Towards an unofficial canon: striving to strengthen the Lithuanian cultural community under Russian domination in the mid- 19th century

ENThe development of the Lithuanian reading community was impeded by the uprising against Russia - yet one could still find some interesting traces commemorating and somehow prolonging the existence of the community. It can be found, for example, in the monograph by an archaeologist and country explorer Konstanty Tyszkiewicz Wilija ijej brzegi [Neris and its banks], in Upominek wileński [Vilnius gift] dedicated to Kraszewski, in translation of Witolo rauda into Lithuanian by Andrius Vištelis (Andrzej Wisztelewski). In spite of the above, the Lithuanian Utopian reading community together with the project of an unofficial canon seems to have found itself almost - to quote the words from the "Preface" to Konrad Wallenrod by Mickiewicz - "entirely in the past. [Extract, p. 82]