POLITICAL AND LEGAL THOUGHTS OF THE INHABITANTS OF ANCIENT BELARUS

The article examines the relationship between traditional culture and the genesis of the state and legal system. The author describes myths about the origin of power, sources of law and order, which were widespread among the inhabitants of ancient Belarus, their influence on the state and legal reality of the East Slavic principalities and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The Last Citizen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: The Editor Ludwik Abramowicz (1879–1939) and the Idea of "Krajowość"

The Last Citizen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: The Editor Ludwik Abramowicz (1879–1939) and the Idea of KrajowośćLudwik Abramowicz was one of the main ideologists of the idea of krajowość in its liberal-democratic version. He defended its principles even in the interwar period, when Poland was dominated by the policy of assimilation of national minorities and relations with Lithuania had the character of a cold war. Thanks to Abramowicz, Przegląd Wileński [Vilnius Review] (1921–1938) became the last bastion of the idea of krajowość, actively popularising it in the public life of the Vilnius Region. Abramowicz unwaveringly defended the idea of the political independence of the Belarusian-Lithuanian Lands and the decision of its future by the representatives of all indigenous nations. Abramowicz’s life and work, his publications in Przegląd Wileński prove that against all political and national-cultural realities, the idea of krajowość as an idea of harmonious coexistence of the nations of the historical Lithuania was popular and found new supporters.Ostatni obywatel Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego. Wprowadzenie do biografii redaktora Ludwika Abramowicza (1879–1939)Publicysta i redaktor Ludwik Abramowicz był jednym z głównych ideologów idei krajowej w jej liberalno-demokratycznej wersji. Bronił zasad krajowości nawet w dwudziestoleciu międzywojennym, kiedy w Polsce dominowała polityka asymilacji mniejszości narodowych, a stosunki z Litwą miały charakter zimnej wojny. Dzięki Abramowiczowi „Przegląd Wileński” (1921–1938) stał się ostatnim bastionem idei krajowej, czynnie popularyzując ją w życiu publicznym Wileńszczyzny. Abramowicz konsekwentnie bronił idei politycznej niezależności Kraju Białorusko-Litewskiego i decydowania o jego losie przez przedstawicieli wszystkich rdzennych narodów. Życie i twórczość Abramowicza, publikacje w „Przeglądzie Wileńskim” świadczą, że wbrew wszelkim realiom politycznym i narodowo-kulturowym idea krajowa jako idea harmonijnego współistnienia narodów historycznej Litwy cieszyła się popularnością i znajdowała nowych zwolenników.

Aspects of the Epigraphic Culture of Cannon Inscriptions during the Reign of Sigismund Augustus

Any object marked with epigraphic writing becomes unique in the totality of the same objects and acquires the status of a monument. In the 16th century, cannons were also marked with inscriptions (texts and images): some were created for warfare, others – to commemorate a certain event. During the reign of Sigismund Augustus, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania created the necessary infrastructure for cannon casting, which allowed it to produce large numbers of cannons to prepare for its war with the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The article attempts to reconstruct inscriptions on cannons using original and published archival sources stored in memory institutions in foreign countries (Poland, Sweden). An appendix covering 67 cannon records made it possible to perceive the structure of such inscriptions. Meanwhile, with the help of the ego-documentary legacy of the last Jagiellonian ruler, it was possible to study the functionality of cannon recordings in the context of epigraphic culture, paying special attention to the stages of the record’s emergence. This has so far been little studied at all. The collected data allowed to reach the conclusion that it was the ruler of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania who directly influenced the form, names, and content of the inscriptions on cannons.

Manuscript Books: Collections of Political Life Materials from the Area of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Dating Back to the 17th and 18th Centuries in Libraries, Archives and Museums in Poland

The article discusses manuscript books – collections of public life materials created in the 17th and 18th centuries in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, now located in Poland. They were created mainly by nobles and by chancellery clerks and officials employed at magnates’ and state dignitaries’ courts as an expression of the interests of collectors or documentary and historiographical concerns, and sometimes also as support for public activity. They contained various materials related to conducting, documenting and recording public life. The present overview is based on an identification of copies and on the information contained in printed and online manuscript catalogues and inventories. The number of surviving manuscripts of that type can be hypothetically estimated at ca. 400–500 copies, with ca. 100 copies identified in Poland. Their largest collection is held in the Radvilos Archives, part of the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw, with single copies scattered across different libraries and museums. The oldest ones date back to the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The greatest value should be attributed to several manuscripts originating from the Radvilos of Biržai community from the mid-17th century. Other valuable manuscripts include some made by common nobles, especially in the 17th century, as they often contain unique materials, unknown from elsewhere, as well as those created in the circles of the Sapiegos and Radvilos of Nyasvizh magnate families. Standing out among the latter are miscellanies created during the first three decades of the 18th century by Kazimierz Złotkowski, secretary of the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania Karolis Stanislovas Radvila. These books attest to the integration of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s nobility and magnates with other lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. They largely contain materials relating to public life of the whole Commonwealth, while often including materials relating to local issues.

The Phenomenon of the 18th Century Institutional Printing House of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: The Case of the Franciscans

Many of the printing houses in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that operated during the 17th-18th centuries belonged to institutions the biggest part of which consisted of Catholic monk monasteries. Despite belonging to one group, the development path of each printing house and its contribution to book culture has unique features. Of the four institutional prin­ting houses operating in the 18th century in Vilnius, the printing house of the Franciscan Conventuals Monastery was the first to be closed and its operations terminated. The purpose of the article is to identify the following causes behind the issues and eventual closure of this printing house. Based on the expenses and income book of this printing house for the period 1752–1769 (it is preserved at the Department of Manuscripts of Vilnius University Library,) this paper examines various aspects of the Vilnius Franciscan Conventuals monastery printing house: funds, sources of equipment and paper, building location, relations with employees and hired craftsmen, orders, sources of income, profitability. In order to better understand the specificity of the institutional press, an effort was made to establish a link between the research outcome and the wider context by addressing the question of the impact of both the society of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Franciscan Order itself on the destiny of the printing house. In addition, the book of expenses and income reveals new biographical data about Vilnius engraver Franciszek Balcewicz.

Discovering the Book Worlds of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: The Case of Male Religious Orders

Pietrzkiewicz, Iwona. Kultura książki w zakonach męskich Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego XV–XVIII wieku. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Pedagogicznego, 2019. 447 s. ISBN 9788380843356.

A Vilnius Transcript of the Health Garden: A Codicological Study

This article is devoted to the history of cultural relations between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Moscovian Rus’ as well as the artifacts that testify to it. The object of the research is a Vilnius transcript of the Health Garden (a translation of Gart der Gesundheit (1492) into Russian) kept in the Wróblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (LMAVB RS F22–25). The aim of the article is to present a revised codicological description of the object, identifying the features of the Vilnius transcript and its links with the culture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This aim is achieved by using codicological, comparative and textual methods, compiling a detailed codicological description of the copy, analyzing the architecture and internal structures of the code, and identifying differences or similarities between the Vilnius, Flor, Uvarov, and Shelonin copies of the Health Garden. Based on the gathered data, the circumstances of compiling the code are clarified. The study identified the following features of the Code. The large-scale codex, created in Moscow between the 17th and 18th centuries, is not a homogeneous object. It consists of two different editions: the index is closer to the Uvarov transcript and the main text to the Kharkov / Flor transcript. The second feature is careful preparation of the transcript. The codex was drafted as an exemplary edition of an old manuscript and is richly illustrated. Colored pigments were used for decoration, leaving traces of gilding. The edges of the Codex block were painted and decorated in ornamental prints. This allows us to consider the high social status of the client of the code. The third feature is the completeness of the text of the Vilnius copy. It consists of the most comprehensive block of indexes; the main text has been supplemented with new objects, enriched with new images; the text contains as many as 237 names of medicinal substances and 38 minerals in Russian. The remarks and additions contained in the previous transcripts became an integral part of the texts of the Vilnius transcript. The identified features, overlapping formal features, and organization scheme of the text, as well as the same manner of illustration, gave reason to search for a place where all the mentioned copies – Flor, Uvarov, Shelonin – as well as other old prints or their translations could have been seen by the creators of the Vilnius transcript. It is believed that such a place could have been the The Apothecary Chancery. Some Polonisms are found in the text; the works of authors from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were used in the Rus’ at that time and thus encourage a closer look at the translations and the search for citizens from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who could have participated in the works. The research clarifies the available knowledge about the transcript kept in Vilnius. The information gathered is expected to help book historians clarify the origin of the codex, its production environment, and its place in the Gart der Gesundheit’s line of translations and transcripts; this paper will make it possible to identify other stored fragments. The article is supplemented with a comparative table of the structure and content of the Vilnius transcript of the Health Garden and a decor picture of the code block.

The Palemonids, Gediminids, and Samogitians: Some Remarks on Lithuanistics in the Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Samogitia

The article examines the hypothesis on the possible influence of a Samogitian nobleman on the author of the chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Samogitia. In the chronicle Lithuania and its ruling dynasty are traced back to Samogitia. The tradition of Gediminids’ pagan names in Samogitia suggests that the author of the chronicle was looking for an informer in this region and perhaps used the local naming tradition to create the names of the legendary Palemonids. The plot of the 1440 Samogitians Uprising, which appears in the Bychowec chronicle, as well as some indirect references, suggest that Stanislovas Orvydas may have been the informer.

Илья Федорович Копиевский (Жизнь и судьба одного просветителя петровского времени)

In 1699, on the initiative of Peter the Great, the printing of Russian secular books began in Amsterdam, most of which were textbooks: on history, arithmetic, astronomy, navigation, and foreign languages. The compiler, translator, and publisher of these books was a native of the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ilya Fedorovich Kopievsky (or Kopievich). For many decades, historians have turned to the biography of this man, but it is still full of gaps and factual errors. The article summarizing the various information about Kopievsky available today (from archival documents to the latest works of historians) contains a detailed reconstruction of his life path. It also includes materials to return to the question of the contribution of this enlightener to the cultural reforms of Peter the Great.