Vydūnas

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Vilius Storostas-Vydūnas (March 22, 1868 – February 20, 1953), mostly known as Vydūnas, was a Lietuvininkai^[1] and Lithuanian^[2][3][4][5] writer and philosopher, a leader of the Prussian Lithuanian national movement in Lithuania Minor, and one of leaders of the theosophical movement in East Prussia.

Vydūnas was born in the village Jonaten (Lithuanian: Jonaičiai), near Heydekrug, in the Kingdom of Prussia. Wilhelm Storost was the name on his German passport, while Vilimas or Vilius Storostas was the more correct Lithuanian form used by himself, his family, and other Lithuanians. "Vydūnas" was added to his surname as a pseudonym when he was about 40 years old. He died in Detmold, West Germany.

Vydūnas was active in the old Lithuanian pagan religion (see Romuva). However, he never declared the revival of the pagan religion as either his personal goal or a goal of Lithuanians, remaining a national leader but not a religious one. His moral influence transcended the 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, such as 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.

Vydūnas was considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize by Lithuanian writers association.^[6][2]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Kintai Vydūnas Culture Centre
• About Vydūnas (in Lithuanian)
• Last months 1944-1945 in Powarben, East Prussia
• Vydunas in 1918.