Archivum Lithuanicum

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).

The article discusses the sources of the chronicles of Motiejus Strijkovskis (Polish: Maciej Stryjkowski, Latin: Matthias Stricovius, Matys Strycovius, Matys Strykowius, etc., 1547–c.1593) and Alessandro Guagnini (full name: Alessandro Guagnini dei Rizzoni; 1534 [1538]–1614), which were cited by Simonas Daukantas.

In Prussian Lithuania, several religious works were published in Lithuanian in the second half of the nineteenth century, in which the melodies of hymns were marked not in the traditional way, but in numbers and other conventional graphic symbols. The introduction of numerical notation should be linked to Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s (1746–1827) pedagogical attitudes and changes in the educational system of the Kingdom of Prussia. These changes were driven by changing attitudes towards the education of young people from the lower social stratum. Elementary schools and teachers’ seminaries were paying more attention to the musical education of young people. The aim of this article is to identify, register, and describe the hymnbooks of Prussian Lithuanian schools and surinkimai (home-prayer service) as well as other Protestant books published in Prussian Lithuania in the second half of the nineteenth century, in which the melodies of hymns are given in numbers. The article presents the reconstruction of a number of melodies and their transcription in modern musical notation. The melodies reconstructed are those to which the compilers of the books added musical explanations.

During the preparation of the publications of the edicts of the Prussian authorities for the website of the Database of Old Lithuanian Writings of the Lithuanian Language Institute, the only currently known copy of the Prussian government’s edict forbidding the burning of fences in winter, issued by the Prussian authorities on 9 August, 1724, was discovered in the Library of the University of Leipzig (UBL : 01E-2015-25). Two copies of the German edict from which it was translated were found in the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (LMAVB : E-343). Up until now, the 1878 transcript of the Lithuanian edict, prepared and published by Hugo Weber on the basis of a copy owned by August Leskien and lost during World War II , has been used. The supplement to the article presents transcripts and photographs of the edicts and a word index. Documents from the Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin show that Christophor Heinrich Wegner (1685–1731), a priest of the Lithuanian church in Königsberg, worked as a translator of the edicts into Lithuanian between 1721 and 1731. A comparison of the language and orthography of the published edict with other edicts of the early eighteenth century revealed features common to all texts of Lithuania Minor and specific only to the period of Wegner’s translation work. The linguistic elements of this edict that are typical of the edicts printed during Wegner’s translation period are the adverb ik čiolei ‘until now’. The preposition with [č] <cz> occurs only in the edicts attributed to Wegner. The conjunction ydant ‘so that’ written with <y> is found in other texts, albeit rarely, and the genitive forms menesės ‘of the month’, rugpjutės ‘of August’ are also the most abundant in Wegner’s translation period. According to the currently available data, the chronological distribution of the Germanised Slavism štonas ‘state, condition’ is limited to the years 1721–1723.

This article is the first part of a series of publications covering the basic prayers of the Christian denominations. The series will cover the Hail Mary (Ave Maria), the Apostles’ Creed (Credo or Symbolum Apostolicum), and the Lord’s Prayer (Paternoster). The aim of the articles is to collect all Lithuanian variants of these prayers translated before 1700, to compare their lexical and syntactic structure, and to show their dependences and connections. The first part of the series introduces the concepts and methodology; furthermore, it analyses the shortest and most rarely attested prayer Hail Mary. The authors avoid the traditional term poteriai ‘prayers’ because of its multiple meanings: the Lithuanian term poteriai may refer to all three prayers at once, or just to the Lord’s prayer, or even more – the Rosary and smaller prayers. Rather, ‘basic prayers’ are understood as the prayers that each Christian should learn by heart according to his denomination, usually in their own language.