Early Lithuanian Literature (Senoji Lietuvos literatūra) is a biannual peer-reviewed scholarly journal published by the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore. This academic periodical has been edited by the Department of Early Literature of the Institute since 1992.
The Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore / Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas
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Studies into the Literary Canon Prompted by a Zeal for Unmasking
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">Viktorija Šeina, Aistė Kučinskienė, <em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Mokyklinis lietuvių literatūros kanonas. Šimtmečio raidos rekonstrukcija<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">: Monografija, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2024, 614 p., ISBN 978-609-425-399-7
Pre-Mongol Exegetical Hymnography. Part 1: The Canon for the Feast of the Cross (Publication of a Source)
<p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">This is a publication of an exegetical canon for the Feast of the Cross from a pre-Mongol set of original (untranslated) exegetical canons (dated approximately 1170–1180) for ten ecclesiastic feast days of the Menaion and Triodion cycles. This set originated in Kievan Rus’ and was widely distributed in East Slavonic manuscript tradition. It was also known in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where the exegetical canon for Easter was even translated into the Ruthenian language (the author of this article published it in 2020). Based on a combination of linguistic, content-related, and intertextual features, this anonymous set of exegetical canons has been attributed to the Jerusalem monk Afanasii (who did indeed live in the Holy Land for some time), known as the author of his ‘Epistle to Panko about the Wood of the Holy Cross’ and the commentator on the ‘Epistle by Kliment Smoliatich [Metropolitan of Kiev from 1147 to 1155 – S. T.] to the Smolensk Presbyter Foma’. Despite its widespread use in the manuscript tradition, the set has not been studied and remains virtually unknown to scholars. This publication is based on one of the very few manuscript copies containing the maximum number of texts from this cycle (ten out of twelve): Exegetical Psalter with additions from the early seventeenth century (Novosibirsk, State Public Scientific and Technical Library of Russia, collection of Mikhail Nikolaevich Tikhomirov, No. 41, f. 67–186v.).
The Querelle des Femmes in Sixteenth-Seventeenth-Century Philosophy: Ideas of Platonism and Aristotelianism in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Europe
<p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The article examines the reception of Plato and Aristotle’s philosophy in shaping attitudes towards women in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Europe in the sixteenth–seventeenth centuries. It examines how various philosophical treatises, dialogues, and Aristotle’s commentaries influenced intellectual discourse beyond their cultural origins, thus creating a basis for a philosophical understanding of the role of women in the family and society of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The article juxtaposes the views of Platonists and Aristotelians on women. Platonism, especially in Renaissance court culture, offered a more progressive perspective. Through such works as Baldassare Castiglione’s Il cortegiano (1528) and Łukasz Górnicki’s Dworzanin polski (1566; The Polish Courtier), the article highlights the differences between Western European and Polish-Lithuanian court societies. Although constrained by certain patriarchal norms, Castiglione’s lady-in-waiting actively participated in public life by engaging in refined conversation, musical activities, and dance. Górnicki’s adaptation, which was shaped by conservative Polish and Lithuanian culture, basically confined women to private domestic roles, but still required them to be as refined as male courtiers. Unlike the Italian courts, where ladies-in-waiting were integrated into cultural and intellectual life, Polish and Lithuanian aristocracy saw women primarily as wives and mothers responsible for managing the household and moral virtue. <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">On the other hand, during the Renaissance and Baroque periods Aristotle’s philosophy was invoked to confirm and substantiate the attitudes towards women prevailing at the time and was therefore popular throughout Europe, especially in more conservative cultural spaces such as universities and colleges. Such thinkers as Bartholomäus Keckermann (c. 1572–1609) and Aaron Alexander Olizarowski (Olizarovius, 1610–1659) argued for male dominance, justifying it by natural hierarchy and theological reasoning. A man’s duty is to legally protect his wife, advise her, and look after her, but he does not have unlimited authority (potestas) over her. Extrapolating from Aristotle’s Politics (1260a 11), commentators argued that women had to be more or less subordinate to men because they were less intelligent and lacked willpower by nature. Various passages in Nicomachean Ethics that discuss imperfect virtue allow the passive qualities and virtues traditionally attributed to women (shyness, chastity, modesty, humility, and the like) to be considered less valuable than ‘heroic’ masculine virtues. Aristotle’s idea that women are weaker in every respect due to their nature allowed the medical theory of bodily fluids to be used as proof of their imperfection, claiming that due to the warm and moist state of their bodies they are not inclined towards wisdom and patience. Women’s weak nature raised the question of whether they were capable of achieving virtue at all, whether they were moral beings, and whether they should have personal freedom or depend on their guardian, the man. The answers to these questions varied, ranging from the extremely conservative view that women, who are capable of practicing only imperfect virtues, must fully obey their father, husband, or other male guardian, to the somewhat more optimistic yet still conservative belief that women, as moral beings, must practice virtue in a feminine (i.e., traditionally passive) way, and men must not control them but rather take care of and provide for them.
Jean de La Gessée’s Henrias: Literary Features and Sources of Imitation
<p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The second part of a two-article series continues with the analysis of Henrias, a collection of Latin occasional poems written by a poet of the Valois court who wrote under the pseudonym of Jean de La Gessée, during the election of Henry Valois in 1573. The collection is analysed in terms of literary form, theme, and ideas. The article describes the main motifs and images used to convey the political narrative and propaganda message and to create an ‘epic’ image of Henry Valois, the future ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and reveals the sources of literary influence and imitation. The connections between this collection and La Gessée’s other works are indicated, including those that were likely written by the same author under other pseudonyms. One such work is the epic poem Élection du sérénissime duc d’Anjou, roy de Poulongne [...] published by Paul de Vollant in 1573. The similarities between the text of this poem and Henrias, the circumstances of its publication, and other aspects would allow this poem to be attributed to La Gessée (i.e., the court poet Louis d’Amboise, who used both these pseudonyms; we have examined this identification of the author in previous articles, and it remains the subject of further and more detailed research). <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">La Gessée’s panegyric ‘epic’ works La Rochelleide and Henrias, published in French and Latin in 1573, belong to the wave of epic-style works that arose in French literature in the 1570s inspired by Ronsard’s Franciade and are also inspired by important events of the time (religious wars, the election of Henry Valois). This is the poetry of ‘current events’ and ‘news’, about recent developments and Henry Valois, the ‘hero of the present’. In the context of neo-Latin Renaissance literature, Henrias continues the tradition of epic panegyrics dedicated to rulers and nobles. The choice of the genre, poetic forms, and their composition was influenced by the neo-Latin panegyrics, epic poems, and epithalamia of various countries from the late fifteenth century to the first decades of the sixteenth century (among which connections with Giovanni Michele Nagonio’s panegyric poems can be discerned) and the trends of common-European neo-Latin poetry of the mid-sixteenth century. <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The main part of Henrias consists of an epic panegyric, which has the traditional rhetorical structure of an encomium: a solemn introduction, a description of the family of Henry, Duke of Anjou, and its deeds, a characterisation of his person, his achievements, and a discussion of his ‘virtues’ (the latter is presented as ‘advice to the young ruler’). In terms of the genre, structure, style, and lexicon, it followed the panegyrics of Claudian, a Late Antiquity poet. Based on existing studies of Claudian’s reception in Renaissance literature and on our analysis of the text, it can be argued that Panegyric is a particularly striking (perhaps one of the most striking) example of Claudian’s reception and imitation in sixteenth-century epic and panegyric poetry. <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Rich in Claudian’s quotations, the text of the panegyric reveals the implied projection of its dedicatee and subject, Henry Valois, onto the figure of Stilicho, the hero of Claudian’s panegyrics, a general and politician who attained power through his ‘virtue’ (virtute) (an analogy: Henry Valois is elected from among his peers because of his ‘virtue’). Stilicho’s Vandal origins are also significant for this projection. According to a medieval theory of the origin of the Polish nation, the Vandals are considered to be the ancestors of the Poles. Despite the fact that historians had been sceptical of this theory since the mid-sixteenth century, it continued to live on in the literary tradition. In literary works, Stilicho was often included in the lists of rulers of Poland and Lithuania, i.e., he was a locus communis of (pseudo)historical narratives in the cultural space of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Thus, in this panegyric Henry Valois can be regarded as the ruler of Stilicho’s homeland. The article also examines how traditional topoi borrowed from Renaissance literature were used in Henrias to convey the political ideology of the 1573 election and the French court (the images of the embassy to Achilles on Skyros, the images of the ‘golden age’, and the reign of Astraea, the goddess of justice, the vision of Pax Valesiana created on the model of ancient Rome, which also encompasses the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ruled by Henry Valois ‘to the distant sea’, the myth of French origin from the Trojans, and so on). <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Textual analysis of Henrias shows that the author imitates the works of such authors of Classical and Late Antiquity as Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Cicero, Claudian, Lactantius, to a lesser extent Juvenal, Catullus, Tibullus, Lucretius, Lucan, Seneca, Silius Italicus, Statius, Sidonius Apollinaris, and several others, or draws on them in other respects. In quantitative terms, the majority of borrowings came from Claudian’s works, fewer from Virgil, Ovid, and Horace, and even fewer from other authors. Henrias shows traces of influence and/or vocabulary from Renaissance authors Ugolino Verino, Jacopo Sannazaro, Marco Girolamo Vida, and Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus. Stylistically close to the poet were also various neo-Latin authors from different countries, such as Matteo Andronico, Iacobus Bonus Racusaeus, and Paulus Crosnensis (their influence is evident both in Henrias and in La Gessée’s other works in Latin). He was clearly influenced by the works of the Latin poets of the Pléiade (similarities with Étienne Jodelle’s occasional poetry). Without a doubt, La Gessée was familiar with and had access to the works of Polish and foreign chroniclers and cosmographers who wrote about Poland and Lithuania, and he was also interested in the works of poets from these lands. Text analysis shows that he read and used the poem Bellum Prutenum (1516; The Prussian War) by Joannes Vislicensis and probably Georg Sabin’s Poemata (1558), a poetry collection in Latin. The article compares the description of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in Henrias (which was one of the first descriptions of Poland-Lithuania in French literature) with the text of Joannes Vislicensis’s poem.
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the sixteenth century
Neo-Latin literature in the sixteenth century
The Relationship of Slavisms and Hybrids in Konstantinas Sirvydas’s Dictionarium trium linguarum (1642) and Promptuarium dictionum Polonicarum, Latinarum et Lituanicarum (1620)
<p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The article examines the borrowed lexical elements in Konstantinas Sirvydas’s Promptuarium dictionum Polonicarum, Latinarum et Lituanicarum of 1620 (hereinafter SPr) and the dictionary Dictionarium trium linguarum of 1642 (hereinafter SD). A total of 955 unique Slavisms and hybrids with Slavic roots were selected from SPr and SD, of which 571 words were recorded in SPr and 703 in SD. Among the 703 words attested in SD, 185 Slavisms and hybrids are not only absent from SPr but also lack any common root words in it. These particular loanwords are the focus of this study. The aim was to determine their relationship with SPr and to explore possible reasons why certain Slavisms and hybrids were not used in the earlier dictionary but were recorded in the later one. <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Among the common Slavisms and hybrids used in SD but not found in the SPr, there is a group of words that are not found in SPr due to the fact that the only surviving copy of the Promptuarium is defective, i.e., some pages are missing; today, it is not possible to check the translation of some of the words and to make comparisons with SD (e.g., Pol. bęben / Lith. būbnas SD 9 / Lith. ? SPr). This group represents 22.7 per cent of the words under investigation. <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The remaining headwords, for which Slavisms or hybrids were used in translations in SD, can be compared with the corresponding entries in SPr. One group (4.3 per cent) consists of cases where corresponding headwords are present in SPr but are provided without a Lithuanian translation, e.g., Pol. kołacz / Lith. karvojus SD 111 // Pol. kołacz / Lith. – SPr 59. <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">A significant number of Slavisms and hybrids found only in SD (59.5 per cent) are absent from the earlier source due to differences in the lexical registers of the dictionaries of 1620 and 1642. This is the largest portion of the material analysed in this article. Such a high percentage can be explained by the fact that SD is a more extensive work containing a larger number of Polish word combinations, which required the use of loanwords or hybrids in translation. <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Of the Slavisms and hybrids examined in SD, 13.6 per cent could be compared within the corresponding headword entries in both SD and SPr. A noticeable tendency is that SD omits Slavisms and hybrids that are formally identical to Polish headwords (e.g., Pol. katowanie / Lith. baudimas / buzavojimas SD 99 / Lith. kotavojimas SPr 51). However, more than half of these 13.6 per cent of cases involve instances where SPr uses native Lithuanian words, whereas in SD, Slavisms and hybrids appear instead.
The Book Market in the Light of Paratexts of Printed Books in the Kyiv Metropolitanate: Selected Issues
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">The article deals with selected issues concerning the functioning of the publishing market in the Kyiv metropolitanate in the first decades after the first Ruthenian typographers became active (up to the mid-seventeenth century). The source base is the paratexts (the preface, the dedicatory letter, the afterword) of books of mainly liturgical and more broadly Orthodox use dominating the books on offer, whose authors were mostly publishers, printers, and editors, acting independently or as members of teams developing the publishing process. In the paratexts, they attempted to explain the reasons for their publishing activity or justify the choice of a particular book. Among the most frequent reasons, they would point out errors occurring in manuscript books, the scarcity or unavailability of particular books caused by various factors, the existence of printed versions but not corrected within the scope of issues concerning liturgical and sacramental-ceremonial practice. In addition, the paratexts contain interesting data on the competition between various printing centres, indicating the difficulties in coordinating and controlling the publishing market by the Metropolitan of Kyiv. The paratextual material also brings interesting evidence on the existence of an in-depth reflection on the role of printing, the importance of books in religious life and in the process of expanding knowledge in the Ruthenian environment in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The Sermon Against Drunkenness Attributed to St Job of Pochaev as a Manifestation of Serbian and Ukrainian Literary Ties in the Sixteenth–Seventeenth centuries (The Fourteenth-Century Translation of George Hamartolus’s Chronicle)
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">The article is devoted to a short anonymous sermon against drunkenness in a now lost manuscript that once belonged to the Pochaev Monastery and is believed to have been written by St Job of Pochaev (<em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">c<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">. 1551–1651) in his own hand. Nikolai Petrov, who studied the codex, named it ‘Pchela Pochaevskaya’ (Pochaev’s Melissa) and published this sermon as one of St Job’s works. The attribution of the manuscript and several anonymous sermons contained therein to Job of Pochaev was met with reasoned criticism but is nevertheless recognised by contemporary scholars. The article shows that this anonymous sermon against drunkenness is not an original work and could not have been written by St Job. It is an excerpt from the second ecclesiastical Slavic translation (<em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Lětovnik<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">) of George Hamartolus’s Byzantine chronicle, prepared by Bulgarian scribes and known only from its Serbian copies. It is presumed that this translation, unlike the much earlier one (<em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Vrěmennik<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">), did not reach the Eastern Slavs. However, the fact that the manuscript ‘Pchela Pochaevskaya’ contains an anonymous sermon against drunkenness, which is an excerpt from <em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Lětovnik<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">, shows that this translation was known in whole or in part in the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth where it could only have come from the Serbian manuscript tradition. Thus, this sermon is yet another example of the Serbian influence on early Ukrainian literature, unreported up until now, dating from the second half of the sixteenth century to the first half of the seventeenth century.
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Axel E. Walter, Orpheus Prutenus. Selbstkonzept und Rezeption des Dichters Simon Dach, Klaipėda: Klaipėdos universiteto leidykla, 2020, 415 p. ISBN 978-609-481-083-1 Deutsche Gelehrte und die baltischen Sprachen, hrsg. von Harald Bichlmeier, Christiane Schiller und Silke Brohm, (Schriftenreihe der Gesellschaft für Baltische Studien 5), Hamburg: baar, 2024, 194 p. ISBN 978-3-935536-50-9 Kęstutis Daugirdas, Andrius Volanas ir reformacija Lietuvos Didžiojoje Kunigaikštystėje, monografija, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2024, 445 p. ISBN 978-609-425-385-0 Alkiškių, Šiaulių, Žeimelio evangelikų liuteronų parapijos ir jų archyvai, sudarė Ernestas Vasiliauskas, Klaipėdos universiteto Baltijos regiono istorijos ir archeologijos institutas, Klaipėda: Klaipėdos universiteto leidykla, 2024, 239 p. ISBN 978-609-481-187-6
Miks Stolperjons, a Satirical Poem from the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
Miks Stolperjons, a Satire in Verse (the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century): The Manuscript and Two Publications in the Lithuanian Press
Miks Stolperjons is a 192-line satirical poem written in Lithuanian in the second half of the nineteenth century (before 1879). The plot of the poem consists of a series of comic situations in which the protagonist, Mikas, keeps falling into due to his clumsiness and lack of good manners. The semi-German personal name Stolperjons (Ger. stolpern ‘to stumble’) in the title indicates that this is probably a translation. Two original quatrains are inserted into the text of the satire that mock the uncultured behaviour typical of Prussian Lithuanians. In its language and artistic expression, Miks Stolperjons is consistent with the general level of Prussian Lithuanian poetry of the time. Today, three versions of the text are known: the manuscript and two publications in the press. The manuscript copy of Miks Stolperjons is part of a notebook of poems in the Manuscript Department of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (shelf mark: F163–1086, fol. 13r–17v). The manuscript contains later corrections and additions in darker black ink in a different hand, which are not reflected in the publications. The first publication of the satirical poem appeared in Gothic type in the Prussian Lithuanian newspaper Lietuviška ceitunga of 23 September 1879. The text published here is almost identical to the manuscript text. The publication in Latin characters in the American Lithuanian newspaper Vienybė lietuvninkų of 8 July 1896 was slightly edited: the spelling and language were modernised. In the manuscript, the authorship of the Lithuanian text of the poem, with a question mark, is attributed to Mikelis Šapalas (1827–1887), a Prussian Lithuanian public figure, teacher, poet, translator, and an active contributor to the Lietuviška ceitunga. In the Lietuviška ceitunga, the poem is signed with X., a very popular pseudonym used by many authors at the time. In Vienybė lietuvninkų, the pen-name Lietuvaitė M. S. appears under the poem. It was used by Joana Tamošauskaitė-Baltrušaitienė-Želvienė, a physician and active public figure (1873–1950). Presumably she only edited the text of the poem.
I Wrote to the Quandt Family and Their Descendants in 1756. Genealogy of the Family Published in the Obituary for Quandt (1772)
Genealogy of the Prussian Line of the Quandt Family Written by Johann Jacob Quandt, the Last Bearer of the Surname
Johann Jacob Quandt (1686–1772), the general superintendent of Prussia, is well-known in the history of Lithuanian literature and culture as a promoter of Lithuanian writing in eighteenth-century Prussian Lithuania. About a dozen Lithuanian books were produced under his care. He involved students and graduates of the University of Königsberg in the writing process. It is not known what prompted Quandt to write the genealogy of his family and when he started this work, but it is known that he finished it in 1756 and left the manuscript to his nephew, Johann Christoph Bohlius (1703–1785). After his death, Quandt’s personal archive was reviewed and some of the documents were included in the obituary ‘To the Man While He Lived […] Magnificent [...] Johann Jacob Quandt’ (Viro, dum viveret, magnifico [...] Johanni Jacobo Quandt [...], Königsberg, 1772). This obituary was the first publication of the genealogy of eight generations of the Quandt family. The Quandts established themselves in Königsberg in the sixteenth century; the Teutonic Knights or their descendants may have been the founders of this branch of the family. The obituary with the genealogy of the Quandts is kept at the National Library of Poland in Warsaw (Biblioteka Narodowa w Warszawie, sign. SD XVIII.4.1170 adl.). Quandt’s manuscript has not survived or has not been found. Many of the men of the Quandt family had been educated at the University of Königsberg, served in government posts, were priests, and one was a merchant engaged in commerce. The men of the family usually chose the daughters of priests as their wives, making it an elite family. Of the Quandt family, three of its representatives are better known today: Jacobus, the great-grandfather of Johann Jacob Quandt, his father Johann, and our Johann Jacob Quandt, the general superintendent of Prussia, the preacher of the royal court, and first professor of theology. The appended source was translated from the Latin by Dr Mindaugas Strockis.
Recommendation of Heinrich Tilesius, the Rector of the Tilsit Provincial School, to His Pupil Johann Schultz
The article discusses and presents, along with its translation into Lithuanian and commentaries, a document kept at the Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (Ger. Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz) in Berlin (shelf mark: GStA PK: I. HA GR, Rep. 7 Preußen, No. 191 [1685–1703]). It is a copy of the recommendation written on 30 April 1695 by Heinrich Tilesius (1666–1732), the rector of the Tilsit provincial school, to the pupil Johann Schultz (Jonas Šulcas, ~1678–1709), a future theology student at the University of Königsberg, a priest in Prussian Lithuania, and the translator of the first Lithuanian book of literary fiction, Die Fabeln Aesopi (Aesop’s Fables, Königsberg, 1706). Tilesius’s recommendation is important for several reasons. This archival source provides information about the Tilsit provincial school: the name of Johann Schultz extends the list of the school’s well-known pupils, evidences the most important subjects included in the curriculum of the time, and reveals some of the competences of the schoolmaster. Tilesius’s Latin text is an example of a recommendation written in a high or almost Ciceronian style of eloquence; it is a distinctive rhetorical piece demonstrating the excellent classical education of the rector of the provincial school of Tilsit. The recommendation also adds new details to the biographical information on Johann Schultz, the pupil of this school, a future creator of Lithuanian literature, or, more precisely, provides some facts about his education prior to his studies at the University of Königsberg: not only did he go to the provincial school in Tilsit, but he also attended the Latin school in Insterburg, where, besides learning Latin, he also studied Greek and acquired knowledge of poetry, philosophy, and, in particular, rhetoric. Schultz’s teachers included not only Heinrich Tilesius, but also Johann Picker (~1640–1693), a well-known pedagogue of the time, a follower of Philipp Jacob Spener (1635–1705) and a promoter of his ideas in Prussia.
Publications of Fiction Texts in Prussian Lithuanian Periodicals in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: Statistics and Insights
In 1823, the first Lithuanian periodical appeared in Tilžė (Ger. Tilsit). It was a magazine-type publication called Nusidavimai Dievo karalystėje. It was followed by more Lithuanian newspapers and their supplements in Prussian Lithuania. Print shops produced the newspapers in German and Lithuanian, in Gothic typeface. Most of them appeared in the print shops of Tilžė and Klaipėda (Ger. Memel). The newspapers published a wide range of material: articles on various subjects (philosophy, religion, the natural sciences, art, geography, etc.), reviews, and also texts of fiction, in the dissemination of which the periodicals of Prussian Lithuania played an important role. The article examines the amount of fiction texts (original and anonymous prose and poetry) published in Prussian Lithuanian periodicals, identifies the periodicals that published the most of them and their changes over the decades. It also reveals the cultural context of the printing of fiction in the periodical press: the network of people involved in the creation, publication, and distribution of texts. The names of fiction authors and periodical editors are identified, and their relationship to the world of culture is discussed. It was established that during the period under study (1849–1913), more than 3250 publications of works of fiction appeared in 27 periodicals and their supplements intended for Prussian Lithuania (Kaimynas, Lietuviška ceitunga, Tilžės keleivis, and others). The texts of fiction published in these periodicals came in a variety of genres: poetry, prose, drama, satire, and humour. The choice of the authors and types of texts depended on the editors of the publications. The editors of the periodicals that published the largest numbers of the texts of fiction were individuals active in the field of Prussian Lithuanian writing in the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries. The fiction published in the periodical press also spread in the form of albums of copies. The manuscript collections of fiction by Prussian Lithuanian literary figures kept at the Manuscripts Department of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences point to the popularity of fiction in the nineteenth century.
Martin Ludwig Rhesa’s Prutena: Between Vaterland (Fatherland) and Heimat (Homeland)
Martin Ludwig Rhesa’s (Lith. Martynas Liudvikas Rėza, 1776–1840) original work, the two-volume collection of his German poetry Prutena (1809, 1825), became available to Lithuanian readers approximately two hundred years later, when Antanas A. Jonynas translated it into Lithuanian (2023). This fact opens up the possibility not only to get to know Rhesa’s literary abilities, but also to delve into the world of East Prussian intellectual life, to which the poet undoubtedly belonged. Rhesa’s duality, his belonging to two cultures – German and (Prussian) Lithuanian – is clearly visible in his understanding of the concept of ‘homeland’. The dual concept of ‘homeland’ in German, Heimat and Vaterland, is already evident in the titles of the collections and in the distribution of emphasis in the texts themselves. The poetic works described by the adjective vaterländisch imply an attachment to German cultural values: the Prussian government, the king, the official Evangelical Lutheran Church, while prutenisch would refer to the way of life and the culture of the ancestors of the Balts – the Prussians and the Lithuanians of that time – in their own homeland, Prussian Lithuania. The concept of a small homeland or fatherland is evident in some poems and ‘folk songs’. In Prutena, Rhesa adopted a Herderian strategy, since Herder published folk songs of various nations alongside poems by specific authors (Volkslieder, 1778/1779). In Rhesa’s work, the majority of the poems are his own, while ‘(folk) song texts’ account for only a quarter of the genre. Rhesa gives different genre descriptions to his German texts with the addition of ‘song’. He refers to poems such as ‘Der versunkene Brautring’ (The Sunken Ring), ‘Mila’ (Mila), ‘Elwa und Selmis’ (Elwe and Selmis), ‘Des fernen Schiffers Lied’ (The Sailor’s Song), and many others simply as eine littauische Daina (A Lithuanian Song). In the second volume, several texts have Volkslied in their title, such as ‘Der Lindentanz. Samländisches Volkslied’ (Lindententen Dance. A Sambian Folk Song), ‘Winter-Mai und Sommer-Schnee. Lith. Volkslied’ (Winter May and Summer Snow. A Lithuanian folk song) and ‘Der Hirtenknabe. Litth. Volkslied’ [The Shepherd. A Lithuanian folk song]. It seems that such a distinction by Rhesa is not accidental. His Prutena ‘songs’ are simply his own compositions, since here we find characters already familiar from other poems, such as Elma or Elwa and Selmis. At the same time, the poems with the prefix Volkslied can be seen as a free translation of folk songs. The ‘Lithuanian’, ‘Sambian’, or ‘Warmian’ songs may simply be the Prussian place names from which Rhesa drew his motifs. Rhesa’s double concept of homeland is well illustrated by his 1812 ode ‘An das Vaterland’ (To the Fatherland) (PRUTENA, II), which reveals all the components of Rhesa’s patriotism. The author recounts the history of the Prussian land and the peaceful and tranquil life of its inhabitants before the conquest. The ‘sons of Toiskon’, the Germanic Crusaders, turned the wheel of history in another direction. New denominations, the consolidation of Luther’s teaching in the Duchy of Prussia, the merits of the University of Albertina, the bright personalities of the land, the kings, the battlefields, and the sound of the longed-for victory over Napoleon – this is the history of the land and the homeland, the story of an enlightened priest, scribe and poet of Lithuanian origin.
Intertextual Links of Johann Ferdinand Kelch’s poem Lietuvininkai: Christian Gottlieb Mielcke’s Poem Pilkainis
Johann Ferdinand Kelch’s (Lith. Johanas Ferdinandas Kelkis, 1801–1877) poem Lietuvininkai (Prussian Lithuanians), composed in the second half of the nineteenth century, was first published in the monthly magazine Saulėteka (Sunrise, Nos 8–9, 1900), edited by Martynas Jankus (1858–1946) and printed in his print shop. It is a 472-line historical poem written in a four-line cross-rhymed iamb. The first historical poem in Lithuanian – Pilkainis by Christian Gottlieb Mielcke (Lith. Kristijonas Gottlybas Milkus, 1733–1807), printed in the early nineteenth century – inspired Johann Ferdinand Kelch to write his own historical poem Lietuvininkai. Kelch’s decision to build on and interpret his predecessor in his own way was a natural one: this was due to the issues of national and religious identity, which had become highly relevant in the socio-cultural context of mid-nineteenth-century Prussian Lithuania. The intertextuality of Lietuvininkai should not be seen as a literary method consciously chosen by the author but as a kind of unfolding of the collective subconscious. Mielcke based his poem on the rationalist model of historical development that had gained a foothold in the Age of Enlightenment. Kelch built the story of the Prussian Lithuanians on a religious narrative of history. By tracing the ancestry of the Prussian Lithuanians back to the descendants of the biblical Noah, he seemed to try to inculcate Christianity into the ancestors of the old Balts and at the same time to suppress the memories of historical injustice, which had been reawakened by the Germanisation that had intensified in the mid-nineteenth century. Mielcke’s poem became a suitable model, which, when followed, supplemented, and adjusted, made it possible to rethink the most dramatic period of the nation’s history, to strongly suggest that Christianisation of the Prussian Lithuanians was God’s intended plan, and that having won eternal salvation, one should not really regret the loss of national greatness. The Germans, who brought Christianity to Prussian Lithuania, replaced the descendants of the Lithuanians who had once come to the region. A natural civilisational change took place: some newcomers had replaced others. In his poem, Kelch abandons Mielcke’s optimistic idea of an equal partnership between the two nations. Kelch borrowed the theme, the plot, and the rhyme scheme from Mielcke and incorporated textual interpolations into his poem. The fact that he took note of, adopted, and developed the most artistic episodes of Mielcke’s otherwise artistically less strong poem shows that he had a good philological ear. Kelch’s act of re-reading and reinterpreting Mielcke’s poem is unparalleled in nineteenth-century Lithuanian literature. It is a unique artistic experiment that not only imparted additional depth (the perceptual vertical) to Kelch’s poem, but also actualised the source that inspired the creative act in the cultural memory of the nation – Christian Gottlieb Mielcke’s poem Pilkainis.
Reception of Danielius Kleinas’s Ideas in Povilas Frydrichas Ruigys’s Grammar Anfangsgründe einer Littauischen Grammatick (1747)
The article analyses the reception of Danielius Kleinas’s ideas in Povilas Frydrichas Ruigys’s grammar Anfangsgründe einer Littauischen Grammatick (1747, hereinafter RG). Two aims were pursued: (1) to single out Kleinas’s ideas that Ruigys found relevant and suitable for describing the language of the mid-eighteenth century and (2) to identify the intentions of Ruigys in adopting them. Using an analytical interpretive approach based on philological analysis, it is shown that Kleinas’s Grammatica Litvanica (1653, hereinafter KG) was a particularly important source. The need of the Age of Enlightenment to learn about the world and to educate society is highlighted in discussing the motives for adopting and adapting ideas. The study of the reception of Kleinas’s ideas leads to the following conclusions: 1. Frequent references to KG, both explicit and implicit, point to a similar school of linguistic thought and the acceptability of its ideas. 2. KG was a particularly important source in two respects: (1) selecting a dialect for grammar and distinguishing it from others and (2) developing an extensive section on syntax. 3. By adopting Kleinas’s key idea of choosing one dialect as the basis for the description of the Lithuanian language, Ruigys expanded its area to two counties: Įsrutis (Ger. Insterburg) and Ragainė (Ger. Ragnit). He considered the other dialects in Prussia and Lithuania Major as secondary. Ruigys was the first to classify Lithuanian dialects by the opposition main : secondary or centre : periphery. 4. By placing emphasis on the stability, universality, and prestige of the main dialect in relation to other dialects, Ruigys continued the tradition of forming standard language on the basis of one dialect, which was initiated by Kleinas. In the eighteenth century, this was relevant for the written form of the language. 5. By introducing secondary dialects, he aimed to facilitate the integration of individuals appointed to priesthood in a new linguistic environment. This was important for the spoken form of the language. 6. In preparing a grammar for learning Lithuanian by non-Lithuanians, Ruigys paid considerable attention to syntax. By adopting Kleinas’s ideas and expanding them, he sought to develop the ability to produce a coherent text. The ability to generate well-formed sentences is important for both written and spoken language. 7. One of the characteristics of the language teaching methodology developed by Ruigys was the development of linguistic communicative competence. In the Age of Enlightenment, this was particularly necessary for the organisation of public education through churches and schools. Taking up earlier ideas and adapting them to the needs of the eighteenth century, Ruigys developed a tool for non-Lithuanians to learn Lithuanian, to develop linguistic competence appropriate to their duties, and to adapt to a new environment. 8. RG is focused not only on setting out the basics of the language but also on reducing the distance between written and spoken language. 9. Since the description of the grammatical structure of the Lithuanian language in the mid-seventeenth century was suitable as a basis for a grammar of the mid-eighteenth century, it evidences the slight change in the language itself.
inguistics of seventeenth-eighteenth-century Prussian Lithuania
Gedimino laiškai, sudarė ir iš lotynų kalbos vertė Sigitas Narbutas, įvadą ir komentarus parašė Darius Kuolys, iliustracijas piešė Marius Jonutis, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2023, 64 p. ISBN 987-609-425-344-7 Lietuvos ir Žemaičių Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės metraštis. Monografinis tyrimas ir kritinis leidimas, parengė Kęstutis Gudmantas = Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Samogitia. A Study and a Critical Edition, edited by Kęstutis Gudmantas, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2024, 459 p., faks. ISBN 978-609-425-127-6 Žvaigždės pakeičia skeptrus: 1695 m. Kražių kolegijos rankraščio poezija, sudarė ir parengė Ona Dilytė-Čiurinskienė, iš lotynų ir lenkų kalbos vertė Ona Dilytė-Čiurinskienė, Regina Koženiauskienė, Sigitas Narbutas, komentarus rašė Ona-Dilytė-Čiurinskienė, Regina Koženiauskienė, 2024, 423 p.: iliustr., santr. angl. k. ISBN 978-609-425-293-8 Pirmasis Juozapato Kuncevičiaus gyvenimo aprašymas Relatio (1624). Palaimintojo Juozapato kankinystės poezija XVII a. knygelėje Rhythmus: studija, Relatio komentuotas leidimas, vertimas iš lotynų kalbos; straipsnis, Rhythmus kopija ir perrašas, poetinis vertimas iš lotynų kalbos, parengė Mintautas Čiurinskas ir Ona Dilytė-Čiurinskienė, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2023, 224 p., iliustr, faks. ISBN 978-609-425-373-7 Mintautas Čiurinskas, Europinė Oršos pergalės (1514) propaganda ir Lietuvos kultūra, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2024, 207 p., iliustr. ISBN 978-609-425-387-4 Oršos pergalės (1514) šaltiniai: poezija, proginiai ir naujienų spaudiniai = Fontes victoriae apud Orsham A. D. 1514: carmina, editiones occasionales et libelli nuntiorum, sudarė ir parengė, [įvadą ir komentarus parašė] Mintautas Čiurinskas, iš lotynų kalbos vertė Mintautas Čiurinskas, Ona Dilytė-Čiurinskienė, Eugenija Ulčinaitė, iš vokiečių kalbos vertė Vilija Gerulaitienė, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2024, 343 p., iliustr. ISBN 978-609-425-386-7 Mokymo metodas Lietuvos provincijos pijorų mokykloms. Apšvietos edukacijos naujovės, sudarė, iš lotynų kalbos vertė, komentarus parengė ir įžanginį straipsnį parašė Asta Vaškelienė, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2024, 270 p., faks. ISBN 978-609-425-256-3
Works Printed in Vilnius in the Eighteenth-Century Manuscript Catalogue of the Vilnius Jesuit Academy Library
Based on the eighteenth-century manuscript catalogue of the Vilnius Jesuit Academy library, the purpose of the article was to investigate what part of the library consisted of the output of the printing houses of Vilnius, to identify the printers of Vilnius whose output the library had and the number of those works, and the themes of books that the Jesuits read. From approximately 4500 entries in the catalogue, 155 entries were selected in which Vilnius was indicated as the place of publication or identified as such. All the information, including transcribed catalogue entries, identified publications, books belonging to the Vilnius Jesuit Academy library with their provenance marks and the current known location of their storage, is provided separately in the appendix. During the research, 143 titles were identified, and 259 copies were counted. After identifying almost all the printed works selected from the catalogue, it turned out that the library had eight titles (nine copies) printed in the sixteenth century, 68 titles (122 copies) from the seventeenth century, and 67 titles (128 copies) printed in the eighteenth century. Most of them were the output of the Vilnius Academy printing house. Religious texts, comprising polemical, hagiographic, and theological writings, constituted 56 per cent of all printed works, while works on logics, mathematics, geography, and physics made up only 7.7 per cent. Various calendars started to be printed in the second half of the eighteenth century and became very popular. The largest number of works printed in Vilnius were in Latin (48.6 per cent) and Polish (47.2 per cent); works in French, German, Lithuanian, Latvian, and other languages accounted for 4.2 per cent. The inscriptions in the books reveal that the Jesuits not only bought books but also received them as gifts. Not only famous patrons but also the authors such as Maciej Miłuński, Jan Zrzelski, Antonius Aloysius Misztołt donated books to the library. The Vilnius Academy printing house also donated several books. Thus, the manuscript catalogue of the Vilnius Jesuit Academy library is a particularly valuable source for researching the history of the Vilnius University library in the eighteenth century. The printed works recorded in it point to the Jesuits’ areas of interest, and the surviving books reveal the history of books entering the library and their wanderings through the libraries of various European countries.
manuscript catalogue of the Vilnius Jesuit Academy library
output of the Vilnius Academy printing house
sixteenth-eighteenth-century works printed in Vilnius
The Account of the Death of King Wladyslaw IV Vasa in Merkinė on 20 May 1648 (ed. and translated from Latin into Lithuanian by Mintautas Čiurinskas)
The Account of the Illness and Death of Wladyslaw Vasa
The article presents an anonymous account of the last days of life and death of Wladislaw Vasa, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, in Merkinė. The ruler died on 20 May 1648, and the text in question is one of the most detailed sources on this event. The article also includes extracts from Wladislaw Vasa’s will, hitherto unused in the historiography, which reflect his wish regarding the burial place and his bequest to St Casimir’s Chapel after his death. That this ruler’s heart rests in St Casimir’s Chapel of Vilnius Cathedral, which he had finished within his lifetime, was due to the circumstances of his death in Lithuania, the autopsy carried out, and the will of the nobles of Lithuania rather than that of the ruler. On the other hand, the latter was also exercised, by burying his body in the mausoleum of the Polish kings in Wawel Cathedral in Cracow. The introductory article discusses some of the circumstances of the ruler’s stay and illness in Merkinė, as well as the source itself. The publication includes a full Latin-Lithuanian translation of the account of Wladislaw Vasa’s illness and death.
The Orthography and Dating of Simonas Daukantas’s Unfinished Second Collection of Song Bundles
Simonas Daukantas collected Lithuanian folk songs for almost his entire creative life (at least 1827–1861). He published his first collection of songs in 1846 (DAJNES Żiamajtiû pagał Ƶôdiû Dajnĩnikû ĩszraszytas, Petropĩlie: Spaudinie pas C. Kray) and was preparing the second one, but did not complete it. This article mostly deals with the orthography and dating of the three bundles of songs (XXIV, XXX, and XXX) that were intended for this second collection. It also elaborates on the time Daukantas completed his hand copy of Simonas Stanevičius song edition of 1829 (DAYNAS ŻEMAYCZIU SURYNKTAS YR YSŹDUTAS PAR SYMONA STANEWICZE Mokslynyka Lyteraturas yr Grażiuju Prytirymu. WYLNIUJE. SPAUSTUWIEJ’ B. NEUMANA) and edited the orthography of his own handwritten songs. One song, “It Is Hard to our Little Neighbor” (“Mūsų susiedeliui vargas yra”; XXIV bundle f. 33v), may be considered originating in the somewhat earlier period, in the last years of Daukantas residing in St Petersburg (…–1850). Its most palpable orthographic features: <ąn> [an, ọn], <ó> [ọ], possibly <‑tĩ>. During Varniai period (1850–1855) Daukantas must have written down several songs: “For that One Night” (“Dėl tos vienos nakties”) with the names of winds and a proverb (XXIV bundle f. 30r); three songs (XXIV bundle f. 30r); and the song “(He) Sings Alone” (“Vienas dainuoja”; XXIV bundle f. 32r). Graphochronologically significant orthographic features: <‑ti>; <‑jo> praet. 3; <ą> [ą] in word‑initial and word‑medial positions. During the Kálnėnai period (1859–1861), Daukantas possibly wrote down most of the songs he intended for his second collection of folk songs—those were the major texts of the bundles XXIV (f. 2r–29r), XXX (f. 1r–12v), and XXXI (f. 1r–18v). Their most salient orthographic features were: <‑ja> praet. 3; <an> [ą] in word‑initial and word‑medial positions; <Rig‑> (also often older apostrophic forms: <‑j’> in iness. sg. [f.] case; <Lietuw‑>). Somewhat later, but still, in Kálnėnai, Daukantas must have copied a book of Lithuanian songs by Simonas Stanevičius (StDƵn, 1829) in his own hand. The newer orthographic features dominate this copy: non‑apostrophic iness. sg. (f.) <‑ie> (<‑je>) and <Letuw‑> (<Létuw‑>). During Papilė period (1861–1864), Daukantas probably wrote down one song, “The More Seldom I Sowed” (“Juo retai sėjau”; XXIV bundle f. 33r), and both added footnotes and corrected the texts in the XXX bundle. Palpable orthographic features were: <‑ie> iness. sg. (f.); <Letuw‑>; ultimately the newest latest corrections clearly visible there: <‑ja> → <‑jo> praet. 3; <‑a> → <‑o> gen. sg. m. Analogous corrections of <‑a> → <‑o> must have been occasionally made in XXXI f. 4v and StDƵn 18 also during the Papilė period.