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Ona Mašiotienė

Lithuanian women's rights activist

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ12667252 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ona Mašiotienė née Brazauskaitė (Polish: Anna Brzozowska; 9 September 1883 – 29 December 1949) was a Lithuanian teacher and principal, women's rights activist and writer. She helped found the Lithuanian Women's Association, the first women's rights organization in the country, and lectured on the need for equality of men and women. Pressing for both women's rights and Lithuania's independence, she served as a member of different societies and a delegate to several political conferences and assemblies. As a teacher, she organized the first Lithuanian-language girls' gymnasium in Vilnius and was the principal of a secondary school in Kaunas for over a decade. In 1921, she was elected to serve on the Utena regional council for two terms. She was one of the co-founders and the first president of the umbrella Lithuanian Women's Council. Recognized by the independent Lithuanian government with national awards, she was dismissed from her teaching post after the Soviets reestablished authority over the country.

Early life

Ona Brazauskaitė was born on 9 September 1883 in the village of Šlavėnai in the Anykščiai Parish of the Russian Empire to Jadwiga (née Michalowska, also known as Jadvyga Mikalauskaitė) and Gustavas Brazauskas (Gustaw Brzezowski). Her parents met when Brazauskas was imprisoned for his participation in the 1863 uprising against Russian rule with Jadwiga's father. Of noble heritage, her family of eight children spoke Polish at home but were divided on whether they identified as Lithuanian or Polish.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ona Mašiotienė” is lithuanian women's rights activist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mašiotienė, Lithuanian and women's, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1883, 1949, 1921, 1863—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1883-09-09. For this dossier, Mašiotienė, Lithuanian and women's is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “lithuanian women's rights activist” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12667252. VIAF identifies the subject as 9766154260368624480003. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1883, 1949, 1921 and 1863.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow Ona Mašiotienė primary sources, Ona Mašiotienė archive and Mašiotienė 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 “Ona Mašiotienė” 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.