Kultura książki w zakonach męskich Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego XV-XVIII wieku

LTVienuolių ordinai dėl savo sandaros ypatumų buvo vienos svarbiausių institucijų, darančių poveikį Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės intelektinės ir materialinės kultūros, meno, literatūros ir kalbos raidai. Vienuolynai gerokai prisidėjo prie istorinio ir kultūrinio identiteto išsaugojimo, buvo svarbi grandis, veikusi lotyniškosios kultūros sklaidą Lietuvos Didžiojoje Kunigaikštystėje. [lvb.lt]

ENFor centuries, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania constituted a place of operation of numerous Latin religious observations: monks, mendicant orders as well as canonical and clerical, and its capital - Vilnius - was one of the most important centers of religious life of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was the convents that played the role of an outstanding carrier of the ideas of christianitas and latinitas as well as an intermediary in the transmission of specific cultural content, both in a broad institutional sense and as individual institutions. Rooted in European civilization, they influenced all areas of social life, including, in particular, the organization of the education system. The research focused on reconstruction as well as unearthing the mechanisms of the functioning of the phenomena constituting the book culture in Roman Catholic monasteries - from the 15th century right to the liquidation of the local religious network and the dissolution of individual institutions. They were based on the assumption that memory, as a human ability to consolidate experience and build knowledge about oneself and the world and to form group identity, is particularly important for the environments integrated by religion. Implementation of a specific way of thinking, subordinated to spiritual goals and shaped in accordance with religious legislation, implies the use of specific communication practices, some of which are implemented within the community, while some consist of complex relationships with church structures and society. Therefore, attention was paid to the specificity of the functioning of the Latin Church structures in a specific social environment and their participation in shaping a specific model of culture in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.Considering the permanence of the presence of religion in the social space, its significance not only in the sacrum sphere, but also as a social phenomenon is a proof of the importance of the functioning of environments shaped by specific values and their influence on society. The subject of the undertaken analyzes was, in particular, the presence of literature created and used by religious communities that implemented the life model based on common values and similar communication practices. The choice of such an approach points to the characteristics of how the normative provisions and behavioral patterns promoted in this environment influenced the shape and multitude of practices of creating and using religious, literary, scientific, and utilitarian texts in monasteries. The rich source material, which included catalogs as well as book inventories, including various texts produced and used in this environment, constituted the basis of the research. They served not only the implementation of accepted spiritual ideals, but in a broader context they showed diverse forms of the presence of religious institutions in Old Polish society. Therefore, efforts were made to identify the thematic threads that make it possible to describe the universal phenomena and processes characterizing the circulation of books in the religious environment, which has its origin In specific church legislation as well as the implemented forms of activity and presence in the world. In particular, the aim was to determine under what circumstances, how, and by what types of texts the communities of religious orders communicated with each other. The objective was to show the influence of various religious legislations on the way of organizing the circulation of books and the selection of texts used in convents, and to what extent they influenced communication practices and the canon of literature.Hence, attempts were made to determine which texts were essential for the functioning of the monasteries and their structures, and which were intended for the local or supra-local community. Therefore, various types of works were subjected to analysis: the religious as well as utilitarian, literary, occasional, scientific works, etc. The objective was to determine the extent to which religious orders carried out specific tasks for their environment, and to what extent in the religious culture was the specificity of multicultural and multi-religious the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, especially in the tradition and practice of creating and using literature against the background of complementary forms of using the word was visible. The communication perspective, in which writing and text are seen in the context of the sacrum, constituted the research axis. Their significance in the context of spiritual values was strengthened by pointing to the role in shaping and maintaining the identity of groups constituted by faith. The specificity of communication in these environments can be seen at many levels, for example, in the religious order environments we do not notice any conflict between the oral and the written, but rather we observe their coexistence, and likewise there is no definite antinomy between religiosity and the high and popular culture. The perception of monasteries as important and permanent elements of social and religious life as well as vital factors of cultural changes allowed made it possible to register a lot of regularities that enrich the knowledge about the book culture of the communities of religious orders, verifying the stereotypical and often derogatory assessments related to the role of writing and reading in church environments. [...]. [From the publication]