Vincas Kudirka

Born Dec. 19 (31), 1858, in the village of Paežeriai, now in Vilkaviškis Raion; died Nov. 4 (16), 1899, in Kudirkos-Naumiestis, in present-day Šakiai Raion. Lithuanian writer, journalist, and social figure.

Kudirka graduated from the faculty of medicine of the University of Warsaw. He was a founder of the bourgeois social and literary magazine Varpas (The Bell, 1889–1905). His magazine articles strongly defied tsarist russification policies in Lithuania. His best poetic works (the collection Free Hours, 1899) reflect the aspirations of the oppressed masses to freedom and expound the slogans of national liberation. Kudirka assailed the policies of the government and criticized the Catholic clergy in his satirical stories (”The Chiefs,” 1895, and “The Wolves,” 1898), but their value is diminished by the author’s nationalistic bent. Kudirka translated I. A. Krylov’s fables and F. von Schiller’s dramas into Lithuanian.