List jako narzędzie komunikacji wielkiego księcia litewskiego Witolda

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Korespondencija; Kunigaikščio kanceliarija; Laiškai; Laiškai; Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); 14 amžius; 15 amžius; Vytautas Didysis, 1350-1430 (Vytautas the Great); Vytautas; Correspondence; Duke's chancery; Grand duke of Lithuania Vytautas (Witold); Letter; Lithuanian XIV-XV c. history; The Great Duchy of Lithuania; Vytautas.

ENIn the daily activity of Witold, the grand duke of Lithuania, the letter served not only for settling official matters but also private affairs. Preserved resources include correspondence intended for foreign addressees. We do not know how intensive was the duke’s correspondence within his state. In cases of need, Witold, his recipients and the authors of letters addressed to him, sent each other letters received from third persons and other documents. Witold was familiar with this practice already during the period when he sought refuge in the Order. It is difficult to say whether he sent original versions or copies of the received letters more frequently. The correspondence of the duke and his partners includes copies of letters known as: abschrift, briffes abeschrift, copien, while the originals were described as: brieff, orbriffe anders originalia. Nonetheless, the terms applied in Witold’s letters: brieff / briffe (in the case of letters) did not always denote original correspondence but were also used for copies. Infrequent mentions in the sources make it possible to deduce that some of the incoming letters were preserved in the duke’s chancery, at least for a certain time. This assumption is confirmed by statements in Witold’s letters mentioning the storage of letters or the duke’s demands that the addressees return the original versions after reading them. The practice of sending copies of letters produced in the ducal chancery to the correspondents suggests that the originals were kept in the chancery as long as they were topical. We do not know, however, whether Witold’s chancery made copies of the sent letters or preserved their concepts. Presumably, the concepts, rough copies and copies of particularly important letters, albeit certainly not all, were stored.The language of the correspondence depended on the addressee and the secrecy of the contents. Witold’s correspondence with Pope Martin V, Sigismund of Luxemburg and Jagiełło was in Latin. Some of the letters to the king of Poland were written in Ruthenian, which could have been used to keep the correspondence secret. Letters addressed to the Teutonic Order were, as a rule, in German. The chancery of the grand duke employed one or several persons fluent in Bohemian. Aletter intended for Witold and sent by his envoys is in Latin. The topics of the duke’s letter encompassed multiple domains of life, spanning from topical political affairs to daily issues and those pertaining to personal life. The preserved correspondence is dominated by letters on many topics, and the variety of the themes reflects great changes transpiring in the culture of letter writing in the second half of the fourteenth century and the early fifteenth century. The use of letters in numerous spheres of daily activity signified the inclusion of Duke Witold into the communication space of Latin Europe as its fully fledged member. www.rcin. [From the publication]

• Literatūrologija / Literary Studies
• Istorija / History