Priest Juozapas Silvestras Dovydaitis (1826–1883) – leader of the temperance movement in Lithuanian Catholic parishes, who worked in this bar together with Bishop Motiejus Valančius. As the bishop’s secretary, he announced the establishment of the Temperance Brotherhood and expressed his hope that the priests’ “flock” would graciously turn away from taverns and follow the bright path of sober living. The rector of the Samogitian Seminary in Varniai, writer and educator, exiled to the vastness of Siberia for decades by the tsarist Russian authorities, J. S. Dovydaitis’ didactic work “The Old Man of Šiaulėnai” is one of the most prominent literary didactic works of the second half of the 19th century on the theme of sobriety. Describing the daily life of ordinary rural people, as befits a priest, he always emphasized God’s grace and the power of faith, every person’s duty to live righteously and soberly, in harmony with their superiors, and condemned drunkards (pijokus), warning them of the cruel and dishonorable fate that awaited them (burning in flames, being robbed, seduced, etc.). “God wants all people to abstain from alcohol” – this is the motto of the work “Šiaulėniškis senelis” (The Old Man of Šiaulėnai), published in Vilnius in 1860.
To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Juozapas Silvestras Dovydaitis, priest, educator, writer, promoter of sobriety, and Lithuanian exile, we are presenting a reprint of the first part of his literary didactic work Šiaulėniškis senelis (The Old Man from Šiaulėnai) from the museum’s collections, published in Vilnius in 1863. in 1863. Juozas Tumas Vaižgantas says of J. S. Dovydaitis in his Paskaita (Lecture): “A good priest, a good Lithuanian, a good writer, a good man: that was priest Juozapas-Silvestras Dovydaitis. Add to that – a martyr for the Faith and Lithuania” (“Lecture,” p. 43).
Information prepared by Gabija Mackevičiūtė, curator of the Lithuanian Education Museum collection
