Knygnesiai

Publication Instance Details #477

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

Details

Human Rights Issues	Indigenous Rights (incl. culture & language) State Violence
Irish Context	Specific Irish place or place-name mentioned Other
Languages	Irish
Genre	Short Lyric
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	This poem describes Lithuanian book carriers/book smugglers, whotransported Lithuanian language books printed in the Latin alphabet into Lithuanian-speaking areas of the Russian Empire, defying a ban on such materials in force from 1864 to 1904. Opposing imperial Russian authorities' efforts to replace the traditional Latin orthography with Cyrillic, and transporting printed matter from as far away as the United States to do so, the book smugglers became a symbol of Lithuanians' resistance to Russification. The speaker of the poem describes the exploits of these book smugglers in the poem. There also seems to be a comparison with literature in Ireland (mentioned as 'Fia Fuinidh' in this poem). The fidgety Irish poets are craving 'lays' of their own and won't be happy until they receive them.