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Jurgis Baltrušaitis

Lithuanian poet and translator (1873–1944)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ2378046
Source-derived summary

Jurgis Baltrušaitis (2 May 1873 – 3 January 1944) was a Lithuanian Symbolist poet and translator who wrote in Lithuanian and Russian, and was an exponent of iconology. He was the father of art historian and critic Jurgis Baltrušaitis Jr.

Writer

Baltrušaitis was born to a family of farmers in Paantvardys village near Jurbarkas, which was then under Imperial Russian rule. In 1885, he entered Kaunas gymnasium, and graduated in 1893; he then entered the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at Imperial Moscow University. At the same time he attended lectures in the Faculty of History and Philology.

From 1895 onwards Baltrušaitis began to take part in editing Moscow-based literary magazines, and he began to work in Russian. He joined the Symbolist movement, and, in association with Sergei Polyakov, set up the publishing house Scorpio, which published the chief Russian Symbolist magazines such as Vesy and Severnyie Tzvety as well as collections of Russian Symbolist poets.

Baltrušaitis published three collections of poetry in Russian, and another three in Lithuanian. Authors he translated into Russian translations include Henrik Ibsen, Oscar Wilde, August Strindberg, Knut Hamsun and Gabriele D'Annunzio.

Politician

Between 1900 and 1914, Baltrušaitis lived in Italy and Norway and spent much time traveling in other countries in Western Europe.

Editorial summary

“Jurgis Baltrušaitis” enters the record as lithuanian poet and translator (1873–1944). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jurgis, Baltrušaitis and Lithuanian can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1873, 1944, 1885, 1893—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1873-04-20, 1873-01-01, 1873-05-02—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Jurgis, Baltrušaitis and Lithuanian.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Jurgis Baltrušaitis” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Jurgis, Baltrušaitis and Lithuanian provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2378046. VIAF identifies the subject as 97091123. The Library of Congress control number is n84068152. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1873, 1944, 1885 and 1893.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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  2. Expand the search: follow Jurgis Baltrušaitis primary sources, Jurgis Baltrušaitis archive and Jurgis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Jurgis Baltrušaitis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.