Epoka zakazu druku jako geneza litewskiej nowoczesności – zarys perspektyw

On May 7, 1904 the prohibition against the Lithuanian press was lifted. It was one of the most significant events that had a direct influence on the evolution of Lithuanian cultural, political and social life. Because of its importance it can be considered as the beginning of Lithuanian modernity. The aim of this reaserch paper is to demonstrate the significance of this turning point and to discuss the genesis of modern era by analysing the period preceding this event, in Lithuanian historiography called “the era of press ban” or “the time of book smugglers”. This period begun in 1864, when czarist authority prohibited the press in latin alphabet and tried to enforce the Russian one. During these 40 years of Lithuanian fight for freedom of printing, the proces of social and cultural changes were initiated. At that time, the first cultural institutions gathering a new generation of intelligentsia, using Lithuanian language, were born, and new forms of self-organization and the new cycles of ideas were shaped. Those processes were related to spreading the types and practices of printing word, available through illegal and well-organised publishing network. From this perspective, the period in which the seeds of Lithuanian modernity were created was a variant of the development of the printing culture, characteristic for Central and Eastern Europe.