Background
Žemaitė was born in the distant manor house in the Kovno Governorate of the Russian Empire.
Žemaitė was born in the distant manor house in the Kovno Governorate of the Russian Empire.
Born to impoverished gentry, she became one of the major participants in the Lithuanian National Revival. She wrote about peasant life in the style best described as realism. On 4 June 2014, Google Doodle has chosen Žemaitė as doodle theme.
Nevertheless, she did learn the language and gained a deep affection for the common people.
She understood the burden of serfdom, and the resulting misery that came from poverty. This perspective would later form the basis for much of her creative work.
Žemaitė did not receive a formal education and was largely self-taught from the many books she read. She strongly supported the uprising of 1863, and few years later married an active participant of the uprising, Laurynas Žymantas.
They met on the Džiuginėnai estate, where they were both employed.
In 1883, the family moved to a village near Užventis. She came in contact with Povilas Višinskis who gave her various Lithuanian periodicals (Aušra, Varpas, Apžvalga), and encouraged her to write and participate in the national awakening of Lithuania. Her first work, Autumn Evening (Lithuanian: Rudens vakaras), was published in a calendar in 1895.
In 1912, she moved to Vilnius where she worked as administrator and on the editorial staff of several publications.
There she gave lectures to various Lithuanian-American organizations, collected funds for the victims of the war, and wrote articles for the local press In 1921, she returned to Lithuania, and died the same year.
She is the only woman featured on litas banknotes (the 1 litas banknote was replaced with coins in 1998).