Eugenijus Jovaiša. „Kapai ir žmonės. Aisčiai, romėnai, gotai ir kitos istorijos“

DARIUS IVOŠKA Institute of the Lithuanian Language ORCID id: orcid.org/0000-0003-3898-0000 Research areas: the historical Prussian and Lithuanian onomasticon, historical manuscript heritage, and research into documents of the Chancellery of the Teutonic Order. DOI: doi.org/10.35321/all83-18 Eugenijus Jovaiša GRAVES AND PEOPLE. AISHTIANS, ROMANS, GOTHS, AND OTHER STORIES Vilnius: UAB „Unseen Pictures“, 2020, 286 p. ISBN 978-609-475-477-7 It is both self-evident and paradoxical that even nations existing for millennia continue to search for their roots and measure the depths of their past. Where, then, does comprehensibility lie, and where paradox? A nation’s history lies not only in known facts of its past—in other words, historically attested events or fragmentary mentions of tribes—but much deeper. The earliest testimonies of one nation or another (or a group of nations) known to scholarship simply provide us with knowledge of its existence at a particular period, but not of its emergence. Every earliest dating immediately raises the question: what came before? After all, no nation, as a social formation possessing ethnic distinctiveness, could have arisen suddenly and from nowhere. That is why every major or minor discovery in historical sources, archaeological excavations, or the resources of other related disciplines should be regarded as a new trace prompting us to seek what we do not yet know—the beginning and origin. This is also what is sought in the first book of Eugenijus Jovaiša’s published trilogy Aisčiai. Kilmė. What should be regarded as a discovery and as a new and important phenomenon in history and related sciences—anthropology, archaeology, the history of language, and cultural studies—can sometimes become an object of discussion, and it is precisely discussion and polemic that create the paradoxical nature of discovery. It might seem that there are not so many new historical monuments, exceptional finds, or unknown historical written sources. Yet one can nevertheless boldly Recenzijos / Reviews 373 DARIUS IVOŠKA speak of discoveries and new data, arriving at new and often exceptionally bold conclusions. It should not be forgotten that we live in an age of great possibilities, when even data studied for centuries can today be processed differently, with the proper use of the most advanced technologies, which in many cases help us find a more precise and better-founded explanation. New possibilities for interpreting entire sets of phenomena are opening up. Particularly important is the attitude established in the XX–XXI centuries of comparing data from related sciences and using it to present the most reliable conclusions possible. This is precisely what is evident in the book by Eugenijus Jovaiša discussed in this review, Kapai ir žmonės. The author himself is disinclined to regard his book as a work in a scholarly field (p. 14)—the reviewer would not wish to agree with such a claim. The book’s astonishingly refined, richly and professionally illustrated edition and its manner of presenting the material may perhaps be more characteristic of popular-science publications; however, the material of the author’s extensive, detailed, and systematic long-term research, the discoveries of immense importance, and the conclusions and interpretations grounded in substantial scholarly erudition in no way allow this publication to be considered insufficiently scholarly. Upon reading the title of the book, the reader cannot imagine that it contains not a report on research conducted by an archaeologist, but a harmonious overview of the existence of the Aishti and the inhabitants of “Old Europe”—their government, wars, trade, and culture. The author succeeds in realizing the idea of this book—to “link the life of the earliest people of our land with the bygone ages of Europe and their protagonists” (p. 14). The detailed and complex information presented in this way, distinguished not only by the diversity and abundance of its data but also by its intricate connections with historical space and time, is very convenient to read and comprehend for a representative of another discipline or an amateur reader of history and archaeology, perhaps even for a casual reader with no knowledge of the origins of our nation and no familiarity with the Aishti. As a user of archaeological data rather than a professional archaeologist, the reviewer assesses the book from his own—onomastic—perspective. It would be irresponsible to assume that linguistics, as a separate and independent field of scholarship, is unrelated to archaeology. In the XX century, onomastics began to look toward other disciplines capable of facilitating diachronic research into the onomasticon, and often even of enabling reliable conclusions that cannot be reached on the basis of linguistic scholarship alone. Researchers of the European onomasticon understood that a large part of Europe’s names—especially the ancient witnesses to the history of settled humanity, hydronyms, as well as toponyms and personal names—cannot be explained, or more precisely, their origins cannot be established, on the basis solely of historical-linguistic data in the contemporary geopolitical context. For scholars of historical linguistics and Indo-European studies, Hans Krahe (Hans Krahe¹), and later his student Wolfgang P. Schmid (Wolfgang P. ¹ See Hans Krahe 1964. 374 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIII Eugenijus Jovaiša. Kapai ir žmonės. Aisčiai, romėnai, gotai ir kitos istorijos Schmid)² observed that hydronyms having the same or similar roots and resistant to determination of origin are distributed throughout Europe: from the Iberian Peninsula to the Apennines, from Great Britain to Scandinavia, and through the Baltic countries across the continent to the Balkans. From this arose the hypothetical concept of “Old Europe.” It was followed by a broadly articulated and fairly reliably substantiated existence of a single proto-language, common not only to all prehistoric inhabitants of Europe. It seems that, just as a harmonious and balanced universe is born from Chaos in ancient Greek cosmogony, so hydronyms of unclear origin scattered throughout Europe bring us inevitably to the thought that at that time they all belonged to one common proto-language. Much begins to become clear. Thus, all the nations, tribes, or other communities of humanity living in prehistoric “Old Europe” had a common or at least very similar language as an instrument of communication, exchange, trade, and the maintenance of other social relations. The same leitmotif lingers in the mind while reading E. Jovaiša’s book Kapai ir žmonės. Let us take, for example, the migration of the Aishti—Apennines, the coastal region, Semba, Western Masuria, the Nemunas region, and the confluence of the Nemunas and Neris (p. 38). Nor should we forget the great phenomenon of “intercontinental trade” (p. 234)—the Amber Road—with such trading centers as Semba or “our coast,” called by the author the “Mecca of Aishti trade” (p. 210), comparable in scale to the Silk Road (p. 224). These difficult-to-grasp but, as it turns out, possible and real facts of humanity’s movements, the geography of trade, and mutual relations in deep antiquity testify to the dynamic development of human history, while solving many riddles. The grave goods in the area inhabited by the Aishti, seemingly unrelated in any way to their daily life, warfare, or adornment traditions (pp. 55–56), show that the Aishti maintained close commercial and cultural relations not only with the Roman world but also with distant neighbors from the north. For a researcher of the onomasticon, it is not only intriguing to read E. Jovaiša’s thoughts about the cities marking the Amber Road (p. 226) Ascaucalis, Calisa, Parienna, Breclav and others, and about the origins of their names; it also presents him with a task—to investigate the origins of the names of the cities mentioned and try to determine “through whose lands our travelers forced their way toward Carnuntum” (p. 226). The assessments of the toponym Ascaucalis provided by the renowned German onomastician Jürgen Udolph (Jürgen Udolph) and Grasilda Blažienė constitute a substantial beginning for research. The Slavic origin of this toponym has been rightly rejected; G. Blažienė cautiously tends to seek parallels with Baltic analogues, but does not venture to assign Ascaucalis to the Balts. Could this toponym, then, belong to the onomasticon of “Old Europe”? A very similar case is found in J. Udolph’s habilitation thesis³, in which he discusses (p. 342) the present-day territory of Pol- ² Wolfgang P. Schmid 1968. ³ Udolph Jürgen 1990: Die Stellung der Gewässernamen Polens innerhalb der alteuropäischen Hydronymie (The position of Polish hydronyms within Old European hydronymy). Recenzijos / Reviews 375 DARIUS IVOŠKA ish territory of the hydronyms Oder, Drawa, Drwęca, Drama, Radęca, Mroga. Summarizing research on Polish hydronyms, the author assesses these hydronyms somewhat differently from the Polish onomasticians Tadeusz Lehr-Sławiński, Hubert Górnowicz, and Ewa Rzetelska-Feleszko. T. Lehr-Sławiński assigned them to pre-Slavic hydronyms, but according to him they were a legacy of the Veneti (or Venedi). H. Górnowicz and E. Rzetelska-Feleszko agreed with his view, even arguing that “hydronyms containing the suffix –is (s) a should be assigned to the Venetic substrate” (Udolph 1990: 342). H. Górnowicz further believed that they must have been inherited from the “Slavic–Celtic–Illyrian” period. J. Udolph found the specific criteria on the basis of which the names mentioned were assigned to the Veneti lacking. For the sake of clarity, the author tends to replace the label “Slavic–Celtic–Illyrian” with the broader but clearer and, in his view, less “problematic” term “Old Europe.” The author generally avoids linking specific names with the Veneti and their legacy, citing the lack of data on the Veneti in the eastern part of Central Europe. Moreover, he states that, for example, the suffix –s is characteristic of hydronyms distributed much farther than the territories known to have been inhabited by the Veneti. But let us return to the book Kapai ir žmonės. What new insights do the graves reveal to us—the sole material heritage of the Aishti settlements that, not by chance, may have been established along the banks of the Jūra, Ančia, Šušvė, and Nemunas as early as before Christ? The strategically important and convenient location of settlements for those times (p. 135), communication by rivers and, before that, by uncomplicated land routes, and the tributaries of the Nemunas created conditions not only for convenient travel, trade, and the acquisition of necessary resources by moving between individual Aishti settlements along the waters of those tributaries, but most importantly for reaching the Baltic Sea via the Nemunas (see maps pp. 12–13, 212–213), that is, for joining the network of “commercial relations.” Its successful operation is confirmed by the book’s author’s discoveries during excavations of the Dauglaukis cemetery, where Alpine non-ferrous metal artifacts and glass and enamel beads manufactured in the Roman Empire were found, not to mention coins bearing images of Roman rulers, and by the fact that the inhabitants of this locality experienced the “heyday of the Amber Road” until the year 260. Šaukėnai should not be forgotten; conversely, the scarcity of finds there testifies to the “sunset of the Amber Road” (p. 135), but the site left us knowledge about the formation of a new social structure in Aishti life. Excavated weapons, exceptional warrior and horse attire and ornaments, and “the household and toilet articles of the military nobility” speak of the warrior’s position as an important member of society (p. 141). The later Ruponiai hoards, probably military ones, are also worth mentioning—according to the book’s author, an entire “weapons depot” (p. 125). The finds from the period of 15–220 at Dauglaukis, marking the approaching time of change, also testify to estates and the “governance” of the Aishti community. It is not so important to list all the finds as to grasp their essence—the period of historical events, the European context of the time, and the Aishti within it, the scale of commercial relations 376 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIII Eugenijus Jovaiša. Kapai ir žmonės. Aisčiai, romėnai, gotai ir kitos istorijos and cultural distinctiveness. The Amber Road was not only genuine “intercontinental trade” (p. 234), which left the jewel of the “Sarmatian Ocean”—amber—in Mycenae, the Mediterranean lands, and the Caucasus, but also reciprocal trade that met the European nobility’s demand for precious adornments and supplied the Aishti with resources unavailable in their land. For the first centuries of humanity after Christ, these were trade exchanges of indescribable magnitude. The excavated graves, of course, spoke not only of the Aishti as sellers of valuable goods, but also as equal participants in the European commercial market. The meeting of Aishti envoys with the Gothic king Theodoric is worth recalling. The Aishti had allegedly known of his plan, probably to prepare for a great war with the Germanic tribes, and wished to contribute; Theodoric gladly accepted their intention and amber offerings (pp. 61–62). Does this mean that in the VI century the Aishti communicated (orally and in writing) with other contemporary European peoples and expressed a desire to participate in the political decisions of the time? Theodoric knew about the Amber Road, as historical sources testify, so there is little reason for doubt. Let us leave the rich ancient times, only sparsely supported by written sources, and move, say, into the medieval onomasticon. Let us try to examine the historical, cultural, and social development of the pagan peoples of Europe beginning in the XII century, when the Order of the Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary the Virgin of Jerusalem, which had arrived from Jerusalem, was reorganized and later named the Teutonic Order. Its ambitions and activities so confused the already ethnically diverse area of Northern and Eastern Europe that the onomasticon preserved there and recorded in an abundance of historical documents is in no way inferior, either qualitatively or quantitatively, to the grave goods left by the Aishti’s commercial, military, and cultural relations, leaving aside the problems involved in researching them. A researcher of the onomasticon examining proper names found in the area inhabited by a particular nation but inexplicable through the data of its language must broaden the field of research and seek the reasons for the use of names of foreign origin, as well as the time and circumstances of their emergence. This closely resembles the working principle of an archaeologist who finds glass or enamel beads among the grave goods of the Aishti from the I–III centuries, or non-ferrous metals brought from Alpine mines: analyzing the broader geopolitical and cultural context in search of possible connections. The connections between archaeology and linguistics, especially historical onomastics, are much closer than they might appear. When a researcher of the onomasticon discovers an isolated historical toponym or personal name of foreign origin in an atypical area, it is not enough to establish its inexplicable origin—it is necessary to determine how it came to be there. For example, it is no secret that in XIV-century Prussia Lithuanians lived, though not in large numbers. When several Lithuanian names are found in privilege documents contained in folio no. 105 of the Teutonic Order, assigned land plots in the villages of Wehlau (German Wehlau) between 1353 and 1375, the question arises: what were those Lithuanian settlers doing in Prussia at that time? By consulting more privileges and other historical documents, it becomes clear that these were refugees from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Among the several hundred privileges in the folio in question, three were issued to Russians. What Recenzijos / Reviews 377 DARIUS IVOŠKA paths brought them to Ungur (German Angerburg) on the border of Warmia and Masuria is not mentioned in the documents⁴. The ethnic composition of XIV-century Prussia, especially its western part, where Poles and a considerable number of German colonists lived, but which also contained entire Prussian settlements as far as its western border, raises many questions for researchers of the onomasticon. First, the opinions of some scholars do not coincide concerning the boundaries of the Baltic, Germanic, and Slavic areas. Attempts have repeatedly been made to draw the boundary of the Baltic inhabited territories along the course of the Vistula, but new data continually emerged testifying to a much wider distribution of Baltic settlements⁵. Thus, when isolated toponyms or personal names west of the Vistula were discovered, objectively substantiating their historical, or perhaps even prehistoric, existence proved difficult because of criticism and resistance from proponents of the established view⁶. It is precisely in such cases that a researcher of the onomasticon needs data from history and archaeology. When archaeological excavations and onomastic material coincide in favor of one nation or another, they become an irrefutable argument confirming many important facts. It should only be remembered that the path from a hypothetical assumption to a final reliable conclusion may be long and may sometimes branch into dead ends. The empirical material of the historical onomasticon, like grave goods, is affected by a multitude of temporal factors—Baltic proper names cannot be deciphered in written sources, their forms have been Germanized or Polonized, searches for equivalents in other documents are impossible because they have not survived, and so on. Thus there is a risk of inaccurately or incorrectly interpreting the origin of a proper name, not to mention its ⁴ In her 2018 article “Zu den russischen Personennamen in den Folianten des Deutschen Ordens” (Lithuanian On Russian personal names in the folios of the Teutonic Order), G. Blažienė analyzed the names of those granted privileges and discussed the circumstances of the persons’ settlement (pp. 118–122). ⁵ G. Blažienė has analyzed this question at many international conferences for a long time. The reviewer examined an overview of toponyms located on the left bank of the Vistula and the problems concerning the boundaries of Baltic lands in the article “Bemerkungen zur Problematik der baltischen Ortsnamen westlich der Weichsel” (Lithuanian Some observations on the problems of Baltic toponyms west of the Vistula). At the international conference Ежегодная международная конференция «Индоевропейское языкознание и классическая филология» (чтения памяти профессора И. М. Тронского), held in Petersburg on July 22–24, 2020, and having gained worldwide recognition, G. Blažienė returned to this question once again. Her relevant insights, based on the very latest research, were published in the publication Индоевропейское языкознание и классическая филология – XXIV, Материалы чтений, посвященных памяти профессора Иосифа Моисеевича Тронского issued by the Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The article’s author not only reviews research into the area inhabited by the Balts, but also critically assesses its significance, reliability, and applicability. ⁶ Darius Alekna’s critical 2019 article “Nuo Agripos iki Plinijaus: Vysla I a. romėnų geograf inėje literatūroje” provides particularly valuable material from the works of early historians concerning the peoples living in the Vistula basin, creating a broader picture of what took place in that area during the last centuries before and the first centuries after Christ. This work, too, confirms Baltic-inhabited territories on the left bank of the Vistula, specifically in the coastal region (pp. 251–252). 378 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIII Eugenijus Jovaiša. Kapai ir žmonės. Aisčiai, romėnai, gotai ir kitos istorijos the circumstances and reasons for their recording in historical documents, which create the context. Without it, a large part of the material under investigation loses half its value. Speaking of context, we must also look at the circumstances surrounding the appearance and writing of the book under discussion. It appeared at a very appropriate time. During Lithuania’s first decades of the new millennium, national and civic activism and pride in ethnic identity have been observed. The 1,000th anniversary, just over a decade ago, of Lithuania’s mention as a state; in 2010, the 600th anniversary of the great Battle of Žalgiris; and in 2016, the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of Lithuania’s independence were accompanied by numerous cultural events. Nor should we forget the resolution on the restoration of the independent Lithuanian state in Lithuanian and German, with the signatures of 20 signatories, discovered by Liudas Mažulis in the archives of the German Federal Foreign Office in March 2017. It is unclear whether the commemorations of dates important to Lithuania and Lithuanians, or nearly thirty years of restored independence—which helped one part of our society emerge from the shadows of the past, while another had time to grow up and mature in free Lithuania—awakened feelings of Lithuanian national identity and self-awareness. The tricolor or historical flags are now raised not only on national holidays and without anyone urging it, while national costumes are often sewn not only for school-age children or elders singing or dancing in folk ensembles. One can find them in many families as garments held in particularly high esteem by every family member. Could there be a better time and context for a publication that each of us can read, whether wishing to supplement our knowledge of our origins and history marked by a rich culture, thereby further strengthening pride in our nation, or wishing to expand and substantiate our research with it? And what context does Kapai ir žmonės create?—A broad, weighty, and multifaceted one. This book will create still more contexts. Returning to the goal identified by its author—“to link the life of the earliest people of our land with the bygone ages of Europe and their protagonists” (p. 14)—the reviewer sees one more fundamental achievement in fulfilling the stated goal. This is testimony to the uniqueness and importance of our ancestors’ culture. Reflecting once again on the graves discovered and investigated by the author, with their rich grave goods, and on the great Amber Road described in detail and clearly, which spread word of our Aishti ancestors throughout the world, we have the opportunity not only to learn again and again about the beginnings of our culture, but also to reflect on them. The book’s author becomes convinced that already in the first centuries after Christ the Aishti knew not only how to hunt, practice crafts, and make household implements, weapons, and clothing, but also how to adorn themselves. Most importantly, it was not only Aishti men and women who adorned themselves—they adorned the powerful of many great European cities and their surroundings with the gold of the “Germanic Ocean” (p. 119), also called the “Sarmatian Ocean” (p. 218): amber. Drawing on another scholarly work by E. Jovaiša—a two-part monograph Aisčiai. Kilmė ir Aisčiai. Raida—the reviewer has already managed to create one small but particularly successful context Recenzijos / Reviews 379 DARIUS IVOŠKA create. In writing the article published in 2019, “Die Widerspiegelung preußischer Kultur in den Grenzbeschreibungen des Deutschen Ordens” (“Reflections of Prussian culture in the boundary descriptions of the Teutonic Order”)7, the author drew on the detailed description of the Amber Road presented in E. Jovaiša’s monograph. The article’s author succeeded in presenting readers of international scholarly works with a more convincing understanding of the value of amber so frequently mentioned in the Teutonic Order’s folios. In descriptions from the beginning of the XIV century of the boundaries of individual Prussian lands and their borders with neighboring countries, among the documents presented in the aforementioned folio no. 105, amber is not only frequently mentioned, but its places of discovery and the regulations governing its collection are also briefly noted. Without any doubt, Kapai ir žmonės will encourage the creation of many more varied contexts. We can only rejoice at the extensive and complex work of investigating the oldest burial sites of our ancestors and at the abundant and invaluable material collected, which is presented to the reader in the book under discussion, Kapai ir žmonės. It should be emphasized that there is probably nowhere else in the world an archaeologist’s book published so interestingly, stylishly, and gracefully. The book itself is a work of art, while the finds described amaze, delight, and even bewilder us: our ancestors surpassed us. SOURCES AND LITERATURE Alekna Darius 2019: From Agrippa to Pliny: The Vistula in 1st-century Roman geographical literature. – Lituanistica 65, 4(118), 251–271. Blažienė Grasil da 2018: On Russian Personal Names in the Foliants of the Teutonic Order. – Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology–XXII: Proceedings of the Readings Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Iosif Moiseevich Tronsky, 18–20 June 2018. First Half-Volume, ed. N. N. Kazansky, Saint Petersburg: Nauka, 110–124. Blažienė Grasil da 2020: Baltic Traces in the Place Names of Europe? – Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology–XXIV: Proceedings of the Readings Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Iosif Moiseevich Tronsky, 22–24 June 2020. First Half-Volume, ed. N. N. Kazansky, Saint Petersburg: Institute for Linguistic Studies, 443–465. Ivoška Darius 2016: Remarks on the Problem of Baltic Place Names West of the Vistula. – Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 74, 208–225. 7 The article was published in the annual scholarly publication Preußenland. issued by the Historical Commission for the Study of East and West Prussia and the “Copernicus” Society for the History and Regional Studies of West Prussia. 380 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIII Eugenijus Jოვaiša. Graves and People. Aisthians, Romans, Goths and Other Histories Ivoška Darius 2019: Reflection of Prussian Culture in the Border Descriptions of the Teutonic Order. – Yearbook of the Historical Commission for East and West Prussian Regional Research and the Copernicus Association for the History and Regional Studies of West Prussia, Communications from the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage 10, 7–23. Jovaiša Eugenijus 2012: The Aesti. Origin, Vilnius: Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. Jovaiša Eugenijus 2014: The Aesti. Development, Vilnius: Publishing House of the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. Krahe Hans 1964: Our Oldest River Names, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. OF 105 – Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage: XX. HA Hist. StA Königsberg, Order Folio 105. Schmid Wolfgang P. 1968: Old European and Indo-European. – Treatises of the Humanities and Social Sciences Class, Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz, volume 1968, Wiesbaden. Udolph Jürgen 1990: The Position of Poland’s Hydronyms within Old European Hydronymy, Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. Submitted on September 7, 2020. DARIUS IVOŠKA Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 5 Petro Vileišio St., LT–10308 Vilnius, Lithuania [email protected] Recenzijos / Reviews 381