On Tuesday, Lithuania is marking the Book Smugglers’ Day (Knygnešio diena) to commemorate the people who are credited with keeping the Lithuanian language alive during repressive Tsarist policies in the 19th century.
“Their goal was to save the Lithuanian language and to enhance the power of the written word,” the country’s Foreign Minister tweeted on Tuesday.
Today #Lithuania celebrates the Day of the #Book Smugglers (Knygnešio diena) 📙📗📕.
— Lithuania MFA (@LithuaniaMFA) March 16, 2021
Their goal was to save the Lithuanian language and to enhance the power of the written word - the story of the XIX century #Lithuanian book smugglers ⬇️.https://t.co/NOq3W1yany
After the failed 1863 anti-Tsarist uprising that swept the present-day territories of Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine, the Tsarist government increasingly turned to repressive language policies seeking to stamp out dissent across its western borderlands.
Read more: Why 1863 uprising is relevant in the 21st century – opinion
In 1864, publishing books in the Latin alphabet in Lithuania was prohibited. Two years later, publishing books in Lithuanian was banned entirely.
To keep the language alive, people would smuggle books from East Prussia, in the present-day Russian Kaliningrad region, over the border and into Lithuania.
“Initially, the knygnešiai worked alone. They carried books in sacks or covered wagons, delivering them to stations set up throughout Lithuania. They performed most of their operations at night, when the fewest guards were stationed along the border. Winter months – especially during blizzards – were popular crossing times,” wrote Michael Waters for Atlas Obscura online magazine.
“Lithuanians went to great lengths to conceal their illegal books. The Forty Years of Darkness by Juozas Vaišnora describes female smugglers who dressed as beggars and hid books in sacks of cheese, eggs, or bread. Some even strapped tool belts to their waists and pretended to be craftsmen, disguising newspapers under their thick clothes,” he wrote.
According to the Encyclopedia Lituanica, “there are no accurate statistics on the number of Lithuanian publications transported across the border”.
In 1891–1901, Tsarist customs officials seized 173,259 books and other publications. Meanwhile, contemporary estimates place the numbers of smuggled books at 30,000 to 40,000 annually during the last years of the ban.
The ban was finally revoked in 1904. The national rebirth that brewed during the book smuggling days would eventually culminate in the February 16, 1918, declaration of the Lithuanian independence.
Read more: Servant of the Tsar and friend of Lithuania – unique story of Russian Governor Pyotr Verevkin
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