Lithuania ascending: a pagan empire within East-Central Europe, 1295-1345

ENThis study aims to show how Lithuania first came to international prominence. From his citadel in Vilnius, Gediminas governed a state which controlled not only ethnic Lithuania, but also, in the western principalities of Orthodox Rus’, more Rus’ian territory than that held by the grand duke of Moscow. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania straddled the major trade routes between the Baltic and the rivers Dvina and Dnepr, between Rus’, Poland and the Teutonic Order. Its territory comprised vast Christian lands subject to the Church of Constantinople; its realm promised room for further expansion by the Church of Rome. It chose to remain pagan. [...] We shall examine Lithuania’s rise to prominence under Gediminas with reference to the achievements of his predecessor and brother Vytenis (1295-1315) and his chosen heir Jaunutis (1342-45) - Our major concerns will be the Grand Duchy’s exploitation of its neighbours’ military and political weaknesses, its manipulation of the confessional frontier between Baltic Catholic Christendom and Orthodox Rus ’, and its diplomatic skill in dealing with foreign princes who were as ready to connive with pagan Lithuanians (and seek pagan princesses in marriage) as they were to maintain a crusade against them. Such a study questions presuppositions of the place of a pagan polity within Christendom and the ‘necessity’ of conversion as a condition of participating actively in the affairs of the international community in the later Middle Ages. [p. xi-xii].