Lietuvos istorijos institutas

Jono III Sobieskio valdymo laikotarpiu Sapiegos įgijo reikšmingą įtaką Lietuvos Didžiojoje Kunigaikštystėje. Istoriografijoje netgi akcentuojama šios giminės hegemonija. Jono III Sobieskio pastangos sutelkti opoziciją Sapiegoms rezultatų davė tik po valdovo mirties, kada vidutinės bajorijos atstovai, diskretiškai remiami Sapiegų įtaką palaužti siekiančių didikų, iškėlė teisių sulyginimo (vadinamosios koekvacijos) programą ir siekė šią programą įgyvendinti. Būtent šios bajorijos grupuotės pasisakė už Vetinų dinastijos atstovo išrinkimą į Abiejų Tautų Respublikos sostą, tikėdamosi, kad tai pakeis vidaus situaciją Lietuvos Didžiojoje Kunigaikštystėje. Ir jos nesuklydo: Sapiegų pozicijos susilpnėjo. Iš naujojo Abiejų Tautų Respublikos valdovo Augusto II buvo tikimasi paramos vadinamųjų respublikonų grupuotei, tačiau Augustas II, oficialiai siekdamas išlaikyti jėgų pusiausvyrą Lietuvoje, mėgino demonstruoti palankumą Sapiegoms. Vis dėlto pusiausvyros išlaikyti nepavyko. Lietuvos Didžiojoje Kunigaikštystėje prasidėjo ginkluota kova prieš Sapiegas. Vidaus kovos rezultatas buvo tas, kad, kilus Didžiajam Šiaurės karui, Sapiegos stojo į Švedijos karaliaus Karolio XII pusę. Respublikonai paramos tikėjosi ne tik iš sunkioje situacijoje atsidūrusio Augusto II, bet ir užmezgė ryšius su Rusijos caru Petru I. Švedijos karaliaus pralaimėjimo akivaizdoje Sapiegos buvo priversti ieškoti susitaikymo su Augustu II kelių ir būdų. Svarbi šios giminės pastangų susigrąžinti Abiejų Tautų Respublikos valdovo malonę dalis buvo dokumento, iš Sapiegų giminės pozicijų nušviečiančio įvykius Lietuvoje ir aiškinančio jų nelojalų elgesį, paskelbimas.

The society of the first Republic of Lithuania was not homogenous in its national and cultural self-perception. Although most intellectuals associated national culture exclusively with the cultural heritage of ethnic Lithuanians and Lithuanian-language writing, a part of the Lithuanian society’s elite opposed the ethno-linguistic approach to Lithuanian culture. One of the most prominent opponents of cultural ethno-nationalism in the first half of the 20th century was the literary historian Mykolas Biržiška. As the basis of national literature, he considered the society of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (and that of the first half of the 19th century) to be more important than language and therefore, he developed a multilanguage conception of Lithuanian literature as an alternative to the ethno-linguistic one. At the center of the canon of national literature, as formed by Biržiška, is the work of the world-famous poet Adam Mickiewicz. Realizing that in order to spread the concept of national literature to the public, it was necessary to first introduce it into schools. Biržiška made an effort to develop the national curriculum for Lithuanian literature according to the model of the history of Lithuanian literature that he created. To this end, he participated in the preparation of the curriculum for Lithuanian literature and made efforts to ensure Mickiewicz’s canonical position there. Biržiška also produced methodological material for schools (including selected works of Mickiewicz).

The aim of this article is to establish which events of greater historical impact and in what manner affected the community of the Lithuanian Friars Minor Conventual. The article attempts to uncover what historical events were noticed, how they were reflected and thus inscribed in the collective memory of the Conventual Franciscans based primarily, but not exclusively, in Vilnius. The principal object of this investigation is the Memoriale of the Friars Minor Conventual that began to be compiled in 1702 by fr. Antoni Gumowski and received its final shape at the hands fr. Antoni Niewiarowski in 1842. This manuscript is kept at the Lithuanian State Historical Archive (f. 1135, ap. 20, b. 669). It includes miscellaneous materials relating to the culture of memoria as was practiced at the convent of Vilnius. For the sake of comparison, the information contained in the necrologies of the Valkininkai convent has also been used. The idea is, that memorial books containing detailed biographies of famous friars broke out of the limits of being a strictly necrological commemoration and approached to chronicling contemporary events. The local collective identity of the Vilnius Friars Minor Conventual rested on the memory of the Franciscan martyrs of Vilnius (fourteenth century) and the first two bishops of Vilnius, who were Franciscan friars themselves: Andrzej Jastrzębiec (1388–1398) and Jakub Plichta (1398–1407). The description of events and the enumeration of the names of friars of the fifteenth sixteenth centuries indicate that all this data was transmitted through the mediation of written records and notes. The 1610 fire of Vilnius may be viewed as the oldest event inscribed in the living memory of the early eighteenth-century Franciscan community. Other events that became seared into their collective memory are the mid-seventeenth century Muscovite invasion, the Swedish occupation of Vilnius in 1702, the great pestilence of 1710, and the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. All these events of greater historical significance provided stimulus to produce a number of detailed descriptions of local events as lived through by the local Franciscan communities and individual friars. Their experiences range from a collective dislocation of communal life to the individual martyrdoms. The Vilnius Memoriale also describes events related to the Russian imperial policy in a matter-of-fact fashion, allowing a reader to draw conclusions as to the policy of interference, control and the eventual suppression of monastic communities and their convents.

The article investigates Simonas Daukantas’s (1793–1864) BUDĄ Senowęs-Lëtuwiû Kalnienû ĩr Ƶámajtiû (The Character of the Lithuanian Highlanders and Samogitians of the Old Times, 1845; hereafter Bd) with regards to genre, origin of the title, and the dominant German sources of the work. It claims that Daukantas conceived Bd because he understood that the future of Lithuania is closely related to its past. A single, united version of Lithuanian history, accepted by the whole nation, was necessary for the development of Lithuanian national identity and collective feeling. The history, which up until then had not been published in Lithuanian, could have helped to create the contours of a new society by presenting the paradigmatic events of the past. The collective awareness of the difference between the present and the past (and future) should have given the Lithuanian community an incentive to move forward. Daukantas wrote Bd quickly, between 1842 and May 28, 1844, because he drew on his previous work ISTORYJE ƵEMAYTYSZKA (History of the Lithuanian Lowlands, ~1831–1834; IƵ). Based on the findings of previous researchers of Daukantas’s works, after studying the dominant sources of Bd and examining their nature, this article comes to the conclusion that the work has features of both cultural history and regional historiography. The graphically highlighted form of the word “BUDĄ” used in the work’s title should be considered the author’s code. Daukantas, influenced by the newest culturological research and comparative linguistics of the 18th–19th centuries, propagated that Lithuanians originate from India and, like many others, found evidence of this in the Lithuanian language and culture. He considered the Budini (Greek Βουδίνοι), who are associated with the followers of Buddha, to be Lithuanian ancestors. He found proof of this claim in the language and chose the word “būdas” (character), which evokes aforementioned associations, to express the idea of the work. The synthesis of Buddha and Odin (who came to Europe from the East) by Alexander Humboldt and others may have determined the choice of the title’s form as a code for readers: Lithuanians belong among “the list of nations with a rich cultural context.” Bd is closely connected with the personal history of Daukantas, as he, the son of Kotryna Odinaitė, associated himself with the history of the high-status ancestors—Odinai. The legendary history of the ancestral Odinai determined the self-confidence and the perception of Daukantas’s uniqueness, which was necessary for cultural activities. This is confirmed by the text of Bd, where, unlike in previous works, there are many examples of the subjectivity inherent in the aesthetics of Romanticism, reliance on personal experience, and individual style. Bd draws on 85 sources total: 11 are from ancient and late Antiquity (Herodotus, Pytheas of Massalia, Strabon, Diodorus Siculus, Claudius Ptolemy, Titus Pomponius Mela, Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Publius Ovidius Naso, Gaius Plinius Secundus Maior, Marcus Junianus Justinus, Procopius of Caesarea), 21 have local origins (Wincenty Kadłubek, Jan Długosz, Maciej Stryjkowski, Mykolas Daukša, Michalo Lituanus, Jan Łasicki, Albertas Kojalavičius-Vijūkas, Franciszek Ksawery Michał Bohusz, Teodor Narbutt, Tadeusz Czacki), 13 are from other countries (Danish, Dutch, French, Russian, Swedish), and 35 sources (but 40 titles) are from authors of Prussian or German descent, most of whom lived in East Prussia, other parts of the Baltics, or St. Petersburg. The tradition of German historiography is prevalent in Bd and individual authors are cited more than 30 times. Therefore, it can be concluded that the attention of this region’s scholars to the Prussian and Lithuanian language, history, culture, as well as the high appreciation of the conquered pagans adopted from the Medieval chronicles was one of the reasons why German sources were chosen.