Jonas Šliūpas: a Baltic Visionary

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Jonas Šliūpas; Visuomenės veikėjai; Tautinė savimonė; Nacionaliniai santykiai; Užsienio ryšiai.

ENJonas Šliūpas (1861-1944) was not only a prominent activist and cofounder of the Lithuanian national movement, but was also among those public figures whose endeavours and vision went way beyond the scope of a purely Lithuanian agenda. The complex, self-contradictory, Balto-centric personality of Šliūpas, which eclectically linked several spiritual strands, namely, Social Darwinism, nationalism, anti-clericalism and socialism, caught the attention of a great number of authors. During his life in the interwar period, he was already regarded as one of the most esteemed figures of the national movement. He published several versions of his biography. Among comparative biographies of prominent national movement activists, Šliūpas enjoys a special status due to his colourful career and his life proved a rewarding subject of biographical study for many authors. Thanks to his emigration to the United States, he defied the usual career path of most Lithuanian activists. His work has largely been positively appraised because of his participation and founding role in the national movement. On the other hand, his ambiguous and contradictory opinions led the American historian Charles Perrin to label Šliūpas as a chameleon. This pejorative epithet may be linked to Šliūpass controversial activities during the Second World War. It is because of this ambiguity and contradictoriness that Šliūpas has faced criticism from certain quarters. Questions about the Lithuanian national movement and its relationship to other nations and states have abounded over the years. These include the idea of a Lithuanian-Latvian republic, cooperation between small and oppressed Central and Eastern European nations, tensions between Lithuania and Poland and Russia and Lithuania, the Jewish question, and the significance of Lithuanian emigres in the United States.Another source of criticism is related to Šliūpas s ideological worldview. This is not isolated but intimately associated with the aforementioned concerns. Research on Šliūpas’s activism and work enriches our understanding of the transfer of ideas between intellectual centers and peripheries: notions of Social Darwinism, liberalism, socialism, the influence of the American concept of liberty, Wilsonianism and last but not least, the anticlerical and free-thinking ideas prevalent among Lithuanian intellectuals. This paper examines the international dimension of Šliūpas s influence with a focus on projects of international cooperation during the First World War. However, because many of his main ideas originated earlier, it is first necessary to look at the circumstances in which these ideas were formed. [Extract, p. 268]