Lietuvos dvasinio gyvenimo atspindžiai Petro Skargos "Šventųjų gyvenimuose"

LTŠio straipsnio tikslas: pasitelkus Petro Skargos 1579 ir 1610 m. „Šventųjų gyvenimų“ leidimus (pirmąjį, rašytą ir išleistą Vilniuje, ir paskutinįjį, redaguotą autoriaus, kurio išleidimu jis taip pat rūpinosi gyvendamas Vilniuje), ištirti, koks Lietuvos dvasinio gyvenimo paveikslas atsiskleidžia knygos „dvasinio peno“ skiltyse. [Iš straipsnio, p. 141]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Petras Skarga. "Żywoty świętych"; Visuomenės veikėjai; Dvasinis gyvenimas; Religinė literatūra; Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); 16 amžius; Komentarai; Religious literature; Lithuania’s spiritual life; Comments; 16th century.

ENPiotr Skarga SJ (1536–1612) wrote and published his famous book Żywoty świętych Starego i Nowego Zakonu in Vilnius in 1579. The present article analyses the panorama of Lithuania’s spiritual life as reflected in the peritext of the Skarga’s book – the section Obrok duchowny (“spiritual nourishment”) – based on the first (1579) and the last (1610) editions by the author. There are 10 texts of Obrok duchowny (out of 209) depicting Lithuanian realities and taking place at the times (1572, 1574, 1575 and 1583) coinciding with the period of Skarga’s residence in Vilnius (1573–1584). Therefore, the geography and chronology of the tales included in this section are partially determined by the author’s place of residence: while writing the book in Vilnius, Skarga drew on life details of Lithuania, which were closest and best known to him at the time; having moved to Kraków, his connection to Lithuania got weaker and he stopped writing so much about Lithuanian realities and even shortened some of the existing depictions. Stories about Lithuania told by Skarga depict a bleak portrait of spiritual life in Lithuania: prejudices, the godlessness of Lithuanians, wicked priests, the lack of monasteries, the prevalence of Orthodoxes, crimes of the Jews and the tolerance of them. The most urgent problem of Lithuania, in Skarga’s view, which he mentions most often, is the spread of Protestantism. The examples selected by Skarga reflect post-Trent problems and actualities of the Church. Depicting a generally gloomy image of spiritual life in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Skarga marks the activities of the Jesuits as a source of light, thereby presenting Lithuania as a land in dire need of the missions of the Society of Jesus and his own. [From the publication]