Abstract:

Abstract This article presents the assumptions of new research on the legacy of Antanas Juška, recorded in Lithuanian and Polish. We assume that the forgotten works of this bilingual author from Lithuania, mainly translation dictionaries, are an underestimated study material for interdisciplinary research. They are particularly important for understanding the rich conceptualisations of the world by two collective subjects, Poles and Lithuanians, co-existing in Lithuania under the Russian partition. We have formulated two research hypotheses: (1) the bilingual dictionaries authored by Antanas Juška, who was a Catholic priest, are not only a valuable source of knowledge about the state of the Polish and Lithuanian languages in the nineteenth century, but above all specific cultural texts which form part of the social discourse of their time and place, and thus carry relevant ethnolinguistic and ethnocultural information; (2) bilingual dictionaries as a genre had an impact on the crystallisation of Lithuanian national awareness and the strengthening of cultural identity of Lithuanians in the second half of the nineteenth century.

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