"Lietuviai ir lenkai" (1887) : Jono Šliūpo pozicija ir valstybingumo vizijos XIX a. pabaigoje

• Lietuvių kalba / Lithuanian
• Lenkų kalba / Polish
• Anglų kalba / English

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Visuomenės veikėjai; Tautinė savimonė; Nacionaliniai santykiai; Užsienio ryšiai.

ENThis book, which is dedicated to the Lithuanian public figure Jonas Šliūpas and his booklet in Polish, Litwini i Polacy, New York, 1887, a more exact English translation of which would be Lithuanians in Relation to the Poles, is the result of work relating to the publication and research of historical records, made possible by a grant (No LIT-8-83) from the Research Council of Lithuania. Litwini i Polacy was a pocket-sized paperback of 44 pages printed by the publisher of the newspaper Lietuwiszkasis Balsas'. The author’s given name and surname were spelled in the Polish tradition as Jan Szlupas as the Polish alphabet did not contain the letters š or it, which, incidentally, were not yet firmly established in the then Lithuanian alphabet. These diacritical marks do not exist at all in the English alphabet which is why the name and surname of Jonas Šliupas appear in several variations in English historical texts as John Szlupas, John Szliupas, John Slupas or John Šliupas. We use the spelling of the surname as it is accepted in modern Lithuanian - Šliūpas - or with the first letter of the given name - J. Šliūpas. Litwini i Polacy, the Polish text of which is reproduced in this volume together with a translation into Lithuanian, is an important historical source enabling the reader to understand the political and historical mindset of an active member of the early Lithuanian national movement at the end of the 19th century. It is considered to be the first publication in Polish by Lithuanian immigrants in the USA. The fact that a great many Lithuanians who do not understand Polish remain ignorant of the content of this booklet and even of its very existence has prompted us to include in this publication a Lithuanian translation of Šliūpass text, making the legacy of his writings accessible to a wider circle of Lithuanian readers.Jonas Šliūpas’s booklet drew an extensive review in Przegląd Literacki, a literary supplement to the Polish weekly Kraj published in the capital of the Russian empire St Petersburg, in 1889. The review written by a Polonized member of the Lithuanian gentry, Jan Witort2 3, was so long that it ran in five instalments under the heading Litwomani1 suggested by the editorial board. Since the present- day reader is even less familiar with it than with the text of Šliūpas’s booklet, we thought it expedient to reproduce here the text of the review in the original together with its Lithuanian translation. Witort’s critical review is of value as a source of information on the Polish reaction, or to be more exact, the reaction of one of the members of the Polonized Lithuanian gentry, to the nascent Lithuanian movement, as well as shedding light on the differences between Poland and Lithuania over the treatment of certain historical facts and on the future prospects for Poles and Lithuanians as they were perceived in the penultimate decade of the 19th century. The book opens with an introductory article by Dr Arūnas Vyšniauskas, a senior researcher at the Department of Modern History of Vilnius University and the project manager, compiler and editor of the present book. The article discusses Šliūpas’s early political and public activities, the circumstances under which the booklet Litwini i Polacy was written and published, Witorts personality and the general tone and content of his critical review. We have also included a version of the introductory article in Polish. The Lithuanian translations from the Polish of Šliūpas’s Litwini i Polacy, and Witort s critical review Litwomani together with annotations, as well as the Polish translation of Vyšniauskas’s introductory article from the Lithuanian, were done by Dr Ryšard Gaidis, a member of the Modern History Department of Vilnius University.The book also includes an article in English, “Jonas Šliūpas: A Baltic Visionary”, by PhDr Lubos Švec of the Department of Russian and East European Studies of the Institute of Social Studies of Charles University in Prague. The author of the article discusses the ideas expounded by Šliūpas in the 19th century in a broader context by placing them in relation to his later activities and the international situation during WWI. Through the varied composition of the book in three languages, namely, English, Lithuanian and Polish, we sought to pay special attention both to Šliupas’s personality and to one of his first publications, in which he attempted to offer an original interpretation of the history of Lithuanian-Polish relations by treating Lithuania’s past as a distinctly separate process from Polish history. Šliūpas tried to support the idea of Lithuania’s historical separateness by disclosing the negative influence Poland exerted on Lithuanians in the past. He also wrote about the difficult political and social situation of Lithuanians at the time, formulated visions of Lithuania’s future and, from the perspective of Lithuanian-speaking people, discussed their growing aspirations of independence and the possibilities of liberation from foreign domination. The truth is, however, that at the time the Lithuanian national movement was undergoing a political and ideological split and Šliūpas mainly expressed his own standpoint and views, which were only in partial agreement with those of other Lithuanian activists. [From the publication]

• In Search for alternatives to German domination: the construction of the maritime past in Latvian and Lithuanian national historiography / Valentinas Kulevičius. Latvijas vēstures institūta žurnāls 2024, Nr. 1 (121), p. 64-93.
• Rinktiniai raštai / Jonas Vitartas. T. 1 / sudarė Auksuolė Čepaitienė. Vilnius : Lietuvos istorijos institutas, 2017. 383 p.
• Simonas Daukantas - "įspėjęs ateities dvasią" / Darius Kuolys. Liaudies kultūra. 2018, Nr. 4, p. 24-32.
• Simono Daukanto pasakojimas – „pamatai dėl lietuvystės“ / Darius Kuolys. Senoji Lietuvos literatūra. 2019, 48, p. 149-191.