My Father was a Smuggler

Author John Millar (Jonas Stepsis)
"Lithuanian Heritage". 2004 January-Fabruary 
http://www.LithuanianHeritage.com

 

The two swimmers carefully pushed their water-proof wrapped bundles onto the sloping riverbank and slipped silently out of the water. Shaking themselves like dogs to rid their bodies of as much water as possible, they hurriedly donned the clothes that were secured to the top of the bundles. For some time before darkness fell they had lain hidden on the opposite riverbank, timing the frequency of any border guard patrols and choosing a landing area on the other side. Although the river was not particularly wide at this point, the current was reasonably strong and rather than fight it they planned to allow the current to aid them in a diagonal crossing. Dressed, they hoisted the packs by the rope harness, adjusted them on their backs, and set off for the pre-arranged rendezvous with their colleagues. They had some ten kilometers to cover during the short hours of summer darkness, avoiding any military patrols enroute.

The year was 1899, the country was Lithuania, the river was the Sesupe, which at that point was the border between East Prussia and Lithuania, before it merged with the Nemunas, Lithuania's largest river, which then became the border. The two swimmers were my father, Vincentas (Vincas) Stepsis, and my uncle Juozas, both of whom were smugglers - in the literal sense of the word - as the bundles they carried, according to the occupying Imperial Russian authorities, contained illegal material. However, the contraband they carried across the frontier of the two countries was not to evade revenue payable on taxable commodities, nor were they doing so for personal gain
or profit. They were risking their lives, incarceration, or banishment to the frozen wastes of Siberia for nothing more than Lithuanian language literature - books, journals, newspapers - which would be secretly disseminated to their fellow countrymen; the hazardous task voluntarily undertaken without any thought of gain or glory.

But why was it necessary to bring their own-language literature into the country covertly and at the risk of life and limb? Why would ordinary country - folk - peasants - at best only semi-literate undertake such risky, dangerous missions for the sake of printed paper? Why, indeed, had this to be done clandestinely and why was apprehension by the Russian authority so severely punished? To comprehend the why and the wherefore thousands of people like Vincas and Juozas Stepsis gladly did this task, despite the consequent hazards, it is necessary to understand something of the troubled history of the ancient land of Lithuania. By virtue of a 16th century treaty with Poland, a "Commonwealth of Two Nations" had lasted more than two hundred years until the Third Partition of the Commonwealth in 1795 resulted in Lithuania being seized by Imperial Russia. During the 19th century, as with most occupied and subjugated countries, there were uprisings and insurrections against the occupying authority. After the 1863 insurrection was quashed, Tsar Alexander the Second imposed the most stringent of measures on Lithuania and its people. He installed a Governor General, one Mikhail Nikolaevich Muravyov, with instructions to produce a Lithuania "with nothing Lithuanian in it." Muravyov began his implementation of the Tsar's orders by proclaiming a complete ban on the Lithuanian press, the usage of the Latin alphabet and the Lithuanian language - only the Cyrillic alphabet and Russian language were to be used and taught. In essence everything Lithuanian - language, culture,
religion - was proscribed, and so severe were the penalties for contravention that, during his time as Governor-General (till March 1865) Muravyov became known as the "Hangman of Lithuania."

The period from 1864 to 1904 when the ban was lifted, made the native Lithuanian press nonexistent resulting in an unrelenting struggle to restore it. In all of European history Lithuania is the prime instance of an occupying authority denying a former independent nation its language and press and a people's forty-year battle against a foreign language and culture being forced upon them. It is no wonder that the time of the prohibition became known in Lithuania as the "Forty Years of Darkness."

An underground movement began printing the forbidden literature in their native tongue across the border in East Prussia. Originally inspired by the clergy, particularly Bishop Motiejus Valancius whose rallying call was "Visada ir visur buk lietuvis" ("Always and everywhere be Lithuanian") and who exhorted everyone to discard the Russian books and keep teaching the old Lithuanian language, even if in secret. In answer to his call, men who were themselves unable to read or write, ferried the packages of books across the border and distributed the contents. And so the knygnesiai (book-carriers) came into being. The womenfolk taught the children at their knee during the performance of the daily domestic chores. Both Tsar Alexander and Muravyov completely underestimated the nationalism, resilience, and stubbornness of the Lithuanian people. The more repressive the measures they inflicted, the greater grew the resistance. On that night in 1899, my father and my uncle Juozas delivered their
bundles to the distribution center in the village of Pilviskiai before dawn and spent the daylight hours resting and sleeping at the house of a friend and fellow "smuggler." As darkness fell that evening, they made preparations to return to the Sakalupio area; having said their farewells they set off. About two kilometers or so from their hideaway, a figure loomed up in the gloom in front of them and the voice of the local policeman said: "Ah! Vincai, Juozai, I would not go home tonight." Not another word was said or needed. The brothers understood, the military were waiting for them. Turning their footsteps toward the Sesupe river, they swam across to the East
Prussian bank intending to lie low with their book-smuggling colleagues until the authorities gave up the search for them.
Four weeks later word reached the brothers that they were still being vigorously sought after, the hue and cry had not diminished as they had hoped. After some soul searching they decided it would be disastrous to return to Lithuania for some foreseeable time with incarceration or Siberia as the only future facing them. The only choice was to bid farewell to their native land, their usefulness as covert book-carriers gone, and head west-to the land of opportunity and freedom, the United States of America. Working their way across Prussia and Germany to the port of Hamburg they found they had insufficient funds for the fare to America. Almost exactly twelve months from their encounter with the friendly policeman, the boat they were on docked at the Port of Leith, Scotland. Vincas Stepsis was born on the 9th of July 1870, his brother Juozas two years later, at Sakalupio Dvaras (estate), near the town of Kudirkos Naumiestis, Lithuania, about two kilometers from the banks of the Sesupe river, to Tadas Stepsis and his wife Petronele Barzdaityte Stepsiene. His father Tadas (my grandfather) died when Vincas was 4 years old and my grandmother Petronele died shortly before Vincas reached his 10th birthday. Orphaned in childhood, the two boys worked from that early age on the Sakalupio estate where their father had been coachman to the dvarininkas (estate owner). On reaching the age of 21, Vincas was conscripted for military service in the Imperial Russian Army on 12th November 1891, and posted to the 6th Battery, 3rd Brigade Grenadiers Artillery on 10th December 1891, far away from his homeland, in the Ukraine. Two and a half years later he was lying in a bed of a military hospital in Rostov with a fractured skull where a horse had kicked him about an inch above his right eye. While hovering between life and death, a court of inquiry, held at
his bedside, ruled that he was no longer fit for any military duties and should be released from any further service. His discharge booklet entitled "Certificate of Completion of Military Service, No. 286" says: "The bearer of this is a cannoneer, Vikenty Tadeusovich Stepshis... after examination on 5th February 1894, the Commission held in a military hospital recognized his incapacity to continue military service and gave him his discharge. Stepshis is incapable to continue either combatant or non-combatant service and so discharged from the military service forever. Capable of private labor. Not requiring care. At the time of his arrival at his place of residence, Stepshis is obliged to report at the local police station with this Certificate to reregister in his local community." On returning home after making a complete recovery from his dreadful injury (which the Russian Commission had thought highly unlikely), Vincas found that his brother had not complied with his Above: The Sesupe River, near Kudirkos Naumiestis.

Right: Some of the banned books "smuggled" into Lithuania from East Prussia by the knygnesiai. Opposite page: Last page of the Certificate of Completion of Military Service of Vincentas Stepsis (1894). call-up to the Russian Army but had joined the local "underground" as a covert book-carrier. Within a week Vincas and Juozas were a two-man unit in the team of smugglers. As border dwellers from birth, they were familiar with the whole area and knew all the nooks and crannies from their boyhood adventures. For the next five years the brothers carried out their book-carrying exploits, miraculously avoiding apprehension by the occupying authorities, until the night in 1899, when they were, fortunately, warned allowing them to evade certain capture. Although I was born in Scotland, my first language was Lithuanian, taught by my mother who, unlike my father, was literate and I spent my impressionable childhood years listening to, and begging for, tales of the "old country"-its history, its occupation and subjugation, and the struggles to retain the language and literature; not just told by my father but by his friends, like Juozas Kasulaitis, a fellow knygnesys, when they all gathered socially in our house. A boy's eagerness for blood and thunder stories prompted me to ask if they ever ran into trouble, were they ever shot at by Russian soldiers when crossing the border? The short answer was: "No, we were lucky." There were occasions as a child when the tales I heard seemed so fantastic to me living in Scotland that I thought they were fictional stories, like fairy tales told to satisfy a youngster's demand for a bedtime story. Not until I visited Lithuania for the first time in 1993, when I was welcomed as the son of a knygnesys, did I fully realize just how understated my father's stories really were. I still have a memento of my father's book-carrying days - my mother's prayer book-titled "Szaltinis" ("The Wellspring") - it has been confirmed as one of the "illegal" publications by the Lithuanian National Archives, probably published between 1894 and 1899. The struggles of the book-carriers have been praised in modern times by Father Julijonas Kasperavicius who said: "The work of restoring Lithuania's independence began, not in 1918, but rather at the time of the book-carriers. With bundles of books and pamphlets on their backs, these warriors were the first to start preparing the ground for independence, the first to propagate the idea that it was imperative to throw off the yoke of Russian oppression." In any other country a smuggler as an ancestor would probably be cause for embarrassment but, as the son of a Lithuanian "smuggler" of the 19th century, I have no sense of shame or embarrassment. The very opposite, for I have a heartstirring pride that my immediate ancestor was one of the warriors described by Father Kasperavicius and had been a hero - however minor - of his country and his, and his many colleagues' exploits are part of the folklore of his native land.

 

John Millar (Jonas Stepsis) is a regular contributor to Lithuanian Heritage living in Fairlie, Scotland. Recently he was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship which allowed him to travel to Lithuania to research the history of the "book-carriers." The only extant photograph of Vincas Stepsis (a.k.a. William Millar - rear), taken in 1930 in Scotland, with his family. Next to him are his wife Petronele (formerly Domeikiene) and Joseph Domeika. The author (aged 7) is in the front row, accompanied by sister Mary (on knee), half-sisters Alice and Ann, and half-brother Peter.