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r/lithuania•
Inoku

Help with Lithuanian gravestone markings?

Sveiki, r/lithuania! I've been doing genealogical research on my family, and, as it turns out, my great-great-grandfather was Lithuanian. This was confirmed for me when I visited his gravestone and it was written in Lithuanian. Unfortunately, I don't speak Lithuanian, and I was wondering if you could help me out with the inscription on the gravestone.

Here is a picture of the gravestone in question, and here's my transcription (unknown letters marked in parentheses):

Cionais Ilsisi

Apalionas Zaramba

Gimes 1877 metuose 0(?)

mirias 1910 M. 20 diena kovo

D(/B). Sv. J. Draugystes

Amzina At(/f)silsi

So far, my translation is this:

Here lies

Apalionas Zaramba

Born in year 1877 0(?)

Died 20 March 1910

D/B. Sv. J. Draugystes

In Everlasting Atsilsi

Could anyone help out with the bolded parts? I don't know if they'll provide any real concrete information for my research, but it'd be nice to know.

Posted Jul 19, 2012, 7:09 PM UTC

917
Namelis1•

OK. So taking a quick look at the gravestone, here's a quick transcription and translation line by line.

Cionais Ilsisi - Here rests

Apalionas Zaramba - Name and Surname. Could be Žaramba. I'm not too sure.

Gimes 1877. metuose - Born in the year of 1877.

mirias 1910 M. 20 diena kovo - Dead on the day of 1910 20th of March.

D. Šv. J. Draugystės. - This one is tricky. The great Saint J. (I'm guessing John?) Fellowship/Friendship

Amzina Atsilsi - It's either misspelled or old. Means eternal rest.

8
InokuOP•

Wow, thank you! This is really helpful.

I guess my next task is figuring out what exactly this "Great St. J(ohn) Fellowship" is. Can I ask what, exactly, the "D." is short for? I assume Šv. is short for Šventatis, but it might be easier to look for the group if I knew what the D. meant.

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junaru•

D. is probably for didysis meaning "the great", now if it we change the D. to "Didžiojo" (same word, different case) the last lines would be best wishes for "Great Saint Johns friendship within the eternal rest".

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InokuOP•

Interesting. Is there any special meaning to why it might say that? I'm not Catholic, and my knowledge of saints is minimal at best.

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legendaris•

yes and by the way "Amzina atilsi" means "eternal rest". It is a line in one of the most popular prayers for the dead called "DE PROFUNDIS".

Goes like this:

Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. If Thou, O Lord, shalt observe iniquities; Lord, who shall endure it? For with Thee there is merciful forgiveness: and by reason of Thy law, I have waited for Thee, O Lord. My soul hath relied on His word; my soul hath hoped in the Lord. From the morning watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord. Because with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him plentiful redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all her iniquities. Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. Let us pray. O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of Thy servants departed the remission of all their sins, that through our pious supplication they may obtain that pardon which they have always desired; who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

It's also common to add "amzina atilsi jam/jai" when talking about someone who is dead. For example:

"You remember what a good boy John was when he was young?"

"Yes, he was always smiling. Eternal rest for him."

It may not sound very natural but it's common to add it as a sign of respect.

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junaru•

Not a religious person myself, but best guess its this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Apostle

The Church Fathers generally identify him as the author of five books in the New Testament: the Gospel of John, three Epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation.

So i'm guessing he's popular within the Christian community.

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-jack•

Amžiną atilsį - It's more of wishing the deceased and eternal rest. Just the same as the English world used uses "R.I.P". A last wish for the souls of the dead.

The "Great Saint Johns fellowship" could be a fellowship, the person was involved with.

And you know old-school Lithuanians, they took care of their own.

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InokuOP•

I'll have to look into the Great Saint Johns Fellowship possibility, but it seems like other people have put forward some other good theories about what that part of the inscription might mean.

As for Lithuanians, I really don't know them. There's really nothing very "Lithuanian" about my family. Nobody speaks Lithuanian (not since my great-grandfather), and we're not even Catholic. It's a pity, really. I don't know anything about the culture my name comes from. I hope to remedy that someday, but without money, it's pretty hard to take a trip to Lithuania. I'd move to Lithuania for a while to teach English, but Lithuanian paychecks don't pay off American college debts very well. :(

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4mts•

My take on "D. Šv. J. Draugystės." Since it is March 20, in liturgical calendar of Lithuania it is Šv. Jonas Nepomukas feast. John of Nepomuk died on March 20. In other countries feast is on May 16, but in Lithuania that day is dedicated to other (maybe more local one) saint. Also from Lithuanian wiki page - In Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Nepomuk cult began to spread in the first half of eighteenth century and quickly became one of the most popular saints in Lithuania, sometimes even equal to the St. John the Baptist. So I would say - D. Šv. J.=Day Saint John Nepomuk Now about Draugystės. meaning friendship. March 20 is feast day, so it is like friendship with Saint day. I think it is like in catholic formula communion of saints from Apostles' Creed. In Lithuania this part of Apostles' Creed is "Šventųjų bendravimas", sounds more like "communication" but in the first book printed in Lithuanian in 1547 it is "šventuiu draugyste"

Case closed:)

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InokuOP•

Interesting! Thanks for the suggestion. That's very strange that a random Czech saint would be so popular in Lithuania, but I guess weirder things have happened.

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[deleted]•

Hi there, I think you got most of the stuff right and from all the comments below you have more or less a complete picture of what's written there. I have only two things to add:

  1. "Gimes 1877 metuose 0(?)" - I don't think it's a zero, only a simple letter o. This would make a lot of sense as the translation would sound simply as "born in year 1877 and having died on the 20th of March, 1910"

O is usually translated as ''or'' but in this case (please note that the language has changed a bit over the last 100 years) "and" is the meaning it takes.

  1. D/B. Sv. J. Draugystes - I'm quite disappointed about this one as after reading the thread I was hoping to find more about the mysterious fellowship. However, my impression is that the capital D (I'm sure it's not B) stands for "Diena" (Day). Which would lead to such a translation:

".... year 1877 and having died on the 20th of March, 1910, the day of St. John's* Friendship.

    • (J could stand for Jonas (John), Jurgis (George), etc. I personally think it's Jonas/John)

a) I'm not quite sure how they used the word ''draugyste(s)" back in the day. Could also mean something like "kindness".

b)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Parma - this is my best guess (feast is exactly on the 20th of March). For alternatives see http://www.catholic.org/saints/f_day/mar.php

So basically what this line does is simply adding some description to what sort of a feast day the 20th of March is (this was quite common back in the day, instead of using numbers to identify days of the month they would use the names of the saints).

What surprises me is that John of Parma is by no means a saint that is very well known in Lithuania. But since it happened in the States (I assume), 100 years ago I will not try to speculate about this anymore. So that's that. Hope it helps. My final translation is

Here lies Apalionas Zaramba Born in year 1877 and Having died on the 20 March, 1910 On the day of St. John's Friendship/Kindness Everlasting rest (Lithuanian equivalent to "rest in peace)

Edit: spelling; it has never been my key strength

4
[deleted]•

Just to add to this:

The spelling of the last word is actually quite odd ('atsilsi'), the correct spelling these days is atilsi. In Lithuanian there is no phonetical difference between atsilsi and acilsi. And the second one sounds very similar to what a person from Dzukija (an ethnical region in Lithuania) would say.

Please note that this is the wildest of speculations but this got me a bit interested.

So if the text on the gravestone was chosen by the relatives it just might be that your great-great-grandfather was from there.

The other interesting thing in Lithuania (and many other countries too) is that people who lived in the same village would share the same surname and the name of the village would also be related to that surname.

And I think that the surname is Zaramba, not Žaramba, as suggested by Namelis1. That seems like an old rustic Lithuanian surname as it ends with a vowel rather than -s (those were in quite a few cases constructed from Polish, Russian, Jewish etc. surnames). Why is it rustic? Because the nobility tended to change their original surnames to the Polish ones (a trendy thing 500 years ago). And Polish, and especially former-Polish surnames that have been altered to sound like Lithuanian surnames rarely end with an -a. Villagers were not that concerned about this though.

So (and this theory is as watertight as a strainer) I found this place called Zarambiškės dv. (Source: http://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plok%C5%A1%C4%8Di%C5%B3_vals%C4%8Dius, or just wiki Ploksciu Valscius) which was a part of an administrative territorial unit Ploksciu Valscius. The abbreviation dv. means that it was not a village but "dvaras" - an estate. Sadly, Ploksciai is not quite in Dzukija (yet not too far away) and they are in Suvalkija/Suduva (another ethnical region with a different dialect).

What are the odds of this being true/relevant? <.01%. But I thought that it would not hurt to share this with you. Maybe this will inspire you to find even more about your family's history (in Lithuania or anywhere else).

Edit: Spelling and the bit on surnames in the middle of the text

3
InokuOP•

The spelling of the last word is actually quite odd ('atsilsi'), the correct spelling these days is atilsi. In Lithuanian there is no phonetical difference between atsilsi and acilsi. And the second one sounds very similar to what a person from Dzukija (an ethnical region in Lithuania) would say.

This was actually incredibly helpful. All of the documentation about these relatives just says that they come from "Lithuania" (although they left before Lithuania became independent from the Russian Empire), so this is a great start. Using dialectal differences is a great way to figure out where people came from. Now I at least have somewhere to start looking.

And I think that the surname is Zaramba, not Žaramba, as suggested by Namelis1.

I'm entirely positive that this is true. We pronounce Zaramba with a "z" sound, not a "ž," and in any case, Zaramba is just a variant of the Polish name Zaremba. I know the surname is of Polish origin (which previously led me to believe that our family is ethnically Polish, not Lithuanian, which turned out to be very wrong), but I guess my ancestors left before the "re-Lithuanization" of many Polish names.

So (and this theory is as watertight as a strainer) I found this place called Zarambiškės dv. (Source: [1] http://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plok%C5%A1%C4%8Di%C5%B3_vals%C4%8Dius, or just wiki Ploksciu Valscius) which was a part of an administrative territorial unit Ploksciu Valscius. The abbreviation dv. means that it was not a village but "dvaras" - an estate. Sadly, Ploksciai is not quite in Dzukija (yet not too far away) and they are in Suvalkija/Suduva (another ethnical region with a different dialect).

In addition to looking into Dzukija, I'll look here too, but to be honest I don't know if this will yield anything. My relatives were, I'm pretty sure, illiterate peasants, so it seems unlikely that they'd come from an estate.

You've been extremely helpful! Thanks for putting so much thought into this.

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[deleted]•

No problem :) Happy to help!

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tomysz•

The last line "Amzina Atsilsi" translates to "everlasting rest"

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InokuOP•

Thanks! That one I guessed, but it's good to have verification.

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[deleted]•

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[deleted]•

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