Description of the attraction
Antanas Baranauskas is a Lithuanian poet and linguist who also wrote in Polish. Born on January 17, 1835 in the town of Onikšty (that was the name of the town of Anykščiai until 1917) into a peasant family. He graduated from primary school in his hometown and 2-year clerical school in Rumsiskes. In the period from 1853 to 1856, he served in the Raseiniai, Skuodas and other townships' offices. He was familiar with the Polish poetess Karolina Pronevskaya, who largely determined the poetic nature of Antanas Baranauskas's work.
From 1856 he studied at the Catholic Theological Seminary in Varnyai, then entered the St. Petersburg Catholic Theological Academy, from which he graduated in 1862. During his studies at the seminary, he became interested in linguistics. He became the first Lithuanian dialectologist and the founder of the terms of the Lithuanian grammar. In 1863-1864 he studied theology at the universities of Rome and Munich. In 1863 he retired from poetry. In 1866-1884 he worked as a professor at the Covenian Theological Seminary. Here Baranauskas taught homiletics and moral theology. In 1897 he was appointed bishop in Sejny. Here he died. This happened on November 26, 1902. The grave of Antanas Baranauskas is located in Sejny.
The poet created a number of poems in Polish. He wrote a poem of 14 songs "Travel to St. Petersburg" (1858-1859). The most famous and artistically perfect work of Baranauskas is the poem “Anykščiai Bor” (1858-1859), which is ranked among the classics of Lithuanian literature and has been translated into many languages. Baranauskas also created the didactic poem "The Scourge and the Mercy of God" (1859).
The Memorial Museum or, as it is also called the "cage", of Antanas Baranauskas was founded on May 1, 1927. The cage of the poet and bishop Baranauskas in 1826 (the date is carved on the jamb) was built by the poet's father Jonas Baranauskas in Jurzdikas, a former suburb of Anykščiai. The cage was built only with an ax, without a saw, and hammered together with oak pegs. Antanas Baranauskas loved to spend his free time in the crate, and, by the way, it was here that he created his famous poem "Anyksciai Bor".
In 1921, a relative of Baranauskas, the writer Antanas Zukauskas-Venuolis, received a plot of the Baranauskas family, kept the cage and founded the poet's museum in it. People began to bring Venuolis documents, personal belongings of the poet, exhibits related not only to the life of Baranauskas, but also to the history of the town of Anyksciai. So here were the stupa, spinning wheels, a sword that remembers the 1863 uprising. In the museum you can see things from the old Baranauskas estate: a steelyard, a krynka braided with bast, wooden candlesticks, a crucifix on the wall, a Cossack peak, a suitcase purchased in St. Petersburg and seen in almost all European countries. And the oldest exhibit in the cage is a dowry chest belonging to Rosalia, the poet's mother. It depicts a small violin reminiscent of the childhood of little Antanas.
Klet is the first memorial museum in Lithuania. In 1945 Venuolis was appointed director. After 13 years, a protective cover was built. Venuolis died on August 17, 1957. And since 1958, a memorial museum has been opened in his house. On the first floor there was an exposition telling about the life and work of the writer, on the second there were memorial rooms.
On December 1, 1962, A. Baranauskas 'cage and A. Venuolis-ukauskas' house-museum were united into one memorial museum of these creative people. In 1982, a storage building with an exhibition hall and administrative premises was erected nearby.
