Tsarist autocracy
At the time when the poem "Lietuva, Tėvyne mūsų" was written, Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire. Kudirka, a medical student at the University of Warsaw, was writing as a columnist for the newspaper "Varpas" (The Bell). In his "Varpas" columns, Kudirka urged Lithuanians to take pride in their heritage, discussed the problems the Russian Government was causing the Lithuanian population, and denounced those who wished to work for the Tsarist autocracy. In the course of writing for "Varpas", he wrote down his thoughts on what Lithuania was and what it should be, resulting in the fifty-word poem "Lietuva, Tėvynė mūsų" ("Lithuania, Our Homeland").