Reception of Philipp Ruhig’s Works on Lithuanian Studies in Lithuania Proper in the Early Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Based on historiography and primary sources, the study examines the dissemination of the ideas of Philipp Ruhig (1675–1749), a Lutheran priest from Lithuanian Minor mostly known as a philologist, on the Lithuanian language and the history of the nation that uses it in Lithuania proper during the first decades after the dissolution of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The author reaches a conclusion that with his treatise O początkach narodu i języka litewskiego (1808; On the Origins of the Lithuanian Nation and Language) dedicated to the history of the Lithuanian nation and language, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Franciszek Ksawery Michał Bohusz (1746–1820) became the spiritus movens in the reception of Philipp Ruhig’s works on Lithuanian studies in Lithuania proper. This work emerged from the coincidence of the author’s aspirations in Lithuanian studies with the plans of the Warsaw Society of Friends of Science (Towarzystwo Warszawskie Przyjaciół Nauk) to provide reliable information on this subject to scholars researching the history of languages and to the enlightened the public of the time interested in the history of nations and the languages they use.
In early-nineteenth-century Lithuanian writings, Philipp Ruhig’s considerations about the Lithuanian language and the history of the nation that uses it spread through Bohusz’s study devoted to this issue. Thanks to the information presented in it, Bohusz’s work provided contemporaries in Lithuania with the opportunity to study Philipp Ruhig’s works in Lithuanian studies. It is not known whether this opportunity was taken advantage of. In the works of the participants of the movement of Lithuanian studies in Samogitia (Józef Arnulf Giedroyć, 1757–1838; Dionizas Poška, 1764–1830), the quotes Philipp Ruhig are based on the quotations provided by Bohusz.