MIKALOJUS DAUKSA
Mikalojus Dauksa was born about 1527 in Babenai and died on 16
february 1613 in Varniai. He wrote in a central High Lithuanian dialect influenced by both
eastern High Lithuanian and Zemaitic. Dauksa’s two major works were the Katechismas
of 1595 and the Postilla Catholicka of 1599.
The only extant copy of the Catechism is now in the Scientific Library of Vilnius State
University. The following editions of the Catechism have appeared: E. Wolter, Litovskij
katichizis
N. Dauksi (St. Petersburk, 1886); Ernst Sitting, Der polnische Katechismus des Ledezma und
die litauischen Katechismen des Daugsza und des Anonymus vom Jahre 1605 nach den Krakauer
Originalen und Wolters Neudruck interlinear herausgegeben (Göttingen, 1929).
The following editions of the Postile have appeared: E. Wolter, Postilla Catholicka Jakuba Wujka w litovskom perevode Nikolaja Dauksi (St. Petersburg, I 1904; II 1909; III 1927); Dauksos Postile. Fotografuotinis leidimas (Kaunas, 1926); facsimile edition with preface by Mykolas Birziska.
Dauksa’s Postile is the most important Old Lithuanian text because it is accented and contains a large number of archaic forms. For a study of Dauksa’s accentuation, see Pranas Skardzius, Dauksos akcentologija (Kaunas, 1935).
The texts in this edition have been taken from the facsimile edition of 1926.
From „Old Lithuanian Texts of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries with a Glossary”. 1969, Mouton-the Hague