Jurgis BIELINIS, (1846-1918), a booksmuggler
during the years of the Tsarist ban on Lithuanian publications, born in
Purviskiai, county of Birzai on March 16, 1846. He completed a German
elementary school in Riga, Latvia. In 1873 he became an active participant
in the struggle against the Tsarist regime and the landowning class;
especially important were his efforts in behalf of the clandestine
Lithuanian press. When the Russians issued a ban on the Lithuanian press in
1864, some Lithuanians began
to publish books and periodicals in Lithuania Minor (East Prussia) and
smuggle them across the German-Russian frontier in Lithuania. Bielinis was
one of the principal organizers and distributors of the contraband; he was
know as the king of the booksmugglers. At first he collaborated with
Motiejus Valancius, Bishop of samogitia. who was the first to publish
Lithuanian books in Tilze (Tisit), East Prussia; later he worked
independently. From 1885 until the ban was repealed in 1904 Bielinis
operated a secret distribution center in the hamlet of Garsviai, near
Vadakteliai in the County of Panevezys. He once said: “I will nor die
until the Muscovites leave Lithuania.” The remark proved to be prophetic:
he died on his way to Vilnius on January 18, 1918, just a month prior to
Lithuania’s formal declaration of independence. He also wrote agitational
political pamphlets.
Literature:
ENCYCLOPEDIA LITUANICA I-VI, 1970-1978, Boston
