51 Facts About Mikalojus Akelaitis

Mikalojus Akelaitis was a Lithuanian writer, publicist and amateur linguist, one of the early figures of the Lithuanian National Revival and participant in the Uprising of 1863.

Mikalojus Akelaitis learned several languages and started contributing articles to the Polish press.

Mikalojus Akelaitis wrote works on the Lithuanian language, literature, folklore, mythology, history.

Mikalojus Akelaitis wrote texts that were meant for the common folk in Lithuanian, but his articles and studies for the intelligentsia were written in Polish as it was considered the language of culture at the time.

Mikalojus Akelaitis collaborated with Simonas Daukantas and Motiejus Valancius on plans to establish the first Lithuanian-language periodical Pakeleivingas, but failed to secure government's permits.

Mikalojus Akelaitis fled the Russian police to Paris where he worked at the Polish Library in Paris.

When it became clear that the uprising would not succeed, Mikalojus Akelaitis fled to Paris for the second time where he lived until his death.

Mikalojus Akelaitis's largest published work, a Lithuanian grammar in Polish, was published posthumously in 1890.

Mikalojus Akelaitis was born in Ciuoderiskes near Marijampole to a family of peasants.

Mikalojus Akelaitis's father participated in the Uprising of 1831 and was sentenced to exile in Siberia where he died.

Mikalojus Akelaitis' stepgrandfather fought in the Battle of Maciejowice during the Kosciuszko Uprising while his grandfather's brother served in the Polish Legions in Italy and fought in the Battle of Somosierra in Spain during the Napoleonic Wars.

Orphaned Mikalojus Akelaitis grew up with his grandparents and stories of these campaigns.

Mikalojus Akelaitis's mother obtained a housekeeper's job in Marijampole where Akelaitis took private lessons with a local priest and an organist in Sasnava.

Mikalojus Akelaitis then enrolled into a primary school in Marijampole which he graduated at age 17.

Mikalojus Akelaitis continued studies at the four-year secondary school in Marijampole where he was continuously ranked as one of the best students, but quit without graduating around 1850.

Mikalojus Akelaitis worked as a tutor of various children of the Lithuanian nobility and frequently moved around.

Mikalojus Akelaitis briefly lived in Warsaw where he contributed articles on the Lithuanian language and history to the Polish press.

Mikalojus Akelaitis collaborated with ethnographers Oskar Kolberg and Aleksander Osipowicz.

For example, Mikalojus Akelaitis translated 26 Samogitian songs published by Simonas Daukantas to Polish and sent them to Kolberg.

In 1858, Mikalojus Akelaitis moved to Jaunsvirlauka in Courland to live with Petras Smuglevicius, a medical doctor and a relative of painter Franciszek Smuglewicz.

Mikalojus Akelaitis treated Daukantas as a fatherly figure and they supported each other's work.

Mikalojus Akelaitis began contributing to the Polish press in Vilnius and organizing publication of Lithuanian books.

Mikalojus Akelaitis taught Oginski's children in Rietavas and hoped to establish a Lithuanian printing press.

Adam Honory Kirkor invited him to work for Kurier Wilenski but Mikalojus Akelaitis refused as the pay was too low.

In 1860, Mikalojus Akelaitis was elected a member of the Vilnius Archaeological Commission.

In 1861, Mikalojus Akelaitis joined the anti-Tsarist resistance leading to the Uprising of 1863.

Mikalojus Akelaitis wrote anti-government texts in Lithuanian: prose Gromata Wylniaus Senelio in which he described how the Russian police killed five innocent people in Warsaw and Pasaka senelio in verse.

Mikalojus Akelaitis sent the texts to Memel to publish but the publisher instead turned the texts to the police.

Mikalojus Akelaitis published Giesmes naboznos, a Lithuanian translation of two Polish patriotic hymns, Bogurodzica and Boze, cos Polske, which were likely translated by Mikalojus Akelaitis or by Antanas Baranauskas.

Mikalojus Akelaitis went into hiding frequently changing his location and eventually fleeing to Paris.

Mikalojus Akelaitis was elected to the Polish Historical and Literary Society and obtained a well paid position at the Polish Library in Paris.

Mikalojus Akelaitis was a member of the Paris Society of Polish Youth led by Zygmunt Padlewski.

Mikalojus Akelaitis published two issues of the Lithuanian newsletter in February and March 1864.

Mikalojus Akelaitis was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison, but managed to escape from the courtroom.

Mikalojus Akelaitis again fled to Paris where he lived until his death.

Mikalojus Akelaitis married a French woman and had three children.

Mikalojus Akelaitis helped Vladislovas Dembskis edit and publish a Lithuanian translation of Livre du peuple by Hugues Felicite Robert de Lamennais in 1870.

Mikalojus Akelaitis died in 1887 and was buried at the Cimetiere parisien de Pantin.

Mikalojus Akelaitis wrote works on the Lithuanian language, literature, folklore, mythology, history.

Mikalojus Akelaitis advocated the use of the Lithuanian language, but his articles and studies for the intelligentsia were written in Polish as it was considered the language of culture at the time.

Mikalojus Akelaitis tended to use etymological and not phonetic spelling.

Mikalojus Akelaitis attributed the Prussian trinity to Lithuanians and analyzed their names from the linguistic point of view.

In 1860, with the help of Adam Honory Kirkor, Mikalojus Akelaitis published five works in Lithuanian as the first works of the planned folk library series.

In 1885, Mikalojus Akelaitis published 49-page Rzut oka na starozytnosc narodu litewskiego, which he originally wrote in Lithuanian.

Mikalojus Akelaitis's largest published work, the first part of a Lithuanian grammar in Polish which discussed phonetics, was published posthumously by Zygmunt Celichowski in 1890.

Mikalojus Akelaitis started his work with a lengthy introduction describing the distribution of Lithuanian speakers and Lithuanian dialects.

Mikalojus Akelaitis lived at the time when the comparative linguistics emerged as a discipline, and he worked to compare Lithuanian with other Indo-European languages.

Mikalojus Akelaitis studied Lithuanian phonetics, prepositions, grammatical cases, tenses, etymology, etc.

In 1862, with financial support from Valerian Kalinka, Mikalojus Akelaitis wrote his largest work, the Polish-language Opisanie Wielkiego Ksiestwa Litewskiego or Litwa pod rzadem Rossyjskim.

Mikalojus Akelaitis started working on a translation of Herodotus and Karl von Rotteck to Polish, wrote a short didactic work on the history of Lithuania, and a comedy in Polish.

Mikalojus Akelaitis wrote a Lithuanian booklet on trains and steam engines in which he had to create about a hundred Lithuanian technical terms.