The Lithuanian national movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was an international phenomenon involving Lithuanian communities in three countries: Russia, Germany and the United States. To capture the international dimension of the Lithuanian national movement this study offers biographies of three activists in the movement, each of whom spent a significant amount of time living in one of the three “parts” of the Lithuanian nation: Vincas Kudirka, Martynas Jankus and Jonas Šliūpas. The biographies focus on the following questions. To what extent did each of the three activists assimilate into a “foreign” (i.e., non-Lithuanian) culture and was this a voluntary process? How did they free themselves from foreign cultural dominance? How did they understand nationality in general and Lithuanian nationality in particular? What goals did they incorporate into their nationalist agendas? What causes of anti-Semitism and philosemitism can be identified by analyzing their discourse about Jews? The conclusion puts the answers to some of these questions into comparative perspective. This study uses published and archival sources in seven languages from libraries and archives in seven countries—some of which have never been used before. It is the first to use the unpublished typescript of Jonas Šliūpas’ 1942 autobiography, which, until recently, was unavailable to researchers.

The Lithuanian national movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was an international phenomenon involving Lithuanian communities in three countries: Russia, Germany and the United States. To capture the international dimension of the Lithuanian national movement this study offers biographies of three activists in the movement, each of whom spent a significant amount of time living in one of the three “parts” of the Lithuanian nation: Vincas Kudirka, Martynas Jankus and Jonas Šliūpas. The biographies focus on the following questions. To what extent did each of the three activists assimilate into a “foreign” (i.e., non-Lithuanian) culture and was this a voluntary process? How did they free themselves from foreign cultural dominance? How did they understand nationality in general and Lithuanian nationality in particular? What goals did they incorporate into their nationalist agendas? What causes of anti-Semitism and philosemitism can be identified by analyzing their discourse about Jews? The conclusion puts the answers to some of these questions into comparative perspective. This study uses published and archival sources in seven languages from libraries and archives in seven countries—some of which have never been used before. It is the first to use the unpublished typescript of Jonas Šliūpas’ 1942 autobiography, which, until recently, was unavailable to researchers.