Marta Eva Běťáková, Václav Blažek. „Encyklopedie baltské mytologie“

DAVID ŠIMEČEK Charles University Research fields: historical linguistics; Scandinavian, Germanic, and Baltic languages; Baltic and Scandinavian mythology. Marta Eva Bětáková, Václav Blažek ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BALTIC MYTHOLOGY Praha: Libri, 2012. 288 p. ISBN 978-80-7277-505-7 Published in Czech in Prague in 2012, the Encyclopedia of Baltic Mythology, in dictionary form, presents the most important Lithuanian, Latvian, and Prussian deities, mythological beings, other mythologems, and phenomena related to mythology. Its authors—the broadly knowledgeable Indo-Europeanist Václav Blažek and Balticist Marta Eva Bětáková—represent the school of Masaryk University in Brno. On the scale of the Czech Republic, this is the first book-length study devoted to Baltic mythology, although Czechs began researching this field as early as the beginning of the 19th century. Interest in Baltic mythology dates from the emergence of Baltic studies in the Czech Republic. Its study in a comparative context, especially with regard to the closest Slavic tradition, was particularly encouraged by the Czech National Revival at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Interesting insights can already be discerned at the end of the 18th century. The dictionary under review illustrates this well, citing, for example, the still relevant ideas of J. Dobrovský, who compared the Baltic devil with Old Czech Veles (p. 195). The history of more systematic research into mythology is closely connected with František Ladislav Čelakovský (1799–1852), a pioneer of Baltic philology and professor of Slavic philology in Wrocław and Prague. He did not publish a separate work on Baltic mythology, but his notes commenting on the texts of Lithuanian songs he translated, as well as his university lectures, clearly show how relevant Lithuanian mythology was to him. His attention to this subject is also reflected in a handwritten Czech–Lithuanian dictionary, which contains numerous theonyms and names of mythological beings, as well as comments and descriptions of customs and rituals. Published by Čelakovský in 1827 in an exceptionally large print run (800 copies), Litewské Národní Písně, based on Liudvikas Rėza’s 1825 collection, introduced the Czech public at large to some appealing Lithuanian mythologems. At a qualitatively different level, the linguist August Schleicher (1821–1868) continued Čelakovský’s tradition in Prague. In 1857, in his Lithuanian-language chrestomathy, he 192 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXX Marta Eva Bětáková, Václav Blažek Encyklopedie baltské mytologie first published Lithuanian mythological tales; beforehand, he had published significant preparatory studies in which he described and, in the light of comparative linguistics, discussed, among other things, realities of Lithuanian mythology. A scholar of the next generation, Leopold Geitler (1847–1885), collected sung folklore while travelling around Lithuania (1873) (unfortunately, the fate of his notes remains unclear to this day). After returning to Czechia, he announced in the Czech periodical press that he would publish an overview of Lithuanian mythology, but for unknown reasons he appears not to have carried out his intention. Among the papers of another Slavist and mythologist, Jan Hanuš Machal (1855–1939), a manuscript in English entitled Baltic Mythology has survived. This work, which discusses the most important Baltic mythological gods, beings, and related topics, is also mentioned in the preface to the book under review (p. 20), but its significance appears to have been greatly overestimated by the dictionary’s authors. The general study prepared for volume 4 of the 1916 encyclopedia The Mythology of All Races (apparently, owing to the events of the First World War, the study did not reach the American publisher and was not printed) has serious shortcomings, evident even when judged by the level of philology at the end of the nineteenth century. Consequently, J. H. Machal’s study is best valued from the perspective of the history of Baltic studies in Czechia, rather than as a noteworthy investigation of Baltic mythology. Thus, a work of this scope and encyclopedic character has appeared in Czechia only now, almost two centuries after the emergence of Czech Baltic studies. For this reason alone, the publication of this book is an important event: for the first time, it offers Czech society a thorough introduction to the still insufficiently known, archaic sphere of Baltic culture. The book is the latest publication in the Libri publishing house’s series devoted to the mythologies of various peoples. It differs from the other books in the series in that it is not merely a compilation of other works, but an original contribution to the study of Baltic mythology—particularly through its detailed and astute etymological insights. The book is intended both for scholars—linguists, historians, ethnologists, and mythologists—and for a broader readership. The book begins with a preface that briefly discusses the Baltic peoples and their history. The main dictionary section is followed by appendices: lists of Prussian gods and a legend about the founding of Vilnius. At the end of the book are the primary sources, the scholarly literature consulted, and a list of texts related to Baltic culture published in Czech. The text is supplemented by black-and-white photographs illustrating the topics discussed. The dictionary is arranged alphabetically, and since Lithuanian, Latvian, and Prussian material is included in parallel, each entry first indicates the Baltic group to which the phenomenon in question belongs. If a deity is common to all Baltic groups, its name is given in reconstructed form, for example, *Deivas, while the dictionary entry itself presents data from all three related peoples concerning the phenomenon in question. Names recorded in other languages or in corrupted forms are likewise given in reconstructed form, alongside the forms recorded in the sources, e.g.: *Patulas (Patollus, Patollo). This way of presenting words, of course, sometimes goes beyond normalizing forms attested in historical sources, since reconstruction- Recenzijos / Reviews 193 DAVID ŠIMEČEK tion is also interpretation, on the basis of which the word is explained. For example, the god mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle, conventionally rendered in Lithuanian as Nunadievis and regarded as the name of a sky god, is given in the dictionary in the form *Numa-deivas, described as a “Lithuanian household god” and associated with the household god Numėjus recorded by Lasickis. When only a name survives (and such cases are numerous), etymology is the only means of learning anything about the origin and significance of a deity or mythical being. Linguistic analysis thus becomes one of the principal tools of research, and it constitutes the most valuable part of this book. The etymologies of some words are presented for the first time, for example, that of Perkūnas, whose name is explained as a compound consisting of the elements *per- ‘to strike’ and *kun- (cf. Latin cuneus ‘wedge’). Some linguistic analyses take up most of individual dictionary entries, leaving no room to discuss other aspects of the phenomena under consideration. For example, the entry on the god Puš(k)aitis consists almost entirely of etymological analysis, although the sources contain interesting facts about his worship and the rituals associated with him. The entry devoted to Aušra (the reconstructed East Baltic form *Auštrā), whom the authors identify with Aušrinė, presents data from related Baltic and other Indo-European languages (including, for instance, two Ancient Greek dialects and both Classical and Early Latin), but, unfortunately, says nothing about Aušra’s role in folklore. As already noted, the book is not a retelling of the views and opinions of earlier mythology researchers. In the encyclopedia, achievements in mythology as a scholarly discipline and data from various studies are critically assessed and substantially supplemented through the study of authentic primary sources. The lists of sources and literature are quite impressive. It is very good that the text frequently quotes the sources themselves: chronicles, historical documents, folklore, and so on. A translation into Czech of the quoted source is provided, while the original-language text appears in the footnotes. This makes it possible to engage more closely with the primary material under discussion. Unfortunately, the system of bibliographic references is so complicated that one sometimes gets the impression that the authors did not expect anyone to use it. References to the publications from which these source quotations are taken are generally found neither alongside the translated quotation nor in the footnote accompanying the original text. Instead, contrary to what one might expect, they are listed at the ends of entries together with all the other related bibliography. Nowhere is it indicated which bibliographic abbreviation corresponds to which quoted text. This makes it considerably more difficult to work with longer entries that quote numerous sources, with all the references gathered at the end of the entry. When readers rely on and follow the quotations given in the book, without consulting the references—that is, the sources—it is, of course, important that the original be transcribed accurately. The Church Slavonic texts do not quite meet this requirement, for some reason being presented in Latin letters. The translations are occasionally inaccurate. A more significant shortcoming is apparent in the folkloristic terminology. The Czech term pohádka, meaning “fairy tale,” appears quite often in the book in contexts where what is actually being discussed is 194 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXX Marta Eva Běťáková, Václav Blažek Encyklopedie baltské mytologie about mythical tales (as, for example, in the article on the aitvaras) and other narrative genres. The undemanding reader of the book may not notice this confusion, but scholarly discourse demands greater terminological precision. Although it has the shortcomings listed above, Encyclopedia of Baltic Mythology is a significant study based on the comparative research method, which, especially (though not exclusively) because of its linguistic insights, will attract the attention of Balticists, Slavists, and researchers in other fields in the Czech Republic and abroad. Received on May 15, 2014. DAVID ŠIMEČEK Ústavu germánských studií Filosofická fakulta Jana Palacha 2, 116 38 Praha 1, Czech Republic [email protected] Recenzijos / Reviews 195