Lietuvos istorijos institutas

The article looks into five books on religious didactics published by the Calvinists in Eisleben in 1863–1865: Atsiminimas da geroje adijnoje, Nusidawimas biedna Joniuka, Prisiwertimas grieszna żmogaus ing Diewą, Wartojmas arba meginimas patis sawę and Gromata Naszłaitela ing sawa mieła Iszganitoja, which bibliographers and historians claim to have been written by Alexander Raphael Moczulski. A textological analysis has revealed Prisiwertimas not to have been drafted by Moczulski. This is evidenced in the differences in the spelling and the language of the texts covered by the analysis, the mismatched hypernormalisms, and the specific characteristics of the edits made to Biblical quotes and hymns. Certain qualities of the language in Prisiwertimas demonstrate that, unlike Moczulski, the editor of this text was under the influence of both the subdialect of Biržai and the subdialects of the northern Panevėžys region further to the west. Furthermore, Prisiwertimas features a much larger number of unique morphological forms not recorded elsewhere, which indirectly reflect the typical truncation of the ending of the Panevėžys subdialect and the resultant uncertainty on the editor’s part with regard to how certain parts of the text were to be written. The spelling and the language of the rest of the tracts covered by the analysis have a lot in common: without a shadow of doubt, they were drafted by the same person, as likely as not Moczulski. The hypercorrections that are present in the books edited by Moczulski suggest that, just like many Calvinists of the period, he was inclined to support the norms of the traditional Kėdainiai variant, even though by then the hub of Reformer activity had relocated to Biržai. Most efforts were focused on dropping the nasal reflexes of the East Aukštaitians.

At the beginning of the 19th century (probably, also in the 18th century), in Calvinist writing greater attention started to be paid to the needs of the addressee – they dared to deviate more from the Polish tradition, and translations solely very closely related to the Polish source were no longer prepared. This is demonstrated by the results of the studies of Seanas Katechizmas (hereinafter referred to as SK). 1. The Calvinist work Seanas Katechizmas (1803), which was prepared for the press by Mykolas Cerauskas, is not homogeneous. The quotes from the Bible, hymns and prayers (except one), with minimal amendments, were taken from the catechism and primer Pradžios pamokslas (hereinafter referred to as PP) of 1680, from which the alphabet and examples of syllables as well as numbers were also taken. SK’s foreword and one prayer (“Małda Rita untra” SK 29–30) were prepared by Mykolas Cerauskas himself, which is evidenced by his other work, Kozonis padekawonies, coinciding features of spelling and language of the texts. 2. The main text, catechism (i.e. teaching the truths of faith), is of a slightly different spelling, language, and content than the texts of PP and those prepared by Cerauskas. Therefore, it was not prepared by Cerauskas. However, similarly to Cerauskas, the anonymous author was from the area of eastern Aukštaičiai (probably, Panevėžys) area (as demonstrated by part of the phonetic features, including reduced verb forms), but from a dialect that is rather farther to the west (this is reflected by some of the nasal reflexes). Unlike Cerauskas, the author managed to better overcome the peculiarities of his native dialect and to adhere to the norms of the middle variant (however, it is also true that more accurate spelling tradition, <ea> writing and other, were not taken over). 3. It is highly likely that in the 18th century, a significantly revised manuscript version of the catechism and primer was prepared. It departed from previously existing Lithuanian and Polish Calvinist catechisms (“Who are you?” type of catechism order). It was simplified even more than PP and was adapted to teach children. The main texts of faith ‒ the Lord’s Prayer, the Confession of Faith, the Decalogue, and the description of the sacraments ‒ departed from the versions of the 17th century very little but their order of presentation and the introductory part of the catechism were different. The author of this manuscript was probably a Calvinist priest who worked in a parish school. There is a lack of data to determine whether more catechism versions were developed at that time. 4. Despite its unusual structure, its difference from the catechisms of the “Who are you?” type, the manuscript catechism was included in the SK work of the early 19th century and, with a minor addition and other existing SK texts, was replicated under the title of the Shorter Catechism (Trumpas Katechizmas) in 1860s.

In discussing the issue of the authorship of Daukša’s Postilė, some scholars raise the question of the unevenness of the language of this work and the ambiguity of some corrigenda. One of such corrigenda to give rise to various linguistic hypotheses – aimieus to łáimieus – should be considered simply a mistake of the person who corrected the mistake. In fact, the correction had to be done in the opposite direction – łaimiaus to aimieus, but pages were mixed up due to an oversight, and page 88 was indicated instead of page 78. This mistake was very likely made by Daukša himself and not by the typesetter at the printer’s. If the latter were the case, the old and not matching indication of the line (38) would have remained next to the wrong page number. However, the corrigendum indicates line 33 of page 88: presumably, when Daukša was revising the corrigendum, he found one of the two given forms and made corresponding corrections without giving much thought to them.

Der spezifische Gebrauch des Graphems <y> im ersten Teil von Knyga nobažnystės (in der wiederholten Ausgabe von 1684?, weiterhin KNG2) zeichnet diesen Text gegenüber anderen zeitgenössischen Schriften aus. Aus der Analyse der Verwendungsfälle von <y> ergeben sich einige Hypothesen, die im Aufsatz näher analysiert werden. Unter dem Einfluss der polnischen Rechtschreibung haben die Bearbeiter versucht, dem Graphem <y>, welches als eine nicht konsequent eingesetzte Variante von <i> zu betrachten ist, eine genauere Funktion zuzuordnen. In der ersten Hälfte des Werkes (und somit im Großteil des Psalmenbuchs) wurde das Schriftzeichen <y> anscheinend zur Kennzeichnung von [i] (selten [ī]) vor „härteren“ Konsonanten t, p, d, v, s, r, m, n eingesetzt, um der etwas härteren Aussprache dieser Konsonanten vor den Vokalen der e-Gruppe und ihrer häufigen Schreibung ohne das Palatalisierungs-i Rechnung zu tragen. Die Konjunktion ir ‘und’ wurde in Anlehnung an die Schreibung der gleichbedeutenden polnischen Konjunktion (y) ebenfalls mit <y> geschrieben. Die Schreibung <y> hätte auch durch die hypothetisch angenommene ungespannte und etwas breitere Aussprache von i in unbetonten oder in akzentuierten aber nicht verlängerten Positionen (vergleichbar mit der Aussprache in den heutigen Dialekten in der Gegend von Kėdainiai) bedingt sein können. Deswegen ist die Möglichkeit in Erwägung zu ziehen, dass das Graphem <y> in KNG2 am häufigsten zur Kennzeichnung des weniger gespannten [i] eingesetzt wurde, allerdings nur in der Umgebung „härterer“ Konsonanten. Andererseits hätte die Schreibung <y> statt <i> (mit Ausnahme von yr) auch ästhetisch motiviert sein können: so hat man sich gewissermaßen an die Ober- und Unterlängen der Schriftzeichen t, p, d, ſ, k angepasst. Im KNG2 wurde neben einem solchen Buchstaben meistens das Graphem <y> gesetzt (am konsequentesten nach t, p und d in bestimmten Stämmen). Die Anpassung des Graphems <y> hätte auch ein Stilmerkmal eines der Bearbeiter von KNG2 sein können, welcher die ersten hundert Seiten des Gesangbuches abgeschrieben und korrigiert hat. Die nicht konsequente Verwendung von <y> in gewissen Stellungen zeigt, dass die Erweiterung seines Verwendungsbereichs nicht an einem einzigen Zeitpunkt zustande kam, sondern möglicherweise beim wiederholten Lesen der zu bearbeitenden Texte ergänzt wurde. Dieses für die KNG2 so kennzeichnende Schriftzeichen gehört allerdings nicht zu den typischen Merkmalen der Übersetzung des Neuen Testaments von 1701, die zum Teil von Samuel Bittner angefertigt wurde, welcher auch an der Bearbeitung von KNG2 beteiligt war.