Jonas Jablonskis

Jonas Jablonskis

Jonas Jablonskis (born December 30, 1860 in Kubilėliai near Kudirkos Naumiestis ; † February 22, 1930 in Kaunas ) was a Lithuanian linguist and one of the founders of the modern Lithuanian language .

Life

Jablonskis studied classical philology at Moscow University from 1881 to 1885 . There he was encouraged by Professors Fortunatow and Korsh to devote himself to research in his mother tongue. After completing his studies, Jablonskis was looking for a job as a teacher for a long time, but because of the Russification carried out in the Russian Empire , as a Catholic and Lithuanian he was not allowed to fill a public position in Lithuania. In 1887 he worked at the Marijampolė Court . It was not until 1889 that he found a job in the neighboring province of Courland : at the Mitau grammar school as a teacher of Latin and ancient Greek. At that time, many educated Lithuanians settled in Mitau, who, like Jablonskis, were not allowed to practice their profession at home. The house of Jablonskis and his wife Konstancija soon became the focus of the activities of patriotic Lithuanians, so in the summer of 1894 the Jablonskis held an annual meeting of the Varpinikai Cultural Association under the pretext of baptizing children . Under the code name Rygiškių Jonas , Jablonskis wrote for the Lithuanian newspapers Aušra and Varpas , which were banned in the Russian Empire. His activities were not hidden from the tsarist authorities, and in 1896 he was first transferred to Tallinn , then dismissed in 1901 and finally exiled to Pskov .

In 1903 Jablonskis was allowed to return home to Lithuania, in 1904 the ban on the Lithuanian press was lifted. Jablonskis worked for various newspapers in Vilnius and later resumed his teaching profession for financial reasons. In 1919, the government of the newly founded Republic of Lithuania brought Jablonskis, who was already in poor health, to Kaunas. Although already dependent on a wheelchair, Jablonskis taught at Kaunas University , chaired the committees on spelling and terminology, and published more than 200 articles in ten years. Jablonskis died on February 22, 1930 and was buried in the Petrašiūnai cemetery in Kaunas.

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Grave in Petrašiūnai ( Kaunas ) cemetery

The works of Jablonskis - Grammar of the Lithuanian Language (1901, 1922), Syntax of the Lithuanian Language (1911), Spelling (1912), Textbook of the Lithuanian Language (1925), "Cases and Prepositions" (1929) played a key role in the standardization and design contributed to the modern Lithuanian language.

Like hardly anyone else, he influenced the establishment of uniform spelling and syntax with numerous publications in journals and magazines and his work as a publisher's editor (including for Žemaitė and Jonas Biliūnas ). Following his suggestion, modern Lithuanian is based on the Upper Lithuanian dialect spoken in the Suvalkija region.

literature

• Jonas Jablonskis / A. Piročkinas. - Kaunas: Šviesa, 1980