Motiejaus Valančiaus sudarytas retų lietuviškų knygų sąrašas
Motiejus Valančius’ List of Rare Lithuanian Books

Summary/Abstract: The Augustinas Janulaitis (1878–1950) Fund (F267-1492) in the Manuscript Department of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences is home to a book from the personal collection of the Samogitian Bishop Motiejus Kazimieras Valančius (in Polish Maciej Kazimierz Wołonczewski, 1801–1875). This archivalia has not yet received any amount of scholarly attention. The book is considered part of the so-called silva rerum, a collection of 18 documents of varying genres and content handwritten by Valančius or someone else in Polish, Russian, Latin and Lithuanian, including a number of statutes, privileges, old legal and ecclesiastical documents, extracts from works of literature and historical tracts, a translation, a poem, and so on. Pending detailed research into the contents of these documents and the paper on which they are written, we should stick to 1834 and 1845 as the dates bookending the creation of this book manuscript (seeing as these dates are recorded therein). In turn, we can assume that the documents were bound into a book some time after 1861 (as referenced by the relief imprint of tree branches and an inscription that reads Нововеркская фабрика № 6 on the extra blank pages of the book). The publication features one element of this book: a list of 21 Lithuanian books Valančius once read. That is Valančius’ signature. The books are not listed in chronological or alphabetical order. The metrics of the publications are not necessarily written down with any degree of precision. Valančius kept some of the books in his library, he read others elsewhere (for instance, in the Library of the Spiritual Academy of Roman Catholics in St Petersburg). The editions of the books date from between 1579 and 1842 (two books are dated 1579, one is dated 1599, one 1660, one 1629, one 1713, one 1737, one 1745, two 1747, one 1755, three 1781, two 1800, two 1823, one 1829, one 1841, one 1842). Valančius provided a commentary on each of the books on the list, with one exception, Маłdos Krikszczioniszkos (1781, author unknown). Only six of the books received any sort of acclaim from him. Seven of the books he appraised in terms of their language as well. The document published here supports, once again, the findings of researchers who conducted a probe into the library of the Samogitian bishop: (1) Valančius was not an avid bibliophile, but he had a passion for reading and a strong opinion about books (and not just religious books); (2) he would never write any comments on a book down in Lithuanian (using Polish or Latin instead); (3) his opinion would always be spot-on, he was able to critically evaluate the pros and the cons of a book. The list of Lithuanian books that is published here also confirms, and not for the first time, that Valančius treasured the Lithuanian book, just as he considered himself an expert in the Lithuanian language. The book handwritten by Valančius was procured by Eduardas Volteris (in Russian Эдуард Александрович Вольтер; in Latvian Eduards Volters, 1856–1941) during his 1887 ethnographic trip across Lithuania. Later, it made its way into Janulaitis’ archives (as did quite a few of Volter’s other documents). Volter was also the first to mention the most ‘Lithuanian’ element of the book, the list of Lithuanian books drawn up by Valančius that is published here, in the press in 1887.

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