Talk:Union of Kėdainiai

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An interesting question: when exactly was the Lithuanian name for that union coined? 20th century or earlier? Halibutt 20:42, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

I guess people used to call it that way when speaking about it in Lithuanian for long, I mean, it is pretty self-explaining (Kėdainių unija and Kėdainių sutartis means Union of Kėdainiai and Agreement/Pact of Kėdainiai respectively; it is not as if this would be some special name). Those two are ones used in history books nowadays. If there is any Polish name for this union, you may add it too. DeirYassin 10:09, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I wonder when did Lithuanian-speakers got to know such a pact existed. I doubt anyone but the ones interested knew it at the time. Anyway, could you try to trace down when the Lithuanian name appeared for the first time? I guess it must've been around 1915, though I might be wrong on this issue... Halibutt 18:47, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

The name appeared when the Lithuanian historiography appeared: end of 19th century - begining of 20th century. The wider public could find it in a popular History of Lithuania edited by Adolfas Šapoka (1930), who also wrote a special study about the union, which was published in 1990 only. Lithuanian historiography treats the union differently - romatic and nationalist historiography, which thought that Poland was the source of all Lithuanian troubles, used to portray it as an unrealized alternative to assumed "chaos" coming from Poland. Some of the latest works (Bumblauskas in pictorial "History of Ancient Lithuania") point that under that treaty Lithuania had much less rights as in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.Dirgela 18:45, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

It is based on assumption that no one of nobles actually spoke Lithuanian at all. This is just an assumption however; that language is considered unperstigious and that people does not speaks it with other "intelligent people" and does not use it for writting does not means that they does not know it. Situation like that is in existance with e.g. many amerindian languages in South America, where people considers them to be unprestigious and speaks in Spanish outside their families and such, many doesn't tell even in censae that they knows these languages and it turns out in them that just few hundreds speaks those languages while actually whole regions are using it. Similar situation is in Lithuania with Samogitian language where current Samogitians considers it to be unprestigious and those who lives in cities usually does not speak it with people outside their families, however, they still know it. Here the situation is that Samogitian is considered dialect of Lithuanian, however it is quite different; and by their relationships, the relationship of Polish and Lithuanian in time of late Commonwealth was similar to that of a language and it's dialect (the dialect being unused for writting, by "intelligent people" and such). I am not saying that it 'was' so that nobles spoke Lithuanian, it is yet another assumption (same as one which says that they didn't) and I guess more research would be needed here. However, note that after national revival some of the obles and many people from cities who also used Polish before as prestigious language started speaking Lithuanian and associating themselves with Lithuanian nation. I don't think it is even possible that everyone would learn an unused language from scratch (it is possible only in places where there is no common language, e.g. it was done at Israel), it is way more likely that people just started to consider Lithuanian, which they always knew and talked in families and such but were ashamed to talk in such places as universities, prestigious places and such, to be good enough for talking everywhere. Out of nobles, many started to consider themselves Poles and abandoned Lithuanian at all (there were even families where people took different paths: e.g. Narutowicz, first president of Poland, and Stanislovas Narutavičius, signer of Lithuanian independence declaration) (Btw I was in Rietavas recently, hq of dukes Oginskiai, and there in their graveyard I was quite surprised to see that some of the graves are in Polish, some in Lithuanian (starting from about 1890, but some later ones are in Polish too)). The Vilnius dispute later and conflict between both nations later effectively made everybody choose nationality and abandon the other language and such, however up till then I imagine most would know at least some Lithuanian, as otherwise national revival would have never happened. As for finding out date of first usage, I am not sure where it could be possible to search for, might be impossible, especially for verbal usage. DeirYassin 10:21, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

@DeirYassin:The scale of polonisation in Lithuania is definitely overrated, and probably based on stereotypes from late XIX century. Lithuanian nobility definitely spoke Lithuanian in XVI and XVII ages. Konstantinas Sirvydas was preaching sermons at St. John's church in Vilnius (twice a day - once in Lithuanian, and once in Polish). Books in Lithuanian were published in XVI and XVII centuries. Nobility in Samogitia spoke or at least understood Lithuanian/Samogitian up to regaining of the Independece of Lithuania in 1918. Ke an (talk)

Date

Can someone provide sources for the date of the treaty? I've come across August 18, October 10, October 20. Appleseed (Talk) 18:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)