Vilnius and Warsaw jostle over how to spell

  • 2001-09-06
  • Rokas M. Tracevskis
VILNIUS - Historians experienced déjà vu this week as presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers and MPs from Lithuania and Poland gathered together as they did in the times of the 16th-18th century Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth. Some 70 of Lithuania's highest-ranking politicians journeyed to Warsaw on Sept. 5 for a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations. But a document on the spelling of Lithuanian and Polish names has marred the pomp.

Observers agree that Lithuanian-Polish relations, now officially described as a strategic partnership, are better than ever before. However, arguments about the document, on name-spelling in the passports of respective minorities, which was planned to be signed during the Warsaw event, have sent it back to the negotiating table.

Poland has demanded since 1994 that the names of Lithuania's Polish minority be spelled using the Polish alphabet.

Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas and his Polish counterpart Jerzy Buzek agreed in the Lithuanian resort of Palanga in early August that the document would be signed on Sept. 5.

But when they met to discuss the issue in Vilnius on Aug. 28, Remigijus Motuzas, director of the ethnic minorities and Lithuanian diaspora department, and Wojciech Tycinski, director of the diaspora department of the Polish Foreign Ministry, admitted that a final consensus had not been reached.

The Lithuanian side has made concessions. Negotiators were proposing for several years that the names of the 250,000 people of Polish origin living in Lithuania be spelled with Lithuanian letters. Now Vilnius is suggesting that they be spelled in Latin letters without the diacriticals of either language.

This way, Polish names would be spelled with the letter "w"- not used in Lithuanian - and Polish-style combinations like "cz"and "sz,"but without any specific signs marking the softness and hardness of consonants.

But this failed to meet Poland's expectations. "This is a step forward. But Poles want to see their names written in Polish letters,"Tycinski said.

Lithuania currently offers the gift of choice to Lithuanian citizens of non-Lithuanian origin. They can choose Lithuanian endings to one or all of their names or they can refuse these endings. Letters that are absent from the Lithuanian alphabet, like w and q, can be preserved in a Lithuanian passport. But foreign letters with diacriticals cannot.

The Polish alphabet has several letters with diacriticals not used in any other European alphabet. Motuzas pointed out that Polish names in French passports, for example, are written without these special letters. Last year the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that a Lithuanian citizen of Polish origin who wanted to write his name in the Polish original could not do so.

Motuzas reasons that ultimately Lithuanian identity could be threatened. "There are more than 100 ethnic minorities in Lithuania. If we make an exception for the Polish alphabet it would set a precedent. Chinese, Japanese, Russian or Jew could demand the original spelling of their names in non-Latin alphabets in their Lithuanian passports."

"It's complicated. I'm not a great optimist about these negotiations,"Artur Ploksto, a Social Democrat MP of Polish origin, told The Baltic Times. "Certainly, Lithuania's Poles would feel a lot of psychological comfort if their names were spelled in the original way."

Ploksto said that if the rules are changed, the hassles Poles will face for the luxury of a more Polish name may prove too much. "To become a Plokszto I would have to spend time and money changing my name in the passport, property documents and other papers. I don't think many people would be rushing to do it,"he said.

Tycinski said that the Lithuanian ethnic minority in Poland is free to spell its names as they are in the original if they want to. But this was denied by Motuzas. Although a handful of Lithuanians in Poland, such as historian Bronislovas Makauskas (until last year Bronislaw Makowski), have restored their original names in their Polish passports, "there isn't a single example of a Lithuanian name appearing with Lithuanian diacriticals in a Polish passport,"he said.

And Poland is not ready to allow it, either, he added.

Sources vary, but there are between 10,000 and 30,000 ethnic Lithuanians living in Poland.

Lithuanians borrowed diacriticals for the sounds zh, sh and ch, which Lithuanians call "crowns"or "birds"on the z, s and c, from the Czech alphabet at the beginning of the 20th century.

Changing the name in your passport is expensive in Poland. It costs 300 zloty ($75). In Lithuania the price is 12 litas ($3).

Ploksto rejects the idea that disagreements over spelling will harm Lithuanian-Polish relations, which are described by Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski as "an example for the rest of Europe."

"It's really not an important issue for the average Lithuanian Pole. It's just an excuse for politicians to do a bit of jostling,"Ploksto said.