Archivum Lithuanicum

The article introduces the letter from six Prussian Lithuanian priests dated 26 February 1660 regarding the manuscript of the new Lithuanian hymnal Naujos Giesmju Knygos (Königsberg, 1666) by Daniel Klein (1609–1666), a priest of Tilžė (Ger. Tilsit), sent to the local

The article narrows down the specification of the Lithuanian entries published by Sigitas Narbutas and Zigmas Zinkevičius in 1989 that had been found in the Latin Missale ad usum romane ecclesie (1501) and introduces a number of newly discovered glosses that make an addition to the compilation. The study found the Missal to contain a total of 95 glosses (158 words and 176 forms) that are used to translate certain parts in the Bible. Five cases that Narbutas and Zinkevičius considered dubious have been revised and updated with new knowledge: three of them are Lithuanian words or phrases – kunſcʒiais, niemielaſsirdingai; o beda; Kaip waikvi numirvſiá iß ʒivato matijnaσ gimvſiam; two instances constitute text written in foreign languages – Lat. uiuere; Pol. dʒiedʒijnij. Two entries now come with an indication of a conjecture: the participial ending dijncivs; the prepositional compound or loanword precʒa. The five glosses that have been newly observed are these: ape piktadeias ~ apie piktadėjas, pakolai, ivadijmo ~ įvedimo (įvadymo, įvadijimo), zemie₉₉ ~ žemėjejus (žemėjijus), ßakiełaes ~ šakelės. The entry ivadijmo represents a special term referring to a holiday of Virgin Mary. The grapheme <ae> in the entry ßakiełaes, just like the <æ> that occurs in some of the other glosses, is not typical of the eastern variant of the written language; these characters – as probably does the definite locative adjective zemie₉₉ (and some forms of the glosses that do not carry the typical eastern characteristics) – testify that at least one of the authors of the entries had been closely connected with the Kėdainiai region and its written texts, and perhaps the tradition of Lithuania Minor. The links that the glosses have with the tradition of Polish biblical texts made it possible to narrow down their dating. Most of the glosses ante quem date back to around 1580s, predating Jakub Wujek’s texts.

In September 2024, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania (NLL ) procured a copy of the Postil (1591) by Jonas Bretkūnas (LNB NPDA F: D1406729/1591). It is the 11th copy kept on file at Lithuanian libraries and museums, and the third Postil outside of Bibliography of Lithuania Lietuvos bibliografija (LB I, 1969 and LBP, 1990) currently held at Lithuanian memory institutions. This copy of the Postil is the oldest Lithuanian book at the NLL . The goal of this article is to introduce the new copy to the academia and the culture society by describing its condition and binding, establishing its provenience, scrutinising the data attesting to the culture of reading and handwritten entries in particular. The copy is studied de visu according to the methodological analysis of the book, with a particular focus on dynamic factors: changes in the meaning of functions and the reciprocal relationship between the book and society. The proveniences testify that in the 19th century, this was a household book that had at least four owners: (1) the unnamed mother of Urtė Ostwald (until 1830); (2) Urtė Ostwald (as of 1830); (3) Friedrich Fritz Ostwald Jr.; (4) E. Skėrys (between 1860 and 1893, at the very least) of Senieji Vainočiai (Ger. Alt Weynothen in Prussian Lithuania, near to Tilžė [Ger. Tilsit]). The published testimony of the peers indicates that in the 20th century, (5) it belonged (until 1988) to Mina Bentkus (born in 1900) of Büsingen (German exclave in Switzerland), (6) and (as of 1988) to Fricas Skėrys (1919–1994) of Mannheim (Germany). In early 20th century, the book was transferred from its original location in Prussian Lithuania to Switzerland (to Feuerthalen near Schaffhausen), following the move of the home church community of Evangeliška liuteriška Betliejaus draugystė (The Evangelical Lutheran Fellowship of Bethlehem) under Rev. Endrikis Kalvaitis (Heinrich Kallweit, 1937– 1915) to the same country. In around mid-20th century, the religious books that Prussian Lithuanians had in their possession were collected by Mina Bentkus, who in 1988 handed them over to the German evangelical Lutheran priest Fricas Skėrys. The main hallmark which identifies the copy procured by the NLL as the one that Mina Bentkus had and passed on to Fricas Skėrys is the 1830 provenience by Urtė Ostwald, as recorded in Domas Kaunas’s 1991 de visu inventory of the Postil kept at Skėrys’s home.

As part two of a series about the Basic Prayers (Hail Mary, Apostolic Creed and Lord’s Prayer) in Old Lithuanian, the aim of this article is to collect all attestations of the Apostolic Creed translated into Lithuanian prior to 1700. The Apostolic Creed has two forms, the “common” declaratory one and a shorter, interrogative one used during baptism. This interrogative creed is not a shortened form of the declaratory one, but rather the original urban Roman creed, which was expanded during the 3rd century C. E. A total of 46 versions of the Apostolic Creed are attested in the Old Lithuanian era (the 16th and 17th century). The lexical and syntactic structure of the prayers is analyzed and compared as outlined in the first part of the series, to show their dependences and connections (compare Falk, Thies 2023). Four traditions can be discerned: Firstly, an early Lutheran line in Lithuania Minor, beginning with the Forma krikštymo by Mažvydas and continued by Vilentas (as already described by Judžentis 2021), the first translation of Mažvydas in his Catechism is only weakly connected to the aforementioned. Bretkes translation is close to this line as well, but shows variation. Secondly, a later Lutheran line begins with the Königsberg Cathechism of 1670 and is continued e. g. in the scientific works of Nettelhorst and Hartknoch and in many reprints of the 18th century. Third, the Reformed tradition, consisting of the reprints of Knyga Nobažnystės and only loosely connected to the earlier Catechism by Petkevičius; and fourth, the Catholic tradition, which begins relatively late, in the second half of the 17th century, because all earlier Catholic translations e. g. by Daukša can be considered isolated attempts. The traditions of all three denominations can be considered as canonicalized with the third edition of the Königsberg Catechism from 1700, the second edition of Knyga Nobažnystės from 1684 resp. the catechism by Pranas Šrubauskis from 1725.

The article discusses thirteen entries in the manuscript of Chyliński’s translation of the New Testament that can be attributed to shipbuilding terminology: arklinas, bartos, krywułey, paras, Reanes, rudelis, rupa, ſelewiney, sparey, stoba, styrbarkey, trielbanga and zieza. The majority of these words is glossed in Polish, one in Latin (krywułey), and three (Reanes, sparey, trielbanga) have no indication of meaning. Most of the lemmas have not yet been recorded lexicographically or only in meanings other than those used here. The study analyses the word forms morphologically and aims at a better understanding of their meaning. It investigates their etymology and word history against the background of shipbuilding terminology in the Baltic Sea region of the 17th century. Even though many of the terms are words borrowed from Polish or Germanic, possibly through the mediation of Polish, it turns out that hardly any of the word forms are linguistically unambiguous and that hybrid formations, crossbreeding and etymological folk reinterpretations must be taken in consideration.

Two of Simonas Daukantas’s (1793–1864) important manuscripts were intended directly for his friend Mikalojus Akelaitis (1829–1887): Notes on Nesselmann’s Dictionary (PNŽ) and Lithuanian Orthography (LKR). In addition, Notes on Laurynas Ivinskis’s 1859 Calendar (PaIK) were also directly connected to Akelaitis’s projects. Daukantas wrote two of these texts (PNŽ and PaIK) in 1858–1859, when he and Akelaitis lived at the Svirlaukis estate (Courland, today Latvia) of doctor Petras Smuglevičius. He compiled the third text later, in Samogitia (Lowland Lithuania), obviously after 1859, most probably during the last period of his life in Papilė (1861–1864). Akelaitis was a driver of Daukantas’s philological thought, an inspirer, and a creator of intellectual context. These three manuscripts of Daukantas might appear as a result of a symbolic Svirlaukis academy of the two friends. Under Akelaitis’s influence, in about 1858– 1859, Daukantas returned to his abandoned manuscript of the Great Polish–Lithuanian Dictionary (DLL, 1852[3]–1855) and significantly supplemented its letter <N> section, wrote long comments to the dictionary of Nesselmann (PNŽ), and reviewed the language of Ivinskis’s 1859 calendar (PaIK). Ultimately, in his later letter, Daukantas wrote various comments on Lithuanian orthography, mostly explaining his perspective. Still, at the very end of his life, Daukantas might have aligned one orthographic feature with the pamphlets published by Akelaitis. Daukantas used to mark some endings as <‑a> (<‑ja>), but then in Papilė (1861–1864) he switched to the West Highland Lithuanian variant <‑o> (<‑jo>), which, among others, was typically used by Akelaitis.

This article successfully identifies the manuscript, which currently is in the Manuscript Division of the Vilnius University Library and previously had been mistakenly ascribed to another author, as the draft of Mykolas Miežinis’s (1827–1888) quadrilingual Dictionary. To perform this task, it explores the history of assembling and editing the Dictionary and the structure of the handwritten text. Though Miežinis’ dictionary was far from perfection in many respects, this publication was an important lexicographic event for the epoch, becoming the only available dictionary of the Lithuanian language at that time and sparking interest in further lexicographic research (Antanas Baranauskas, Ignotas Šopara). We found that the marks in the manuscript correspond to the structure of the printed copy, which appeared in 1896 in Tilsit (today Sovetsk). The editions left by no fewer than three people who used several colours of ink resemble the complicated history of getting the manuscript ready for publishing (which is reconstructed based on contemporary correspondence and newspaper articles). The corrections included altering the Lithuanian spelling, choosing different synonyms for Russian and Latvian translations, adding Polish lexemes, and more. The character of the corrections and the sequence of languages allow dating the manuscript. The research concludes that this manuscript was a draft for the final copy, used by the typography. It could have been created before 1883, and no later than 1894.

The grammar of the Lithuanian language Litauiſche Elementar=Grammatik (1879–1881; first part ŠLG 1879) for students of the Tilsit Gymnasium was prepared by Julius Erdmann Schiekopp. It is an abridged version of Friedrich Kurschat’s Grammatik der littauischen Sprache (1876; KG). In 1881, Schiekopp’s grammar was reprinted in Tilsit under the same title Litauiſche Elementar=Grammatik; the edition differs from the first one only by the title page. The grammar was also republished by Alexander Kurschat under the title Litauiſche Elementar=Grammatik (1901–1902; ŠLG 1901). Jonas Pajevskis and Jurgis Gylius prepared a Russian edition of Schiekopp’s grammar, Литовская грамматика (1891; ЛГ 1891). It was approved as the official textbook of the Lithuanian language for schools of the Warsaw Education District. The first part of this grammar was reprinted five years later under the same title, Литовская грамматика (1896; ЛГ 1896). The first part of Schiekopp’s grammar was also translated into Polish as Gramatyka litewska początkowa (1902; GLP) by Juozas Januškevičius and Antanas Macijauskas. This arti cle is intended to clarify, which edition of Schiekopp’s grammar was translated by the two translators. The comparative analysis of the editions of Schiekopp’s grammar shows that Januškevičius and Macijauskas translated ŠLG 1879. These two editions are linked by the structure and the material they contain – some of the material of ŠLG 1879 was not included in ЛГ 1891, ЛГ 1896, and ŠLG 1901, but is present in GLP. For example, Alexander Kurschat did not include in ŠLG 1901 the classification of consonants, a comment on the meaning of the accent, tables of the endings of nouns, nominal adjectives, pronouns, notes about [t, d] turning into affricates [č, dž], about shortened nouns in colloquial language, the accentuation of adjectives, ungraded adjectives and participles, the shortening of verb forms. In Russian grammars ЛГ 1891 and ЛГ 1896, a note on the softness of consonants, some comments on nouns of the 1st declension, accentuation of nouns and adjectives, pronouns, the shortening and accentuation of verb forms are omitted. The emerging standard Lithuanian of the early 20th century was no longer the same as described by Friedrich Kurschat and Schiekopp in the 1870s. Therefore, the article also highlights how Januškevičius and Macijauskas changed the material of Schiekopp’s grammar. They took into consideration the emerging standard Lithuanian and the target audience of the grammar they were preparing – a resident of Lithuania Major, rather than East Prussia as was the case with Friedrich Kurschat’s or Schiekopp’s grammars.

The idea to write an article about Petr Hil’tebrandt (vel Hil’tebrant, 1840–1905) was born in the course of researching Pyotr Bezsonov vel Bessonov (1827–1898) (see ALt 25, 297–370). Both of them came to Vilnius (Rus. Vil’na) in 1865, in the wake of the uprising of 1863–1864. Both of them landed a job with the Vilnius Educational District. Both of them came from Moscow, where they had been actively engaged in the Slavophile media. Due to the difference in age, their relationship was one of a mentor and a pupil. Bezsonov, a researcher of Slavism and folklore and publisher of sources, already had a name among the academia, and was therefore handed the mission of setting up a centre for Russian science and culture in Vilnius, its goal being to eradicate the historical memory of the ‘Polish’ intellectual life that had once thrived there. Bezsonov was given a number of high-ranking positions in Vilnius, serving as the chairman of the Vilnius Commission for the Studies and Publication of the Books of the Early Acts and the headmaster of the Rabbi School in Vilnius and then of the 1st Boys’ Gymnasium in Vilnius. On top of that, he was the main reorganiser of the Vilnius Museum of Antiquities and the founder of the Vilnius Public Library. What brought Hil’tebrandt to Vilnius was not a career, and definitely not some ideology, but rather his wanting to start life anew: in 1863, he was expelled from the Faculty of History and Philology at Moscow University for his involvement in student unrest. By contrast to Bezsonov, a son to an orthodox priest, Hil’tebrandt came from a family of landlords in Ryazan governorate. When he came to Vilnius in 1865, Bezsonov was at the peak of his maturity: he was 37, married, and had a large family. Hil’tebrandt, who settled in Vilnius the very same year, was twenty-five and single. Contrary to Bezsonov, who did not spend two years in Vilnius, Hil’tebrandt kept working there for a whole seven years. By contrast to his older colleague, he did not engage in any kind of large-scale brainstorming regarding the depolonisation of the North-Western Province (NWP) and its integration into the Russian world: he would simply do what he was told to. He was not as adept with the quill as Bezsonov was, but he was still rather competent with it, and most importantly, he would write ‘correctly’ and had the ability to give ‘scientific’ justification to the Russian nature of the NWP. Opposite to Bezsonov, he was peaceful by nature. We cannot argue that Bezsonov chose Vilnius solely because of his career, for he had an innate sense of curiosity and would simply ‘collect’ new nations and new languages. When he came to the NWP to experience Belarussians firsthand, he was surprised by his discovery of Jews and stunned by how large and exotic their diaspora was, which was a contrast to Hil’tebrandt, who was known as a Judeophobe. The management of the Vilnius Educational District liked Hil’tebrandt. In the long run, Bezsonov became a byword for a ‘worthless’ clerk, while Hil’tebrandt was the embodiment of one who was ‘ideal’.

When the Vilnius supreme local government considered the issue of the periodical press in Polish, Lithuanian, Yiddish, and Hebrew, it took into account the influence of the latter on public opinion. On several occasions, the Vilnius Governor-General’s office, when discussing the issue of periodicals, recalled the times of the 1863–1864 uprising, when the multilingual press, defined by its mass appeal and readership, played a strong activist role. The Vilnius Governor-General’s office sought to limit the publishing initiatives of all ethnic groups (except Russians). It therefore delayed the resolution of the issue, especially when it came to periodicals in Yiddish, Hebrew and Polish. The only exception to this, in terms of the publishing situation in 1903–1905, was the case of Vilnius News. After the uprising of 1863–1864, it was the first periodical in Vilnius to be published in a language other than Russian. Moreover, it was granted permission surprisingly quickly. There were several reasons that could have led to this decision. It is not unreasonable to assume that the Vilnius Governor-General’s office had the intention of exploiting the press issue to increase and exacerbate conflicts between ethnic groups (primarily Lithuanians and Poles). The idea of the Lithuanian national movement as a counterbalance to the influence of the Poles is clearly expressed in the assessment of the candidacy of Kazimieras Prapuolenis. This is the only reference in bureaucratic correspondence (that is known so far). The idea of pitting Lithuanians against Poles by exploiting the press issue may have been expressed in private conversations. Especially since the person who was actively involved in the informal discussions on the suitability of editors for Lithuanian and Polish dailies was Andrei Stankevich, the head of the chancellery of the Vilnius Governor-General’s office, who was well aware of Piotr Sviatopolk-Mirsky’s views on the press issue and could have passed them on to Aleksandr fon Freze.