The Scottish community in Kėdainiai c.1630-c.1750
ENKėdainiai (Kiejdany) has been described as a centre for ‘the propagation of the Reformation in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’ following the conversion of Anna Radziwill to the Protestant faith in 1549. Religious conflicts in Vilnius in 1611 and 1639 led to the expulsion of Protestants from the Lithuanian capital, and their troubles increased during the 1621 Livonia War, when Biržai (Birze), a Radziwill patrimony, was destroyed. Only Kėdainiai remained as a major Radziwill town, from where the family hoped to revive their fortunes. With this goal in mind, they had to find like-minded people who shared their religious beliefs, and for this the family had to look beyond the borders of the predominantly Catholic common wealth of Poland-Lithuania. [...] In 1627 Duke Krysztof Radziwill (1585–1640) began reorganising Kėdainiai. [...] To encourage civic order and economic development, Krysztof Radziwill invited people of various nations and confessions to settle in Kėdainiai. [...] [Extract, p. 225-226].
