  • Soon, Pennsylvania Lithuanians began publishing Vienybe lietuvninku in response to Šliupas' anti-Catholic and anti-Polish rhetoric.
  • In 1888, Šliupas moved from New York to Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, where many Lithuanian immigrants worked in local coal mines.
  • The new parish priest Aleksandras Burba became a collaborator with Šliupas and brokered a short-lived peace between Šliupas and the Catholic camp.
  • Burba helped Šliupas to establish the Lithuanian Scientific Society and provided financial help for his studies.
  • To secure means of making a decent living, Šliupas studied medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and started a successful private medical practice in 1891.
  • The collaboration with Burba broke down in 1892. Šliupas anti-religious and pro-socialist views grew stronger and louder.
  • He published socialist weekly magazine Nauja gadyne (1894–1896), freethrought monthly magazine Laisvoji mintis (1910–1914), various mainly translated texts promoting freethought and publicizing the conflict thesis between Christianity and science, and texts on the history of Lithuania (on the origins of Lithuanians in 1899 and three-volume history of Lithuania in 1904–1909).
  • He organized Lithuanian miners in response to the Lattimer massacre in September 1897 and during the Coal strike of 1902 and unsuccessfully ran in the elections to the United States House of Representatives in 1896 and 1900.
  • Šliupas organized local socialist groups and joined the Lithuanian Socialist Party of America organized in May 1905.
  • He quickly withdrew form the party and more active socialist work, though continued to sympathize with socialist ideas.
  • He was a popular public speaker and by 1907 had given over 1,000 lectures on political, social, religious and scientific subjects.
  • At the outbreak of World War I, Šliupas organized the Lithuanian National League of America as the third or middle road between the radical socialists and the conservative Catholics.
  • He organized fundraising drives to help Lithuanian war refugees, visited Russia in 1916–1918, and publicized the Lithuanian demands for independence in English-language essays and memorandums (one of them was added to the Congressional Record).
  • In 1919, Šliupas briefly represented Lithuania in London, at the Paris Peace Conference, and in Latvia. While Šliupas was respected for his past contributions to Lithuanian causes, he was not invited to the Lithuanian government or held a more prominent public position.
  • Šliupas returned to Lithuania in 1920 with substantial savings that he invested in the Trade and Industry Bank and other business ventures, many established by his son-in-law Martynas Ycas.
  • Most of these investments were lost when the bank failed in 1927.
  • Šliupas briefly taught hygiene and literature at schools in Biržai and Šiauliai as well as history of medicine at the University of Lithuania.
  • He also served as a mayor of Palanga (1933–1935, 1938–1939, 1941), a developing seaside resort, and had to coordinate the response to the great fire in May 1938 that left some 1,500 people homeless.
  • He continued to promote freethinking – chaired Freethinkers' Society of Ethical Culture, edited reestablished Laisvoji mintis (1933–1940), lobbied for non-religious cemeteries, schools, marriage and birth registrations, published numerous anti-religious texts.
  • For one such text, he was sued by a priest for slander and received a one-month suspended prison sentence.
  • After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in June 1940, Šliupas was invited to the People's Government of Lithuania, but refused.
  • He continued to be active in public life until his death.
  • As many other Lithuanians, he fled from the advancing Red Army in October 1944 and was invited to Berlin to record a radio speech to Lithuanian Americans.
  • He wrote the speech but died suddenly before he could record it.

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