LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXXVI (1996)

LIETUVIŲ KALBA: TYRĖJAI IR TYRIMAI

Juozas KARACIEJUS

J. GERULIS’S “OLD LITHUANIAN READINGS”: PRINCIPLES OF COMPILATION AND SIGNIFICANCE FOR LITHUANIAN STUDIES (compared with the “Anthology of the History of Lithuanian Literature”)

Most Lithuanian studies students at both the prewar University of Kaunas (from 1930, Vytautas Magnus University) and the postwar Vilnius University (with the possible exception of 1945–1955) usually began their acquaintance with old Lithuanian writings, their linguistic features, and literary elements using the anthology “Old Lithuanian Readings. Part I: Texts with Introductions,”¹ prepared by J. Gerulis and published in 1927 (hereafter: Readings). The former may also have had at hand M. Biržiška’s “Selected Writings from Our Past” (hereafter: Writings), which appeared the same year, while the latter had the “Anthology of the History of Lithuanian Literature” (hereafter: Anthology), edited by K. Korsakas and J. Lebedys and published in 1957. The compilers of the latter had set out to surpass all earlier publications of a similar kind, since “the previously published anthologies of old Lithuanian literature and collections of writings (by E. Volteris, M. Biržiška, J. Gerulis, and others) are outdated and do not meet present-day requirements.”²

Since J. Gerulis’s Readings were—and still are—used more often not only by students but also by researchers of the Lithuanian language (and, to some extent, of old Lithuanian literature), it is clear that the Anthology cannot replace the Readings. Thus, the Anthology’s significance for Lithuanian studies is considerably less than had been expected. It is therefore entirely reasonable to ask what accounted for the popularity of J. Gerulis’s Readings. To answer this, we should first examine the criteria by which the texts were selected and the principles on which the compilers of both anthologies relied when presenting the selected texts to readers.

Admittedly, before seeking answers to these questions, we should not forget that the Anthology edited by K. Korsakas and J. Lebedys is closer in scope, content, and, in part, purpose to M. Biržiška’s Writings than to J. Gerulis’s Readings, which cover only Lithuanian writings of the 16th–17th centuries. Therefore

We can now only regret that J. Gerulis did not fulfill his promise and prepare Part II of this publication. In it, he had promised not only “to explain those forms and words that are not understood by all Lithuanians,” but had apparently also intended to answer in practical terms a question that arose while preparing Part I: “should we not also print at least a few pages from the German, Latin, and Polish originals? For most of our old writings are translations, and it would therefore be interesting to see how the translators dealt with their sources” (p. V).

Anthology of the History of Lithuanian Literature. The Feudalism Era. Edited by K. Korsakas and J. Lebedys. Vilnius: State Fiction Publishing House, 1957, 5.

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only the Lithuanian texts from these centuries and their commentaries presented in both publications can be compared. Moreover, the compilers of publications of this kind had their future readers foremost in mind—that is, whom the publications were intended for and what aims they sought to achieve. It was precisely these circumstances that determined the principles for selecting and preparing the texts. In the “Preface” to the Readings, J. Gerulis does not explicitly state whom the book is intended for, but its opening suggests that it is aimed at specialists; compare: “Our old monuments of language are scattered far and wide. Few can make use of them all, and there are few new editions as well. Therefore, prompted by the late Būga, I have printed the shorter texts in full and fairly extensive excerpts from the longer ones.”³ It is also explained here how the texts for this publication were selected.

In the “Foreword” to the publication, the compilers of the Anthology specify more precisely whom they intend it for; compare: “The primary sources of old Lithuanian literature, which developed during the feudal era, and most old Lithuanian writings are difficult to access today: they have become bibliographical rarities, of which only one or two copies remain even in the republic’s largest libraries. M a k i n g t h o s e w r i t i n g s o r a t l e a s t t h e i r m o r e t y p i c a l e x c e r p t s a c c e s s i b l e t o o u r p u b l i c, e s p e c i a l l y t h e y o u t h (emphasis mine. — J. K.), is the purpose of this anthology.”⁴ The criteria for selecting texts are also discussed here: “This anthology is an anthology of Lithuanian literature, not of the history of Lithuanian writings in general. It therefore presents only material whose generic or stylistic features permit it to be assigned to historically developing belles-lettres. Accordingly, this anthology omits old Lithuanian texts that are either purely governmental and administrative in nature (e.g., various documents, legal acts, official proclamations, and the like), directly related to religious worship (e.g., various prayers, hymns as such, and the like), or entirely philological and pedagogical in content (e.g., texts of dictionaries, grammars, and primers). In this respect, this anthology differs from earlier anthologies of old Lithuanian literature, which usually included texts from all Lithuanian writings, regardless of their generic or stylistic characteristics. The compilers of those anthologies were generally concerned with providing material not so much for the study of our literature as for research into Lithuania’s past and culture and the history of the Lithuanian language. Moreover, the anthologies published during the period of bourgeois rule were e s p e c i a l l y o v e r l o a d e d w i t h v a r i o u s t e x t s o f a p u r e l y r e l i g i o u s a n d l i t u r g i c a l n a t u r e (p r a y e r s, h y m n s, s e r m o n s, B i b l e t r a n s l a t i o n s). I n t h i s w a y t h e y p l a c e d p a r t i c u l a r e m p h a s i s o n t h e r o l e o f r e l i g i o u s w r i t i n g s i n t h e c u l t u r a l l i f e o f t h e L i t h u a n i a n p e o p l e (emphasis mine. — J. K.), while, on the other hand, paying clearly too little attention to secular writings and belles-lettres

³ Gerulis, J. Old Lithuanian Readings. Part I. Kaunas: Publication of the University of Lithuania, 1927, [p.] V.

⁴ Anthology of the History of Lithuanian Literature, 5.

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the beginnings in Old Lithuanian writings.

In this chrestomathy, by contrast, pride of place is given precisely to writings with secular content and to those texts of Old Lithuanian writing in which secular motifs and the first elements of artistic expression are manifested. That is why this chrestomathy includes a wealth of prefaces, dedications, and panegyrics from various religious books, in which secular motifs and means of artistic expression were manifested above all”⁵.

These rather lengthy excerpts from the Chrestomathy’s “Preface” show that this book, meeting the requirements of its time, was intended not for specialists (not even for students!), but for the public, especially schoolchildren, and that its principal aim was to acquaint readers in an accessible and innovative way with old writings, or at least with their more characteristic excerpts. Unfortunately, it must be said at once that, owing to the ideological positions prevailing at the time, the editors of the Chrestomathy did not succeed in carrying this intention through fully. This is clearly demonstrated by the length of some of the old Lithuanian writings included in the Chrestomathy⁶. It may be supposed that the editors of the Chrestomathy themselves understood and sensed this, and that this is why the book’s “Preface” came to contain the lengthiest sophistical arguments, intended to persuade readers that old religious writings are not a particularly significant source for the study of Lithuanian culture and literature. Such claims, I would venture to say, greatly helped negative attitudes toward old writings to take hold.

Since the audiences of the chrestomathies under discussion differ, it goes without saying that the principles for presenting the selected Lithuanian texts must also differ, for what a specialist needs is by no means necessary for an ordinary reader, and vice versa. How, then, are the selected texts presented in the two publications? J. Gerulis writes about the principles for presenting texts: “I have neither corrected nor normalized the language and spelling. For we want to find out how people actually spoke and wrote in those days, not how one of us might have written in the place of Mažvydas, Daukša, or Širvydas, as it were. I shall correct only the most serious printing errors in the notes, although, as it seems to me now, even that is often unnecessary”⁷. Thus, J. Gerulis strove to present authentic Lithuanian texts, that is, texts of the kind needed by specialists.

The editors of the Chrestomathy treated old texts somewhat differently. They say: “In preparing this chrestomathy, we had to address the complicated question of how to present the texts linguistically. As is well known, Lithuanian writings from the feudal era were written in a distinctive and highly varied orthography, different from our present-day spelling, while their language contains many archaisms and dialect forms no longer used in our literary language today. All this considerably complicates the reading of these writings and, in some cases, makes their content difficult even to understand. With the aim of presenting in this chrestomathy, first and foremost, material for the history of Lithuanian literature—

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ For example, the Lithuanian writings of M. Daukša, the most distinguished writer of the 16th century, are represented in the Chrestomathy by only an incomplete 21 lines from the Postilė (18 lines from page 7 and 2.5 lines from page 339). It is therefore doubtful that such excerpts can tell us anything about the linguistic and stylistic features of M. Daukša’s Lithuanian writings, their literary elements, or their means of expression.

⁷ G e r u l i s J. Old Lithuanian Readings, [p.] V.

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…to study [the history of] literature, it was necessary to ensure that the texts of old Lithuanian writings included in the chrestomathy would be easy to understand. For this reason, they were transposed into modern spelling and partly into the modern literary language, with many phonetic and morphological archaisms and dialect forms removed, but without changing the vocabulary or syntax. Of the archaic morphological forms, only those especially characteristic from the perspective of the historical development of the Lithuanian language, and lending the language and style of old Lithuanian writings a distinctive character, were retained in the transposition. All archaic lexical, morphological, and syntactic forms that might be incomprehensible to today’s reader are explained in footnotes accompanying each transposed text.⁸.

“In order to demonstrate as clearly as possible the character of Lithuanian writings from the feudal era—not only in terms of content, but also of language, spelling, and printing technique—this chrestomathy presents authentic photocopies alongside the transposed texts, except where the original text has not survived⁹.

The foregoing quotation from the “Preface” to the Chrestomathy makes clear not only that the book is intended for non-specialists (hence the need to “translate” Lithuanian texts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries into modern language), but also reveals another interesting point: in the “Preface,” festooned with the obligatory ideological clichés of the time, the editors repeatedly emphasized the book’s uniqueness and superiority, yet must undoubtedly have understood that, if the old Lithuanian texts were prepared according to these principles, those claims would be left hanging in the air. The editors were therefore forced to seek a way out by including photocopies alongside the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts transposed into modern language. But schoolchildren and the general public do not need a photocopy of every text, while specialists do not need transposed texts. One might even question whether this book is truly intended for the public, especially since the “Preface” concludes: “The photographic reproductions enable the material in this chrestomathy to be used not only for the history of our literature, but also for the study of the Lithuanian language”¹⁰. Considering the principles by which the texts were selected and prepared, it seems that this statement too may be seen as contradictory.

Thus, even without comparing the two chrestomathies in greater detail, it is clear that the “Chrestomathy of the History of Lithuanian Literature,” prepared in this way, cannot replace J. Gerulis’s “Readings from Old Lithuanian Texts,” since a Chrestomathy prepared according to such eclectic principles cannot now serve as a textbook either—students invariably look first at the transposed text, not the photographic reproduction. This is probably why quite a few Lithuanian studies graduates today can barely read the writings of M. Daukša or K. Sirvydas. Now that J. Gerulis’s Readings have become a bibliographic rarity, a new chrestomathy of old writings is urgently needed. In preparing it, there is no need to reinvent the wheel: we should follow the path blazed by J. Gerulis and be guided by his principles.

⁸ This last statement strongly recalls J. Gerulis’s promise in the second part of the Readings “to explain those forms and words that are not understood by all Lithuanians” (P. V.).

⁹ Chrestomathy of the History of Lithuanian Literature, 6.

¹⁰ Ibid.

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* * *

After the article had been written and submitted for publication, I noticed a substantive and rather stern review of the first version of the “Chrestomathy of the History of Lithuanian Literature,” published in the collected writings of Prof. J. Lebedys (see Lebedys J. Lituanistikos baruose, t. 2. V. Vaga, 1972, p. 16-35), which, among other things, raises questions about the selection and presentation of texts that are not diametrically opposed to the ideas expressed in this article. Moreover, the source mentioned above makes clear that it was only after this review, which ends with a rather stern conclusion—“All the points mentioned show that the chrestomathy is not yet fully prepared, but it is very much needed” (Ibid., p. 35)—that Prof. J. Lebedys was invited to edit and revise the book; apparently, however, his voice was not decisive on every issue.

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