Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 416 pages
- Published by: Cambridge University Press June 24, 1994
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 052145011X
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0521450119
-
Book Dimensions:
8.5 x 5.6 x 1.4 inches
- Weighs: 1.5 pounds
Product Review
"[a] superb scholarly study.whose balanced narrative and analysis effectively portray the many vivid personalities and dramatic developments of this crucial period in the history of east central Europe. General and academic collections at all levels." Choice
"English (and in some respects the first time in any language), the rise of pagan Lithuania during the rule of Grand Duke Gediminas, with attention given also to the reigns of his predecessor Vytenis and successor Jaunutis." Choice
"It deserves careful attention from every serious student of medieval Russia and East Central Europe." Jean W. Sedlar, American Historical Review
"He [Rowell] has utilized the archives of ten different countries and an astounding array of published primary sources, Quellenforschungen, and specialized studies. He carefully introduces and re-introduces his cast of geographic, ethnic, institutional, and human characters, so that the reader does not get lostRowell has written a splendid book and has done so with erudition and zest.There is nothing at all like this book in any western language." International History Review
"This superb book is a major contribution to the history of east-central Europe in the Middle Ages, and to medieval history in general. It is an exceptionally welcome and original addition to a series of recent works about east-central Europe in the medieval period that are conceived inEnglish and that situate this region, and the countries and peoples that make it up, within a new and informed comparative perspective. In exceptionally clear and polished prose, it weaves together political, dynastic, economic, diplomatic, and ecclesiastical history to trace and explain the rise of the Jogaila dynasty to Christianity and the series of unions with Poland that followed in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The bookis, above all else, astonishingly learned." Piotr Górecki, Speculum
Product Description
From 1250 to 1795 Lithuania covered a vast area of eastern and central Europe. Until 1387 the country was pagan. How this huge state came to expand, defend itself against western European crusaders and play a conspicuous part in European life are the main subjects of this book. Chapters are devoted to the types of sources used, to the religion of the ancient Balts (and the discovery of a pagan temple in Vilnius in the late 1980s), and to Lithuanian relations and wars with Poland and the Germans. Under Grand Duke Gediminas, Lithuania came to control more of Russia than the prince of Moscow.
Reader ReviewsThis is an extraordinary scholarly work. It clarifies the obscurities and subtleties of the Lithuanian situation in the last decades of official paganism when the Lithuanian state rivaled in geographic extent and ethnic diversity the greatest European nations ever known. The book primarily covers the rise and reign of Gediminas, the grand duke who was most responsible for Lithuania's astonishing growth in the fourteenth century. The subject in English has been covered only in popular and inaccurate general histories by Lithuanians influenced by the politics and mythologizing of the nation's first independence period. The author wrote the book while serving as Professor at the Centre for West Lithuanian and Prussian History at the University of Klaipeda, and it represents the first fruit of Lithuania's second independence in this century. The chapters include information on the importance of the region's peculiar landscape, the economic situation, pagan beliefs and their diplomatic usefulness, the role of Lithuanian princesses in forming marital alliances with Rus'ian and Polish principalities, the exploits of Lithuanian arms in expanding the realm, Gediminas's brilliant campaign in conquering Western Ukraine, its Rus'ian allies against the growing threat of Muscowy, and the attempt to develope a Lithuanian Orthodox Church in Vilnius are fascinating. One can only hope that S. C. Rowell will publish a sequel on the next sixty years of Lithuanian history to include the rise of Gediminas's grandson, the controversial Jogaila Gediminaitis, who became King of Poland-Lithuania, the first federated state in Europe and the largest in its history, Christianized his pagan people, despite their notorious (and admirable) cultural conservatism, and managed, with the help of carefully nurtured alliances first developed by Gediminas, to defeat the Teutonic Order, the military superpower of the day, using a NATO style army, Oriental strategy and technology, and Lithuanian ambush tactics. This book lays the groundwork for understanding the roots of the Jagiellonian dynasty of Poland-Lithuania and its political and philosophical accomplishments, fondly referred to by the present Pope John-Paul in the text of his speech to the UN a few years ago. The book's extensive footnotes, maps, geneological charts, and huge bibliography, to say nothing of the densely informative text, make the book worthwhile to anyone seriously interested in East European history.
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