Memorial bas relief for Salys Šemerys

Coordinates: 55.716477 21.128340

Object address: H. Manto street 23, Klaipėda, Lithuania

Municipality: Klaipėda

On 31 May, 2014 on the wall of the house, where the writer Salys Šemerys lived, a memorial with bas relief was unveiled. It was devoted to a poet, member of movement „Four Winds“, yachtsman, one of re-creators of Lithuania Yachts Club Salys Šemerys. Now in this house Navalis Hotel is operating. Author of bas relief – Gintautas Jonkus.      
Salys Šemerys (real-Saliamonas Šmerauskas) was born on 21 May 1898 in Vilkaviškis. The first works were published in 1914 in satyrical newspaper „Garnys“ and signed by pseudonym Tadas Mardonius. Later he had a lot of nicknames, from which the nickname Salys Šemerys remained for all life.
In 1927 S. Šemerys came to Klaipėda. He lectured Lithuanian literature in Vytautas Magnus Gymnasium, joined the squad of Lithuanian intellectuals which at that time lived in the city. After the Germans having occupied Klaipėda land, S. Šemerys moved to Vilkaviškis, later – to Kybartai. In 1944 poet with his family was deported to Germany. After the war, in autumn of 1945 family of Šmerauskai returned to Klaipėda forever. For a while S. Šemerys worked as a director in gymnasium of adults, then he taught at the secondary Seafaring school, since 1952 – at Crafts school. He worked in Klaipėda as a teacher until 1957. During this period and later he created poetry and prose, collected and wrote down the legends of Klaipėda region, translated tales and legends of Lithuania Minor from German language, translated his own creative works into Russian and Esperanto languages.             
Prominent figure of S.Šemerys was rooted in the city‘s cultural panorama. Valuable are his ideas, which he posed regarding establishment of city‘s literary museum as well as return of old streets names and so on. Klaipėda County I. Simonaitytė Public Library organized his creative evenings, there is stored a set of his personal archives, which was transmitted by the poet‘s wife L. Šmerauskienė after his death. In the Regional Studies Department of Library and in B.Aleknavičius‘s funds there are stocked books of S.Šemerys, which are dedicated to library and B.Aleknavičius.

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