Jonas Aistis

Jonas Aleksandravičius (7 July 1904 – 13 June 1973), better known as Jonas Aistis or Jonas Kuosa-Aleksandravičius, was a Lithuanian writer, poet, and essayist. Aistis was one of the most prominent neoromantic poets of Lithuania.

Biography Early life Jonas Aleksandravičius was born on 7 July 1904 in the village of of the modern-day Kaunas district, then part of the Russian Empire. His father, a blacksmith, would jokingly give his son the nickname "Kuosa". Aistis would later take this name and apply it to himself. His family moved to Rumšiškės in 1907, at which Aistis attended primary school from 1913 until 1919 and later, the Kaunas Aušra Gymnasium, at which Aistis often felt lonely and vulnerable, and as a result, confided in books and classical literature. He translated works by Shakespeare and Byron from Russian and Polish, as well as attempted to create poems himself. Aists was described as a competent child, but he struggled with school and was once left to stay for a second year.

Literary career In 1927 Aistis began his Lithuanian studies at the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, meanwhile working as a clerk for the Agriculture Bank . Aistis printed his first poem in 1926 in the Ateitis magazine, establishing himself as an essayist and literary critic of dynamic style. The poems were held in high regard by Kazys Binkis. In 1932 Aistis graduated, and in the same year released his debut collection of poems. Four years later in 1936 he received an education ministry-sponsored trip to France, specifically the Grenoble Alpes University to study the French language and French literature. Aistis would not return to Lithuania since.