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- BITENAI, hamlet in western Lithuania, 11 km
southeast of Pagegiai. In 1959 it had 289 inhabitants. The hamlet lies
high up on the right bank of the Nemunas river and is surrounded by
forest. Two streams, the Bite and Ziogys, flow through the hamlet into
the Nemunas. Bitenai is the birthplace of Martynas Jankus, a noted
activist in the Lithuanian national renaissance of the 19th century. In
1892 he set up a printing press on his farmstead in Bitenai and
published clandestine Lithuanian books and periodicals. Until the end of
World War I Bitenai was part of East Prussia, where Lithuanian books
could be freely printed. From East Prussia the publications were
smuggled into Lithuania proper, part of the Russian empire, where
Lithuanian books were banned from 1865-1905. Bitenai became a noted
center of Lithuanian book smuggling. The neighboring hill of Rambynas,
situated on the Nemunas, was the site of patriotic gatherings of young
Lithuanians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Literature:
ENCYCLOPEDIA LITUANICA I-VI, 1970-1978, Boston
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