Word and Life: Marija Pečkauskaitė a Writer, Translator and Educator

Abstract

The present article aims to discuss the impact a word can have on a person’s life choices and aspirations. The life of Marija Pečkauskaitė, Lithuanian writer, translator and educator, can be an example. Coming from a family of impoverished Lithuanian nobility, Marija Pečkauskaitė (1877–1930), the pen name Šatrijos Ragana (‘The Witch of Mount Šatrija’) was brought up in the spirit of Polish culture at her parents’ home in Labūnava (later Užventis), where she was taught music and foreign languages. Influenced by Povilas Višinskis (1875–1906), a Lithuanian cultural and political activist during the Lithuanian National Revival who tutored her brother, she became involved in the Lithuanian National Revival movement, learned the Lithuanian language and started writing fiction in Polish and later in Lithuanian. Her patriotism was permeated with deep religious feelings, humanism and the aim to serve society; this became the basis of her life and work. Marija Pečkauskaitė was one of the most educated women of her time: in 1896, she graduated from beekeeping courses in Warsaw, and from 1905 to 1906, she studied in Switzerland and listened to lectures on pedagogy, ethics, philosophy, etc. Meeting the German educator, philosopher and sociologist Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster (1869–1966) and attending his lectures at the University of Zurich was a turning point in Pečkauskaitė’s life. After returning to Lithuania, she became an educator and translated Foerster’s most prominent works into Lithuanian. In 1909–1915, she worked as a teacher at the Marijampolė Grammar School for girls. In 1915, Pečkauskaitė settled in a small town, Židikiai and became involved in the community’s social life and Christian charity, caring for the underprivileged children, the sick and the poor until her death.