Kalba ir tapatybė Kristijono Gotlybo Milkaus žodyno Littauisch-deutsches und Deutsch-littauisches Wörter-Buch (1800) pratarmėse: diskurso analizė

The article deals with the discourse pertaining to the ties between the Lithuanian language and identity in the Prussian Kingdom at the cusp of the 18th and the 19th centuries. The main sources here are four forewords to Christian Gottlieb Mielcke’s (Lith. Kristijonas Gotlybas Milkus) dictionary Littauisch-deutsches und Deutsch-littauisches Wörter-Buch (1800) as monologue texts sharing the following elements: (1) the subject of the focus (the view of the language and the nation); (2) the direct context (book publication); (3) the historical context (the political situation in the Prussian Kingdom at the cusp of the 18th and the 19th centuries); (4) the target (German reader); (5) the contents (descriptive and evaluative statements about the language and the nation). Discourse analysis is applied as a methodological access-way. In this discourse, views of the language and the nation were articulated by persons holding different positions: (1) Christian Gottlieb Mielcke, cantor at the Evangelic Lutheran Church of Pilkalnis; (2) Daniel Jenisch, philosopher and Evangelic Lutheran priest of Berlin; (3) Christoph Friedrich Heilsberg, counsellor at the House of War and Domains in Königsberg, school counsellor in Königsberg; (4) philosopher Immanuel Kant. Since Heilsberg initiated Mielcke’s foreword in April of 1799 and wrote one himself in December of 1799, brokered the deal between Mielcke and the printing house and kept correspondence with all the authors, he could have provided an impetus for writing forewords to others, and then given them the conditions to rely on the texts by one another to formulate a relevant discourse about the Lithuanian language and nation. All four forewords target the German reader. The authors of the forewords imagined the target differently, with Mielcke and Heilsberg approaching it from a rather pragmatic, Jenisch and Kant, a scientific position. Mielcke identified five target groups: priests, teachers, lawyers, translators, merchants; according to Heilsberg, these were public servants, lawyers, merchants, and teachers, hence both of them were focusing on the non-Lithuanians whose duty it was to proliferate general and religious teaching, solve legal and administrative issues, engage in trade. Jenisch and Kant primarily focused on members of the scientific and educational tribe. As representatives of different trades, the authors of the forewords also differed in their descriptions of the underlying subject of the discourse: 1. Mi