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Kristijonas Donelaitis, A Lithuanian Classic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Rimvydas Šilbajoris
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Kristijonas Donelaitis (1714-80) was the first major Lithuanian poet and an outstanding figure in Lithuanian letters for all time. Born in a small village in East Prussia (Lithuania Minor), he spent most of his life as the Lutheran pastor of another such place, a parish called Tolminkiemis. Accounts of his life testify that he preached eloquently to his parishioners in both German and Lithuanian, made musical instruments — a clavichord and a piano — and played them, fought with the neighboring estate over parish lands, and corresponded with fellow ministers on various friendly matters, including the writing of Lithuanian poetry. When Donelaitis died, his literary legacy consisted of several fables and the rural epic Metai (The Seasons), written probably between 1765 and 1775, but not published until 1818. Metai stands as a milestone of Lithuanian literature. It was the first extensive poetic text (2,969 lines of hexameters) in that language and a work of intrinsic quality and lasting influence. Donelaitis' achievement has been increasingly recognized in recent decades, not only in Lithuania but abroad. His stature appears all the more remarkable against the background of pioneering efforts to establish Lithuanian as a literary language by members of the Protestant clergy in Lithuania Minor and by some western Lithuanian country gentry during the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. The sudden emergence of his epic talent, seemingly without adequate support from the cultural milieu of his own or any previous time in Lithuanian tradition, has produced an aura of mystery around Donelaitis, attracting poets, scholars, and hero worshipers alike.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , Summer 1982 , pp. 251 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1982

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References

1. The name is Tolminkehmen in German. This area is now occupied and settled by the Russians and forms a part of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. Donelaitis’ parish has been renamed Chistye prudy.

2. The most complete scholarly edition of Donelaitis is K. Korsakas et al., eds., Kristijonas Donelaitis, Ras “tai. Lietuvos TSR Mokslu, Akademija, Lietuviu Kalbos ir Literatures Institutas (Vilnius: Vaga, 1977). Metai has been translated into English, Russian, Latvian, Polish, and Hungarian (see The Seasons, trans. Nadas Rastenis, intro. and ed. Elena Tumas [Los Angeles: Lithuanian Days, 1967]; Vremena goda: Poema, trans. D. Brodskii [Moscow, 1946]; Gadalaiki: Poema, trans. P. Kalva [Riga: LatvieSu valodas instituts, 1963]; ” Pory roku,” trans. M. Akielewicz, manuscript held in the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Central Historical Archives). I do not have the full information on the Hungarian translation. The first German translation by Liudvikas Reza (Ludwig Rhesa) is entitled Das Jahr in vier Gesängen, ein ländliches Epos aus dem Litthauischen des Christian Donaleitis, genannt Donalitius in gleichen Verssmaass ins Deutsche übertragen, 22, trans. D. L. J. Rhesa (Königsberg, 1818). This publication is especially important because it also prints, for the first time, the complete Lithuanian text of Metai together with the German.

3. These so-called Samogitian poets, among them, Dionizas Poška (1757-1830), Silvestras Valiūnas (1789-1831), and Simanas Stanevičius (1799-1848) also wrote mostly on rural themes.

4. A 1964 bibliography of Donelaitis contains 1,026 items of literary criticism and commentary in a number of languages, out of the total of 1,412 references made since Donelaitis’ day (see Lebediené, E., Kristijono Donelačio bibliografija [Vilnius: Vaga, 1964Google Scholar]). Scholarly work on Donelaitis has increased considerably since that time.

5. This, for instance, is the central position taken in the official four-volume history of Lithuanian literature, published by the Soviet Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. The authors of the entry on Donelaitis, while agreeing that he still lacked the class insight to demand an end to serfdom, nevertheless emphasize that, in his treatment of the work theme, Donelaitis manages to arouse “great indignation at the highhandedness of the [German] ‘Amtsrat’ and ‘Wachtmeister,’ a sympathy for the serfs, and at the same time an admiration for the pathos of work, for the people's enduring optimism” (see “Kristijonas Donelaitis” in K. Korsakas, ed., Lietuvių literaturos istorija, 4 vols. [Vilnius, 1957], 1:285). Other authors have presented Donelaitis’ views of social structures as comparable to those of A. N. Radishchev, Donelaitis’ younger contemporary and an opponent of serfdom in Russia (see F. Užkalnis, “Donelaitis ir Radiščevas,” in K. Doveika et al., eds., Kristijonas Donelaitis. Pranešimai, straipsniai, archyvine medžaga. Lietuvos TSR Mokslų, Akademija, Lietuvių Kalbos ir Literatūros Institutas [Vilnius, 1956], pp. 242-51).

6. In addition to K. Doveika et al., eds., Kristijonas Donelaitis. Pranešimai, the major scholarly work in this category is by L. Gineitis, Kristijonas Donelaitis ir jo epocha. Lietuvos TSR Mokslų, Akademija Lietuvių Kalbos ir Literatūros Institutas (Vilnius, 1964). There are also some linguistic studies of Donelaitis, notably by Tamara Buch, in the manuscript “Lithuanian Phonology in Christian Donelaitis” (trans, from the Polish, 1974) and in Tamara, Buch, Die Akzentuierung des Christian Donelaitis (Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1961Google Scholar).

7. The English titles of the four parts are taken from Rastenis, trans., Seasons.

8. The “normal” sequence of the sections from spring to winter was actually set by the first translator and publisher of Donelaitis, Reza, who also provided the unifying title The Seasons. The manuscript from which Rèza worked had been arranged, with or without the knowledge of Donelaitis, from autumn to summer (see K. Korsakas et al., Kristijonas Donelaitis, Raštai, pp. 13-14).

9. Ibid., pp. 91, 171, and 99. Unless otherwise identified, all translations in this article are my own.

10. Rastenis, trans., Seasons, p. 79.

11. For those interested, here is a sample of Junker-style haute cuisine, as seen by PriCkus: Here three befattened cooks appeared before my eyes: One sluggard was eviscerating a black hawk; Another tearing with his nails an outstretched hare, Was clearing nests of curling worms from the entrails; The third, with two ungainly ladles in his hands, Into a steaming pot was packing ugly frogs — The delicacies that the rich enjoy so much. (Rastenis, trans., Seasons, p. 83)

12. Six of Donelaitis’ fables have been preserved. Like The Seasons, they are written in hexameters, and their stylistic devices and dynamics of narration resemble the didactic speeches of the peasants in the poem. The main difference is that in the fables the action is transferred from human to animal world. On the other hand, as we saw in “Joys of Spring,” the animal world has its own voice in the poem.

13. K. Korsakas et al., eds., Kristijonas Donelaitis, Račtai, p. 129. It soon becomes clear, however, that Pričkus has come to call the serfs to the fields.

14. Ibid., p. 223.

15. Ibid., p. 131.

16. Ibid., p. 225.

17. This interpretation of the sun image as a unifying design consciously executed by Donelaitis depends, of course, upon any confirming evidence which might yet come to light that he indeed composed Metai in the sequence given by Reza. The editors of Kristijonas Donelaitis, RaStai argue rather convincingly that this is indeed the case (ibid., pp. 12-14).

18. This incident is reported in the winter segment, but it is not clear exactly when it took place. The narrator only says that it happened “last year.”

19. Ibid., p. 251.

20. Ibid., p. 259.

21. According to data cited by A. Endzinas, in Donelaitis’ own parish of Tolminkiemis, approximately 65 percent of all inhabitants were colonists of West European origin (A. Endzinas, “Tolminkiemio parapija XVIII amziuje,” K. Doveika et al., eds., Kristijonas Donelaitis. Pranesimai, p. 140). The most numerous immigrants to East Prussia were Swiss Calvinists, French Huguenots, Austrians from the Salzburg area, and Germans from Rheingau-Pfalz and Nassau. They were brought there by Frederick I to repopulate rural areas which were decimated during the plague of 1708-10.

22. Donelaitis’ religious position was traditional Lutheran, with a strong element of pietism pervading both his life and work. The most extensive discussion of Donelaitis’ religious views and practices is in Aleksas VaSkelis, “Pietistinis sajudis MaZojoje Lietuvoje ir Kristijonas Donelaitis,” Aidai, 1964, no. 3, pp. 103-24.

23. Aleksas Vaškelis also supports this view: “Donelaitis thought that it was only necessary to be on guard to make sure that urban and, in general, foreign influences affecting his flock would not change the peasant, would not break his conservative shell and would not deform his naive and natural spiritual profile. From here comes in his work the great attachment to the Lithuanian peasant, whom foreign settlers are already trying to bring into the orbit of a newer, more modern life” (see Vaškelis, “Pietistinis sajudis,” p. 111).

24. Rastenis, trans., Seasons, p. 102.

25. K. Korsakas et al., eds., Kristijonas Donelaitis, Raštai, p. 91.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid., p. 95.

30. Rastenis, trans., Seasons, p. 53.

31. K. Korsakas et al., eds., Kristijonas Donelaitis, Raštai, pp. Ill, 113.

32. Ibid., p. 145.

33. L. Rèza, from the introduction to Das Jahr in vier Gesängen, as quoted in Korsakas, K. et al., eds., Lietuvų literatūros kritika, vol. 1 (Vilnius, 1971), pp. 75, 77Google Scholar.

34. L., Gineitis, Kristijonas Donelaitis ir jo epocha, p. 345Google Scholar.

35. Jonas, Grinius, Veidai ir problemos lietuviif literatūroje, vol. 1 (Rome: Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Sciences, 1973), p. 34Google Scholar.

36. Vytautas, Vanagas, Realizmas lietuvių literatūroje (Vilnius: Vaga, 1978), p. 74Google Scholar.

37. Ibid., p. 62.

38. L. Gineitis describes this rather lively cultural activity both in purely German and in German-Lithuanian circles in considerable detail ( L., Gineitis, Kristijonas Donelaitis, pp. 58ffGoogle Scholar.).

39. Ibid., p. 47.

40. Such, for instance, was the poem “Pilkainis,” a panegyric to Frederick II of Prussia, comprising the fictional history of an East Prussian Lithuanian town, written in 1772 by the German author C. G. Mielcke.

41. Quoted by L. Gineitis (Kristijonas Donelaitis, p. 322, footnote).

42. K. Korsakas et al., eds., Kristijonas Donelaitis, Raš'tai, p. 143.

43. The letter is written in a mixture of German and Lithuanian and contains some quotations from Metai — those referring to the good master who died. The passage mentioning Virgil is in German and reads, in part, as follows: “Und lebte er noch zu unserer Zeit als ein erleuchteter wahrer Christ; o wie wurde sich seine Iliade [sic] verandern, und seine Bucolica in tono moUi mit untermischten Tonbriichen, wie die Musicverständigen sich ausdrücken, lamentiren!” The “untermischte Tonbrüche” might indeed have been realized in Donelaitis’ pungent mixture of the lyric and the earthy voice in some of his lines, but this does not prove anything definite about Virgil's influence (see ibid., p. 274).

44. H. Zabulis, “Donelaicfo ‘Metų’ santykis su Vergilijaus ir Hesiodo didaktinemis poemomis” in K. Doveika et al., eds., Kristijonas Donelaitis, Pranešimai, pp. 184-212.