Private letters and beyond

1. Private letters and beyond Aurelija Tamošiūnaitė Mindaugas Šinkūnas LITH115, 2013 November 12

2. Focus of our class • Lithuanian letter writing: • historical and cultural significance; • Letter writing and immigration to the U.S.

3. When? • When was the last time you wrote a letter? • A handwritten letter? • Have you ever written a handwritten letter?

4. Importance of letter writing • Historical: letters are useful in the study of social histories and cultural histories (of everyday life); • Linguistic: useful source for analyzing the written varieties employed by different writers; • Literary: a source for the literary analysis in terms of form, composition, content, etc.

5. Lithuanian letter writing • First known Lithuanian letters – circa the end of the 18th century; • Lithuanian letter writing practices spread during the 19th century; • However, only small number of Lithuanian speakers could write at that time;

6. Writing and literacy • Up until the second half of the 19thcentury, writing was not an everyday activity for Lithuanian peasants; • At the turn of the 20thcentury, the literacy rate of Lithuanians when compared to Western Europe was quite low: in 1897, only 48percent of Lithuanians could read.

7. Writing and literacy • During the first half of the 20thcentury, the literacy rate in the Lithuanian-speaking community began to increase. • Several factors determined this growth: • the increasing number of Lithuanian (illegal) publications published at the end of the 19th century; • increasing emigration rates, especially to the United States; and • the implementation of compulsory elementary education in 1928.

8. Census of 1923 • 39,3 percent of Lithuanian were literate (able to read and write any language) • 28.3 percent – semi-literate (able to read and sign his/her name).

9. Semi-literate: signatures September 8, 1935 July 7, 1935

10. Spread of letter writing practices • Why people write letters? • What is the purpose? • What functions do letters perform?

11. Emigration to the U.S. • A total of 400,000 Lithuanians emigrated to foreign countries during the second half of the 19thcentury and beginning of the 20thcentury (Eidintas 2005: 64). • Of those more than 250,000 Lithuanians emigrated to the United States between 1899 and 1914 (Eidintas 2005: 56).

12. Emigration and letter writing • People were in need to communicate with their relatives in emigration or back home; • Many villages in Lithuania had scribes who were hired to write letters to relatives in emigration; • Thus, for many Lithuanians, letter writing emerges as a collective experience, i. e. the letters are dictated to the scribe, often by several family members.

13. Dictated letters: Amelija Stėgvilienėletter, 1927 ‘Dear sister in law and dear brother Dominykas, at least now, please write a letter and listen to the begging of the poor ones. With tears [in my eyes]I say these words to the scribe.’

14. StasysKatkus letter of 1934 ‘It is good [that] I have a son, we write a letter and do not have pay for writing [to a scribe]’

15. Collectiveness: Jonas Petkus letterof1910 • ‘Wegreet you both, Stanislovas, our beloved brother, and Antanas, our uncle, and we wish you a good health from God and success in all of your works and matters. Zosė also greets Stanislovas and Antanas, [andwishes] youhealthfromGod; relatives are also greetingyou, aswellasacquaintancesandneighbors, allwishingyou agoodhealthandsuccess’

16. Why immigration fostered the spread of writing practices? • Back in the homeland, the lack of the reading (or writing) ability posed no significant problems, because most day-to-day interactions were conducted orally; • It was the need to maintain bonds with relatives and friends while in emigration that imposed the necessity of writing;

17. Literacy acquisition in emigration • the establishment of parochial schools: special emphasis to the teaching of Lithuanian language and history; • the establishment of night and adult schools: oriented toward the adult Lithuanians who wanted to acquire basic literacy skills in Lithuanian and English, as well as to take the American citizenship courses;

18. Diversity of Lithuanian letters

20. The use of different scripts Latin script, ca. 1950s Cyrillic script, ca. 1950s

21. Different literacies in the letters

22. Project • All of these peculiarities of Lithuanian letters encouraged us to begin A Lithuanian letters project; • We aim at: • collecting, digitizing, and compiling an on-line database of letters, diaries, memoirs, travelogues, notes and other handwritten personal materials;

23. Very first letters: LITH115 studentJamesBezy

24. State of art • Since 2008 we have collected more than 8000 Lithuanian ego-documents: • Letters; • Postcards; • Memoires; • Notebooks; • Travelogues, • Etc.

25. State of art • We have scanned ca. 5000 manuscripts; • Transcribed ca. 1500 letters; • 1322 letters are available for use on-line;

26. Database Mūsų laiškai (Ourletters)

27. A look at the database

28. AuswandererbriefeausNordAmerika(Germanemigrantletterproject);AuswandererbriefeausNordAmerika(Germanemigrantletterproject);

29. Digitizing Immigrant Letters(Americanemigrantandimmigrantletterproject)

30. Letters as a Loot: Dutch letters

31. Post Scriptum: Portuguese letters