Individuality Recorded in the Early Modern Polish-Lithuanian Calendars

Abstract

This article examines Polish-Lithuanian calendars from the early modern period as egodocumentary sources. The aim of this research is to determine what methodology should be applied so that to more accurately identify a person’s individuality, identity, and private life as recorded in the owners’ handwritten notes (marginalia). Having spread in the second half of the 15th century as mass-printed books, calendars occupied a unique hybrid position – by combining printed astronomical and encyclopedic content with highly personal handwritten notes. Over time, calendars ‘broke free’ from the network of the academic elite and became a widely accessible means of communication used among the nobility, the clergy, and, ultimately, the broader literate public. They became an important medium for recording both public events and intimate personal experiences.

This article identifies three layers of information in calendars: the astronomical-calendrical layer, created by scientists, mathematicians, astrologers, and theologians; accompanying printed texts covering household management, politics, and collections of encyclopedic knowledge; and the layer of handwritten marginalia – which is the most distinctive and, from an egodocumentary perspective, the most significant layer, as these units of content were continuously created by the owners themselves. It is precisely this third layer that constitutes the main subject of the study. By using a comparative methodology which combines critical source analysis and historical contextualization, the authors analyze selected collections of calendars held by Polish and Lithuanian memory institutions, including the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków, the Czartoryski Library, and M. Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania.

Two case studies serve as the empirical core of the article. The first concerns an anonymous calendar from 1679, whose handwritten entries – recording weather observations, political events, financial dealings, and travel itineraries – allow the reader to reconstruct a detailed portrait of the author despite him remaining unidentified. A comparative analysis of these entries against the known diary of Jan Antoni Chrapowicki both confirms the credibility of the calendar record and illustrates the distinctive expressive habits of individual writers. The second case study examines the liturgical calendar of Jurgis Ambraziejus Pabrėža (1771–1849), the future Samogitian naturalist and Bernardine tertiary, whose 1815-dated entries blend economic records, regional historical chronicles, and concise autobiographical notes, revealing a complex intellectual and spiritual identity shaped by the turbulent history of the region.

The article situates these findings within the broader framework of egodocument studies, emphasizing that calendar entries – unlike diaries or memoirs – are spontaneous, unpolished, and therefore particularly candid records of personality. A set of calendars, maintained by one person across many years, constitutes an unintentional autobiography, capturing shifts in intellectual interests, emotional states, and worldview. The study also addresses key methodological challenges: the dispersed preservation of calendars across archival and library collections, the difficulties of establishing authorship and provenance, and the need for systematic critical editions of handwritten calendar records. The authors argue that calendars represent a prototype of modern personal recording devices and call for a more systematic scholarly engagement with this underutilized category of historical sources.