Name Saliamonas Banaitis | ||
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Died May 4, 1933, Kaunas, Lithuania | ||
Saliamonas Banaitis pronunciation (July 15, 1866, Vaitiekupiai, Augustów Governorate – May 4, 1933 in Kaunas) was a Lithuanian printer, educator, and banker. He was one of the twenty signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania in 1918.
Banaitis founded the first Lithuanian print shop in Kaunas in 1905 and operated it until 1918. The printing house responded to the pent-up demand for material written in Lithuanian, built up during the years of the ban on the Lithuanian language, by printing some 1.5 million copies of books and 2 million copies of periodicals. From 1915 - 1917 his press published the newspaper "Kaunas News", issued in German and Polish as well as in Lithuanian.
From 1915 to 1918, he founded a Lithuanian-language secondary school in Kaunas as well as 12 elementary schools. In 1917 he was elected to the Council of Lithuania. He went on to found the Lithuanian Farmers' Association, the Commercial and Industrial Bank, and the Lithuanian Steamship Corporation.
S. Banaitis died in Kaunas, and was buried in Petrašiūnai Cemetery.