Yulia Jemaite Lithuanian writer Date of Birth: 31.05.1845 Country: Lithuania

1. Biography of Julija Žemaitė
2. Writing and Recognition
3. Legacy

Biography of Julija Žemaitė

Julija Žemaitė was a Lithuanian writer, novelist, and playwright. She was born into a landless noble family. From 1864, she worked as a nanny and maid for landowners. In 1865, she married Laurynas Žemaitis, a former serf. For about thirty years, she and her husband engaged in farming together. Under the influence of Povilas Višinskis, she wrote her first story, "Matchmaking," which was published in the Lithuanian calendar "Tikrasis Lietuvos ūkininkų kalendorius" in 1895. The publishers changed the title of the story to "Autumn Evening" and gave the author the pseudonym Žemaitė. Until 1900, she lived in Užnemunė. After her husband's death, she worked as a housekeeper on the estate of the writer Vladas Putvinskis. From 1906, she lived on a small farm owned by her parents, Gabrielė Pyatkavičytė-Bitė. In 1912, she moved to Vilnius. Starting in 1914, she lived in the house of the public figure and deputy from the Suwałki Governorate, A. A. Bulat, and participated in the activities of the refugee assistance committee led by him. In August 1915, together with the Bulat family, she traveled to Petrograd, and in early 1916, she went to the United States to raise funds for those affected by the war. After Bulat's return to Russia in 1917, she remained to live with her son in Chicago. In 1921, she returned to Lithuania and settled in Marijampolė with the Bulat family.

Writing and Recognition

From her earliest stories, Žemaitė portrayed peasant life, focusing primarily on family relationships. She depicted almost all aspects and current events of Lithuanian life at the time, including various types of priests (noting the discrepancy between preaching and material interests), landowners (condemning them for mistreatment of workers and poor management skills), and peasants (harshly criticizing them for debauchery, drunkenness, envy, vindictiveness, and prejudices). The positive characters in her works are distributors of illegal Lithuanian press, educators, and those who suffer for their ideals. She wrote seven comedies and two monologues, as well as essays, feuilletons, and journalistic articles. Her stories were translated into Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, and Finnish languages.

Legacy

In 1965, a memorial museum was established in Žemaitė's homeland. In 1971, a monument was erected in Vilnius in her honor. Žemaitė is the only woman depicted on Lithuanian banknotes, but of the lowest denomination (1 litas), which were withdrawn from circulation in 1998 when banknotes of 1, 2, and 5 litas were replaced by coins.