Sculpture “Metraštininkas“ (“Chronicler“) in Pušalotas

This sculpture was built on the 26th June 2009, in the Pušalotas St. Peter and Paul's churchyard. The monument’s founders were a journalist Petras Garnys and a poet Petras Palilionis. Its author is a sculptor Vytautas Ulevičius. Panevėžys Bishop Jonas Kauneckas consecrated the monument. The monument perpetuates four Pušalotas priests who were public and cultural men: Antanas Juška was an ethnographer lexicographer (1819–1880), Petras Rimkevičius (1842–1907) was a poet, Jonas Jaškevičius (1863–1935) was a public man and Adolfas Sabaliauskas-Žalioji Rūta (1873–1950) was a poet and translator. Each of them can be seen in the old Chronicler expressive figure, and above it there are shining eyes of the Lord Almighty Providence, who guards people of their parish. Antanas Juška was a parish priest in Pušalotas from 1854 to 1862, he collected a lot of regional songs and melodies, described local weddings. A priest and poet Petras Rimkevičius lived in Pušalotas since 1886 until his death in 1907. He is an author of a very popular song “Tykus buvo vakarėlis“ (“The calm evening“). He also studied the Lithuanian language. Jonas Jackevičius was the Pušalotas parish priest for 25 years. He supported the banned press distribution, assisted to book smugglers, organized several secret Lithuanian schools in some villages and helped poor students. When the Bolshevik army was approaching towards Lithuania, the priest Jonas Jaškevičius organized volunteer partisans. He was awarded by the Cross of Vytis for his merits. In 1918, a poet-translator and priest from Pušalotas Adolfas Sabaliauskas-Žalioji Rūta collected about 200 examples of church ornaments and dozens of cross peaks. He gave all those art works to the Lithuanian Artist Society.