"Saulutė" ir saulutininkai

ENThe essay by Adomas Butrimas, an archaeologist, entitled “The Saulutė Society and Its Activists” is the first written account on the Saulutė Society activities in parishes of Plateliai, Žemaičių Kalvarija, Alsėdžiai, and Lieplaukė in 1916-1918 and the first introduction of them to a wider audience. Jonas Brežinskis (1876-1963) was the initiator and one of the founders of this Society, the main purpose of which was enlightenment. It had a newspaper named the Saulutė, edited by Petras Malakauskas. Due to the initiative of Jonas Brežinskis, the young people of the Plateliai country-side district had a nice opportunity to attend special courses and to buy books in a special bookstore. The author has mentioned the well-known members of the Society. Petras Malakauskas was born in 1889. From 1922, he worked at the Department of Theology and Philosophy at Kaunas University. He died in 1948. Pranas Mantvydas was born in 1894. In 1926, he graduated from Kaunas University. Later he studied in Munich, Cologne, and Louvain. In 1929-1933, he was the editor of the Židinys magazine, then worked at the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Sciences. Pranas Mantvydas died in 1960. In this context, Jonas Norvaišas and Joana Gadeikytė (1894-1923) should necessarily be mentioned, too.The žemaičių Kalvarija department of the Society was famed by the activities of Eugenija Valančaitė (1898-1962) and Izidorius Valančius (1895-1974), Alsėdžiai department can boast of J. Paulauskis and Mykolas Bartkus (1894-1970). Unfortunately, very little is known about the departments of Lieplaukė and Plungė. By the way, Grigas Valančius and Zenonas Ivinskis, whose mother’s brother was Jonas Brežinskis, were brought up under the influence of the Saulutė Society. While writing the essay, Adomas Butrimas used the historical material that he collected himself and that by Juozas Mickevičius, a historian and regional ethnographer of Samogitia.