Epoka zakazu druku jako geneza litewskiej nowoczesności – zarys perspektyw
The Period of Lithuanian Press Ban as the Origins of Lithuanian Modernity – Outline of Approache

Summary/Abstract: On May 7, 1904 the prohibition against the Lithuanian press was lifted. It wasone of the most significant events that had a direct influence on the evolutionof Lithuanian cultural, political and social life. Because of its importance it canbe considered as the beginning of Lithuanian modernity. The aim of this reaserchpaper is to demonstrate the significance of this turning point and to discuss thegenesis of modern era by analysing the period preceding this event, in Lithuanianhistoriography called “the era of press ban” or “the time of book smugglers”. Thisperiod begun in 1864, when czarist authority prohibited the press in latin alphabetand tried to enforce the Russian one. During these 40 years of Lithuanian fight forfreedom of printing, the proces of social and cultural changes were initiated. At thattime, the first cultural institutions gathering a new generation of intelligentsia,using Lithuanian language, were born, and new forms of self-organization andthe new cycles of ideas were shaped. Those processes were related to spreading thetypes and practices of printing word, available through illegal and well-organisedpublishing network. From this perspective, the period in which the seeds ofLithuanian modernity were created was a variant of the development of theprinting culture, characteristic for Central and Eastern Europe.

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