The path of the Lithuanian newspaper “Auszra” publisher Andrius Vištelis’ manuscript legacy to Lithuania

The article reconstructs the path of the Lithuanian newspaper “Auszra” publisher Andrius Vištelis’ manuscript legacy to Lithuania. It indicates individuals and organizations that took care of the legacy protection. The epoch of “Auszra” newspaper universally magnetized the Lithuanian intelligentsia; therefore, the creations of “Auszra” publishers were seen as a significant legacy of the Lithuanian National Revival rather than narrow scientific or artistic values. Basically no selection criteria were applied to their creation; consequently, despite the difficult life circumstances of A. Vištelis, his manuscript legacy is quite well preserved – only four well-known sources are considered missing. Three main paths are distinguished in the history of the manuscript legacy concentration of the “Auszra” publisher in Lithuania: 1) via the publishers of “Auszra” newspaper; 2) via the American Lithuanians; and 3) via his wife Adolfa Wysztele wska. Via the first path (mainly through the efforts of Martynas Jankus) a bundle of letters from A. Vištelis to Jurgis Mikšas, two creative manuscripts and one proclamation reached us. The active efforts of the American Lithuanians Petras Mikolainis and Motiejus Damijonaitis guaranteed that one creative manuscript, a few letters and a set of read newspapers with comments of “Auszra” publisher survived to our days. The third path was the most favourable: a sufficiently rich archive of A. Vištelis was assembled and then transferred by the Lithuanian Scientific Society to its heirs. Currently the majority of Lithuanian legacy of “Auszra” publisher (approximately 40 manuscripts) is stored in the Library of the Institute of Literature and Folklore. Considerably fewer manuscripts of A. Vištelis can be found in the Library of Vilnius University (2), the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (1) and the Wojciech Kętrzyński Research Center in Olsztyn (Poland) (1). A part of the archive and probably several creative manuscripts of A. Vištelis still remain in Poland