Johannes Bretke

Johannes Bretke (also Bretkus , Johann Bretke , Lithuanian: Jonas Bretkūnas , * 1536 in Bammeln bei Friedland (Duchy of Prussia) , † 1602 in Königsberg ) was a Protestant pastor. He translated the Bible into Lithuanian , was the author of twelve Lithuanian books and was also active as a historian. He is one of the most famous early writers who wrote in Lithuanian.

Life

Title page of the postilla

Another side of the postilla

Bretke was born in the Duchy of Prussia . His father was German , according to other sources a Germanized Prussian , his mother came from a Prussian family.

In 1555, at the age of nineteen, Bretke began studying theology at Königsberg University . In 1556 he moved to the university in Wittenberg . In 1562, while still a student, Albrecht I of Brandenburg-Ansbach appointed him pastor to the town church in Labiau (today in Russian: Polessk).

Bretke was the first pastor in Labiau to preach in Old Prussian or Lithuanian. Previously, the pastors had mostly employed so-called Tolken who translated the sermons for the congregation. In 1563 Bretke married a von Werthern . His district was rural and poor, and the pastor was expected to make a living by farming himself. After that, however, Bretke didn't feel at all, he preferred to spend his time exclusively on language studies and translations. From 1578 to 1579 Bretke wrote his Chronicon des Landes Prussen , after which he began to translate Martin Luther's German Bible into Lithuanian; this task took him more than ten years.

After living in Labiau for twenty-five lean years, Bretke applied for the pastor's position in another Prussian town and was appointed to the Steindammer Church or St. Elisabeth Church (= "Lithuanian Church") in Königsberg in 1587 . There he continued his work on the translation of the Bible and other scholarly works. In 1589 he published various books, including the "Giesmės duchaunas" (Spiritual Songs) based on preliminary work by Martynas Mažvydas , a small collection of songs "Kancionalas nekurių giesmių" and "Kollectas" , the translation of a prayer book from German. All books were printed by Georg Osterberg in Königsberg.

On November 29, 1590, Bretke finally completed the first translation of the Bible into Lithuanian that is still known today. However, he was refused permission to publish this Bible. Duke Georg Friedrich later acquired the manuscript. In 1591 Bretke finished the two-part postilla ( Postilė ), one of his most famous works. In his last years he tried in vain to get his translation of the Bible published, and in 1602 he died of the plague .

Works

• Chronicon des Landes Prussen, 1578–1579
• Giesmės duchaunas, 1589
• Kollectas, alba Paspalitas Maldas, 1589
• Kancionalas nekurių giesmių, 1589
• Biblia, 1590
  • 3-volume facsimile edition, ed. by Friedemann Kluge et al. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1996-2002. ISBN 3-506-71672-7 (Vol. 1), ISBN 3-506-71674-3 (Vol. 2/3)
• Postilla, tatai esti trumpas ir prastas išguldimas evangeliu, 1591

Manuscripts and book copies that have survived can be found in Germany, Lithuania and Sweden . His postilla is kept at Vilnius University , the only surviving copy of "Kancionalas nekurių giesmių" at Uppsala University in Sweden. The original manuscripts of Johannes Bretke's Bible are in the Prussian Secret State Archive in Berlin . In 2002 , four hundred years after Bretke's death, they were exhibited in Lithuania, insured for more than 2.3 million euros.

literature

• Viktor Falkenhahn : The translator of the Lithuanian Bible Johannes Bretke and his helpers: Contributions to the cultural and church history of Old Prussia. Ost-Europa-Verlag, Koenigsberg 1942.
• Fritz Gause:  Bretke, Johann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 602 ( digitized version ).
• Jochen Dieter Range: Building Blocks for Bretke Research: Commentary Volume on the Bretke Edition (NT). Paderborn: Schöningh 1992. ISBN 3-506-71682-4
• Friedemann Kluge: Bretke, Wittenberg and Upper Germany. On some dark spots in the life of the first Lithuanian Bible translator , in: Kirche im Osten 34/1991, Göttingen 1991, pp. 32–69.
• Friedemann Kluge: Bretke, Johannes , in: Old Prussian Biography . Vol. 5, Elwert, Marburg (Lahn) 2000, p. 1557 f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Johannes Bretke in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biblijos vertėjas Jonas Bretkūnas (lit.
• Johannes Bretke, Introduction to the University of Greifswald
• Annaberger Annalen 2005, Issue No. 13 (PDF file; 2.04 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bretkūnas ir jo svarbiausias rankraštis
2. ↑ Algirdas Matulevičius students from Little and Greater Lithuania at the University of Königsberg in: Arthur Hermann and Annemarie Lepa (eds.): Yearbook on Annaberger Annalen about Lithuania and German-Lithuanian relations. Bammental, 2005, p. 270. ( online ) (PDF; 199 kB) Retrieved on February 8, 2010.
   Friedwald Moeller ( Old Prussian Evangelical Pastors' Book from the Reformation to the Expulsion in 1945 , Hamburg, 1968, page 75) leads Johannes Bretke From 1587 to 1602 as pastor of the St. Elisabeth Church in Königsberg. It was the so-called "Lithuanian Church", which corresponds to the concern of Bretke
3. ^ Jonas Bretkūnas
4. ↑ UNESCO. Jonas Bretkunas ( Memento of the original from September 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Jonas Bretkūnas - lietuviškos Biblijos vertėjas ( Memento of the original from January 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.