Martynas Mažvydas is considered the founder of Lithuanian literature and the most prolific Lithuanian writer of the 16th century. He was born in Žemaitija. It was believed that his parents were poor townspeople. In his youth, a famous writer studied and worked in Vilnius, collaborating with other creators of the first Lithuanian writings from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
There was almost no information about his life before leaving Lithuania for Prussia in 1546. It is not clear what kind of education Mažvydas had and exactly what he did in Lithuania. All we know is that after the loss of the two Lithuanian professors at the University of Konigsberg, A. Kulvietis and S. Rapolionis, Prince Albrecht invited Mažvydas, who was considered to be a very learned scholar at that time, from Lithuania. It seems that in 1542, when Kulvietis and Zablockis were forced to leave Lithuania for Königsberg, Mažvydas was arrested or otherwise harmed, because in a letter to the rector of Königsberg University in 1548 he added the words "Protomartyr dictus" (Latin for "called the first martyr") to his name. This suggests that he may have suffered from the spread of Lutheran ideas.
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