Baranauskas, Antanas

Born Jan. 17, 1835, in Anyk-sciai; died Nov. 26, 1902, in Seinai. Lithuanian poet and philologist. Born into the family of a government serf.

In 1862, Baranauskas graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. He was a professor at the theological seminary and, later, a bishop. In 1858–59 Baranauskas wrote the narrative poem The Anykŝčiai Pine Forest, an excellent piece of Lithuanian poetry, in which the beauties of nature and the spiritual richness of the Lithuanian people were greatly extolled. The poem was directed against the oppression of serfdom, arbitrary autocracy, and incipient capitalist relations. After the suppression of the revolt of 1863, Baranauskas took up narrow clericalist positions and moved away from poetry. Baranauskas was the first Lithuanian dialectologist and the creator of Lithuanian grammatical terminology.