Klaipėdos universitetas

The practice of translating government decrees into Lithuanian and publishing them for Lithuanian speakers living in Prussia has been known since the late 16th century. It stemmed from the policy of multi-lingualism which emerged under Duke Albert, and the establishment of the Reformation in Prussia. Most Lithuanian translations of Prussian government decrees known today date from the 18th century. At that time, the best experts in the Lithuanian language were engaged in their translation and publication. After the potential of Königsberg in Lithuanian studies declined in the second half of the 18th century, efforts to concentrate these activities in the area of Prussia that was still densely inhabited by Lithuanian speakers and called Lithuania at that time, became more active. The article analyses how this change was exploited by the Mielcke family, who were active in Prussian Lithuania. Christian Gottlieb Mielcke, who held a humble cantor’s position in the remote parish of Pillkallen, initiated a discussion on the principles of the edition of Lithuanian hymnals in 1781. His brother Daniel Friedrich, the priest at Ragnit, wrote a complaint about the quality of translations of government decrees into Lithuanian in 1788. This was the beginning of a dispute that eventually involved the Mielcke family in the translation of government decrees.

He was a tutor for the Radvilas (Radziwiłłs) at Biržai, a student at Oxford, headmaster of a gymnasium in Leszno, and court preacher in Königsberg and later Berlin. Of all the stages in the life of Daniel Ernst Jablonski (1660–1741), his contribution, together with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, to the establishment in 1700 of the Kurfürstlich Brandenburgische Societät der Wissenschaften, the predecessor of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, is emphasised the most. However, his efforts to achieve ecumenical communication between evangelical churches of various hues were no less significant. The article deals with the development of Jablonski’s views leading to these efforts as a result of his family history: the experiences of his childhood and youth. Manifestations of efforts in East Central Europe, especially in the Commonwealth of the Two Nations, are presented through Jablonski’s activities in pursuing ecclesiastical unity, defending the rights of religious minorities, engaging in Hebrew studies, and in the ecclesiastical controversy in Russia.

The Teutonic Order in Prussia recognised and acknowledged its responsibility to catechise both the German-speaking colonists and the native population. The Reformation made no radical changes to these requirements, but gave them serious attention. During the 1540s to the 1560s, several Catechisms for the non-German subjects of the Duke of Prussia were prepared and published in Königsberg, including three in the Old Prussian language. The editor of the first and second Old Prussian-language Catechisms published bilingual books, with the German Catechism on the left-hand page, and the same text on the right-hand page in the Old Prussian language. Reinhold Trautmann established that the source of the Decalogue in these books was Luther’s 1531 Small Catechism. However, he had difficulties confirming the sources of the remaining four parts of the Catechism, since he found a number of words and phrases which could not be identified as coming from Luther’s Catechisms. The article elaborates on Trautmann’s thesis that the source of the German Decalogue is Luther’s 1531 Enchiridion. In addition, it argues that the sources of the remaining parts of the Catechism were German-language catechetical and liturgical texts that were circulating in Prussia at that time.

Personal testimonies of the Great War, revealed in memoirs, diaries and publications by Lithuanians, have already been used by historians seeking clarification of the reflection of the military experience in Lithuania. This article shows that a significant part of these testimonies appeared in the interwar period due to the intentional collection and publication of material on military history, and their publication was often not random, but also had a political aspect. Moreover, the article complements earlier knowledge of the fact that the Great War was referred to not only when mentioning the German occupation. The many references to the Great War in the writings of Lithuanian intellectuals, and in the writings and speeches of politicians in the interwar period, had much more varied reasons.

By the late fifteenth century, more notably after 1477, appeal cases from Catholics in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania began to appear before the Consistory Court in Gniezno in increasing numbers. These cases involved quite a wide social group, and dealt with a broad range of issues (not just matrimonial disputes or the hiring out of parish churches between priests). Appellants came before the judges from across the Grand Duchy. This article covers cases from 1524 to 1539. Even when court material gives few details of cases, it can help solve issues of parish church and chantry foundations and patronage. The most striking feature of the records between 1524 and 1538 is the predominance of cases from Žemaitija, a diocese which previously featured only in disputes involving the bishop. This confirms the deepening of Catholic practice across the diocese of Medininkai (Žemaitija) as reflected in particular in the increasingly predominant use of Christian forenames from the last quarter of the fifteenth century. Most interesting perhaps for those studying the rise of Protestantism in Lithuania will be the occurrence of one Fr Andriejus Mažvydas, parish priest of Alsėdžiai, among the appellant litigants of 1536. This information about a very probable kinsman (uncle, cousin, brother?) of Martynas Mažvydas offers new insights into the Lutheran’s family background and geography.

Works of fiction and memoirs relating to the First World War written in the Lithuanian language or by Lithuanian authors have so far not been a preoccupation of Lithuanian literary scholars. Due to the breadth of the topic, the analysis in this article is limited to the most important works of fiction and witnesses’ memories of the Great War. The first fictional and documentary works analysed in the article were written during the war itself, the last at the beginning of the Second World War. There is quite a large and very varied (from the point of view of artistic quality) amount of this kind of literature. Using methods of narratology and comparison, the author sets out to analyse the main themes, plots and possible influences, while placing the writings in the history of Lithuanian literature.

How were the Reformation and a variety of different confessionalisations manifested in material culture? The article discusses this issue by presenting a dozen examples of works of art relating to the present territory of Latvia. In 1521, when urban citizens there responded to the ideas of the Reformation for the first time, a large part of present-day Latvia belonged to a conglomerate of various holdings called the Livonian Confederation. The religious polarisation of society characteristic of the early period of the Reformation (the 1520s) is represented in works of art discussed in the first chapter. The second chapter discusses works from the period of political instability caused by the First Northern War (1558–1583). It is characterised by Livonia’s political, cultural and confessional division, of which representations can also be seen in many examples of the visual arts.