Jonas Jaknavičius (1589 – April 11, 1668) was a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

chancellery worker, teacher, Rector of the

Kražiai College The Kražiai College () was a Jesuit college (equivalent to a modern secondary school) in Kražiai, Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later Russian Empire. Established in 1616 in hopes to educate new generations of Counter-Reformation, anti-Protestants ...

Smolensk Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of ...

College, and Vilnius College. Jaknavičius prepared and published a book about the Polish and Lithuanian

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

s for

sermon A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present context ...

s (, ) which was republished 40 times in the 17th-19th centuries due to their popularity. The ''Ewangelie polskie y litewskie'' was written and published in

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

and

Lithuanian language Lithuanian (, ) is an East Baltic languages, East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic languages, Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of t ...

s. The oldest surviving version of the ''Ewangelie polskie y litewskie'' is from 1647 and was recognized by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

(currently preserved at the

Kaunas University of Technology The Kaunas University of Technology (abbreviated as KTU, ) is a public university, public research university located in Kaunas, Lithuania. Established in 1922, KTU has been seen as one of Lithuania's top science education centers. In 2021, KTU ...

). Jaknavičius also contributed to the 2nd edition (1631) of

Konstantinas Sirvydas Konstantinas Sirvydas (rarely referred as ''Konstantinas Širvydas''; ; ; – August 23, 1631) was a Lithuanian religious preacher, lexicographer, and one of the pioneers of Lithuanian literature from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, at the ti ...

' dictionary ''Dictionarium Trium Lingvarum in usum Studiosæ Iuventutis''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jaknavicius, Jonas Balticists 1580s births 1668 deaths Lithuanian lexicographers Linguists from Lithuania 17th-century Lithuanian writers History of the Lithuanian language 17th-century Lithuanian Jesuits Academic staff of Vilnius University Academic staff of Kražiai College