lt
Pseudonym: Sekupasaka
Pranas Vaičaitis is one of the most prominent among Lithuanian poets democrats of the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century. His verses can be compared with these of Maironis and V.Kudirka.
P.Vaičaitis was born on February 14, 1876 in the village of Santakos belonging to the Sintautai community near Šakiai. He went to the Sintautai primary school and later learned at the Marijampolė gymnasium. After obtaining maturity certificate, parents were persuading him to enter the Clerical Seminary at Seinai, but Pranas Vaičaitis did not obey. In the same year he entered the Law Faculty of St. Petersburg University. Despite hard material conditions, Pranas Vaičaitis actively participated in the activities of Lithuanian societies; he was writing and translating, cooperating in the prohibited Lithuanian press. In 1900 he graduated from University and began to work at the Library of Russian Academy of Sciences, but soon got seriously ill and returned to Lithuania.
P.Vaičaitis died on September 21, 1901, in Sintautai, where he is buried.
