Kiprijono Nezabitausko žodyno autorius

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXXVI (1996) LIETUVIŲ KALBA: TYRĖJAI IR TYRIMAI Reviews. Critiques. Notes Opinions. Reviews. Observations Überblicke. Rezensionen. Anmerkungen Giedrius SUBAČIUS THE AUTHOR OF KIPRIJONAS NEZABITAUSKAS’S DICTIONARY Since the nineteenth century, a tradition has persisted of regarding Kajetonas Nezabitauskas as the author of the manuscript dictionary that burned in Warsaw during World War II, ”Žodinikas // Letuwiszkaj—Žemaitiszkas // yr // Lenkiszkaj yszrozitas [...] tom I-szy // od Lit. A do I wlasznie — // przez // Kajetana Niezabitowskiego // Żmuidina” (title according to Vincas Maciūnas, Mūsų senovė, 1940, vol. 3, no. 1(10), p. 142). In 1963 and 1967, A. Kaupuž published many letters by Ivan Loboiko, Chancellor Count Nikolajus Rumiancevas, and Kiprijonas Nezabitauskas in Literatūros, vols. 6 and 10, which make it indisputably clear that “the true author of the dictionary was Kiprijonas Nezabitauskis,” Kajetonas’s elder brother*. Yet even today it is often doubted whether Kajetonas, rather than his brother, wrote the dictionary (cf. Zinkevičius Z. Lietuvių kalbos istorija. V., 1990. Vol. 4. P. 128; Žukas V. Nezabitauskis—Zabitis Kajetonas Rokas. — Tarybų Lietuvos enciklopedija. V., 1987. Vol. 3. P. 212, and elsewhere). Without repeating A. Kaupuž’s evident arguments for Kiprijonas’s authorship, we should weigh the arguments for continuing to regard Kajetonas as the author. 1. Kajetonas is named as the author on the title page. It should be said at once that the title page must have been written considerably later than the dictionary text itself (the diphthongs aj, ej, uj in the title are written with j, a spelling that came into wider use only in the 1830s, whereas in the text itself they seem to be marked with y — Atkakbintgirey, as they might have been written in 1823). When his brother Kiprijonas emigrated to Paris after the 1831 uprising and was sentenced to death in absentia, Kajetonas could already write his own surname without fear on the title page of his brother’s dictionary. 2. Other nineteenth-century sources mention a dictionary of the Lithuanian language written (or partly written) by Kajetonas (Kurjer Polski, 1830, no. 64; Dykcyonarz Biograficzny powszechny. Warszawa, 1851). These publications, however, probably drew their information from Kajetonas himself, who was then working on the Warsaw Censorship Committee. Kajetonas himself also, in letters— * See: K a u p u ž A. Some additional information about figures in Lithuanian cultural life in the early nineteenth century in the letters of Prof. I. N. Loboiko of Vilnius University. Literatūra 6, 1963, pp. 207—222; K a u p u ž a A. Figures in Lithuanian cultural life in the early nineteenth century according to Prof. I. N. Loboiko’s correspondence with N. P. Rumiancevas, founder of the museum. — Literatūra 10, 1967, pp. 165—199. (ed. note) 212 —told the Kraków professor Wiszniewski and Simonas Daukantas that he had written a Samogitian–Lithuanian dictionary. But those letters contain untruths. To Wiszniewski, Kajetonas boasts that he himself prepared a booklet about bees (in 1823), but under his brother Kiprijonas’s name (although linguistic analysis confirms Kiprijonas, not Kajetonas, as its author); that Chancellor N. Rumiancevas thanked him for that translation (in fact, he thanked Kiprijonas); that he published the booklet Rozmyślania wieśniaka rolnika (but omitted to mention its author, Dionizas Poška); and that Dziennik Wileński published his account of a journey through Samogitia (although the account describes only Poška’s Baublys)—the last two instances had already been noted by V. Maciūnas. In his letter to S. Daukantas, when listing his achievements, Kajetonas no longer mentioned either the translation of the booklet about bees or Rozmyślania wieśniaka rolnika—he must have sensed that Daukantas might know who their real authors were. In both letters, Kajetonas also says that he had completed his dictionary, although the burned manuscript had been written only to the beginning of the letter K (V. Maciūnas). Yet, as I. Loboiko’s letters show, Kiprijonas had written a dictionary only as far as the letter K. Thus, it is difficult to deny that Kajetonas liked to boast of works created by others. Moreover, it is important that Kajetonas was D. Poška’s intellectual ally and, at the same time, Kiprijonas’s competitor. Poška wrote: “I have seen no better orthography than [...] that in Kajetonas Nezabitauskas’s primer.” On the other hand, while Kiprijonas was still working on his dictionary (March 1825), Poška too began writing a competing dictionary—that is, competing with Kiprijonas in creating and promoting a written Samogitian–Lithuanian language. Had Kajetonas been the author, it is hard to imagine that his friend Poška would not have supported his work and would instead have chosen to compete with him rather than help him. Thus, even though the manuscripts have not survived, many arguments indicate that Kajetonas, who liked to boast and praise himself, also wanted to claim his brother Kiprijonas’s unfinished Lithuanian dictionary as his own. Therefore, as A. Kaupuž has already pointed out, Kiprijonas Nezabitauskas should be regarded as the author of that dictionary. A BOOK ABOUT THE BALTIC LANGUAGES In Germany, with its long tradition of research into the Baltic languages, recent years have seen the appearance of new works of significance to Baltic studies. One of them is a book written in German by three linguists and published in 1994, “The Baltic Languages: An Introduction.”1 The beautifully produced, 416-page book consists of four main chapters. The author of the fairly extensive introductory chapter (pp. 15–70) is the linguist Rainer Eckert, whose contributions to Baltic linguistics and its popularization have been considerable. In a very concise, one might say encyclopedic, manner, he presents key information about all the Baltic languages and peoples, their names and history, and discusses the extinct Prussians, Sudovians, Yotvingians, Curonians, Semigallians, and Selonians, who were assimilated by other peoples. Naturally, most of the space here is devoted to the history of the two living Baltic peoples—the Lithuanians and Latvians: the most decisive events accompanying these peoples from 1 E c k e r t R., B u k e v i č i ū t ė E.-J., H i n z e F. Die baltischen Sprachen. Eine Einführung. Langenscheidt. Verlag Enzyklopädie. Leipzig, Berlin, München, 1994. 213