from families of well-to-do peasants that started to appear after serfdom was abolished in 1863. Most of the authors received education in the Russian universities and were fluent in Polish. Because of frequent changes in editorial staff, the newspaper did not have a clear and well-defined agenda. Basanavičius did not envision Aušra as a political publication; in the first issue he declared that the newspaper would deal only with cultural matters. However, Aušra soon took on a nationalistic agenda. Aušra helped to crystallize many ideas about the Lithuanian nation and the definition of a Lithuanian. It started to reject the ideas of resurrecting the old Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The authors started to think about an independent Lithuanian nation-state. It published on many different subjects like agriculture or reports from Lithuanian communities in the United States, but history was the most popular. The foreword of the first issue began with a Latin proverb, Homines historiarum ignari semper sunt pueri, or People ignoring history remain children forever. They built upon the works of Simonas Daukantas, the first historian, who wrote history of Lithuania in Lithuanian and painted an idealized image of the mighty Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Aušra was critical regarding the forceful Polonisation executed by the Polish clergy and Tsarist Russification. One of the main aims of Aušra editors was to gain the usage rights to Lithuanian language and to revive its prestige. The newspaper was directed at the intelligentsia and therefore limited its readership. The peasants did not appreciate that Aušra was secular and did not embrace Catholic traditions. References External links Full-image scans of Aušra Publications established in 1883 Publications disestablished in 1886 1883 establishments in Germany 1886 disestablishments in Germany Lithuanian press ban Lithuanian-language newspapers East Prussia