Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

Kristijonas Donelaitis (1714-1780), who was born and lived in Prussian Lithuania, was a Lutheran priest, therefore, it was not surprising that his poem “The Seasons”, as it was observed a long time ago, reflected the Lutheran ideology prevailing in Prussia at that time. To date, the links of Donelaitis’ poetry with the that time hymnals of Prussian Lithuania have not been paid sufficient attention to, although the texts of a high artistic level published in the hymnals, mainly translated from the German originals, were bound to contribute to the mature poetic expression demonstrated in the writing of the poem to be considered the first masterpiece of the Lithuanian belles lettres. The issue was raised in the monograph by L. Gineitis “Kristijonas Donelaitis ir jo epocha” [Kristijonas Donelaitis and his Epoch], however, the author did not indicate the particular hymnals by means of which Donelaitis could have become acquainted with the church hymns that influenced his poetic imagination. That is understandable, since, during the Soviet times. Some important hymnals stored in the foreign libraries were unknown to, or unavailable to, Lithuanian scholars.