{"title":"Through a Glass Darkly: British Representations of the Polish-Lithuanian Union in the Late-16th and 17th Centuries","authors":"A. Kalinowska","doi":"10.30965/25386565-02501001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-02501001","url":null,"abstract":"The article discusses how post-1569 relations between Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were presented in various written materials produced in Britain in the late-16th and 17th centuries. It analyses both the materials produced by and for the court or professional elites, and widely circulating publications (books and newspapers) which were readily available to the general reading public. It argues that there is strong evidence that British readers were aware of the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, although the union itself was rarely presented either accurately or in any detail. They therefore had a very blurred conception of how it functioned in practice, as can be illustrated, for example, by British authors downplaying or simply denying the fact that after the Union of Lublin Lithuania became a constituent part of the Commonwealth with a status equal to that of Poland. Moreover, few writers and editors considered it necessary to provide readers with a proper explanation of the union’s basic ‘rules of engagement’, or any reflections on how it functioned on an organisational level.","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42734289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Andrea Griffante, Children, Poverty and Nationalism in Lithuania, 1900–1940, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Pivot, 2019. 148 p. ISBN 978-3-030-30870-4 (eBook)","authors":"D. Cretu","doi":"10.30965/25386565-02401014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-02401014","url":null,"abstract":"This monograph explores the development of care for orphaned, destitute and poor children in Lithuania in the first half of the 20th century. It looks particularly at how nationbuilding agendas influenced the discourse and practices of private associations for children’s welfare. Andrea Griffante emphasises the ways nationalist elites influenced the emergence of private networks of care and the intrinsic ethno-national character of child rehabilitation efforts. In this, he argues that it was the competition between Lithuanian and Polish efforts that augmented the nationalist dimension of child rehabilitation in this period. Griffante engages with a wide array of documents, with a focus on Lithuanian and Polish material. He investigates state sources, organisational documents, private papers and newspapers, as he explores the development of a civil society working towards the rehabilitation of children, and the ways nationalist elites contributed to these efforts. The monograph is relatively short, and it is divided into four core chronological and thematic chapters (besides the introduction and final remarks). Chapter 2 is the first section that delves into the main theme of the book, as it contextualises the emergence of children’s care within a framework of nation-building in Lithuania at the turn of the 20th century. Here, Griffante argues that the social changes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the growing attention of assistance towards poor and orphaned children in Lithuania. Chapter 3 highlights the relevance of the humanitarian crisis of the First World War, and the crystallisation of the ethno-national profile of private initiatives to rehabilitate children. Chapter 4 describes the negotiations, tension and collaboration between national child care associations and foreign (i.e. American and British) humanitarian organisations in the aftermath of the First World War. Lastly, Chapter 5 points to the change in method and discourse regarding child care; here, Griffante argues that the interwar period saw the waning of attention paid by associations to foundlings and poor and destitute children, and a growing focus on preventive health and hygiene measures and the education of indigent mothers.","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48182065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Formation of Authorities of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania and Belarus on the Example of the People’s Commissariat for Health Care at the Beginning of 1919","authors":"A. Kapliyev","doi":"10.30965/25386565-02401003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-02401003","url":null,"abstract":"The article presents an analysis of the formation and activity of the People’s Commissariat for Health Care of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belarus at the beginning of 1919. The basic structure of the Commissariat was worked out on the basis of various sources. It was found that, due to the outbreak of the 1919–1921 Polish-Soviet war, the efficiency of the Commissariat during its time in Vilnius was limited. The relative stabilisation of the health-care management system was achieved after the Commissariat was evacuated to Minsk, and later to Bobruisk, away from the front line. It has been proven that at the beginning of the Polish-Soviet war, military and civil medical care was combined in a single system, and all medical professionals in the Lithuanian-Belarusian Soviet Republic were required to do military service. The worsening of the military situation for the Red Army in Lithuania and Belarus determined the split of the Health Care Commissariat into two separate divisions: the field division for medical care for Soviet troops near the front line, and the civil division for helping civilians.","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48978936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Contested Date of the Emergence of Modern Lithuania: Was 15 May an Alternative to 16 February?","authors":"V. Safronovas","doi":"10.30965/25386565-02401004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-02401004","url":null,"abstract":"Today in Lithuania, the day of the establishment of the modern nation-state is celebrated on 16 February. It is well known that the origins of this celebration go back to the period before the Second World War. However, historians have stated for some time now that in the 1920s, in addition to 16 February, there was another day that was also known as the National Day: 15 May. An attempt is made here for the first time to look at the two celebrations as alternatives set by political competition. The author seeks to find explanations why some politicians wanted to see 15 May as a counterbalance to 16 February, and examines whether this was influenced by their different experiences and different views as to what constituted the starting point of the independent Lithuanian state.","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44515490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Punishment of Murderers in the Noble Courts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Second Half of the 18th Century","authors":"A. Stankevič","doi":"10.30965/25386565-02401002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-02401002","url":null,"abstract":"This article gives an analysis of the punishment the noble courts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania applied to murderers in the second half of the 18th century, where the noble courts acted as courts of first instance in hearing murder cases. The author aims to determine the catalogue of punishments applied in such cases and the trends in the application of punishments in terms of how they conformed with the valid legal norms of the day, and search for manifestations of the humanisation of the law. After an examination of 184 verdicts, the author found that in cases of wilful murder, the noble courts usually applied the death penalty as per the set laws. Exceptions applied only to individuals from the estate of nobles, who instead of receiving a death sentence were sometimes sentenced to lower or upper tower punishment, which was by law ordinarily applied to other crimes. At the same time, the executors avoided qualified ways of applying the death sentence (capital punishment). Of the qualified forms of punishment, only quartering was applied, usually to those convicted of the aforementioned crime, ritual murder, and, in some instances, in cases of robbery. Alternative forms of punishment were episodic, and were only applied to a small number of convicted persons: imprisonment as a form of punishment recommended by philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment was applied in only 5.3 per cent of murder cases. In most instances, imprisonment was related to the introduction of the 1782 Cardinal Laws of the Permanent Council. In this way, the research reveals the conservative nature of the estate of nobles in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and their efforts to continue to adhere to the strict law outlined in the Third Statute of Lithuania. It is likely that this practice could have been a result of the poor state of the penitentiary system, as there was not a single public prison in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the time where long-term imprisonment could have been possible.","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48318235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Introduction of the Transport Service Tax and Transport Service Treasury in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania","authors":"Karol Łopatecki","doi":"10.30965/25386565-02401001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-02401001","url":null,"abstract":"The article analyses actions taken and normative acts issued that formed the basis for the functioning of the transport service tax (podwoda tax) (1546–1578). The impact of Lithuanian solutions on the system introduced in the Polish Crown (1564–1565) is assessed. The tax base and characteristics of rules and collection are presented in the article. The resistance of the nobility to the introduction of this tribute is described. The resistance was much stronger than that observed for even extraordinary (one-off ) taxes several dozen times higher. Reasons for the marginalisation of this tribute and the ever smaller amounts going into the Land Treasury of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are also shown.\u0000The article stresses that the only permanent annual tax in force in Lithuania was introduced in 1558. This state of affairs lasted until the reign of Władysław IV. He donated the quarterly tax (kwarta) to the treasury as income. The potential annual revenues resulting from the introduced tax ranged between 2,700 and 4,400 zlotys, and were allocated to the transport system based on transport service provision. The Transport Service Treasury (Podwoda Treasury) was to be supervised by the treasury guardian (skarbny), together with the treasury writer (pisarz skarbowy). Both were expected to pay the calculated amounts to messengers, envoys, and other people travelling for state purposes.","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45921989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Equality just Over the Horizon: Soviet Gender Equality in Law and Policy","authors":"Valdemaras Klumbys","doi":"10.30965/25386565-02401006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-02401006","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents an analysis of Soviet law on the family which was valid in Lithuania from 1940, in order to ascertain how it reflected gender equality, how (or if ) it was formed, the legal measures the state harnessed in order to create family and gender relation models in various areas of life, and what kind of family and gender policy formed as a result. The law is contextualised in this paper by immersing it in the social reality of its time. This allows us to determine what norms and provisions determined the political and legal resolutions of the Soviet authorities, and to discuss their influence on society. The two most important periods in Soviet gender policy are distinguished. Initially revolutionary and radical in Lithuania, with the aim of changing society to realise its goals, after the 1950s, state policy became more reactive, and adapted to the changed, modernised society and its needs. This paper proposes to see changes to women’s situation during the Soviet period not as emancipation, but as (double) mobilisation. The reasons for the stagnation in masculinity in Soviet law and policy, for not keeping up with or adapting to the rapidly changing social reality, are also analysed. The contradictions in Soviet policy regarding the family and gender are shown, where it proved impossible to unambiguously apply ‘conservative-liberal’ or ‘traditional- liberal’ distinctions in both policy and reality.","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41336555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between National and Indigenous Communism. Some Broad Brushtrokes in the Political Biography of Justas Paleckis: 1944–1953","authors":"Vladas Sirutavičius","doi":"10.30965/25386565-02301004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-02301004","url":null,"abstract":"The article discusses the activities during the period of late Stalinism of Justas Paleckis, the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of Soviet Lithuania. The paper puts forward the premise that from 1944 to 1953, Paleckis balanced between indigenous (local) communism and attitudes characteristic of some Central European national communists. To be more precise, he tried to emphasise the specifics of the historical development of Lithuania, and its differences from other Soviet republics, in which the formation of the Soviet regime started earlier. According to him, its tradition of statehood made Lithuania a unique republic, and this circumstance should be taken into account when making Lithuania Soviet. Paleckis was convinced that in order to make Soviet rule more attractive to the Lithuanians, it was necessary to cooperate with the nation’s cultural elite, that is, with the interwar Lithuanian intelligentsia. In his writings and speeches, he tried to merge organically the liberation of the Lithuanian nation from the ‘yoke’ of the exploiters, with the no less important liberation from the ‘national yoke’ or national revival of the Lithuanians. Social and national ‘liberation’, according to him, was crowned with the establishment of the socialist order in Lithuania. This ‘organic’ understanding of history was characteristic of other national communists in Central Europe. Finally, Paleckis tried to incorporate national elements into the system of symbols in Soviet Lithuania. The Lithuanianisation of symbols of Soviet rule was meant to strengthen the legitimacy of the authorities. However, this analysis shows that the Lithuanian Party leadership did not support Paleckis’ ideas and efforts. He was often strongly criticised in communist forums. It can be argued that in the period of late Stalinism, the ‘window of opportunity’ for national communism in Lithuania was finally closed. Tendencies towards unification and Russification became increasingly prevalent in politics. Thus, in this political-cultural context, Paleckis represented the type of communist that could be called an indigenous Lithuanian communist.","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45748829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Discovering the Empire: Julija Pranaitytė’s Guidebook to Europe and Asia","authors":"Juozapas Paškauskas","doi":"10.30965/25386565-02301001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-02301001","url":null,"abstract":"The significance of Iš kelionės po Europą ir Aziją (1914), the guidebook by Julija Pranaitytė, a Lithuanian intellectual from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, depended not just on the fact that the author was the first Lithuanian female traveller to comprehensively document the experiences of a modern tourist in the early 20th century, but that the book itself was the first guidebook to the Russian Empire to be published in Lithuanian.\u0000The guidebook is an attempt by member of the intelligentsia with strong Catholic views to provide practical information about a modernizing and increasingly mobile world. Thus, the intended target of Pranaitytė book is twofold. Firstly, it is more mobile yet still poorly educated working-class reader who is being constantly warned about possible threads of being fooled or cheated. The reader could find advice in guidebook about things worth having while travelling, how to communicate, and what to expect. The guidebook also provides historical information about places visited, cultural insights, similarities and differences to Western society in such a way the book could be interesting and useful for middle-calls traveler as well.\u0000There is also a more general problem relating to the author’s approach to the guidebook: what representations of different cultures and nations did early 20th-century Lithuanians share, and what did these representations mean in the religious, imperial and international contexts of the time? As is often the case in travel literature, history is presented here selectively, taking into account the dominant cultural monologue. It has a clear purpose in Pranaitytė’s guidebook: to spread a vision of the moral and religious superiority of Western and Christian culture. However, having in mind that growing number of workers and middle class were engage in Lithuanian national movement at the beginning of 20th century, this prejudges becomes paradoxical because Empire’s religious and cultural values are shown as cultural foundation for discovering new parts of late Russian Empire.","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43695803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}