How did Virgil help forge Lithuanian identity in the sixteenth century?

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Abiejų Tautų Respublika (ATR; Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów; Žečpospolita; Sandrauga; Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth); Antikinis epas; Epinės poemos; Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); Palemono mitas; Renesansas; Romėnų poetai; Vergilijus; Antique epic; Epic poems; Palemon myth; Renaissance; Roman poets; Virgil.

ENDuring the sixteenth century Virgil's poetry had a noticeable and increasingly strong influence on literature written in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This can be attributed to the fact that the Aeneid enabled Polish and Lithuanian to construct a reflection on early modem national identity. The author attempts here to examine this hypothesis and to answer the question: how did Virgilian identity-topoi work in poems written in Poland and Lithuania in the sixteenth century? To do that he focuses on eight epic poems published in Polish and Latin between 1516 and 1592. In the main part of the paper several topics used in these poems are examined. These are: Lithuania's location in Europe and its geography, Lithuanian history, the inhabitants' sense of identity and the definition of homeland. Read together, these passages evoke a coherent image of the sixteenth-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the conclusions the author argues that the Aeneid provided Polish and Lithuanian poets with a language they could use for creating and expressing Lithuanian identity. This can be observed especially in a historical narrative which is based on four Virgilian motifs: the ethnogenetic myth, the legendary foundation of the capital city, the legendary victory and the tale of a contemporary hero who links this ancient history to a poet's present time. The author stresses the fact that the process of constructing knowledge about Lithuania was triggered by the humanistic ways of reading Virgil's texts and the sixteenth-century imitative procedures. [From the publication]