Lietuvos istorijos institutas

The edition of the first Lithuanian songbook Dainos oder Litthauische Volkslieder (Königsberg, 1825) prepared by Königsberg University Professor and the Head of the Lithuanian Language Seminar Martynas Liudvikas Rėza is still raising questions. Some may be answered by sources kept in Weimar: Goethe and Schiller archives, Duchess Anna Amalia Library and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s private library at the Goethe’s house-museum. These sources are poorly investigated, published only in a fragmentary way and some have not yet been translated into Lithuanian. The investigation of the circumstances of the collection reveals details that were unknown or underestimated, for example, that the preparation of the Rėza collection was pushed by Abraham Jakob Penzel’s plans to prepare a Lithuanian song collection and to ask for Goethe’s support, as well as the circumstances of how and when Goethe received the manuscript of the collection from Königsberg and why he did not reply to Rėza. It also reveals some of the circumstances of preparation of the collection, methodology and subsequent Rėza’s plans that were not implemented. Some questions also remain unanswered: when, under what circumstances, and for what purpose was an identical song edition published in Leipzig in 1827 and how did it reach the library of Duchess Anna Amalia.