Julius Janonis

Julius Janonis (4 April 1896 – 30 May 1917) was a Lithuanian poet and writer. Born to a family of poor peasants, he began writing and translating poems at the age of 14. Learning from Maironis, he wrote about nature and suffering of the poor. His first poems were published in 1912. While still a student, he began contributing articles to Lithuanian press and joined activities of leftist aušrininkai. He was a social-democrat but leaned more and more towards communism and his poetry became more and more political agitation. His views become even more radical when during World War I he evacuated to Voronezh and later Petrograd. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (bolsheviks) and was imprisoned twice for revolutionary activities. He contracted tuberculosis and, unwilling to become a burden, committed suicide at age 21. In the Lithuanian SSR, Janonis was hailed as the "first poet of the proletariat".

Janonis was born in Beržiniai () near Biržai in then Russian Empire. His parents were poor peasants and belonged to the Lithuanian Evangelical Reformed Church. In 1911, the family moved to the nearby Mieleišiai () village where his parents rented 10 hectares (25 acres) of land. His mother was literate and taught her children basic reading skills. Janonis was gifted and so his parents sent him to a Russian-language primary school in Biržai in autumn 1906. His older siblings, brother Mykolas and sister Marija, did not attend school due to financial difficulties. The distance from home to school was about 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) and so he lived with a bell-ringer of the Evangelical Reformed Church. In autumn 1909, Janonis began classes at a four-year progymnasium in Biržai. According to his classmates, he was serious, quiet, kept mostly to himself, and was nicknamed Solomon for his intelligence. He always struggled financially; he received some help from his brother Mykolas and priest Povilas Jakubėnas in addition to earning a few rubles by tutoring others. He also earned a little money by copying texts for Stanislovas Dagilis () when he prepared a new hymnal for publication. Once, when Janonis could not afford proper shoes, his classmates collected enough money to buy him a pair.

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