Lietuvos istorijos institutas

This paper offers a reading of Mantas Kvedaravičius’ research findings from the perspective of visual anthropology. The paper describes the continuities between Kvedaravičius’ theoretical concerns on the anthropology of war and his filmmaking approach. These continuities imply an epistemological position that approaches research cinematically and proceeds to write from that position. Kvedaravičius’ work is illustrative of research that takes audio-visual ethnography seriously and works through the possibilities and limitations of different media to produce new stories on the human experience.

The events of 1863–1864 were a turning point in the intellectual life of Vilnius (Rus. Vil’na) and of all Lithuanian and Belarussian gubernias of the then Russian Empire, which were already commonly known as the North-Western krai, i.e. province. The consequences of the defeated uprising – the reorganisation of the Vilnius Museum of Antiquities, the closure of the Vilnius Temporary Archaeological Commission, and the establishment of the Vilnius Public Library – became a recognised fact. Vilnius Central Archives, founded in 1852 and significantly enriched by the archives of the estates confiscated after the uprising and of the closed Catholic monasteries, also played a significant role in the imperial policy, as did the archive of the books of the early acts of the gubernias of Vilnius, Kaunas (Rus. Kovno), Gardinas (Rus. Grodno) and Minsk, and the Vilnius Commission for the studies and publication of the books of the early acts. Since all these institutions operated in the premises of the closed Vilnius University, nowadays their history is justifiably or maybe unjustifiably (as the content of this article would suggest) treated as an integral part of the history of the alma mater. The aim of the newly created Russian centre of science and culture was to annihilate the historical memory of the ‘Polish’ intellectual life that had once been bustling within these walls. All four institutions – or rather all three, since after the reorganisation of the Vilnius Museum of Antiquities it became a division of the Vilnius Public Library – attracted scholars’ attention. Key personalities who used to work in these institutions were also mentioned and sometimes introduced in greater detail.

The language model of Auszra (1883–1886, A) was formed on the basis of Handbuch der Litauischen Sprache by August Schleicher (1856) and Grammatik der littauischen Sprache by Friedrich Kurschat (1876). The publishers of A chose the subdialect of the southwest Highlanders as the basis for their language; its main distinctive features were maintained even when the editors changed. However, the editors’ opinions differed on some language issues. The article analyses how the language of A was changed by the editors Jonas Basanavičius (A1–A5 1883), Jurgis Mikšas (A1–A4 1883; A5/6 [7/8] 1884–A4 1886), and Jonas Šliūpas (A6 1883–A5/6 [7/8] 1884). In the first issues A1–A4 1883 the long vowel [i͘] was marked <y> (sakyti), [č] <cz> (Czekai), [š] <sz> (raszte), [v] <w> (sweczias), [ž] <ź> (źemes). The endings of the instr. sg. of ()ā,ē stem nouns and adjectives were ‑(i)a (skara), ‑e (upe); nom. pl. of (i)ŏ stem nouns and adjectives ‑ei (Totorei), instr. pl. ‑eis (paupeis). The digraph <uo> [uo], used in A1 1883, was replaced by <ů> (nůbodźei) from A2 1883; in A4 1883 <v> (Viešpatie) appeared instead of <w>. A2–A4 1883 shows the influence of Mikšas: he took the diacritical letters <ê, ô, û> from Prussian Lithuanian writing, as well as the praes. 1, 2 pl. of the verb būti with <ē> (ēsame) and praet. 3 of tapti–tapē.

In 1846, Simonas Daukantas (1793–1864) published his translation of Cornelius Nepos’ Lives of Eminent Commanders (in Lithuanian Giwatas Didiujû Karwaidû, GDKs) at Christian Hintze’s printing press in St Petersburg. This study analyses the orthography in GDKs. There was a previous translation of the book by Daukantas in around 1834 (about 12 years earlier), and most of it survives in the shape of a copy by an anonymous hand. The book was printed from a later manuscript that did not survive. It is obvious that Daukantas had the earlier translation in front of him while preparing the publication. But even if he copied some features of his old orthography, he also often changed the orthography according to his later altered preferences. Another book by Daukantas published the same year (1846) was Pasakas Phedro (PaPhs), a translation of The Fables of Phaedrus. The manuscript of PaPhs was prepared in Daukantas’ own quite renewed orthography (compared to his older manuscript of the same fables Pasakas Padraus from the first half of 1836).