Lutheran ethic and country life in eighteenth century Prussia. Meanings of food in Metai (The Seasons) by Kristijonas Donelaitis

ENIt’s a pity thought today there is no country on the coast of the Baltic Sea that witnessed its greatest Lithuanian poet Kristijonas Donelatis’ life anymore. After the Second World War the Eastern part of the Prussia along with its former old capital Königsberg have become Kaliningrad Oblast (District) of Russia and only small part of the northern territory at present belongs to Lithuania. Prussia was a territory of the Baltic tribes, first of all Prussians, also Scalvians, Curonians and others, conquered by German Crusaders in the 13th Century, which in the 16th century was made to become a secular state. In 1525, Albrecht von Brandenburg (1490‐1568), Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights and, after converting to Lutheranism, the first duke of Ducal Prussia, abolished the German Order and declared his intension to establish the Duchy of Prussia. He was a sovereign of German and Baltic origin. His mother daughter Sophia of the Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland Casimir, was a representative of the Lithuanian Gediminaičiai Dynasty, and his father was German Friedrich of Ansbach. The Duchy itself was not fully independent and under the vassal right belonged to the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania. Consequently its history and culture were closely related with and mutually influenced by those both neighboring states.