Felicija Bortkevičienė
Felicija Bortkevičienė (born Povickaitė; born August 20 . Jul / 1. September 1873 greg. Gut Linkauciai at Krekenava ; † 21st October 1945 in Kaunas ) was a Lithuanian - Russian newspaper editor and political activist.
Life
Felicija Povickaitė belonged to a Polish noble family . She had a sister and a brother. Her father Juozas Povickas ( Povicki in Polish ) was a landowner. The mother taught the Lithuanian language to her children and those of the farm workers . Felicija attended the girls' high schools in Kaunas - where she was expelled from school because of anti-Russian ideas - and in Vilnius . In 1890/91 she attended prohibited courses at a “flying university” in Warsaw . Then Povickaitė worked as a teacher and bank clerk.
In 1899 Povickaitė married the engineer Jonas Bortkevičius (1871-1909), who was employed by the general manager . The couple lived in Vilnius and later in Saint Petersburg and participated in cultural life, which included helping to revive the Lithuanian language and spreading forbidden literature, such as the Varpas and Ūkininkas magazines . Felicija Bortkevičienė worked with the student organization Žiburėlio and in 1902 became a member and one of the leaders of the Lietuvos democų partiją (Lithuanian Democratic Party). The couple's house became a meeting place for Lithuanian intellectuals and women.
A women's rights movement developed around 1904/05. On September 22, 1905, the Lietuvos moterų susivienijimas (Lithuanian Women's Association) was founded and Bortkevičienė was a member of the board. In December 1905 she was a member of the Organizing Committee of Didysis Vilniaus Seimas , the great people's assembly in Vilnius. There the Lietuvos valstiečių sąjungos (Lithuanian Farmers Union) was founded. In one of the motions, Bortkevičienė pushed through that equality of both sexes was included in the statutes of the Seimas . She also took part in strikes and a meeting of the railway workers' union. Her home was then searched. Tsar Nicholas II announced in 1905 the right to vote without the participation of women.
In 1906, Bortkevičienė was co-editor of the democratic and liberal newspapers "Lietuvos ūkininkas" (Lithuanian farmer) and " Lietuvos žinios " (Lithuanian news). In September 1907 she took part in the first Lithuanian women's congress and in the following year was able to prevent the division of the women's movement into a Catholic and a liberal branch. In January 1909 her husband died, who had initially successfully smuggled press products because of his position and later supported her journalistic activities. During the First World War , Bortkevičienė supported refugees and those politically persecuted.
In 1918, Bortkevičienė returned to Vilnius from Russia. Mykolas Sleževičius nominated her as Minister of Food , which the State Council, the Lietuvos Taryba, rejected. Bortkevičienė went to Kaunas in July 1919 and reissued the newspapers “Lietuvos ūkininkas” and “Lietuvos žinios”. The following year, Bortkevičienė founded the Varpas (Bell) Printing House with the Lithuanian Socialist People's Party , which she ran until 1930.
Bortkevičienė ran for election to the Constituent Assembly on the proposal of the Peasant People's Union and the People's Socialist Party. However, she did not receive her seat in the assembly until 1921 as a replacement for the senior president Gabrielė Petkevičaitė-Bitė (1861–1943). When deputies she looked at the laws for health insurance , the maternity leave provided for and the statutes of the University of Lithuania (Lietuvos universitetas) with. From 1922 to 1936 Bortkevičienė published the "Lietuvos žinios" and received fines and imprisonment for repeated criticism of the right-wing conservative government.
From the summer of 1922 to 1928, Bortkevičienė was chairwoman of the re-established Lietuvos moterų saujunga (Lithuanian Women's Union). In 1926 she ran in vain for the third Seimas , but was proposed as a candidate for president after the election victory of the Peasant People's Union. Bortkevičienė received only one vote in the vote. In the same year Antanas Smetona set up a dictatorial regime . Bortkevičienė unsuccessfully demanded free elections in 1936 and, as a guest of honor at the second women's congress, in 1937, women's interests should be represented in the Lithuanian parliament.
Felicija Bortkevičienė died on October 21, 1945 and was buried in Troškūnai , where a memorial was erected to her. In Lithuania in the 1930s, she was considered the grandmother of the newspaper industry .
The Lithuanian Parliament has been awarding the Felicijos Bortkevičienės Kalbos premija , or “Kalbos premija” (language prize) for short, in her honor .
Works
- F. Bortkevičienės atsiminimų . 1939. ( autobiography , Lithuanian)
- Prūsų lietuviai Sibire .
literature
- Virginija Jurėnienė: Bortkevičienė, Felicija (1873–1945) . In: Francisca de Haan, Krasimira Daskalova; Anna Loutfi (Ed.): Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements and Feminisms in Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe. 19th and 20th Centuries. Central European University Press 2006. pp. 70-73 (English).
- Bortkevičienė, Felicija (online) . In: Lietuvių enciklopedija. 3. Edition. Lietuvių enciklopedijos Leidykla, Boston 1954. p. 149.
- Julius Būtėnas: Gyvenusi kitiems. Apybraiža apie Feliciją Bortkevičienę . Kaunas 1993.
- Liudas Subačius: Aplenkusi laiką. Felicija Bortkevičienė, 1873–1945 . Vilnius 2010.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ delfi.lt: Kalbos premija paskirta A. Kentrai . (Lithuanian; May 7, 2008)
- ↑ Seimas : Felicijos Bortkevičienės kalbos premija . (Lithuanian)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bortkevičienė, Felicija |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Povickaitė, Felicija (maiden name); Povickaitė-Bortkevičienė, Felicija |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Lithuanian newspaper editor and political activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 20, 1873 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Linkauciai estate near Krekenava , Russian Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 21, 1945 |
| Place of death | Kaunas |