Eduards Volters (18 March 1856 – 14 December 1941) was a linguist, ethnographer, archaeologist who studied the Baltic languages and culture. He was a long-time professor at the Saint Petersburg University (1886–1918) and Vytautas Magnus University (1922–1934).
Volters, born in Riga, studied linguistics in Germany, present-day Estonia, and Ukraine earning his master's degree in 1883. In 1886–1918, he lived in Saint Petersburg where he taught at the Saint Petersburg University and worked as a librarian at the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He supported and encouraged Lithuanian and Latvian students and joined their cultural activities. In 1918, Volters moved to Vilnius and started organizing the Central Library of Lithuania (considered to be the predecessor of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania). Due to the Polish–Soviet War, he moved to Kaunas where he lived until his death. He established and headed the Central Library (1920–1922), was director of the (1922–1936), and taught various courses at the Vytautas Magnus University (1922–1934).
Volters' interests were varied – linguistics, ethnology, folklore, archaeology. He was a prolific writer and authored more than 400 articles in Lithuanian, Latvian, German, Russian, though much or his collected material remains unpublished. In 1883–1887, he organized expeditions to collect ethnographic data and folklore examples in Lithuania and Latvia. In 1908–1909, Volters made the first audio recordings of Lithuanian folk songs. In total, Volters and his assistants collected some 1,000 fairy tales, 300 songs, and 2,000 examples of riddles, proverbs, jokes, etc. He prepared and published methodologies and instructions on how to collect ethnographic data to preserve accuracy and authenticity. Initially supportive of the Lithuanian press ban, Volters soon became its critic and managed to get a few Lithuanian publications approved and published for academic purposes, including the reprint of the Catechism, or Education Obligatory to Every Christian by Mikalojus Daukša in 1884. He published a statistical work on the inhabited localities in the Suwałki Governorate in 1901 and had similar works planned for the Kovno and Vilna Governorates. He also carried out or supervised several archaeological excavations – various tumuli in 1888–1889, Apuolė hill fort and tumulus in 1928–1931, Kaunas Castle in 1930 and 1932.
Biography Volters was born on in Hagensberg (Āgenskalns), a district of Riga, to a family of a pharmacist of Baltic German origin. His nationality is ambiguous and there is no consensus whether he should be considered German, Latvian, or Lithuanian. He attended the . He studied linguistics and Slavic languages at the Leipzig University and Dorpat University and defended his master's thesis (advisor Alexander Potebnja) at the Kharkiv University in 1883. Encouraged by professors August Leskien, Karl Brugmann, Aleksander Brückner, Adalbert Bezzenberger, Volters decided to study Baltic languages and culture.
In 1884, he was elected a true member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. In 1886–1918, he taught at the Saint Petersburg University as a privatdozent. The subjects included bibliography, Lithuanian and Latvian languages and ethnography, ancient history of Lithuania. He supported Lithuanian and Latvian students, including Pranas Vaičaitis, Povilas Višinskis, Kazimieras Būga, Antanas Smetona, Rainis, . From 1894, he also worked as a librarian at the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1904–1917, he was state censor of Lithuanian theater plays. He had a reputation as a lenient censor who allowed patriotic and historical plays that glorified episodes from the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania but was stricter on any commentary related to social inequality. He was a member of the Lithuanian Literary Society and the Lithuanian Scientific Society and gifted them 1,037 and 1,337 books, respectively.
In November 1918, Volters traveled to Germany and Austria-Hungary to purchase Polish books for the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Due to wartime chaos, he got stuck in Vilnius. Here he worked with Vaclovas Biržiška, People's Commissar of Education of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, on establishing the Central Library of Lithuania (considered to be the predecessor of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania). When the city was captured by Poland in the Vilna offensive during the Polish–Soviet War, the library was closed in May 1919 and Volters was invited to Kaunas by President Antanas Smetona. He established the Central Library and headed it until 1922. He then became director of the . He also taught at the Higher Courses and headed its humanities section. He was one of the key figures working to transform the courses into the University of Lithuania in 1922. He headed the archaeology section (established in 1926) and taught various courses on archaeology, numismatics, Baltic prehistory, philology of Latvian, German, Bulgarian, Old Church Slavonic. However, he had a stutter and didn't have success in public speaking.
Volters retired in 1934 and devoted his time to writing memoirs and articles on history. He died on 14 December 1941 and was buried in the Lutheran corner of the old Kaunas city cemetery. His grave was destroyed when the cemetery was turned into the present-day Ramybė Park. During his life, Volters amassed a large personal library. After his death, about 4,000 volumes were donated to the Central Library which promised to keep the books as a single collection. But due to World War II and chaotic post-war years, the collection was dispersed among various libraries.
Research and publications
Volters was a prolific author. In total, he published more than 400 articles. In 1887–1902, he published articles in Latvian Dienas Lapa. In independent Lithuania, he published articles in such periodicals as ABC, Akademikas, XX amžius, Iliustruotoji Lietuva, Lietuva, Lietuvos aidas, Naujas žodis, Naujoji Lietuva, Naujoji Romuva, Praeitis, Trimitas.
Opinion on national identities In an interview to Juozas Girdvainis around 1938, Volters claimed that he initially considered himself to be German. As a requirement to receive a large government research stipend, he presented himself as Latvian in 1884. In 1886, he married Aleksandra Maslauskaitė of Lithuanian nobility and his research began focusing on Lithuanian matters. At the time, Volters believed that both Latvian and Lithuanian were dying languages and cultures that should be studied but not necessarily encouraged or preserved. In 1886–1887, he published a couple articles in that fully supported the Lithuanian press ban and suggested methods on how to assimilate Latvians and Lithuanians. Further, he supported the idea of , Governor-General of Vilna, to convert Lithuanians to the Eastern Orthodox Church. In 1887, Volters translated into Lithuanian and prepared for publication Eastern Orthodox liturgy of John Chrysostom in the Cyrillic script. The idea was to distribute the book near Paberžė hoping that Lithuanian-language sermons would attract Roman Catholics and would persuade them to convert. The book was published, but it was attacked by the Eastern Orthodox clergy for the use of parenthetical synonyms for rarer words and terms (as they introduced ambiguity) and for the alphabet (he introduced new Cyrillic letters and borrowed a single letter j from the Latin alphabet to accommodate Lithuanian pronunciation). Thus the project failed and likely was a contributing factor for Volters to oppose the press ban going forward.
According to Girdvainis, Volters changed his opinion about the Lithuanian National Revival around 1888. During his expeditions to Lithuania to collect ethnographic data, Volters met many prominent figures of the National Revival, including Antanas Baranauskas, Jonas Mačiulis-Maironis, Aleksandras Dambrauskas-Jakštas, , etc. He began treating Lithuanians not as an object of academic study, but as a living nation with aspirations for the future. He became active participant in Lithuanian cultural activities in Saint Petersburg by helping Lithuanian students, organizing amateur theater performances, sharing illegal Lithuanian publications (as a librarian of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he had free access to these publications), etc. Volters also publicly spoke out against the press ban, including a presentation to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1887 and an article about the Sietynas case published in Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti in 1897.
Ethnology and ethnography In 1883–1884, Volters visited communities of Prussian Lithuanians in East Prussia and collected data about their language and culture focusing on customs and traditions surrounding baptism, weddings, and funerals. In March 1884, he presented his findings to the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and was elected true member of the society. Encouraged by the success, until 1887, he organized annual expeditions to various locations in Lithuania and Latvia (near Vilnius and Švenčionys, Samogitia, Suvalkija, Latgale) to collect ethnographic data. He published examples of folklore in and in publications of the Imperial Geographical Society. In 1887, he also collected biographical information about historian Simonas Daukantas and bishop Motiejus Valančius. In 1890, he published a valuable collection of 22 customs from Višķi and 70 Latgalian folk songs with their translation into Russian (). While emphasizing regional differences, Volters wrote that Latvians living in three regions (Courland, Vidzeme, and Latgale) were indeed one nation.
Volters created and published several questionnaires to collect ethnographic data, including 50-question Program for Indicating the Peculiarities of Lithuanian and Samogitian Dialects (1886), 950-question A Program for Collecting Folk Spiritual Heritage (1892; prepared by students at the Saint Petersburg University under Volters' supervision), and 151-question Ethnographic Data about Latvians (1892; questions on Joninės or St. John's Day; published as in a supplement to Dienas Lapa). The largest questionnaire primarily dealt with the old Latvian mythology and religion, family and traditional customs, but also had smaller sections on geography and history, anthropology, dwellings, clothing, food and drink, occupations, language and writings. This program was reworked and republished by in 1923. These questionnaires helped standardizing ethnographic data collections, preventing pseudo-scientific forgeries, giving direction to other researchers what to collect and how to collect to preserve authenticity.
Volters was a member of statistics committees. He edited archaeological and ethnographic articles published in a statistical almanac by the Kovno Governorate. He collected and published a statistical work on the inhabited localities in the Suwałki Governorate in 1901 (). He had similar information collected about Kovno and Vilna Governorates, but the information was not published and was lost.