Angelė KAULAKIENĖ

110 YEARS OF “AUŠRA”

The origins of the Lithuanian national revival are associated with the first half of the nineteenth century. Even then, the Lithuanian village had an awareness of its ethnic distinctiveness, expressed in a strong attachment to its own language and culture. The events of 1857–1864 were a major school of political education for the nation: discussions of the impending land reform, the reform of 1861–1864, and the uprising of 1863–1864¹. The raging reaction after the uprising and the ban on the Lithuanian press, unprecedented in history², dealt a blow to Lithuanian culture, especially its written literature. With the reaction suppressing opportunities to cultivate Lithuanian spiritual culture, the nation stood on the edge of an abyss. Foreign philologists therefore traveled to Lithuania to collect relics of a dying language and folklore.

Yet the little flames of national revival continued to glow³. Thus the Russian press was badly mistaken in 1882 when it declared that “a Lithuanian newspaper is now an impossibility”⁴. Young secular Lithuanian intellectuals had been developing a project to publish their own newspaper for several years⁵. It is therefore no wonder that less than a year after the aforementioned statement by the Russian press, the first monthly illegal Lithuanian journal (called a newspaper), “Aušra,” intended for Lithuania Minor, appeared in March 1883, printed in Latin letters.

Most of the articles for the first issue were sent by Dr. J. Basanavičius, who is listed as its publisher on the title page of that issue. However, this issue already contains articles prepared and edited by J. Mikšas. In other words, “Aušra” was prepared and published by several editors. They selected articles they had received or written themselves for the issues of “Aušra,” wrote replies to letters to the editorial office, which were published in the sections “Gromatnyčia” and “Gromatų skardinė,” supervised the printing, and proofread the writings in each issue. Such “Auš

¹ Dainauskas J. Auszra ir jos gadynė// Lietuvių tautos praeitis. 1983. T.7. P. 649.

² Merkys V. Nelegalioji lietuvių spauda kapitalizmo laikotarpiu (ligi 1904 m.). V., 1978. P. 3–274.

³ Vėbra R. „Aušros“ idėjinės orientacijos// „Aušra“ ir lietuvių visuomeninis judėjimas 19 a. pabaigoje. V., 1988. P. 44.

⁴ Голос. 1882. Но.134. С. I.

⁵ Dainauskas J. Min. veik. P. 647–677.

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There were four editors of “Aušra”—J. Mikšas, J. Šliūpas, M. Jankus, and J. Andziulaitis. J. Basanavičius sent articles to “Aušra” and edited issues 1–7⁶; he was its soul.

“Aušra” won broad recognition among both Lithuanian society and the public of other nations. This is also borne out by the fact that the Polish-language newspaper “Kraj,” published in St. Petersburg, printed as many as 29 reports and articles between 1883 and 1887, informing readers about the appearance of “Aušra,” its newly issued numbers, the contents of its articles, and so on.⁷

In the first years of “Aušra,” there were only 69 subscribers, 64 of them in the Russian Empire. When J. Šliūpas arrived to edit the journal, there were 240 subscribers at the beginning of 1884. After he left the editorial team and was replaced by J. Mikšas, the number of subscribers again fell to about 70. This was because J. Šliūpas maintained close ties with Lithuanian intellectuals in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Samogitia, whereas J. Mikšas, as a resident of Lithuania Minor, had far fewer opportunities⁸. Although J. Mikšas himself wrote to J. Basanavičius in a letter that he had had 175 subscribers, some of them were in debt⁹. The distribution of “Aušra” accelerated especially after the first organizations for distributing the secular press were established¹⁰. As “Aušra” spread throughout Lithuania, the ideas of national revival published in its pages had a major impact on society. Therefore, as R. Vėbra points out, “Aušra” can quite justifiably be called a manifesto of the Lithuanian nation’s vitality¹¹. What, then, was written in this manifesto?

“Our newspaper, coming out only once a month, let it cover that ground which lies fallow <...>. Briefly speaking, our newspaper will be solely ‘secular,’ and, within our means and capabilities, will bring news only from the realm of universal scholarship. In providing our readers with this news, we will chiefly endeavor to spread among our brothers knowledge of the past affairs of our kin (nation), as well as of our concerns as Lithuanians in these times <...>. Our whole kin (nation) ought to remember and know the bygone times it has lived through on this Lithuanian soil, and all the fortunate and unfortunate events which, in one way or another, made our kin what we see it to be today and led it into the hardships in which we live <...>.”

⁶ Varpas. 1903. No. 3. P. 25.

⁷ Vėbra R. Cited work. P. 45.

⁸ Merkys V. Lithuanian Peasants and the Press in the Late 19th Century — Early 20th Century. Vilnius, 1982. P. 91.

⁹ Basanavičius J. Iš „Aušros“ gyvenimo// Vienybė lietuvninkų. 1903. Nr. 51. P. 606.

¹⁰ Merkys V. Lithuanian Peasants... P. 90–96.

¹¹ Vėbra R. Cited work. P. 45.

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Speaking further about the work of “Auszra,” we must also mention that we shall not forget to collect and describe all kinds of Lithuanian ancient monuments and remains (what has been left), from which one can learn about the life, customs, work, and ancient beliefs of our forefathers. Therefore, collectors of songs, tales, etc., will find a place in our newspaper for their work, according to the value and importance of the monuments.

While recounting the past of ancient times, we shall not miss the opportunity to discuss with our readers the concerns of our nation in this age. Useful lessons and knowledge, whether from natural or physical science, from farming (agronomy), or from medicine (the physician’s art), etc., will always find a place in our “Auszra” (1883, 1)¹².

Although the editors and authors of “Aušra” changed, J. Basanavičius’s principles, set out in the “Priekalba,” were also followed later. Undoubtedly, most articles published concerned history, culture, and education. There are also some articles discussing matters of language. Most deal with Lithuanian surnames, personal names, and place names in Lithuania (“Daukanto pravardė” (1885, 2–3), “Lietuviszkos pravardės” (1885, 9), “Lietuviszkųjų kunigaikszcziu vardai” (1885, 7—8), “Vardas senovės Lietuvos valdونو” (1885, 6), “Tikriejie vardai nekuriu vietu Lietuvoje” (1884, 10—11)); a few discuss etymology (“Pradžia lietuviszkos kalbos” (1885, 4—5), “Vokiszkasis ir lotyniszkasis Vokiečių vardas” (1885, 10—11)), vocabulary (“Apie nekuriu žodžiu vartojimą” (1885, 6), “Keli lietuviszki žodžei” (1885, 7—8), “Kultitrypiti” (1886, 2)), and spelling (“Lietuviu raszliava” (1884, 1—2—3)).

Thus, when marking the twentieth anniversary of “Aušra,” “Varpas” rightly observed that “Aušra” “had to blaze trails not only for spelling, but also for language. Although several Lithuanian books (by Valančius and Daukantas) had been published in good Lithuanian, they were hard to obtain and entirely unknown to others. Therefore < > people lacked words to express their thoughts and had to create them”¹³.

Authors of popular-science articles encountered an especially obvious shortage of terms. They tried to discuss the subject matter of one scientific field or another as simply and clearly as possible, explain borrowed terms, and provide Lithuanian equivalents for them. Here is how A. Krishčiukaitis discusses

¹² The year and issue number of “Aušra” are given in parentheses. Here and elsewhere, the text is reproduced in its original form. Spelling and punctuation have not been corrected.

¹³ Ss. Musu rašyba ir kalba (1883–1903) Varpas. 1903. Nr. 3. P. 60.

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aritmetika, istoriją, geografiją straipsnyje „Matematiszkas žemės aprašzimas“ (1884, 5–6). „Daug ira mokslu ir kožnas iš jų apie ką-nor, mokina. Taip ira aritmetika; ji mokina skaitlių; istorija jau suvis kitoks mokslas: joje randame, kaip kitą syk gyveno tokia ar kitokia giminė, kokie buvo joje nesutikimai, kokias ir išz kokios priežasties kėlė kares (vainas); „<>“.

There is also a science that deals with the earth; this science is called geography; it describes the earth, what it looks like, where and what kinds of people live, and what they do. Geography is a non-Lithuanian word; in Lithuanian, it would be “a description of the earth.”

However, devising or selecting an appropriate term is not so simple. One of “Aušra”’s articles on language (1885, 6) mentions the difficulties of forming terms: “Our language has only recently begun to be adapted to the sciences, and therefore some Lithuanian words are not yet entirely suitable or correctly used; we often encounter cases where it is difficult to find any word in the language itself, especially for abstract concepts, and so we have to invent a new one, but this is not very easy work: one can easily go astray, and sometimes ‘forge’ a word that is not very euphonious or elegant „<>“.”

However, authors and editors who had a better linguistic sense and a stronger feeling for their mother tongue, and who were familiar with linguistic studies of the time, formed successful terms, for example, angla-rūkšte, dirbtuvė, įstatas “statute,” juodmena “black object,” mokslavyris “scholar,” pervirzis “surplus,” pobūdis “character,” prieplidis¹⁴, and so on.

The aforementioned article also identifies one of the sources from which terminology emerges. “It seems to me that it would be very worthwhile and useful if readers publicized in Auszra the good and useful words they had newly discovered among the people, adding their comments on them.” This source was later discussed in much greater detail by our theoretician of terminology, Prof. St. Šalkauskis¹⁵.

Thus, “Aušra” was not only the founder of a new stage in the development of modern Lithuanian literary, or standard, language¹⁶, but also a developer of terminology in various fields of science, whose origins can already be found in “Keleivis.”

¹⁴ Cf. Dainauskas J. Min. veik. P. 717–718.

¹⁵ Šalkauskis S. Raštai. V., 1991. T.2. P. 24–31.

¹⁶ Palionis J. Dėl „Aušros“ vaidmens lietuvių literatūrinės kalbos istorijoje// „Aušra“ ir lietuvių visuomeninis judėjimas 19 a. pabaigoje. V., 1988. P. 189.

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