Simonas Daukantas (; 28 October 1793 – 6 December 1864) was a Lithuanian/Samogitian historian, writer, and ethnographer. One of the pioneers of the Lithuanian National Revival, he is credited as the author of the first book on the history of Lithuania written in the Lithuanian language. Only a few of his works were published during his lifetime and he died in obscurity. However, his works were rediscovered during the later stages of the National Revival. His views reflected the three major trends of the 19th century: romanticism, nationalism, and liberalism.
Daukantas was born in Samogitia to a Lithuanian family. Likely a son of free peasants, he later produced proof of his noble birth to get university degree and a promotion in his government job. He attended schools in Kretinga and Žemaičių Kalvarija and was noted as an excellent student. Daukantas studied law at the University of Vilnius, though his interest lay in philology and history. After the graduation, he worked as a civil servant of the Russian Empire from 1825 to 1850. He first worked at the office of the Governor-General of Livonia, Estonia and Courland in Riga then moved to Saint Petersburg to work at the Governing Senate. At the Senate, he had the opportunity to study the Lithuanian Metrica, the state archive of the 14–18th century legal documents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1850, Daukantas retired from his job due to poor health and moved back to Samogitia where he lived in Varniai under the care of bishop Motiejus Valančius for a few years. He hoped to publish some of his works with bishop's help, but the bishop prioritized religious work and they began to quarrel. In 1855, Daukantas moved to in present-day Latvia and later to Papilė where he died in obscurity in 1864.
While Daukantas knew seven languages, he published exclusively in Lithuanian. He was a prolific writer and worked on a wide range of books – studies on the history of Lithuania, publications of primary historical sources, collections of Lithuanian folklore, Polish–Lithuanian dictionaries, Latin textbook for schoolchildren, primer of the Lithuanian language, Catholic prayer book, agricultural manuals for peasants, translations of classical Roman texts, novel for youth inspired by Robinson Crusoe. However, only a few of these works were published during his lifetime. Of the four studies on history, he managed to publish only one, The Character of the Ancient Lithuanians, Highlanders, and Samogitians, in 1845. While he was a well read erudite who spent considerable time and effort in obtaining primary sources, his historical works are highly influenced by romantic nationalism and didactically idealize the past. He used poetic descriptions, rhetorical elements, and emotional language that brought his history works closer to a literary work. His histories are valued not for their scientific content, but for their contribution to the development of the Lithuanian national identity. After the closing of Vilnius University in 1832, Lithuanians did not have a professionally trained historian until 1904 and used Daukantas' histories extensively. Daukantas identified language as the determining factor of nationality and articulated the nationalist anti-Polish sentiment that became the fundamental ideas of the Lithuanian National Revival and that survive in Lithuanian historiography into the 21st century.
Biography Origins and primary education Daukantas was born on 28 October 1793 in near Lenkimai in Samogitia. He was the oldest of seven children (two sons and five daughters). With Daukantas' help, his brother Aleksandras later studied medicine at Vilnius University. Baptismal records of the two sons (but not of the daughters) specified that they were children of Lithuanian nobles. There was an academic debate whether this information was accurate or falsified to provide the sons with better opportunities in life, a common practice among wealthier peasants at the time. An analysis of inventories of Skuodas Manor revealed that the family were free peasants – different from serfs in that they had some personal freedoms and paid quit-rent instead of performing corvée. When the manor was confiscated from the Sapiehas for their participation in the Uprising of 1831, the family was turned into serfs. However, Eimantas Meilus argued that inventories alone do not prove that the family was not of noble origin as many poorer nobles were equated to peasants and paid quit-rent to wealthier manors. The family worked about 1.5 voloks of land and pasture and raised cash for quit-rent by selling flax in Riga or Liepāja. According to the epitaph engraved on the gravestone of Daukantas' mother, she and her husband participated in a battle near Liepāja during the Kościuszko Uprising against the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1799–1800, his father was mentioned as manor's forester.
Daukantas' education was financed by his uncle, priest Simonas Lopacinskis (died in 1814). Daukantas attended a two-year primary school in Kretinga. When the school was visited by an inspector from Vilnius University in 1808, Daukantas was listed among 16 exemplary second-year students (out of total 68 students). The school curriculum included lessons on Polish and Latin grammar, geography, arithmetic, religion and morality. At some point, Daukantas enrolled into a four-grade six-year (the last two grades took two years to finish) school in Žemaičių Kalvarija. Another inspector listed him as one of four best students in the last fourth grade in 1814. The school curriculum was dictated by Vilnius University and included natural law (textbook by Hieronim Stroynowski), classical antiquity, rhetoric, geography, geometry, algebra, physics, natural sciences (textbook by Stanisław Bonifacy Jundziłł), gardening. However, since all teachers were Dominican friars, students had to attend daily masses and go to confession every month. The subjects were taught in Polish and the use of Samogitian (Lithuanian), even among students, was prohibited in November 1806. The official rationale was to facilitate the learning of Polish. However, as later attested by Motiejus Valančius, neither students nor teachers knew Polish well and Daukantas never learned proper Polish pronunciation.
In 1814, Daukantas with 10 rubles in his pocket and a bag of clothes on his back traveled on foot from Samogitia to Vilnius to attend Vilnius Gymnasium. The school year started on 1 September, but Daukantas was registered only on 26 September as a fifth-year student. That school year, the school had 423 students, mostly sons of nobles and officials. The gymnasium, together with Vilnius in general, was recovering after the French invasion of Russia in 1812. Its original premises were occupied by a war hospital and so it temporarily shared rooms with Vilnius University. In June–July 1815, the gymnasium organized an annual public examination of its students attended by members of the clergy and university professors. Daukantas was listed among 14 students who distinguished themselves during this event. He successfully graduated from the gymnasium in early summer 1816.
University education In fall 1816, Daukantas began studies at the Faculty of Literature and Liberal Arts at Vilnius University, then known as the Imperial University of Vilna. Adam Mickiewicz transferred to the faculty at the same time. Daukantas was interested in philology and studied Latin, Russian, and Polish literature, French language, rhetoric, poetry, natural and land law (leges patrias). His professors included of classical philology and of poetry and rhetoric. In 1817, Daukantas applied for a Candidate of Philosophy degree, but was rejected because he did not provide required certificates and did not complete a thesis. After another year of studies, Daukantas transferred to the Faculty of Moral and Political Sciences in fall 1818. These studies could secure a more promising career as a judge or a government official. He attended lectures of , who formed Daukantas as a historian. Onacewicz studied at the University of Königsberg and had access to the archives of the Teutonic Order and spent a year studying archives at the estate of Nikolay Rumyantsev in Gomel. He collected enough information to establish a course on the history of Lithuania as a separate subject from the history of Poland. Another key professor was who taught law and studied Lithuanian Statutes, Casimir's Code, and Lithuanian Chronicles.
On 12 July 1819, Daukantas was granted the Candidate of Law degree in canon and Roman law. To get the diploma, Daukantas needed to provide proof of his noble status. He provided a large parchment, signed by Michał Józef Römer as marshal of the szlachta of the Vilna Governorate on 24 August 1820, that described an extensive genealogy of Daukantai family of that traced back to the late 1500s. While the document is authentic, historian Vytautas Merkys concluded that Daukantas altered the genealogy to attach his own family to the noble Daukantai family, another known practice among peasants that shared surnames with noble families. Daukantas received his diploma on 25 January 1821.
He continued his studies and took canon law, Roman civil law, criminal law, land law, political economy, history, logic and metaphysics. From fall 1820, Daukantas stopped attending lectures except for land law. He stopped taking classes in spring 1822. In all classes he received "good" or "very good" evaluations except in logic and metaphysics taught by Anioł Dowgird where his knowledge was rated as "satisfactory". In spring 1821, Daukantas submitted an application for a master's degree. The oral exams took place in October–November 1821. He had to answer questions on a wide variety of subjects, from the law and history of Ancient Rome and impostors of Dmitry of Uglich to theory of taxes and specifics of Russian economy as well as thoughts of Montesquieu and Adam Smith. In July 1822, Daukantas defended his thesis on the power of the head of a family according to the natural, Roman, and land law. He was granted the master's degree in canon and Roman law on 15 July 1822.
However, Daukantas had to wait until 1825 to get his diploma. The degree needed a confirmation by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education. The university prepared the papers in August 1822, but they were returned because they needed translation into Russian. The translated documents were not sent out until March 1824. Part of the delay was caused by suppression of the Filomat and Filaret secret student societies (Daukantas' name was included on a list of potential members, but there is no evidence that he ever joined them). Discovered in May 1823, members of these societies were tried and sentenced for anti-Tsarist activities. Until resolution of the trials, students were prohibited from leaving Vilnius and the university ceased issuing graduation certificates. The process was delayed again due to the replacement of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, curator of the , with Nikolay Novosiltsev. The papers had to be reviewed by the new curator who approved Daukantas' degree in February 1825 followed by the ministry's approval in March. Finally, the university issued the diploma on 30 April 1825.