Jan Lucemburský, Karel IV. a Litva

• Čekų kalba / Czech
• Anglų kalba / English

ENIf we exclude a narrowly defined part from such extensive and internal ties of the interconnected circle of an issue, like the foreign policy of John of Bohemia and Charles IV is, we risk that in our conclusions we will pass over a number of substantial connections. Still, it makes sense to stop again at the relations of these two kings of the Luxembourg dynasty to Lithuania, not only because of the topic of this exhibition. Lithuania was one of the last areas of Europe, which had not yet been incorporated into the framework of Europa Christiana, and where therefore it was possible realise the set of concepts associated with the idea of the Christian knight, whose fundamental obligations included spreading the faith and protecting it from unbelievers, schismatics and heretics. The contrasts between the shared idea and practice helps us to provide new knowledge, but we cannot in our focus on the Lithuanian milieu forget the fact that the positions of the Luxembourg dynasty to Lithuania was always closely tied to the policy towards Poland and the Order of Teutonic Knights and through them events in Europe of the 14th century.At the beginning, it is certainly a justified question of when Lithuania and other lands of the European Northeast actually came into the awareness of the first Luxembourg on the Bohemian throne, but we can answer it only speculatively. In the first years of his reign, the attention of the young king was fixed on the imperial and domestic situations. However, also in the Bohemian milieu, he could soon encounter memories of the Prussian campaign of Přemysl Otakar II; after all, the idea of crusades against the pagans (not only) in Lithuania and in Prussia was one of the unifying concepts of European knights still at Johns time, and so it can be assumed that he grew up in it and that it was current also in the milieu of the Bohemian nobility. John of Bohemia apparently accepted the obligation of a journey to the Holy Land at the beginning of 1325 and set out with a sword in his hand for Lithuania, which could have served as a replacement of that trip, three times in fifteen years. It is not possible to rule out entirely that the first campaign in 1328-1329 was the fruit of an immediate idea at a favourable time.