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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Between Two Worlds: A Comparative Study of the Representations of Pagan Lithuania in the Chronicles of the Teutonic Order and Rus' Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0g57z7kw Author Markman, Kristina Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Between Two Worlds: A Comparative Study of the Representations of Pagan Lithuania in the Chronicles of the Teutonic Order and Rus' A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Kristina Markman 2015 © Copyright by Kristina Markman 2015 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Between Two Worlds: A Comparative Study of the Representations of Pagan Lithuania in the Chronicles of the Teutonic Order and Rus' by Kristina Markman Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Patrick Geary, Chair By the mid-fourteenth century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania comprised a territory stretching across the present-day republics of Lithuania and Belarus as well as parts of Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, and Russia. While the transformation of Lithuania into a powerful and dynamic polity under the leadership of a pagan dynasty has received much attention, concurrent changes in literary representations of Lithuania have been rarely addressed. This dissertation seeks to present the first comprehensive comparative survey of the images of Lithuania in the chronicles of the Teutonic Order and Rus'—i.e., Lithuania’s closest neighbors and most frequent economic and military competitors as well as collaborators. By examining each chronicle within the historical and intellectual context of its composition, I argue that the ii portrayal of Lithuania in these texts was neither directly political nor polemical, but influenced by a wide variety of social factors. Representations of Lithuania were functional and constitutive; or, in other words, far from being passive reflections, these images were intended to shape perception and worked to reinforce as well as alter general ideas and attitudes. The first part (chapters 1–5) provides a detailed overview of the political and ideological structures that gave rise to the two chronicles traditions under investigation. Then, moving to questions of representation, this part argues that although images of Lithuania usually took on the form of “us” versus “them,” “good” versus “evil,” Christian versus pagan, they were deployed in different ways. The Teutonic Order’s chroniclers, for example, deferred to conventional Western paradigms of “otherness” in order to construct an image of the hostile Lithuanian and justify the Order’s mission of conversion and colonization in Prussia and Livonia. In Rus'ian chronicles, on other hand, the use of negative images of Lithuania appears to have been symptomatic of attitudes during years of crisis rather than a definitive ideological or pragmatic program. The second part (chapters 6–8) is comparative; it analyzes the similarities and differences between the presentation of specific Lithuanian characters and events in both chronicle traditions. One of the principal conclusions of this section is that multiple discourses were involved in the production of image rather than primarily a religious one. Using Lithuania as a case study, the final chapters also explore the interplay of cultural systems in the Baltic region, especially questions of cultural identity and how it is reflected in the literary production of frontier societies. iii The dissertation of Kristina Markman is approved. Teofilo F. Ruiz Piotr Górecki Patrick Geary, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv Table of Contents List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................................... vii List of Geographic Place Names .................................................................................................... ix List of Terms ................................................................................................................................ xii List of Maps and Figures ............................................................................................................. xiii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ xiv Vita ............................................................................................................................................. xvii INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 1 The Chronicle as Genre and Agent ............................................................................................. 6 Representation: Image, Identity, and Ideology .......................................................................... 12 Lithuania as Europe’s Final Frontier ......................................................................................... 21 Dissertation Overview ............................................................................................................... 25 PART I: THE INTERPRETIVE FRAMEWORK 1. Lithuania between the Teutonic Order and Rus', c.1000–1387 ................................................. 28 Lithuania ................................................................................................................................ 28 The Teutonic Order ................................................................................................................ 36 Rus' ......................................................................................................................................... 40 2. Sources: The Chronicles of the Teutonic Order ........................................................................ 47 The Start of the Baltic Mission: Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae (HCL) .................................. 55 From Mission to Crusade: Livländische Reimchronik (LRC) ................................................ 61 The Institutionalization of Chronicle Writing in the Teutonic Order: Peter of Dusburg’s Chronicon terrae Prussiae (PD) ......................................................................................... 65 The Fourteenth-Century Chronicles: Nikolaus von Jeroschin (NJ), Hermann von Wartberge, and Wigand of Marburg ...................................................................................................... 72 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 76 3. hostes fidei vs. milites Christi: The Representations of Lithuania in the Chronicles of the Teutonic Order ............................................................................................................................... 78 Lithuanians, from pagani to hostes fidei ................................................................................ 80 Constructing Dichotomies I: The Theological and Spatial Divide ........................................ 93 Constructing Dichotomies II: Virtue and Manful Action .................................................... 102 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 119 4. Sources: The Chronicles of Rus' .............................................................................................. 120 Setting the Stage: Povest' vremennykh let (PVL) ................................................................. 121 Northern Rus': Novgorod First Chronicle (NPL) ................................................................ 129 Southwestern Rus': Galician-Volhynian Chronicle (GVL) .................................................. 134 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 137 5. “Pagan,” “Godless,” and “Accursed” Litva: The Representations of Lithuania in the Chronicles of Rus' ........................................................................................................................ 139 v Lithuania and the Novgorod First Chronicle (NPL) ............................................................ 143 Novgorod: Crisis and Resolution ......................................................................................... 154 The Discursive Triplet and the Povest' vremennykh let (PVL) ............................................ 163 The Case of the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle (GVL) ....................................................... 172 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 176 PART II: CASE STUDIES 6. From Obscurity to Notoriety in the Thirteenth Century: The Many Faces of Mindaugas ...... 178 The “Real” Mindaugas ......................................................................................................... 182 First Impressions I: Galician-Volhynian Chronicle (GVL) .................................................. 187 First Impressions II: Livländische Reimchronik (LRC) ....................................................... 190 The Two Traditions .............................................................................................................