Where love of the country was poured into the national anthem
Plan your visit
The ticket office closes 30 minutes before closing time.
Ticket prices
- Adult – 4,00 €
- Concessions* – 2,00 €
Family ticket
- 1 adult and up to 4 children – 6,00 €
- 2 adults and up to 4 children – 10,00 €
Additional services
- Guided tour for a group of up to 20 people – 10,00 €
- Guided tour in Kudirkos Naumiestis for a group of up to 20 people – 20,00 €
- Guided tour in Kudirkos Naumiestis for a group of more than 20 people – 25,00 €
- Admission to an educational activity for children 4 years of age and older, as well as school students – 2,00 € or 3,00 €
- Educational activities for adults – 5 €
Expositions are free of charge for the following visitors:
pre-school children; orphans and children who have lost guardianship by their parents; people with a disability and their one accompanying person; persons from 80 years of age; employees of Lithuania’s museums; members of the International Council of Museums (ICOM); residents of children care homes and socially supported children; teachers accompanying groups of schoolchildren; Vilnius Pass card holders (valid for visiting The New Arsenal, The Old Arsenal, The House of Signatories, Gediminas Castle Tower, The Bastion of the Vilnius Defence Wall, Kazys Varnelis House-Museum, House of Histories); students of Lithuanian art schools for children and youth; students of Vilnius College of Technologies and Design; students of Balys Dvarionas decennary music school; members of the Lithuanian Association of Art Historians; members of the International Association of Art Critics; members of the Lithuanian Association of Archaeologists; guides with valid guide ID; guides accompanying groups of tourists; employees of the Cultural Heritage Department at the Ministry of Culture and its territorial branches; cadets and conscripts from General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania; soldiers of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas Headquarters Battalion; members of the Lithuanian army volunteer union; employees of Lithuanian Post; journalists; Family Card holders; students of Vilnius Academy of Arts; students of the Faculty of History at Vilnius University; citizens of Ukraine; organised migrant groups; all visitors on the last Sunday of each month.
Educational activities of the National Museum of Lithuania’s expositional locations are free of charge for the following visitors:
children under 3 years of age; residents of children care homes and socially supported children; people with a disability and their one accompanying person; teachers accompanying groups of schoolchildren.
Concessions are applied upon the visitor providing valid ID that prooves right to specific concessions. This ID requirement does not apply to pre-school children and all visitors on the last Sunday of each month.
Information for disabled visitors: exhibition halls of the Vincas Kudirka Museum have wheelchair access.
General visitor regulations of the National Museum of Lithuania
The tours in the museum are only led by the museum tour guides or the tour guides from the institution with which the museum has concluded an appropriate agreement.
The museum is open to visitors during the regular opening hours. Please read relevant information regarding COVID-19 before visit: click here (link)
About us
The Vincas Kudirka Museum introduces visitors to Vincas Kudirka, the author of the Lithuanian anthem, as well as the town in which he spent the final years of his life.
What will you see?
The exhibit includes items related to Kudirka’s life and person – a piano he played while visiting friends in Warsaw; an original copy of the Varpas newspaper; manuscripts of literary translations by Kudirka including George Gordon Brown Cain and Friedrich Schiller’s William Tell. Interactive terminals allow visitors to look through copies of Varpas and Ūkininkas and to see a hiding place for banned books, authentic book smuggler items and a traditional 19th century North Suvalkija (Zanavykas) ethnic costume.
What will you learn?
Vincas Kudirka (1858–1899) was a physician and writer. The exhibition presents his various activities, the political, literary and scientific newspaper Varpas, which he published, as well as the story of his personal life, the last past of which was spent in Naumiestis. A visit to the museum is therefore both a journey through the Suvalkija cultural region and its unique border town Kudirkos Naumiestis.
The museum also tells the story of a phenomenon that is unique to Lithuanian history and has been recognized by UNESCO – the story of Lithuania’s book smugglers, who circulated banned Lithuanian literature during a press ban (1864–1904) in the last stage of the country’s occupation by Imperial Russia, and which was instrumental in preserving the Lithuanian language.
History of the building
The museum’s origins date to the 1950s, when a group of budding historians at the town’s school began to collect exhibit materials. In 1987 it finally became possible to hold an exhibition dedicated to Vincas Kudirka.
In 1998, thanks to the efforts of the Vincas Kudirka Foundation, a new museum was built on the site of a burned down house which, it later emerged, was indeed the one in which Kudirka lived and worked.
In the fall of the same year, the Vincas Kudirka Museum became a branch of the National Museum of Lithuania. On 5 December 1998, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the creation of the hymn and 140 years since Kudirka’s birth, the museum was officially opened with a gala event.
The museum building was designed by National Culture and Art Award recipient Audrius Ambrasas, in consultation with architect Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis. It was the first museum to be opened after the restoration of Lithuania’s independence. In February 2017 a renovated museum and new exhibits were opened to visitors.
Contacts
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How to find us?
