Towards the end of the 19th century Lithuania’s intellectual life was activated by the growth of a national resurgence movement. Lithuania was nurturing its first generation of national intellectuals gathered around pioneer papers in the Lithuanian language, Ausra (1883) and Varpas (1889). Both publications were launched outside the country as the ban on the Lithuanian press introduced by the colonial authorities in 1864 was destined to last into the following century. Editors and associates of these publications represented an intellectual type common to society under colonial rule: that of a self-educated humanist with the professional background of a medical doctor, engineer or priest. Vilnius University — the largest and most important educational center of the country, established as early as 16th century — was closed by colonial authorities in 1832, producing serious consequences for the development of intellectual life. Lithuanian nationals who were seeking educational opportunities during the period of these assaults on national institutions had to face a dilemma: either to obtain education from imperial universities and being obliged to practice their profession in other regions of the Russian Empire or to choose studies at local seminaries for Catholic clergy. To many young Lithuanians the latter choice meant an option of staying in their home-country and disseminating ideas about the national spirit using the legal possibilities that church service provided.

Consequently, many young Lithuanian men joined the ranks of the Catholic Church without any special vocation to the priesthood, dividing themselves between their service in the Church and public or literary activities. The figure of the first national poet par excellence, Maironis, represents the paradigm of a cultural hero of the colonial epoch. Under limits set to secular education under colonial rule clergymen constituted a significant part of what might be referred to as a national cultural elite throughout most of the 19th century. Their contribution to public cultural life was made mainly through writing, poetry in particular. However, the first Lithuanian periodicals were established by secular intellectuals: Dr. Jonas Basanavicius, or even radical atheists captured by the spell of Western positivism, like Dr. Juozas Kudirka.

Most of the writers who began their activities in these pioneer periodicals were public intellectuals who, inspired by Herder’s ideas about the spirit of a nation, poured their energies into discussions on Lithuania’s political and social life focusing on its history. Historical subjects (e.g. the origins of the Lithuanian nation, its language and the like) were as a rule treated according to the old patterns of Romanticism. The past was used to legitimize claims towards national independence and to construct self-perpetuating myths that could be used to educate the vanishing nation and to restore its national feelings and dignity. Myths about Lithuania’s past as well as its language (Dr. Basanavicius, one of the founding fathers of modern Lithuanian state, himself produced a theory of Thracian and Phrygian origins of the Lithuanian nation) perfectly matched the goals of the national resurgence movement. Writings on issues of national culture produced at the turn of the century, usually discussing the spirit of the nation in simplified forms of the visions of Herder, Schiller and the German Romanticists, can hardly be qualified as philosophical inquiries into the essence of culture as their authors aimed at something other than shaping systematic philosophical discourse.

Some origins of culture of philosophy can be traced in the writings of Lithuanian authors of the period. However, it was Stasys Salkauskis (1886-1941) who produced the first theoretically elaborated academic inquiry into the essence of culture. A law student of Moscow University, Salkauskis completed philosophical studies at Freiburg University and after obtaining a doctorate returned to Lithuania to pursue an academic career, becoming professor of Kaunas University and an important public figure. Salkauskis published his first treatise, Church and Culture, as early as 1913-1914, strongly influenced by ideas of Vladimir Soloviov who had been the subject of his doctoral studies at Freiburg. Salkauskis reputation as a philosopher was firmly and permanently established when his seminal study, Sur les confins de deux mondes, was published in 1919, becoming a subject of controversial intellectual discussions throughout almost two decades.

Though some of his later views developed beyond the original ideas presented in his early writings he never abandoned his basic concept of the synthetic character of Lithuanian culture, which he insisted could be traced back in the country’s history. From a review of movements in Lithuanian history he drew the conclusion that a small-sized country like the Lithuania of his time, located between two large and powerful civilizations was destined to select and adopt their best elements uniting them into an organic whole. What elements of those neighboring cultures were to be used for the proposed synthesis was never explicitly discussed, except references to German activity, Russian universal humanness and Polish subtlety.

Wherever the origins of the Lithuanian nation were to be located, it did not change the fact that the country historically was, and continued to be, situated on the frontiers of East and West. Because of strong Eastern (i.e. Slavic) influences Lithuania experienced changes in its past that were described as passivity, lack of mobilizing energy and captivity to external powers that led towards disintegration of its once powerful and widespread state.

A different direction in development was traced in the shift towards the West since the Act of Lublin (1569) which, on one hand, Westernized the country and accelerated the diffusion of a Christian philosophy of life, and, on the other, brought about a split of its social classes. Lithuanian nobility failed to make use of folk culture, i.e., to transform it into higher forms of spiritual culture. Consequently, by turning away from folk culture the elite class lost its national identity.

The movement of national resurgence, which he dated from 1883, meant consolidation of the Lithuanian nation and a new symbiosis between the individual and society. The further way of progress Salkauskis prophesied was one of creative synthesis. He also acknowledged the fact that Lithuanian culture was shaping itself in the global context of modern developments:

Julijonas Linde-Dobilas (1872-1934) was one of those distinguished public intellectuals whose way of thinking matured under the pressure of conflicting Catholic and secular (positivist) ideologies aimed at establishing norms of national culture. Remaining outside the academy and dissenting from theories that were constructed by institutionalized thinkers, he shaped his own vision of culture, drawing inspiration from classical writers of the West and modern philosophers — Hipolyte Taine, Wilhelm Dilthey, Henri Bergson and, last but nor least, Benedetto Croce. Like many other Lithuanian thinkers of the epoch he was a universal author, writing fiction, essays in aesthetics, literary and cultural criticism and taking an active part in debates on national culture and art. Establishing his reputation as the author of the first Lithuanian psychological novel, Bludas (Raving, 1912), and somewhat less renowned plays, he became a literary authority and a public intellectual, whose opinions went beyond any dominating ideology and contributed to a liberalization of space around public cultural discourses. To a certain extent he always remained outside the mainstream of public opinion, never joining the Right or the Left, maintaining an autonomous attitude to any developments in culture, society and its legitimizing discourses. Remaining in the service of the Catholic Church he nevertheless expressed views on art and culture that often departed from the official doctrines as interpreted by Lithuanian intellectuals.

Julijonas Linde (he chose Dobilas as his literary pseudonym) was educated as a Catholic priest, graduating from Kaunas Seminary, and eventually worked in various parishes in Lithuanian and Latvia. During World War I he spent several years in Russia teaching in schools for Lithuanian war exiles and performing his priestly duties. He moved back to Lithuania in 1918 and four years later joined the faculty of Panevezys city gymnasium as a teacher of literature. As supervisor of the art unit he established a unique school of aesthetics and creative writing, educating a large number of would-be writers, poets, philologists and cultural activists.

His Essay on Hippolyte Taine, published in book form (1927), reflects some ideas that Linde-Dobilas continued to develop in his later writings. Rejecting Taine’s naturalism and determinism and the insignificant role ascribed to the individuality of the artist, Linde-Dobilas, nevertheless praised his system as a complex inquiry into the essence, form, tasks and genesis of art. His revision of Taine’s positivism as well as the phenomenology of Dilthey, briefly discussed in the same essay, led him to emphasize the human being, whom he described as the foundation of art, while feelings and experiences were considered the sources of art.

The response to his critique of Taine from J. Eretas, literature professor of Kaunas University, was offensive: the writer was accused of lacking "cold sense", method and propagating authors who were listed in the "Index librium prohibitorum". However, Eretas’s main target was Linde-Dobilas’s criticism of Lithuania’s intellectual life and its culture. In fact, Linde-Dobilas’s essay, like most of his writings, contained numerous digressions into the local cultural domain which he found neither satisfying nor praiseworthy. His constant appeals to the need of a national Renaissance expressed his dissatisfaction with the development of Lithuanian culture and the public sphere, including politics.

Polemics with a critic whose comments hinted at disrespect towards the institution he was serving, the Catholic Church, did not affect his tolerance for concepts of culture. Rising in defense of Taine or Lithuanian writers misinterpreted as faithful adepts of Comte’s positivism (such as Dr. Kudirka) he differentiated between humanist and positivist ideologies. He argued that Kudirka’s ideology could be interpreted in terms of positivism on the condition that the writer would have developed Comte’s ideas as a philosopher, which was not the case.

In his later essay "Cognoscente Ars" (1931) written as a reply to the extensive article, "Ars Sacrificans," by Jurgis Baltrusaitis he elaborated even more explicitly his attitude towards art as an autonomous part of consciousness and a form of cognition. Disagreeing with Baltrusaitis, who claimed that art can be comprehended in three manifestations: as play, cognition and sacrifice — the latter being a "universal element" — he argued that the true essence of art is cognitive intuition.

Developing his aesthetics, Linde-Dobilas shifted towards Bergson’s and Croce’s philosophy of intuition and to a certain extent performed the role of a mediator, introducing basic ideas of intuitivism into the Lithuanian intellectual context. Viewed from this angle his role might seem rather modest. His impact on Lithuanian intellectual life, however, goes beyond his contribution to the dissemination of aesthetic ideas.

As a writer Linde-Dobilas produced nothing to rival his first and only novel of 1912, nevertheless his nationwide reputation as a novelist and eventually as outstanding educator made him an important public authority. His shift from fiction towards philosophy of art and cultural criticism can be traced from the first years of independence, however, the period of 1927-1934 was the most productive. The concept of cultural synthesis, introduced by Salkauskis in 1919 and ever since a widely debatable subject in Lithuanian intellectual life, seems to have left its traces on the writings of Linde-Dobilas, though he never directly reconsidered or referred to it in his essays. Some of his shorter and longer essays discuss the character of Lithuanian culture and contain insights into Lithuania’s history.

Like Salkauskis he emphasized three stages of Lithuania’s development of culture: the golden age, the period of the domination of Polish culture, and the period of national resurgence. According to Linde-Dobilas, though language is part of a national spirit, a nation can express its character in other ways when deprived of its native tongue. Even denationalized Lithuanians who chose Polish as their language of communication still retained elements of their original national character. This argument implied that a nation continues to exist even after losing its native language, which contradicted presuppositions of the dominant ideology of culture: the reconstruction of a modern Lithuanian nation on the basis of language. In an essay, Vytauto asmenybe (1930) he argued that it was idealism that brought the Lithuanian nation to life during the years of awakening and that this was later affected by materialism which led to cultural crisis. He claimed that the outcome of the national resurgence movement produced a potential for a "national spirit" that had still to be filled with cultural content.

He advocated closer cultural and political association between the two Baltic nations, speaking out against the ideology of assimilation expressed by some radical nationalists. His insights into the need of adopting elements that made up Latvian culture was another version of cultural synthesis different from that modeled by Salkauskis. Linde-Dobilas’s ideas in their own way reflected certain dissatisfaction with forms and contents of Lithuanian culture and could be interpreted as an intellectual attempt to introduce discourse aimed at a universalistic cultural model. The fact that he returned to the subject once again in the 40s and used the same rhetoric suggests that Linde-Dobilas’s ideas were ahead of his time. Only before the fall of independence both Baltic nation-states managed to established a rudimentary forms of political association. The lack of political and cultural association between the countries, noted by the writer in the 30s and 40s continues to this day, despite external rituals of political unity.

Julijonas Linde-Dobilas is an unusual case in the Lithuanian history of intellectual ideas. A writer who never represented himself as a social or cultural critic, nevertheless he contributed to the field by many fresh insights and sound criticism. Distancing himself from political parties he never became intoxicated with the ruling ideologies and extended his opinions on culture, society and its institutions to the public sphere. Unlike many of his contemporary Lithuanian intellectuals, Linde-Dobilas did not insist on modeling national culture as a preserve based exclusively on traditional elements of folk culture. It was perhaps his love of the classical heritage of Western culture that kept him from preaching a purified model based exclusively on Lithuanian folk tradition and guided him towards a more universal view of culture.

Linde-Dobilas’s ideas and writings on culture mark a trajectory from an ideology of culture to its criticism, contributing to the rise of self-reflection in the Lithuanian society of his time. His contribution to Lithuania’s intellectual life viewed from a certain distance might be considered greater than his contemporaries ever managed to accept, while many problems of Lithuanian culture continue to burden Lithuanian society at the turn of the century.

1. Alfonsas Andriuskevicius. Menas ir grozis lietuviu estetikoje 1918-1940 (Vilnius, 1989), pp. 96-108.

2. Arunas Sverdiolas, Kulturos filosofija Lietuvoje (Vilnius, 1983) p. 14.

3. Ceslovas Laurinavicius, "Jonas Basanavicius as the Symbol of Modern Lithuanianism", Vilnius, 1 (1996), 33.

4. Stasys Salkauskis, Rinktiniai rastai. Pedagogines studijos, t. 1 (Vilnius, 1992), pp. 427-428

5. B. Genzelis "Burzuazines filosofijos susiformavimas ir raida Lietuvoje", Lietuviu filosofijos istorijos bruozai, parenge R. Ozolas ( Vilnius, 1978), p. 146

6. Juozas Gobis, Psichine energija ir gyvenimas (Siauliai, 1924), p. 39.

7. Ignas Slapelis, Apie Lietuvos mena: Paskaita I-jam pasaulio lietuviø kongresui (Kaunas, 1935), p. 1-15.

8. Julijonas Linde-Dobilas, I slepiningaji dvasios pasauli (Vilnius, 1996), p. 172.

9. Ibid., p. 173.

10. Stasys Salkauskis, Rastai, t.1 parenge A. Sverdiolas (Vilnius, 1990), p. 428.

11. Linde-Dobilas, p. 183.

12. Ibid., p. 310.

13. Ibid., p. 324.

14. Ibid., p. 192.

15. Julijonas Linde-Dobilas "Ne Menas ir kurybiskumas, bet gyvas nesusipratimas," Jaunoji Lietuva, 3/4 (1929), 20-23.

16. Linde-Dobilas, p. 460.