Dionizas Poška

[2] Poška excavated ancient graves and hillforts, collected archeological fossils, weapons, money, books.

[2] His only works that were published during his lifetime were the verse letter "Pas kuniga Xawera Bohusza Lietuwi, yr Jokimą Leleweli Mozura" (from 1810) and two historical articles.

He was born in the Lėlaičiai [lt] manor between Telšiai and Mažeikiai in a family of petty Samogitian gentry and was baptized in Žemalė on 13 October 1764.

From 1790 till his death Poška lived in a small estate of his own in Bardžiai (Raseiniai district) near Bijotai [lt], where he possessed around 500 ha of land and had 40 serfs.

Poška was actively corresponding with professors of Vilnius University, bishops, poets, writers and other cultural figures of Lithuania.

He knew Lithuanian (native Samogitian dialect), Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek and other languages.

Poška collected ancient artifacts from archaeological excavations, military arms of the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Lithuanian coins, medals and other rarities.

At the beginning of the 19th century Poška cut down an oak, that was growing in his estate, when the oak began to dry up and hollowed its trunk thus making a hut for the collection of his antiquities, that was called by Poška himself – Baublys (Baublys in Lithuanian means someone or something, who/that make a low roar, rumble), because of a characteristic sound when the wind was blowing through this trunk.

Today Baublys is a working museum, that depicts one of many initiatives of Lithuanian nobility during the Romanticism period when the interest in the history of Lithuania was growing.