The Lithuanian book factory in the second half of the nineteenth century: translation, compilation, plagiarism or creative work?
EN[...] In this article I deal with an exceptional phenomenon in history of Lithuanian culture and literature: the Lithuanian "book factory" that operated under the Press Ban. It was established by Martynas Sederavičius (1829-1907), who was Dean in the Sudargas presbytery from 1873 to 1889 on the border of the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, an area through which the routes of smugglers and "book carriers" ran. Apart from Sederavičius himself, who acted as translator, publisher, and book carrier, the "book factory" was comprised of the followind individuals: Juozas Antanavičius (1830-c. 1900), a forest-guard, who translated, compiled and adapted religious writings, and a book carrier; he lived from 1886 in Sudargas and its environs; Laurynas Serafinas Kušeliauskas (1820-1889), a nobelman, landowner, official, tertiary, author of religious writings, translator, editor, compiler, publisher and book carrier who lived in Lower Lithuania, and in 1889 in Sudargas; in 1887 he set up the foundation of illegal Lithuanian writing, Knyginis amžinas bankas lietuviškos rašliavos (literatūros) (Eternal Bank of Books of Lithuanian Literature), the aim of which was to prepare, publish and distrubute the Lithuanian Catholic press (Tumas-Vaižgantas 1924b, 49-51; 1929c, 197-198; 2004c, 427-428; Milukas 1929; Rabačiauskaitė 1980, 59-60; Merkys 1994a, 249-250; 2004, 16); Antanas Vytaras (1863-1932), a priest, translator, editor, compiler and book carrier who lived in Lower Lithuania (and later in Upper Lithuania); he joined Sederavičius in 1887. [...]. [Extract, p. 133-134]
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