The Kashubian people are descendants of Baltic Slavs, who have lived in the Pomorze region since the Middle Ages. Today, the Kashubian cultural region stretches from the Baltic Sea to Bory Tucholskie and from the Gdańsk Bay to Bytów and Lębork (in the past, Kashubian lands reached much further west).
The centre of Kashubia lies near the picturesque lakes of the Kashubian Lake District, the highest part of which is often called ‘Kashubian Switzerland’ due to its geography. The inhabitants of these lands never managed to create an independent country or make their tongue an official language. Nevertheless, their identity survived – and their literature turned out to be an effective means to resist cultural Germanisation.
Romanticism helped the Kashubians flourish. The support of romantic artists for the independence of nations, as well as the value they placed on folk culture, were dear to Krzysztof Celestyn Mrongowiusz – the author of three Polish-German and German-Polish dictionaries written between 1823 and 1837.
In an introduction to the first of them, the philologist declared the need to study the Kashubian tongue before it disappeared. Mrongowiusz noted several regional words and phrases, compared them with Polish (Kashubian is less resonant and more hissed) and suggested its similarity to Russian (due to the accent).
The last remark drew interest from Russian scholars. Count Nikolay Rumyantsev offered Mrongowiusz 200 rubles for further research, and the Russian Academy of Sciences sent a Slavist, Pyotr Ivanovich Preys, to Kashubia – which resulted in his scientific report titled On the Kashubian Language. Aleksander Hilferding’s treatise on Kashubian dialects, published in 1862 in St. Petersburg, is another important source of knowledge.
These researchers were followed by scholars of the Łużyce people (Smoler and Muka), German Slavists (Tetzner, Lorentz) and a Finnish linguist named Jooseppi Julius Mikkola. But it is Florian Ceynowa (1817-1881), the son of a farmer from Sławoszyn, who is widely considered to be the father of Kashubian regionalism.
‘Ùczba trzecô’ (lesson three): accent
The accent is varied in Kashubian. It can be moving (northern dialect) or fall on either the first syllable (southern dialect) or the same syllable in all forms of the word (as in central Kashubian dialects and literary Kashubian).
Ceynowa the ‘Kashubologist’
The Kashubian hero Remus used his wheelbarrow to transport books that could not have been purchased in any bookstore. Along with songbooks, fairy tales and religious tracts, he also carried the writings of Ceynowa, whose most important works – and this is no longer a legend – were written during his imprisonment in Berlin.
While awaiting his own beheading, Remus had access to a relatively large library. He studied dictionaries and prayer books written in many languages, as well as scientific reports and manuscripts written by Mrongowiusz. Thankfully, his punishment was later changed to life in prison. But how did Remus end up in a cell in Moabit?
It was in a school in Chojnice, where the instruction of Polish was forbidden, that Ceynowa decided to become a Kashubian folk hero. He belonged to a secret literary club, devouring romantic works. He ended up graduating from the nine-year program after 11 years of study, but as a 24-year-old graduate, he spoke German, Polish, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and his native Kashubian.
The period of higher education was a period of difficult choices for Ceynowa. He was supposed to become a priest but enrolled in the department of philosophy of the University of Wrocław. After passing all the courses offered in the winter semester, he transferred to study medicine instead. At the same time, he attended the lectures of the Czech poet and Slavist Franciszek Czelakowski and took part in the meetings of the Literary Slavic Society, where he once gave a talk about the Germanisation of the Kashubian region.
In 1843, the journal Jutrzenka (Dawn) published two of his articles on folklore in Polish, Russian and Kashubian. Ceynowa’s growing debt, however, forced him to drop out of the University of Wrocław and continue his studies in Królewiec. He volunteered for a year-long period of military service in the Prussian army, where he served as a surgeon. This allowed him to settle some of his financial obligations.
Another twist in Ceynowa’s story is his involvement in an anti-Prussian conspiracy. His participation in an 1846 failed attack on barracks in Starogard landed him in jail. He found solace, however, in writing. He began work on the first Kashubian-German dictionary and the first Kashubian literary work, entitled Krotochwilno Rozmòwa Pòlocha z Kaszebą (A Joyful Conversation Between a Pole and a Kashubian). Following the 1848 amnesty, Ceynowa finished his studies and obtained a PhD in Berlin. His dissertation on the medical superstitions of the people of Puck and neighbouring lands evidenced his ethnographic interests.
Ceynowa called Kashubians a nation and their tongue a language. He worked on its grammar and spelling, which was met with wide criticism; many believed that even under the partitions, Poland continued to exist in the context of the shared Polish language. His contacts with Russian Slavists were also controversial, especially his participation in the Slavic conference of 1867. He treated his journey to Moscow as a way to present the culture of his region, but returned disappointed with the vision of Russian Pan-Slavism.
Before that, however, he managed to publish some works in St. Petersburg and build his authority as an amateur ‘Kashubologist’, able to stand his ground among professional scholars. Ceynowa also made significant contributions to Hilferding’s treatise and translated The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish by Alexander Pushkin into Kashubian.
‘Ùczba czwiôrtô’: Kashubian palatalisation
Kashubian exhibits a transformation in the palatalised consonants ‘ki’ and ‘gi’ into ‘czi’ and ‘dzi’. For example: ‘taczi dłudżi dżibczi czij’ instead of ‘taki długi gibki kij’ (such a long, flexible stick).
Derdowski – a Kashubian bard