Life and the activity of Vincas Šlekys

Vincas Šlekys was an illegal distributor of books, editor, folklorist, and museologist. He was bom in Mokolai (a village not far from Marijampolė) in 1870. In 1879-1881 he attended elementary school and in 1882 he started his education in the secondary school in Marijampolė. When he graduated the fourth grade, his parents suggested him entering the seminary in Seinai; however, he made a different choice. He spent some years working on his parents’ farm and secretly teaching children. He was a so-called “daraktorius”. Later he continued his studies at the secondary school in Marijampolė, which he graduated in 1890. He cooperated with the publishers of secret Lithuanian press. In 1892 along with other activists, he founded a secret society “Sietynas” whose aim was to distribute the publications in Lithuania. Šlekys wrote the statute of the organization and was elected its chairman. In 1896 he went to Germany, escaping from the persecution of the Tsarist gendarmes. Later he moved to the United States. He settled in Shenandoah. He was an editor of the Lithuanian magazines and actively participated in the activities of the Lithuanian community. When he purchased the printing house himself, he started to translate and publish fiction. In 1920 he moved to Boston and studied at the Conservatory of M. Petrauskas. In 1926 he came back to Lithuania and settled in Kaunas. He worked in the Library of V Kudirka and published the magazine “Žinių ir literatūros aruodas”. In 1930 he retired and returned to the family home in Mokolai, where he was collecting folklore and antiques. In 1932 he organized the exhibition of folk art of Kapsai in Kaunas. This exhibition became the base for the museum “Sodžius” in Marijampolė. In 1934 he handed on 300 Lithuanian folk songs to the Folklore Archives of Lithuania in Kaunas. All songs were recorded by him in his home village Mokolai and in several other villages near Mokolai. In 1940 he did not support the annexation of Lithuania. In 1946 together with his sister in law and nephew he was exiled to Siberia, where he died on 6 November 1946.