INDUSTRY AND TRADE

The textile industry in Lithuania in the 19th century developed on estates and in cities. Textile articles were produced in small city shops. According to Leonas Mulevičius and Mečislovas Jučas, the fabric industry did not develop in Lithuania because the peasant trade was wide spread *, and its articles were popular in cities.

The influence of other cultures reached Lithuanian culture. Craftsmen of other nationalities who came from abroad worked in Lithuania's weaving industry. The weaver John Jarvis was invited from Scotland with his son by count Oginskis; master Robertson* also supervised the weaving and bleaching works in the factory at Strėvininkai. There were many German craftsmen who worked in Vilkaviškis. Rough home-made woollen cloth was woven on the estate of Godlevskis in Garliava, in the district of Marijampolė; there was a co-operative 'Jan Dobkü et Compagnie'.*

Did the fabrics of urban industry reach the little towns and villages, and did home-made textiles reach the cities? Capital was penetrating patrimonial production at the beginning of the 19th century. Craftsmen and peasants gave a large part of their production to buyers in Užnemunė. Well-off and average peasants supplied fabrics to the market, as in many places in Europe in the times of early modernism.* Trade in the province of Vilnius was less developed than in Kaunas or Suvalkai.* Articles by Lithuanian urban craftsmen and shops reached customers in distant places. Fabrics of the 19th century may have been woven according to the examples of older textiles. Lithuania's geographical position was favorable for trade. The Baltic Sea was a very important trading zone. Textiles were one of the main items of trade in the 17th century. Goods from Prussia were taken to remote places in Lithuania in the 18th century. More favorable conditions for the growth of trade and other connections formed in the 19th century. A wide network was developed in the second half of the 19th century, with the merchants of Russia and Western Europe. The research by Antanas Tyla mentions that goods brought from abroad and from cities of the Russian Empire were sold in stores, fairs or by small traders.* It is difficult to believe that trade did not stimulate the processes of cultural change. Small dealers took imported goods to small towns. Expensive bought fabrics could become an example of created textiles for good country weavers. It is possible that pictures of patterns reached weavers together with goods. Country culture could not have remained completely isolated.

The geopolitical situation of Lithuania was suitable for the spreading of migration in the country. Trade, industrial articles, and increasing migration prompted the invasion of urban culture and gradually leveled the local ethnicity in Lithuania. Some of the carriers of cultural diffusion were merchants and professional guild craftsmen who had come from abroad.