Near the end of the century. XVII the intellectual activity of the country is concentrated in Vilna, capital of the grand duchy. Here and there the idea of ​​a homeland dissolved from the old historical and cultural ties with Poland begins to make its way. Characteristic of this state of mind are the history lessons of the canon of Vilna N. Bohusz (1746-1820), in which with an indignant accent he speaks of the abandonment of a language in which echoes of the ancient common proto language are heard. – Indo-European. These appeals are echoed by the inspired poems of Antonio Strazdas (in Polish and Russian Drozdowski; 1763-1833). His song Pulkim ant keliu (Let’s kneel down) and the poems, The orphan, The blackbird ‘s song, The spring song they had a great virtue of emotion among the people who held dear this strange poet and priest of his, vagabond and friend of the derelict. In 1825 the professor of the University of Königsberg Liūdas Rėza (1777-1840) published another collection of dainos and an interesting study on Lithuanian folklore. At the same time the following stand out: the Samogitian judge Dionigi Poška-Paškevičius (1760-1831) with a series of poems; Simone Stanevičius and the poet Silvestro Valiūnas (1790-1831) who with their works mark the entry of Lithuanian literature into the great current of Romanticism. It is favored by the revival by Polish writers of historical and folkloristic studies concerning Lithuania: Teodoro Narbut (1784-1864) writes in Polish Dzieje narodu litewskiego (History of the Lithuanian people, vols. 9, Vilna 1835-41) in which for the first time the events of Lithuania up to the time of the Union of Lublin are collected with love and order. The most important of all, however, is Simone Daukantas (1793-1864), the forerunner of the revival of historical studies in Lithuania with two dense volumes written in a high style and with the work Costumes of the Ancient Lithuanians and Samogizî. Bishop Matteo Valancius (1801-1864) is the author not only of lives of saints and collections of fables and tales in an elevated and patriotic style, but also of a remarkable history of the bishopric of Samogizia. In poetry the influence of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz (1799-1824) looms large, who wrote some of his best verses on Lithuania which he called “his beloved homeland”, and many of the subjects of his poems, such as Pan Tadeusz and Gra ż yna., either they are taken from Lithuanian history or they describe Lithuanian environments and customs. For Lithuania 2003, please check computerannals.com.

In the second half of the century. The period of Lithuanian newspaper printing begins in the 19th century, the first copy of which is due to Laurino Ivinskis (1811-1881) with his Matra š č iai and followed by Pričkus Kursaitis (Kurschat, 1806-1884), founder of the Keleivis, which is still published in Tilsit. In vain did the Russian reaction to the Polish-Lithuanian uprising of 1863 try to put an end to this intense awakening work by forbidding the publication of any book written in Latin script from 1864 to 1904 and ordering the closure of Lithuanian schools. In 1883 the patriot and writer Giovanni Basanavičius (1851-1927), author of about ten historical, folkloristic and archaeological volumes, founded the newspaper Au š ra (The dawn) which lays the foundations of the future Lithuanian political revival movement. Around Basanavičius is a whole host of writers such as Sliupas, Silvestravičius, Miliauskas, and others. Continuator of Basanavičius’s work and founder in Lithuania of the “populists” or Liaudininkai party is Vincenzo Kudirka (1858-1899) creator of the newspaper Varpas (The bell) and writer of short stories such as the Tiltas and the Virsininkai which are a caustic and biting caricature of the officials of the Tsarist regime in Lithuania. He also wrote the words and music of the national anthem. In the purely literary field we should remember the bishop Antonio Baranauskas (1835-1902) author of the poem The forest Anyk š čiai. The national poet Giovanni Maironis-Maciulis (1862-1932), author of poems, historical dramas and volumes of various erudition, was trained at the Baranauskas school.

Thus we enter the period of contemporary literature, which on the one hand follows the classical-romantic tradition of the previous period with more accentuated characters of modernity, such as can be found in the writer Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius, master of the symbolic and legendary genre, with a dozen of volumes of short stories, historical dramas and legendary exhumations, in Liūdas Gira, a delicate lyric poet and playwright, in Tumas-Vaižgandas, in Antanas Smetona, in Jakĕtas-Dambrauskas, in Vaitkus, in Gustaitis, in the philosopher and playwright Guglielmo Storasta (Storost) more commonly known under the pseudonym of Vydūnas, whose plays have a national and theosophical background, in the playwright and poet Petras Vaičiunas, in the poets Mikolaitis-Putinas, Fausto Kirsa, Balys Sruoga, Kazys Binkis, in the polemicist and playwright Herbačauskas and in many others;while on the other hand there is an impulse to follow movements more generally known in the rest of Western Europe with the work of young people who try to assert themselves, but whose definitive developments and attitudes are difficult to predict.