Edvardas Jokūbas Daukša was born on May 1, 1836, in Biržai, Lithuania to a family of teachers which influenced his development and childhood. Edvardas was very curious, early on he started asking serious questions. He grasped and processed information at a deeper level. In his adult life he served his country and its people selflessly and humbled. Always longing for justice and equal opportunities for all. However, he was also not afraid to fight, making sacrifices and endure suffering for a great cause. Edvardas heart was beating for Lithuania and its people. Their independence, liberty, and freedom were of utmost importance to him.

Edvardas father Kazimieras Kristupas Daukša was a teacher at the Evangelical Reformed School in Biržai and a Lithuanian linguist. His mother, Maria Friederike Berggrün's grandfather, Johann Gerhardt was an organist, cantor, and teacher at the Evangelical Reformed Church & School in Vilnius. Edvardas three uncles on his maternal side, Mateus Eduard Berggrün, Johann Friedrich Berggrün, and Johann Karl Berggrün were teachers at the Evangelical Reformed Schools in Nemunelio Radviliskis, Papilys, and Švobiškis.

Edvardas faced great tragedy early in life when his beloved mother passed away in 1841; he was five years old. Edvardas and his two brothers, Adam and Wladyslaw, stayed with their father. His sister, Emilie, who was one year old at the time when she was placed into the care of her uncle Mateus Eduard Berggrün and his wife, Amalie. In 1848 Emilie suffered from a severe fever, and she passed away at the precious age of eight years old. She found her final resting place at the cemetery in Švobiškis.
Edvardas learned early on that life was vulnerable and had to be seen as precious, that emphasis and focus needed to be on what is of higher value and serving the true meaning of life. All combined it made Edvardas a deep thinker.

In 1843 Edvardas father, Kazimieras Kristupas Daukša married Frederika Eufrosina Berggrün, a cousin of his late wife and daughter of Johann Friedrich Berggrün. Two more brothers, Adolph born in 1844 and Romulad Constantin born in 1853 joined the family.

All of Kazimieras Kristupas Daukša children received the best possible education. After Edvardas completed his first years of school in Birzai, he attended the Kėdainių Šviesioji Gymnasium in Kedainiai, which was well known for its high standards of education. He graduated at the age of sixteen and for his top achievements he was awarded a scholarship for the Slucko Radvila Gymnasium. Sluck ( Slutsk, Belarus ) became one of the most famous centers of Calvinism and cultural life of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Gymnasium's substantial library had about 8000 books, dominated by publications in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek, but there were publications in almost all languages ​​of the European nations.

After graduating from Slucko Radvila Gymnasium in 1855, Edvardas went to study medicine at Moscow University. It was there where Edvardas love for his country awakened; he began to be interested in Lithuanian history and folklore.
A year later he studied at Dorpat University, Estonia. After completing an additional Hebrew exam, he transferred to the Faculty of Theology, but after six months he felt that theological studies and becoming a pastor was not his calling.

Lithuania with its history of oppression, the ongoing exploitation of its people and the deny of independence, liberty, and freedom was always on his mind. Edvardas became a patriotic young man and poet who genuinely cared about the fate of Lithuania. His empathy and compassion reflected the poetry he wrote using his native language. It was the Lithuanian language which gave him the creativity to express his deepest thoughts.
Research and studies of the Lithuanian language were conducted at the University of Königsberg. In 1718 the University introduced the first seminars in the Lithuanian language. It prompted Eduardas to continue his studies at the University of Königsberg. While he successfully completed two years of studies in Königsberg he decided to return to Lithuania in 1860.

After five years attending three universities, he questioned his path. Should his focus be on personal gain and accomplishments or serving his country and the greater good? In recent years the talk and discussions with fellow students inspired him even more to seek an independent Lithuania, maybe even freed from Poland. Edvardas believed that Lithuanians had the right to decide their own destiny. During that time the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (present-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, parts of Ukraine, and western Russia) was preparing to make a stand against the Russian Empire.

Edvardas joined the group of activists. In May 1863 he became an adjutant to Eliziejus Liutkevičius. It is believed that, not only because of his extraordinary education but also because of his relationship with the leadership of the uprising, he became the ideological soul of the Eliziejus Liutkevičius squad.

Convinced of the fatal outcome of the uprising, Edvardas was able to escape and went to his father’s home in Birzai. On November 27, 1863 he was arrested and taken to the prison in Panevėžys. After one year of interrogation and trial, Edvardas was sentenced to 16 years in Tobolsk Central Prison/ Siberia, one of Russia’s most notorious penitentiary institutions, where exiles from all across Russia, including Fyodor Dostoevsky and Tsar Nicholas II, were sent to serve their sentences.

Edvardas sentence was later reduced to 12 years. He finally returned to Lithuania in 1884. The last six years of his life he spent wandering from village to village. Making himself at times an enemy of the State by urging people to fight for the liberation of Lithuania from the tsarist slavery.

Edvardas knew that a defeat didn't mean the end. He envisioned Lithuania as free and independent.

After a century of Lithuania's gain and loss of independence, the “happy ending” came on March 19, 1990 with the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. Exactly one hundred years after Edvardas was found frozen to death on the side of the road at his native region of Birzai in 1890.

May the poet, visionary, patriot, rebel and survivor, Edvardas Jokūbas Daukša now rest in peace.

“Everything will be alright in the end so if it is not alright it is not the end.”
— Deborah Moggach

We like to thank Mrs. Edita Lansbergienė with the Sėla Biržai Region Museum for providing us with the poems by Edvardas Jokūbas Daukša.

Edvardas Jokūbas Daukša
Wikipedia
Biography
Lithuania - 1863 uprising