Juozas Tumas also known by the pen name Vaižgantas (20 September 1869 – 29 April 1933) was a Lithuanian Roman Catholic priest and an activist during the Lithuanian National Revival. He was a prolific writer, editor of nine periodicals, university professor, and member of numerous societies and organizations. His most notable works of fiction include the novel Pragiedruliai (Cloud Clearing) and the narrative Dėdės ir dėdienės (Uncles and Aunts) about the ordinary village folk.
Born to a family of Lithuanian peasants, Tumas was educated at a gymnasium in Daugavpils (present-day Latvia) and Kaunas Priest Seminary. He began contributing to the Lithuanian press, then banned by the Tsarist authorities, in 1889 or 1890. He was ordained as a priest in 1893 and posted to Mitau (present-day Jelgava, Latvia). In 1895, he was reassigned to Mosėdis in northwestern Lithuania. There he organized the publication of Tėvynės sargas and the book smuggling into Lithuania. His brother Jonas was caught with the banned publications and was sentenced to three years in prison and two years of exile. Due to his Lithuanian activities and short temper, Tumas quarreled with his superiors and was frequently moved to increasingly more remote parishes. However, in 1906, bishops of Samogitia and Vilnius agreed to allow Tumas to move to Vilnius to work as an editor of the daily Vilniaus žinios published by Petras Vileišis. He edited the newspaper only for a couple of months but remained in Vilnius as editor of Viltis, co-founded with Antanas Smetona. This new cultural newspaper hoped to unite conservative Catholic clergy and more liberal intelligentsia for the common good of the Lithuanian nation. After publishing an article critical of the Diocese of Vilnius for suppressing the Lithuanian language in favor of the Polish language, Tumas was exiled to Laižuva in 1911.
In 1911, together with Konstantinas Olšauskas, he toured Lithuanian American communities collecting donations for the construction of the headquarters of the Saulė Society. During World War I, Tumas moved to Riga and edited Rygos garsas. As a member of the Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers, he organized relief for Lithuanian refugees. In 1917, as one of the founders of the Party of National Progress, he attended political conferences in Petrograd, Kiev, and Stockholm advocating for full independence of Lithuania. He returned to Vilnius in 1918, but moved to Kaunas after the former was captured by Poland. He edited Tauta, published by the Party of National Progress, and ran in the elections to the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania, but largely withdrew from politics when he was not elected. He became rector of the Church of Vytautas the Great and organized its reconstruction. From 1922 to 1929, he taught a course on the Lithuanian literature during the era of the Lithuanian press ban (1864–1904) at the University of Lithuania. Tumas published several works on writers' biographies and amassed a large collection of material (manuscripts, correspondence, photos, etc.) about the writers. On the basis of this material, he organized a literary archive at the university.
Biography Early life and education
Tumas was born in the village of north of Svėdasai into a peasant family that owned 24 of land. He was the youngest of ten children, but only he and four siblings survived to adulthood. Tumas was born at midday of the Nativity of Mary (O.S. 8 September). His mother, aged 45, took all this as a sign that he should become a priest. At age five, Tumas received his Confirmation from bishop Motiejus Valančius in Kaunas. He completed his elementary school studies in within two years, which was faster than any other student. However, his knowledge was poor – he had very good memory and could repeat material without understanding it. Nevertheless, in fall 1881, he managed to pass entrance exams to the gymnasium in Daugavpils which accepted about 50 students out of 150 applicants. After four years of study, his parents urged him to transfer to the Kaunas Priest Seminary, but he decided to finish the studies and started earning a living by giving private lessons. Long studies followed by private lessons to make a living negatively impacted Tumas' health and he frequently contracted respiratory illnesses.
During this time he developed an interest in Russian classic literature, particularly biographies and memoirs. His favorites were autobiographical novels Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth by Leo Tolstoy. He also read Sergey Aksakov, Ivan Turgenev (A Sportsman's Sketches), Gleb Uspensky, Mikhail Zagoskin, Ivan Goncharov, Nikolay Dobrolyubov, Dmitry Pisarev, and other authors. The gymnasium students organized and Tumas participated in illegal groups to read and discuss various banned, mostly socialist, publications. Lithuanian Povilas Matulionis introduced Tumas to Aušra (Dawn), the first Lithuanian-language periodical that was printed in Tilsit, East Prussia, due to the Lithuanian press ban. However, Tumas did not adopt socialist worldview and there were too few Lithuanians to develop any kind of Lithuanian activities. After repeating the final year for the second time, Tumas graduated the gymnasium in 1888.
After graduation, Tumas had to choose university or priest seminary. He doubted his calling for priesthood and considered studying veterinary in Saint Petersburg. His family's wishes and his poor health decided that he applied to the Kaunas Priest Seminary. He had no particular calling for the theology studies and especially struggled with Latin: before entering the seminary, he knew no Latin and there were no Lithuanian or Russian dictionaries, thus he had to use a Polish–Latin dictionary but he did not know Polish either. Lithuanian language was taught by Kazimieras Jaunius who provided little practical knowledge but inspired his students. Lithuanian students, including Tumas, organized a secret society with a goal of translating and publishing various Lithuanian religious texts. It became known as the Society of Saint Casimir when one of its members obtained relics of Saint Casimir, the patron saint of Lithuania. Catholic periodical Žemaičių ir Lietuvos apžvalga (Samogitian and Lithuanian Review) appeared in October 1889 and Tumas contributed articled on Catholic and Lithuanian topics. His first contribution to the Lithuanian press was a correspondence to either Varpas in 1889 or Žemaičių ir Lietuvos apžvalga in 1890.
Due to a bout of tuberculosis, Tumas interrupted his studies in early 1890 and returned to his native Maleišiai for vacation and treatment for a year and a half. During that time, he continued to write for Žemaičių ir Lietuvos apžvalga. He returned to the seminary and concentrated on his studies, graduating in fall 1893. During the summer 1893, Tumas traveled to Mosėdis in an attempt to persuade Kazimieras Pakalniškis, editor of Žemaičių ir Lietuvos apžvalga, to soften his criticism of the secular intelligentsia. He was ordained as a priest on 28 November 1893 in Kaunas Cathedral by bishop Mečislovas Leonardas Paliulionis. At some point, he also joined the Third Order of Saint Francis.
Publisher of Tėvynės sargas
Tumas was first sent by the Diocese of Samogitia as vicar to Mitau (present-day Jelgava, Latvia), away from Lithuanian-speaking areas. However, Mitau already had a vicar, who moved from Ilūkste without diocese's approval. Therefore, Tumas received a very cold welcome from local priests. He worked as a chaplain of a prison and a private gymnasium, and struggled with Polish-language sermons. In Mitau, Tumas found a group of Lithuanians, including linguist Jonas Jablonskis and attorney Antanas Kriščiukaitis, and often attended their gatherings. Jablonskis approved his first more serious literary experiment – a translation of one of the short stories by Henryk Sienkiewicz – and published it in Varpas. Dean Piotr Walent disapproved such meetings and wanted to control Tumas' activities, but Tumas refused to obey. Their conflict continued until the dean was deported to Simbirsk in January 1895. At the same time, 23 other priests implicated in the case were deported to other locations in Russia. Tumas was not satisfied with his posting in Mitau and, after reading a poem by Maironis in spring 1895, sent an emotional letter to the bishop requesting a reassignment. He received a reply in a week, but did not get a new posting until four months later.
In summer 1895, Tumas was assigned as a vicar and a teacher of religion to Mosėdis. He devoted his efforts to the Lithuanian press. In collaboration with priests Felicijonas Lelis and Kazimieras Kazlauskas held in the Kretinga Monastery, Tumas established the monthly magazine Tėvynės sargas (Guardian of the Fatherland) in January 1896. Due to the Lithuanian press ban, it had to be printed in East Prussia and then smuggled into Lithuania. Tumas almost single-handedly edited the magazine from the December 1897 to the April–May 1902 issue. While it was a Catholic publication, it was relatively more liberal than Žemaičių ir Lietuvos apžvalga. It attempted to reconcile the Catholic dogma with the Lithuanian National Revival. While the newspaper promoted the Lithuanian identity (faith, language, culture) and opposed various Russification policies, it did not support political resistance against the Tsarist regime and in general accepted the existing social and political order.
In October 1896, Tumas' brother Jonas was arrested in Priekulė for transporting a suitcase full of booklets printed by Tėvynės sargas. The police also seized letters that implicated others in the book smuggling operation, but Tumas managed to bribe police officials and destroy the letters. Tumas was searched, interrogated, dismissed from his job as a teacher, and sentenced to five years of exile by the Governor-General of Vilnius. His friends, particularly former classmate , encouraged him to flee to United States, but Adomas Jakštas who was deported for five years to Ustyuzhna persuaded him to stay. The Ministry of the Interior did not approve the sentence and it was reduced to a year of house arrest. His brother, caught red handed, could not avoid the punishment and served three years in the Kresty Prison and two years of exile in Bessarabia.
In August 1898, Tumas was transferred to Kuliai. It was a convenient location for Tumas' illegal work – it was remote but also close to the Prussia–Russia border – and he organized a distribution point for the banned Lithuanian press. A local farmer would smuggle the books across the border, Tumas would hide them in the large clergy house until book smugglers such as Jonas Krikščiūnas picked them up for further distribution. To help the distribution, Tumas decided to split Tėvynės sargas into two parts – the first part contained more dangerous political topics and thus could bring harsher sentences, while the second part contained more innocent practical articles on farming, etc. and thus attracted less interest from the police. This magazine was geared towards the common folk and Tumas yearned for a magazine for the intelligentsia. To that end, he published five issues of Žinyčia (Treasury of Knowledge) in 1900–1902. It was a cultural, not political magazine. Tumas was an avid reader. A surviving list of books owned by Tumas in 1899 shows 433 books, acquired since 1894. The list did not include any of the illegal Lithuanian publications and thus should be longer.
Troubles with the superiors