Kristijonas Donelaitis (*01.01.1714, †18.02.1780) was a Lutheran pastor in Lithuania Minor. Donelaitis, a polyglot polymath, is considered Lithuania’s national poet.
He was born in Lazdynėliai (German Lasdinehlen/Sommerswalde, today‘s Mičurino, Oblast Kaliningrad) into a family of Lithuanian Freibauern (yeomen farmers). He attended the Königsberg cathedral school as a Pauperschüler (a student from a poor background supported by a scholarship). Here he was taught not only religion and rhetoric but also ancient literature, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and French. In 1740 he completed his theology degree at Königsberg University.
After his studies Donelaitis worked first as choirmaster, later as schoolmaster of Stalupėnai primary school (German Stallupöhnen, today‘s Nesterov, Oblast Kaliningrad). In 1743 he became pastor of Tolminkiemis (German Tollmingkehmen, today‘s Čistyje Prudy, Oblast Kaliningrad), where he would spend the rest of his life. It was here that his poetic masterpiece, the Metai ("The Year"), was created. Donelaitis preached in German and Lithuanian and wrote hymns for his flock. In his spare time he built pianos, ground lenses, and constructed physical measuring instruments and optical devices.
Donelaitis is considered the originator of the hexameter in Lithuanian and of the genre of the fable in Lithuanian literature. The south-western High Lithuanian (= Southwest Aukštaitian) dialect of Prussia, also Donelaitis’s mother dialect, was made the dialect of the written standard of Prussia from the early 17th century onward. This so-called "Prussian" variety of Lithuanian served as the basis of the first scientific grammar of the Lithuanian language, August Schleicher‘s (1821–1869) Handbuch der litauischen Sprache, published 1856 in Prague. Schleicher’s grammar was pivotal in the later choice of Southwest Aukštaitian as the basis of Standard Lithuanian.
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