Lietuvos istorijos institutas

Straipsnyje siekiama pateikti apibendrintą vienos pagrindinių XVIII a. pirmosios pusės maisto gamybos šakų – mėsininkų-gyvulių skerdikų charakteristiką. Plačiai suvokiamo Vilniaus amatininkų „pasaulio“ tyrimai sudaro prielaidas kelti klausimą apie tai, ką apskritai žinome apie XVIII a. pirmojoje pusėje Vilniuje gyvenusius mėsininkus-skerdikus? Atsakyti į šį klausimą galime tik atlikę statistinę bei struktūrinę šaltinių analizę. Tyrimų objektu pasirinkti tik į cechinę organizaciją 1711–1748 m. laikotarpiu susivieniję mėsininkai. Straipsnyje išryškinamos sritys, kurių aprėptyje galime daryti tam tikras išvadas apie Vilniaus mėsininkų gyvenimą ir veiklą, o, remdamiesi šiomis išvadomis, sukurti kiek įmanoma universalesnį ir apibendrintą XVIII a. pirmojoje pusėje Vilniuje gyvenusio mėsininko paveikslą. Ieškant atsakymų į šiame straipsnyje iškeltus klausimus, išanalizuota Lietuvos valstybės istorijos archyve saugoma pirminių šaltinių medžiaga: ištirtos Vilniaus magdeburginio teismo (senasis fondas Nr. 22) bei Vilniaus magistrato (senasis fonas Nr. 23) knygos. Daug įdomios medžiagos surasta fonde Nr. 458, kuriame saugomos Vilniaus magistrato sąskaitų knygos (daugiausia mokesčių tarifų registrai). Atliekant tyrimą pagalbinę funkciją atliko publikuoti šaltiniai, iš kurių svarbiausi yra Vilniaus cechų aktai ir naujųjų miestiečių sąrašų publikacija. Išanalizavus šaltinius nustatyta, kad plėtros aspektu Vilniaus skerdikai buvo gana hermetiška (uždara) ir stabili grupė, apgyvendinta daugiausia katalikiškoje kultūroje arba Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės visuomenės kultūroje, daugiausia Vilniaus vaivadijoje. Mėsininkų-skerdikų grupė sudarė savo mikrovisuomenę, kuri veikė miesto struktūroje kaip didelė šeima. Viena vertus, kiekvienas skerdikas turėjo savo veiklos laisvę, tačiau rašytiniai įstatai ir susiformavę papročiai lėmė abipusę vieni kitų kontrolę. Būtent tokiu būdu buvo atliekama į Vilniaus rinką tiekiamos mėsos kokybės patikra. Užsiimdami tiek gyvulių skerdimu, tiek ir žalios mėsos bei odų prekyba, Vilniaus mėsininkai-skerdikai neišvengiamai turėjo tiesioginius kontaktus su žydais ir totoriais, nuosekliai siekdami apriboti jų veiklą bei pajungti savo kontrolei visą prekybą mėsos turguje. Kita vertus, mėsininkų-skerdikų cechas turėjo ryšių ir su kitais cechais, daugiausia odminiais ir didžiaisiais bei mažaisiais odininkais, įsiterpdavo į jų profesines kompetencijas bei konkuravo dėl odų supirkėjų. Siekdami apsaugoti savo profesines teises, ypač „išplėstinių kompetencijų“ srityje, kurias sudarė prekyba odomis, sugebėjo netgi manipuliuoti miesto valdžia. Mėsininkai-skerdikai sudarė bendriją, kuri sugebėjo kovoti už savo gerovę, o geriausias šios kovos įrodymas yra gautas leidimas prekiauti žuvimi pasninko laikotarpiu. Tokia situacija galėjo susiklostyti dėl to, kad mėsininkų-skerdikų parduodamų produktų paklausa visada buvo labai didelė. Todėl reikėjo visokeriopai „saugoti“ savo profesiją, kuri buvo savaime pelninga, o šiai veiklai vykdyti nebuvo būtini nei specialūs įrengimai ar technika, nei specialūs gebėjimai ar žinios.

The epistolary legacy of Heinrich Lysius (Lith. Henrikas Lyzijus, 1670–1731) related to the affairs of the churches and schools of Prussian Lithuania provides insight into both, the then state of education and the efforts to introduce the Lithuanian language as a subject of compulsory primary education. The legacy of this theme is stored in several German memory institutions (now 8 letters are known) but the search for letters and documents must be continued. Their part containing data on the establishment of the educational system in Prussian Lithuania in 1710s–1720s is analysed here. The obligations of King Friedrich Wilhelm I to Lysius to establish a compulsory primary education system was also dictated by the continuous correspondence on education issues with Frederick Wilhelm I, the King of Prussia, and August Hermann Francke (1663– 1727), a professor at the University of Halle. Two letters by Lysius, which were written to Frederick Wilhelm I, the King of Prussia (1688–1740, ruled in 1713–1740), are kept in the Secret State Archives of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (Ger. Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz; GStA PK), are significant as sources bearing evidence to the initial stage of the activities of the Lithuanian language seminar at the University of Königsberg in 1718–1721, which had been scarcely documented until now. The letter dated 27 October 1718 allows for the conclusion that in the winter semester of 1718 the seminar was not yet open: the facilities and resources had not been established, no educational activities took place, and only organisational preparatory actions were carried out. At that time, Lysius only sought to attract students (12–20) from Prussian Lithuania and to provide them with preferences: alumnate and convict. The letter dated 31 July 1722 bears evidence to the following facts relating to the activities of the seminar: (1) the seminar led by Lysius in Königsberg was conducted for at least two years and was started for a third year; (2) its activities terminated in 1721 not due to the lack of students or their inability to learn and not through the fault of Lysius; but rather as a result of organisational decisions of the King: the refusal to grant the post of the senior preacher of the chamber to Lysius and the termination of his powers to take care of churches and schools; (3) the seminar was conducted according to the principles set by Lysius; (4) the activities of the seminar were productive: it prepared a group of persons suitable for serving in Prussian Lithuania and three of them, when vacancies opened, began working in schools.

This article is dedicated to one of the most notable late baroque architects of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Giuseppe Fontana ( Józef III, 1716 – before 1773). Being of Italian blood, architect Giuseppe Fontana was actually born in Warsaw, the capital of the Commonwealth of Both Nations, leaving a clear footprint in the culture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Unable to establish himself in Vilnius, he moved close to Vitebsk. His choice to live and work on the north-eastern outskirts of the Commonwealth of Both Nations could have been influenced by his contacts with the influential representatives of the ruling class of Vitebsk voivodeship and also by the finding of a free space, “non monopolized” by the architects, strategically convenient geographic location and the aggregation of financially capable customers of architecture. The story of the family of Giuseppe Fontana is outstanding in the general cultural context. After settling in the Commonwealth of Both Nations at the end of the seventeenth century they shaped a peculiar dynasty of architects, which already in the first part of the eighteenth century was fully assimilated and Polonized. The professional career of father Giuseppe Giacomo (Józef II, 1676–1739/41), brothers Giacomo (Jakub, 1710–1773) and Giovanni Canzio (Jan Kanty, 1731–1800) in Warsaw and status in the royal court, professional career of uncle Domenic (Dominik, ca. 1680 – before 1755) in Grodno, all their contacts with influential aristocrats, accumulated family wealth and earned offices aided in reaching significant valuation in society and climbing the social ladder. In 1768, the Fontana family for their merits to the King was granted the status of nobility along with all respective rights, duties and privileges of the estate. The article analyses professional achievements of the Fontana family, their valuation in society and change in social status in the general context of artists and artisans. It shows, how the situation of family members and aspirations to become part of the class of nobility affected personal and professional life of Giuseppe Fontana.

This article attempts to verify the historically set axioms associated with the lengthening of vowels in word endings and its origin that are still popular in the normative tradition of Lithuanian linguistics; first of all, it posits that language contact affects the duration of vowels of Lithuanian mother tongue speakers in Vilnius and that lengthening of vowels thus originates from Russian and Polish. The article compares the pronunciation of three groups of Vilnius residents: 1) Lithuanian (those who grew up in Lithuanian-speaking families), 2) bilingual (those who grew up in a family where only one of the parents was Lithuanian and both Lithuanian and Russian / P olish or another Slavic language were used) and 3) native Russian and Polish speakers. The formulated hypothesis is that if longer endings occur in the speech of native Lithuanian speakers because of the influence of Slavic languages, those respondents who grew up in bilingual families and spoke Lithuanian and Russian or Polish at home would produce a longer /i/ and /u/ than native Lithuanian speakers from monolingual Lithuanian families. After comparative analysis of the stressed vowel duration in endings produced by respondents of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, it became evident that language contact was not the reason why native Lithuanian speakers produce not only short, but also long vowel variants in word endings. The instrumental values of the vowel durations produced by respondents who grew up in bilingual families were not significantly different from those produced by those who grew up in families speaking only Lithuanian. Thus, this feature is the same in the speech of both groups of respondents. Furthermore, the instrumental values of the vowel durations produced by respondents from these two groups were significantly different from the values of the vowel durations produced by native Russian or Polish speakers when speaking Lithuanian. In conclusion, the investigation of the genesis of lengthening in the word ending has disproven the assertion that ending lengthening originated from intense language contact between Lithuanian and Russian, Polish, and other Slavic languages spoken by the ethnic minorities of Lithuania. It is clear that the Slavic languages, which are non-native for Lithuanians or one of the native languages for Vilnius residents from bilingual families, do not, on their own, influence the duration of stressed /i/ or /u/ in the word ending. If lengthening of these vowels spread because of intense language contact, the occurrence of these lengthened variants would not be as rare in Vilnius speech as it currently is. It is possible, however, that other types of language contact could explain the vowel lengthening in word endings. In future research, there are two potential hypotheses that could explain how language contact might have affected ending lengthening in the speech of Vilnius residents. They are both connected with lengthening by non-native Lithuanian speakers. One might wonder whether lengthening could have originated when the ancestors of Vilnius residents transitioned from speaking some Slavic language to speaking Lithuanian on an individual or family level at the end of the 19th century or in the first half of the 20th century. In this case, some Vilnius residents could have inherited lengthening as a mother tongue norm. It is also possible that lengthening in the ending originated as an indicator of an in-group member identity in the post-World War II period, especially among workers in the manufacturing industry. During that period, intense expansion of factories and russification took place and many blue-collar Russian and Russian-speaking workers settled in Vilnius. When speaking Lithuanian, they were probably producing longer vowel endings and this pronunciation could have become an internal code of the group.

The article deals with the problem of professional field of activity of an architect, the place of his profession in the system of crafts, sciences and arts, architects’ position in the society of the eighteenth century. Before the education reform undertaken by the Education Commission, architecture had not been developed into a separate subject that provided professional training in the schools of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The course in architecture was only a part of general education in Vilnius Jesuit Academy, in nobility schools of a military type, and Jesuit and Piarist Collegium Nobilium. There was not enough focus on architectural studies in these most important educational institutions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: a short course of up to two years provided only general and technical basis of the theory of architecture based on classical orders, and it was not capable of training high ranked professionals-practitioners. Until the eighties of the 18th century, to become an independent professional architect one had to continue his studies abroad. It is argued that the Enlightenment concept of a creator serving to the state and society as well as representing them has provided an important impetus to the growth of the value of the architect’s profession and its social status. While many eighteenth-century artists were still very close to craftsmen in terms of social status (it was considered, that they used to do specific tasks and earn a living by employing manual / physical, not intellectual / mental powers), architects, due to the specifics of their education – studies at the university and military careers (they were mostly employed as engineers) were granted titles of nobility. In the eighteenth century, the social and material position of the architect-creator, who had been liberated from the crafts guild system, had evolved considerably and created conditions for privileges and for the establishment in the rank of nobility. The nobilitation of architects, who usually also had the rank of an officer and executed significant orders in large estates, intensified especially during the period of the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Experienced architects were desired and welcome guests in the manors of the nobles. Successful architects used to invest accumulated funds in real estate and manors with land. The architect was no longer just a hired employee but became a patron himself – the one who was initiating and partly financing construction.

This article presents an historical overview of ideas and practices of teaching mother tongue (L1, national, majority language) and literacy in Western Europe. The research is based on a focused analysis of secondary sources and aims to distinguish developmental stages of mother tongue education with their characteristic approaches to language and language didactics. The influence of modern language scholarship on language education at the end of the 20th century is discussed, including the teaching of language awareness. The theoretical framework for the research consists of Matthijssen’s theory of rationality, or valid knowledge in education, Englund’s concept of competing meta-discourses about education, as well as academic, developmental, communicative and utilitarian paradigms of mother tongue teaching conceptualised by Sawyer and Van den Ven (2006). A total of four stages of mother tongue education and literacy are singled out: elite literacy (classical Latin tradition); mass literacy (teaching of the national standard), new literacy (teaching of language as communication) and linguistic literacy (teaching scholarly knowledge about language). Recent projects aiming to include critical language awareness into teacher education and school curricula are discussed separately. At the end of the article, features of contemporary Lithuanian mother tongue education are presented and evaluated in light of current developments in the West. The question is raised to what extent the most recent changes in Western curricula have reached Lithuanian education. This part of the research is based on official Lithuanian education documents and data from the authors’ previous research. It has been shown that the communicative approach to language dominates Lithuanian mother tongue teaching, yet it is intertwined with the pre-scientific academic paradigm characteristic of language education from the early modern times. A critical approach to standard language ideology and teaching of linguistics and language awareness is lacking.