Zacharijaus Liackio pranešimas IX Rusijos archeologų suvažiavime Vilniuje (1893)
Zakharij Liatskij's paper in the ninth congress of the archeologists of all Russia in Vilnius (1893)

Summary/Abstract: Zakharij Liatskij (~1836–1899) was a military engineer by training and worked as a treasurer of the Panevėžys District (today Lithuania). Simultaneously for 22 years Liatskij worked as a teacher of Lithuanian at the Panevėžys Teacher Training Seminary (1873– 1895). He was the only official teacher of Lithuanian in the entire Kaunas province. Among other things Liatskij was an important “expert” of the Lithuanian language for the administrators of the Vilnius Educational District. In 1893 Liatskij presented his research on the etymology of certain Russian historical proper names in the Ninth Congress of Archeologists of all Russia in Vilnius. Liatskij considered Lithuanians to be a tribe of Russians, and Lithuanian—a dialect of (old) Russian. This approach enabled him to give Lithuanian etymologies for words like Руссъ ‘Russian’, варягъ, Рюрикъ, etc. Besides, Liatskij considered etymologies for quite a few Lithuanian words and names too: lenkas, Lietuva, Nemunas, Nevėžis, Žemaičiai, etc. At the Congress Liatskij was severely criticized for his “childish” linguistics and was not allowed to even finish his report. This failure at the Congress must have influenced his resignation two years later in 1895 from the position of the teacher of Lithuanian.

• Details
• Contents