Lietuvos istorijos institutas

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the dukes Wiśniowiecki rose to the ranks of the most influential nobles of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Their interests, political actions, as well as disagreements or frictions within the family, had a significant impact on the course of political life in Lithuanian and Polish state at the time. The state was going through a period of shocks. Lithuania was overwhelmed by the civil war – a majority of the nobility revolted against the hegemony of the magnates Sapiehas, led by other aristocratic families dissatisfied with the Sapieha family. In 1700, the Wiśniowiecki rose to the leaders of this anti-Sapieha camp. In addition, the state became involved in the Great Northern War (1700–1721). The article discusses his motives, as well as of his brother Michał Serwacy and their mother Anna Dolska, for political actions in which they participated in 1700–1707, as presented in the memoirs of Janusz Antoni Wiśniowiecki. It is based on both published memoirs of Janusz Antoni Wiśniowiecki, covering 1700–1710, as well as an unpublished fragment covering the period of 1707–1708. It is revealed how Janusz Antoni explained political decisions of his close relatives and his own. The motives of those political actions in which the views of the members of the Wiśniowiecki family intersected or did not completely coincide are analysed. The motives of the actions of the dukes Wiśniowiecki and their mother during the decisive years of the Lithuanian Civil War (1700), presented in the memoirs of Janusz Antoni Wiśniowiecki, are discussed. Another set of political actions, the interpretation of the motives of which is analysed in the article, consists of the actions of the Wiśniowiecki and their mother that led into a closer relationship with the Swedes and their protégé on the throne of the Polish and Lithuanian state Stanisław Leszczyński, and which eventually ended in the overt crossing of the Wiśniowiecki into the camp of supporters of Leszczyński and the Swedes in 1707. Memoires reveal the obvious friction between the mother and her sons. The property dispute between the sons, especially Michał Serwacy and his wife, Kotryna Dolska, on the one hand, and the dukes’ mother, Anna Dolska, on the other, had to affect the relationships between the members of the Wiśniowiecki family when they were taking political initiatives. Although the mother was more in conflict with the younger son over property matters, there were frictions in political activities with both sons. The positions of the sons and the mother during the Lithuanian Civil War were especially inconsistent, when Anna Dolska suppressed and hindered her sons' initiatives against the Sapiehas. Janusz Antoni Wiśniowiecki tended to explain his mother's actions both during and after the civil war in Lithuania, i.e. when Anna Dolska tried to persuade Hetman of Left-bank Ukraine Ivan Mazepa to support Stanisław Leszczyński and the Swedes, by her personal motives – a desire to marry Kazimierz Jan Sapieha, and later her intention (or just a proposition) to marry Mazepa. Such an interpretation may indicate a tendency towards a simplified interpretation of the mother’s motives. However, it is not appropriate to completely ignore the son's approach to the motives of his mother's actions. The recollections reveal the close co-operation of the two brothers Wiśniowiecki in the political sphere and the efforts of Janusz Antoni to fully justify his younger brother for the accusations of crossing into the Swedish camp, explaining such decision by his selfless desire to save the Homeland and to protect himself and his relatives from the upcoming threats.

Šis tekstas parengtas remiantis apskritojo stalo diskusija, kuri buvo organizuota Lietuvos etnologijos žurnalo specialiojo numerio „Aktualioji antropologija: pasaulio lietuvių tyrimai ir įžvalgos“ proga. Diskusijoje siekta aptarti socialinės ir kultūrinės antropologijos aktualijas pasaulyje ir Lietuvoje, ypač žvelgiant į dabartinį pandemijos kontekstą bei jo metamus iššūkius visuomenėms bei antropologijai kaip disciplinai. Diskusijos dalyvės: dr. Ieva Jusionytė, dr. Neringa Klumbytė, dr. Rima Praspaliauskienė, dr. Asta Vonderau. Diskusijos moderatorė – dr. Kristina Jonutytė.

The 20th century Lithuanian writer Maironis is known for his collection of poems called The Voices of Spring. It was reprinted five times during the author’s lifetime and contains revisions made by the poet himself. Yet the strongest textual evidence of doubt, rejection, and pondering upon poetical decisions is to be found in the surviving manuscripts (drafts). The reconstructed dynamics of the textual variation within the fragments (a verse or a word phrase) or the segments (a stanza or the whole structure) of seven different poems within those drafts reveal intricate genetic interference between the units of the poems’ texts. The case of self-editing in Maironis manuscripts suggests that the concept of textual variation may be interpreted as the process of transferring the doubt – which concerns the decision whether the textual variant is to be accepted as suitable for the textual situation or to be rejected altogether – within the segments of a particular poem or between its versions, or even different poems (e.g., Vakarop Mintys and Dienų Sielvartai). Based on the macrogenetic analysis of Maironis’ drafts, the former trend of self-editing was called ‘the transport of indecision over revisions’. This concept was concluded by creating models and schemes of the micro- and macrogenetic changes reconstructed from the manuscripts. The interpretative manner of the research – the formation of the avant-texte alongside the application of the analogy of molecular transportation in biochemistry – also inspired the more general reflections. For example, the idea of indecision being transported over revisions helped to consider both the