page_title: Simonas Daukantas
section_title: Sources cited
hierarchical_section_title: Simonas Daukantas / Works / Historical studies / Sources cited
caption_attribution_description: Illustration of Lithuanian long currency from Būdas senovės lietuvių, kalnėnų ir žemaičių published in 1845
context_page_description: Simonas Daukantas was a Lithuanian/Samogitian historian, writer, and ethnographer. One of the pioneers of the Lithuanian National Revival, he is credited as the author of the first book on the history of Lithuania written in the Lithuanian language. Only a few of his works were published during his lifetime and he died in obscurity. However, his works were rediscovered during the later stages of the National Revival. His views reflected the three major trends of the 19th century: romanticism, nationalism, and liberalism.
  Daukantas was born in Kurščiūnai to a Lithuanian family. Likely a son of free peasants, he later produced proof of his noble birth to get university degree and a promotion in his government job. He attended schools in Kretinga and Žemaičių Kalvarija and was noted as an excellent student. Daukantas studied law at the University of Vilnius, though his interest lay in philology and history. After the graduation, he worked as a civil servant of the Russian Empire from 1825 to 1850. He first worked at the office of the Governor-General of Livonia, Estonia and Courland in Riga then moved to Saint Petersburg to work at the Governing Senate.
context_section_description: Overall, Daukantas' historical works were mostly influenced by the two-volume Historiae Lituanae by Albert Wijuk Kojałowicz (published in 1650 and 1669) from which he borrowed the structure, content, rhetorical and stylistic elements. He also borrowed poetic elements from Kristijonas Donelaitis Daukantas cited his sources erratically and inconsistently. Darbai senųjų lietuvių ir žemaičių had 254 references: 89 to works by August von Kotzebue, 62 to Albert Wijuk Kojałowicz, 29 to Nikolay Karamzin, 15 to Antoni Hlebowicz, and 10 to Teodor Narbutt, in total 31 authors. Istorija žemaitiška cited 320 references; the number of different authors grew to about 70, mostly German historians. There was a shift in references used: von Kotzebue (18 references) fell out of favor and was replaced by Johannes Voigt (75 references) while Hlebowicz was not cited at all. At times, he went beyond citing sources and outright plagiarized works by Kojałowicz, Kotzebue, Voigt. Daukantas also added a number of citations to primary sources, including the Lithuanian Chronicles, Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, chronicles by Wigand of Marburg, Peter von Dusburg, Lucas David. Towards the end of the manuscript, the citations became scarcer and rarer. There were only five references, including two to Jan Łasicki, for 227 pages covering the period from 1440 to 1572.
  In Būdas senovės lietuvių, kalnėnų ir žemaičių, Daukantas cited a few documents from the Lithuanian Metrica, but perhaps was afraid to cite it more often as it could have attracted unwanted attention from the Tsarist authorities that he was using his access to the Metrica for non-work related purposes (the Metrica was carefully guarded to avoid any alterations or falsifications). In this work, Daukantas expanded his bibliography by adding references to De moribus tartarorum, lituanorum et moscorum, Livonian Chronicle of Henry, works by Alexander Guagnini and Jan Łasicki, and others. He also used Lithuanian folklore, etymologies, and semantics as a source. While Daukantas cited a wide range of works and authors, including some classical historians such as Tacitus or Ptolemy, he avoided citing Polish historians who supported the union between Poland and Lithuania and considered Lithuania to be just a region of Poland. In particular, he disliked and barely cited Jan Długosz. Overall, Daukantas was an erudite and well-read person, familiar with both classical and new western sources. He knew seven languages: Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, Latin, German, Latvian, and French.
caption: Lithuanian long currency, the only illustration of the 1845 publication of The Character of the Ancient Lithuanians, Highlanders, and Samogitians
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