„Amerika pirtyje“ arba lietuvių ekonominė emigracija 1868–1914 metais

ENEmigration (Latin emigratio) is moving of people from their homeland to other countries. Emigration can be different: economic, political, religious, seasonal or permanent, forced or independent. People have been changing their place of residence from ancient times to the present. Wars and diseases, political or religious persecution, and other reasons have forced people, ethnic groups, or even nations to emigrate. At the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, the mass emigration of Lithuanian peasants was determined by the law of unequal economic development in individual countries, much higher wages in Russian industrial areas and the most developed Western countries, and the peculiarities of Lithuanian economic life, feudal remnants in agriculture, national liberation movement, revolutionary events, and the repression of tsarism. In Lithuania, the reasons for economic emigration were closely related to the political ones. During the emigration of Lithuanians abroad, mostly to the United States, about a quarter of the nation moved. The majority of emigrants to the United States were agricultural workers and peasants. Extensive emigration helped the Lithuanian nation to form a lot, contributed to the national liberation movement, especially during the years of the banning of the Lithuanian press, influenced the country’s culture, determined some programmes and attitudes of Lithuanian political parties, and affected the country’s economic life. Historically, the mass exodus of peasants from the Russian Empire was largely illegal. Emigration was viewed by the tsarist government as an illicit abandonment of the homeland, and the provocation to emigrate was punished. The favourable policy of the German authorities created good conditions for the secret emigration from Russia to grow, and made a profit for the German shipping lines in Hamburg and Bremen.Emigration to the United States was very significant in the life of the Lithuanian nation economically, politically, and culturally. This emigration left its mark on literature, writing, press history, and book publishing. The topic of emigration took root in the Lithuanian literature. These were the first theatre play staged in Lithuania by Juozas Vilkutaitis-Keturakis America in the Bathhouse, Petras Cvirka’s satirical novel Frank Kruk, Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius’s Žentas. An important place on the topic of emigration was occupied in Julija Žymantienė-Žemaitė›s short stories, Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas›s writings and other works. Emigration was the main reason why the population of Lithuania at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century grew slowly. Emigration from Lithuania pumped out the best productive force: young, healthy, strong, and most active population. However, emigration was not a one-sided and categorically negative objective phenomenon. Its ambiguity was manifested primarily in the changed situation of former Lithuanian villagers in the country of immigration. After becoming US industrial workers, Lithuanian immigrants found the strength and opportunity to educate, cultivate, create their societies and organizations in a new, in many cases more democratic environment, which not only protected Lithuanian immigrants in their new homeland from pointless vegetation by raising funds for sending or transporting them to their homeland, but at the end of the 19th century, a separate ethnic structure of immigrants was formed, which until the maturity of the second generation of immigrants fully satisfied the material and spiritual needs of the diaspora and, more importantly, provided some material and spiritual, ideological-cultural support to Lithuania.