"Contra gentem potentem et durissime cervicis": l’immagine della Lituania e dei lituani tra mito, propaganda e modelli culturali

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Barbarai; Lietuva, lietuviai, pagonys, krikščionys, christianizacija, Vokiečių ordinas, įvaizdis, stereotipai; Lietuviai; Viduramžių literatūros stereotipai; Įvaizdis; Barbarians; Image; Lithuania, lithuanians, image, pagans, Christians, Christianisation, Teutonic Order, image, stereotypes; Lithuanians; Mediaeval literary stereotypes.

ENThe words that open this presentation are used by Peter of Dusburg in his Chronicon Terme Prussiae when, describing the beginning of the war between Teuthonics and Lithuanians, he tries to summarize the fundamental characteristics of a people destined to be, for more than a century and half, the worst enemy of the Order. It's only one of the descriptions of Lithuania and Lithuanians: the aim of this report is to arrange and discuss them, hying to define the perception of Lithuania and Lithuanians in a context, the west and Catholic Europe, in which this land represented a real paradox. On the background of the debate on the conversion of Lithuania and the growing up of GDL, we will observe some privileged sources, in the perspective of some particularly meaningful categories: the pagan (or infidel, which is not necessarily the same thing); the fighter and the enemy; the king/prince (in the double sense of Pagan and Christian king). [From the publication]