The Relocation of Antanas Baranauskas’s Parents’ Grave and the Hypothetical Manufacturer of the Monumentthe Monument

Abstract

The article identifies the hypothetical manufacturer of the cast iron monument (the pedestal, the cross, and the fence) at the grave of the parents of Antanas Baranauskas, a classic of Lithuanian literature, priest, and bishop, in the Anykščiai cemetery. The unmarked monument is likely to have been made by the Kaunas-based Minerva Foundry, which operated in the 1860s, although similar examples of sepulchral monuments can also be found in the catalogue of the Riga-based Wöhrmann & Sohn Foundry, which was established in the 1830s. The choice of the manufacturer is explained by logistical circumstances, the acquaintance between the bishop and the owners of the Minerva Foundry, as well as the late nineteenth-century practice of ordering ecclesiastical and sepulchral items by Catholic Church hierarchy. The article discusses the circumstances under which the remains of Baranauskas’s parents and other relatives were transferred from the Anykščiai cemetery that was being closed down to the new cemetery while preserving the old cast iron monument.