Vydūnas

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Vydunas as featured on 200 litas banknote (1997 release)

Vilius Storostas-Vydūnas (1868 - 1953) was a Lithuanian writer and philosopher, a leader of Lithuanian national movement in Lithuania Minor, one of leaders of the theosophical movement in Eastern Prussia. Wilhelm Storost was his passport name, while Vilimas or Vilius Storostas was more correct Lithuanian form, that was used by himself, his family and other Lithuanians, but Vydūnas was his new surname, used as a pseudonym (a pen name) too, added to the first, when he was about 40 years old.

It's widely believed in Lithuania, that Vydūnas was active in the old pagan religion of Lithuanians (see Romuva). However he never declared revival of the pagan religion as either his personal goal or a goal of Lithuanians, remaining a national leader but not a religious one. Again his moral influence transcended confines of being a typical political leader or a writer at his time. He was compared by later biographers with national leaders in India of his time like Rabindranath Tagore or Mohandas Gandhi. Pantheistic universalism, not predefined with participating in any obligatory religious practice, was one of the leading ideas of his philosophy, and gained him later fame as a pioneer of both pagan revival and theosophy in Lithuania.

[edit] Trivia

He was considered as candidate for Nobel Prize

[edit] References

Ernst Bahr, Kurt Forstreuter, Altpreussische Biographie. Bd. 2.,Lfg. 6. (Steffeck - Vydunas), Elwert: Marburg 1956, p.764
Vydûnas' Vater. Zu Herkunft und Elternhaus des bedeutenden preußisch-litauischen Schriftstellers Wilhelm Storost-Vydûnas, Teil 1. In: Ostdeutsche Familienkunde, Band 12, 39. Jahrgang, Heft 3, Verlag Degener: Juli-September 1991, Seite 385-392.
Vydûnas' Vater. Zu Herkunft und Elternhaus des bedeutenden preußisch-litauischen Schriftstellers Wilhelm Storost-Vydûnas, Teil 2. In: Ostdeutsche Familienkunde, Band 12, 39. Jahrgang, Heft 4, Verlag Degener: Oktober-Dezember 1991, Seite 427-434.(Family origin of Storost-Vydunas)
J.Storost:Vydunas in seinen letzten Lebensjahren, Ostdeutsche Familienkunde - Zeitschrift für Familiengeschichtsforschung, Band XIII - 41.Jg., Verlag Degener 1993, p.161 - 169, 193 - 196.(letters & documents)