Dainora Maumevičienė

ABSTRACT

The newly developed independent state of Lithuania and emerging modern society in 1918 during all state building and formation processes needed educated people. Patriotic feelings driven intellectuals and members of governments devoted their potential to the state-building processes. A newly established modern university in Kaunas during the first period of the Lithuanian statehood (1918-1939) became both the cradle of thinkers and developers of new standards of the modern society (Veilentienė, 2011; Zabarskaitė, 2017) and a tool to foster Lithuanianess through the use of Lithuanian. Education was one of strategic priorities of that time and education related state policy was also closely linked with the state language related policy. Due to the historic context, Kaunas used to be a multilingual city and an economic, cultural, social, and educational hub of the time. Translation in its broad sense was an everyday act of business, schooling, cultural performances, religious events and working routines. This article and research aim to explore routine practices related to translation, language use, mediation, negotiation and translation and language policy at the University of Lithuania. This study applies historical, descriptive and reconstructive translational approaches and is based on the analysis of historiographic and documentary material (articles, documents) that illustrate the existence of language policy in relation to translation. The article also raises the questions of how this data sources could be accessed and interpreted while trying to understand current status of multilingualism, language co-existence, translation practices in the University of Lithuania and Kaunas city as the most Lithuanian city.

Keywords

Translation; translation policy; languages; language policy; the University of Lithuania; state building process\

References

1. Veilentienė, A. (2011). University Autonomy in Lithuania in 1922–1940. Parlamento Studijos, 11.

2. Zabarskaitė, J. (2017). Relations between Language, Government and Society in Lithuania 1919–1940. Parlamento Studijos, 22.