Lietuvių nutautinimas per mokyklas iki „Aušros“

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXX (1993) PERIFERINĖS LIETUVIŲ KALBOS TARMĖS Zigmas ZINKEVIČIUS THE DENATIONALIZATION OF LITHUANIANS THROUGH SCHOOLS UNTIL “AUŠRA” While writing “The History of the Lithuanian Language,” I gathered a great deal of material on this subject. It is impossible to present it all here. After all, schools have existed in Lithuania ever since the introduction of Christianity. To survey the history of schools from the aspect that concerns us, up to the end of the 19th century—a period of almost half a millennium—is a difficult task to accomplish in a short article. Therefore, we shall be content with presenting only the main conclusions, in very brief theses. First, it must be stated that denationalization through schools can be discussed only from around the end of the 17th century. Until then, schools in Lithuania were Latin. Almost exclusively the upper classes studied in them. At that time, the schools were administered mostly by the Jesuits. They cannot be accused of seeking to denationalize Lithuanians, although they were not distinguished by concern for Lithuanian identity either. The attitude toward the Lithuanian language is reflected, for instance, in the last inventory of the holdings of the Vilnius Academy in 1773: of 11,000 books, only seven were in Lithuanian. At most, up to the 18th century, one can speak of creating conditions for Lithuanians to become denationalized, but not of deliberate efforts to denationalize them through schools. There were none at that time. By the 18th century, the Lithuanian nobility had already become strongly Polonized. But it was not the school that Polonized them; rather, it was the court of the grand dukes, who had become kings of Poland, the Polish Church (Lithuania had no separate ecclesiastical province), and, above all, the entire state and administrative life. After all, no official career was possible without knowledge of Polish. That is why people of the higher estates learned that language. In the 18th century, not only the magnates but also the wealthier nobles used Polish, or, more precisely, its variant “polszczyzna litewska.” The magnates were wholly immersed in it, while many nobles, especially in Samogitia, remained bilingual. Yet all members of the upper classes considered themselves Lithuanians. Thus, this was linguistic, rather than political-national, denationalization. The school remained essentially Latin. The teachers came mostly from the Polonized upper classes. The Lithuanian language was a rare guest in that school. It was used only as an aid for teaching Latin, and only until pupils had learned some Polish. The Reformed schools in Kėdainiai and Pandėlys were exceptions, where Lithuanian was used much more widely. No instances are known of the persecution of the Lithuanian language or of prohibitions against using it in schools in the 18th century, at least in its first half. Most likely, there were none. 28 The Polonization of Lithuanians through schools intensified greatly during the period of the Commission of National Education, from 1773 onward. The number of schools themselves increased then, especially parish schools. Their task was to fuse the peoples of the commonwealth (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) into one nation, which was to be Polish. Belarusians and Ukrainians, as Slavs, were automatically considered Poles, whereas Lithuanians still had to be Polonized. This task determined the character of the school. Polish was made the language of instruction in place of Latin. This was not easy in the provinces. In many places, the children of petty nobles, and even more so those of peasants, did not know Polish. They first had to be taught it, and only then could it be used as the language of instruction. In the surviving reports of school inspectors, we find numerous complaints by teachers that pupils had difficulty learning Polish. There were even demands to forbid pupils to speak Lithuanian among themselves, to prevent them from listening to Lithuanian sermons in church, to introduce special Polish sermons for pupils, and so on. It is difficult to determine how such proposals were implemented at the time. Individual comments in the reports suggest that they were implemented in some schools. Thus, by the end of the 18th century there had already been instances of coercive Polonization, which apparently was not yet widespread. In the 18th century, another new phenomenon emerged: alongside official Polish schools, unofficial Lithuanian schools appeared. These were the so-called bakalorijos (the name derives from the distorted foreign-origin word bakalauras “a certain lower academic degree”), primitive little schools with only a few or a dozen or so pupils, where self-taught teachers taught, traveling from one cottage to another. The authorities did not support or sponsor these bakalorijos. This was self-education created by the people themselves. Yet it contains the beginnings of our national school. From all that has been said, it is clear that, notwithstanding individual instances of coercive Polonization, in the 18th century Lithuanians were Polonized much more by the manor, the Church, and society itself than by the school. The school became a genuine instrument of Polonization later, after the united Commonwealth had already collapsed. At that time, efforts were made to restore the former state. Extensive preparations were made for this. Every citizen—not only a member of a privileged estate, but also an ordinary person—was required to learn the language of the future state. No one recognized Lithuanians as a nation. Officially, Lithuanians were considered Poles who spoke differently. The aim was for them to speak Polish as well. Polonization through schools intensified greatly. They were administered by the Polish-language Vilnius University, whose contributions to the Lithuanian nation and culture were only indirect: the activities of progressive university professors encouraged interest in the nation’s past and native language, but the university had no intention of actively working to sustain Lithuanian identity. Its attitude toward Lithuanian identity is evident, for instance, from the fact that the university taught the ancient languages of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and, from the first decade of the 19th century, the modern languages German, French, Italian, and English, as well as even Eastern languages—Arabic and Persian—but not Lithuanian, which had no place at the university. In the schools supervised by the university, all education was directed in a patriotic spirit of Polishness. The inspectors paid the greatest attention to the Polish language and to improving its teaching. It was 29 was regarded as the most important means of patriotic education and an indication of a person’s education. Teachers had great difficulty with pupils beginning school who arrived unable to speak Polish. Reports by university-appointed inspectors often advised teachers to take strict measures against the Lithuanian language. But acts of violence were rare even then. After the 1831 uprising, Vilnius University was closed. A new period began. The tsarist authorities began Russifying Lithuania’s officially Polish-language schools, but without success. They essentially remained Polish, and in some places even became more Polish. The Polonization of Lithuanian pupils in these schools intensified considerably and took on a coercive character. Incidents of violence became increasingly common, especially in the Vilnius and Kaunas governorates. Pupils were entirely forbidden to speak Lithuanian, even among themselves. A pupil caught speaking Lithuanian would have a special tablet hung around his neck, called a metelinga (a distorted form of the Latin nota linguae, “language mark”). The boy had to wear this mark of shame until he caught another pupil speaking Lithuanian. Matters unfolded somewhat differently in Užnemunė (present-day Suvalkija). After the final partition of the Commonwealth, it was annexed to Prussia. The rights of the Lithuanian language there were placed on an equal footing with those enjoyed in that state. There, Lithuanian was the language of instruction in schools, was used in Protestant churches, and was widely heard in public life. Germanization had not yet begun. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to achieve all this in Užnemunė. The region was soon incorporated into the Duchy of Warsaw created by Napoleon. The Polish administration was restored. Polonization intensified considerably. Pupils were forbidden to speak Lithuanian even during breaks, as well as with parents who came to visit. Incidents of violence are known. For example, here too pupils were punished for speaking Lithuanian and had a tablet hung around their necks bearing the Polish inscription “osioł” (donkey), and the like. The condition of a Lithuanian peasant’s child of that time, upon entering school, is illustrated, for example, by the introduction to I. Čiulda’s 1854 handwritten grammar, which states (translation from Polish): “A little boy, sent to a parish school, is compelled, under threat of punishment, to renounce his parents’ language; receiving all his education and instruction in a foreign language, hitherto unknown to him, he eventually becomes (...) indifferent, (...) begins openly to loathe the language in which his tender-hearted mother, a devout Lithuanian (Samogitian), taught him his first words (...). Thus he begins to be ashamed of his parents and family, ashamed of his estate and homeland. He does not want to admit (...) that he is a Lithuanian (Samogitian), but assigns himself to a foreign nation, falsely claiming to have always been a true Pole”. After the 1863 uprising, the situation changed again. The tsarist authorities resolved to halt the Polonization of Lithuania. They did so not out of good intentions, but in pursuit of Russification. They resorted to strange measures that defied common sense. They prohibited Lithuanians from printing in the customary Latin letters (which they considered Polish). In this way they fought Polonization. It was ordered that Lithuanian books be printed only in Russian letters, but the plan failed because of the Lithuanian boycott. Books were published in Prussia and secretly distributed in Lithuania. The era of 30 book smugglers began—a unique phenomenon in the history of European culture. The Russification of schools was linked to the conversion of Lithuanians to Orthodoxy. Many Russian-language parish schools were established. Through schools, the double denationalization of Lithuanians began: alongside traditional Polonization, official Russification also emerged. The latter was less dangerous. Lithuanians were hardly Russified. But they continued to become Polonized. This was apparently explained to a considerable extent by their shared religion with the Poles (which the Russian authorities persecuted). The Lithuanian language was persecuted even more harshly in schools. Incidents of violence became much more frequent. In the second half of the 19th century, a new and very important factor emerged: the Lithuanian national revival began, coinciding with the appearance of the first issues of “Aušra.” It greatly complicated the linguistic situation in every sphere: in the church, in school, and in public life. A determined struggle began for recognition of the rights of the Lithuanian language. This also affected schools. But all of this lies beyond the chronological scope of this topic. THE ROLE OF THE SCHOOL IN THE POLONIZATION AND RUSSIFICATION OF LITHUANIANS BEFORE THE ERA OF “AUŠRA” Summary The use of schools as an instrument for the Polonization of Lithuanians began in the late 18th century. The role of the school in this respect grew during the activities of the Commission of National Education (established in 1773), when schools were tasked with actively promoting the merging of the peoples of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth into a single Polish nation. However, the school became a genuine and effective instrument of Polonization only in the 19th century, when the Lithuanian language became an object of persecution. A pupil who dared to speak Lithuanian at school was punished: he was forced to wear a special badge of shame (the so-called metelinga) until another pupil was caught committing the same “crime.” After the uprising of 1863, the tsarist authorities decided to halt the Polonization of Lithuania. This was done not out of goodwill toward Lithuanians, but with the aim of beginning their Russification. To achieve this, measures contrary to plain common sense were introduced, including a ban on printing books in Lithuanian using the Latin alphabet (which was deemed “Polish”). These and other measures did not halt the process of Polonization, but from then on it was accompanied by brutal Russification. Both processes were halted by a surge of national liberation and revival, which coincided with the publication of the first issues of the newspaper “Aušra” in 1883. 31 ENTNATIONALISIERUNG DER LITAUER DURCH DIE SCHULEN BIS "AUŠRA" Summary The Polonization of Lithuanians through schools began at the end of the 18th century. It intensified especially during the activities of the Commission of National Education (from 1773). But the Lithuanian language became a genuine object of persecution in schools in the 19th century. After the uprising of 1863, the tsarist government curbed Polonization and began Russification by banning Lithuanian printing in the Latin script. Both processes—the Polonization and Russification of Lithuanians—were halted only by the national liberation movement, whose beginnings coincided with the appearance of the first issues of “Aušra” in 1883. 32