Epistolography in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 14-16 century: from ars dictaminis to literary letter

Subject of the dissertation research is European epistolographic tradition and forms of its acceptance in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, within the 14th – 16th centuries, by emphasizing the aspects of genre and typology, as well as trends of its development. The present paper analyzes the birth and development of the European epistle writing tradition, structure and contents of the epistolographic theory textbook, concept and model of an epistle; similarities and differences of epistle writing textbooks in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the values influenced by such textbooks and their significance for common education system and culture formation. The dissertation makes a research on the time periods and ways, how the epistolographic tradition reached the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, how it was adopted and functioned in epistle writing of the country, school curricula and cultural life in general. Based on specific examples, the dissertation discloses the changes in variety of epistle writing in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, within the 14th – 16th centuries, stressing out how an epistle, as a former and fairly formal form of business and personal communication in the Middle Ages, is turned into means of self-expression and piece of literature during the period of Renaissance. Key sources of the research performed are the epistle writing textbooks (artes dictandi) published in the 11th – 14th centuries and epistolographic theory works (modi epistolandi), extant from the 15th – 16th centuries and kept in the scientific libraries of Vilnius. Samples of real correspondence and epistolic works in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania have been used for analysis, such as Vytautas’ (1350–1430) letters as characteristic Medieval officialese correspondence and epistles by Saliamonas Risinskis (Salomon Rysiński, ? –1625) as sample Renaissance humanistic letters. The dissertation states that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th – 16th centuries did not have any original theoretical epistle-writing works, but rather followed the European epistolographic canon