The culture of Lithuania, dating back to 200 BC, with the settlement of the Balts and has been independent of the presence of a sovereign Lithuanian state.History & Culture of Lithuania History Retrieved on May 31, 2007
Pre-Lithuanian period (before the 10th century AD) The Lithuanian nation rose between the 7th and 9th centuries CE. Earlier, the Balts, ancestors of Lithuanians and Latvians, had arrived at the territories between the Dnepr and Daugava rivers and the Baltic Sea. An Indo-European people, the Balts are presumed to have come from a hypothetic original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans; many scientists date this arrival to 3rd millennium BCE.
The Balts, who are believed to have arrived with the main wave of Indo-Europeans, were unconnected with the formation of later Indo-European nations in Southern and Western Europe. Thus, the Balts' culture is believed to have preserved primeval features of Indo-European culture for a longer time. When later contacts with newly formed European nations increased, differences between the Balts' primeval culture and the culture of the new European nations were so great that closer cultural interchange was difficult. This resulted in preservation of the Balts' Indo-European roots but may also have contributed to their isolation.
After the period of Gothic domination in Europe, the culture of the Balts appeared in a more restricted territory between the Wisla and Daugava rivers. Almost anything said about the Balts' cultural isolation level in these times is speculation, but it was likely decreasing. Still, the Balts conserved forms of ancient Indo-European proto-language until much later times. The most archaic language forms were preserved by the Western Balts, who lived approximately in the territory of later Prussia (today's Kaliningrad and north-west Poland). These dialects developed into Old Prussian, which became extinct by the beginning of the 18th century.
The Eastern Balts had less archaic forms of language. For example, some popular simplifications took hold, such as a decrease in the number of verb forms, which presumably happened when the ancient cultural elite lost its influence over the people. It may have taken place, for example, in times of "barbarian" invasions (not later than the 8th century). Later, eastern dialects of Balts developed into the modern Lithuanian and Latvian.
Knowledge about the Balts' cultural life in these times is scanty. It is known that Balts at the end of this period had a social structure comparable with that of Celtic people in South-West Europe during the 2nd—1st centuries BC.
In the 10th century, religious life of the Balts was not unified, with various forms of cults present. An important feature of Balt culture was willful avoidance of using material attainments in their religious life. Some more complicated forms of architecture, equipment, and literacy were disapproved of, even when these things were allowed by and were well known from neighbouring nations. Religious life was concentrated on verbal tradition, with singing and perhaps with some elements of mystery theatre. Material forms of this life were closely connected with unsophisticated wooden shrines, nature objects ( such as trees and stones), and special ornamented vestments and their accessories.
Period of the Lithuanian nation rising (10th – 14th centuries) The Lithuanian nation began to form in about 7th – 8th centuries CE. The growing difference between Western and Eastern Balts was a result of some cultural modernization of the Eastern Balts even before this period. Differences also grew between northern and southern parts of the Eastern Balts. Lithuanians derived from the southern parts of Eastern Balts till 9th century CE. At this time, the Eastern Balts did not form any political unit. They were divided into some autonomous clans, but culturally and religiously, they were part of the Balts. The common name for them, Lithuanians, was already known.
Historians have occasionally attributed the name "Lithuania" of this period only to one of the Eastern Balts' tribes. It is not known for certain in what political circumstances Lithuanians acquired their common name, and whether it took place before the beginning of the 11th century, when the name was first mentioned in written sources, or later.
Traditionally, historians consider religion-based union of the Balts. This theory is supported by historical sources that wrote about existence of centers of religious life (named Romuva, using the present-day variant of this word), concentrated around more significant shrines, holy and mystic areas. Servants of these religious centers have influences on other not central shrines. This influence was based more on authority than on formal structure of organization. Finally, there is some historical data about the main religious center of all Balts. The level of organization and extent of this religious cooperation are under discussion. For example, some historians argue that union was more local and included only southern Balts (Lithuanians and Prussians), but Northern Balts (ancestors of Latvians) did not participate in it. Information concerning religious unity is influenced by later Lithuanian and Latvian myths and is not strongly based on historical sources and archaeological research.
The new point of distinguishing the Balts' nations and their cultural development was the occupation of a significant part of the land by Catholic military orders in the 13th century. The main areas of Western Balts, known under the name of Prussia, were occupied by Teutonic order. Livonian order occupied northern territories, beginning from areas around the Gulf of Riga, creating so-called Livonia.
Therefore, later cultural development of these two and the third unoccupied part of Balts' areas was different. Old Prussians (Balts) never regained a nation, but the Latvian nation was formed in Livonia. The third unoccupied part was a basis for the Lithuanian nation to form.
Outer aggression forced Baltic nations to form more strict institutions of political life. A Lithuanian state, Lithuania, was founded in 13th century and it included regions of still unoccupied Eastern Balts and remaining Western Balts' areas (These Western Balts' ethnic groups are known under names of Yotvingians and Sudovians).
In the middle of the 14th century, Lithuania emerged as a large eastern European state, with former Kievan Rus' and some Ruthenian regions to the north of it (approximately present Belarus) included. This expansion shows a great political potential of the Lithuanian ruling classes, and this potential could not be reached without respective cultural basis. Christian Ruthenian rulers became some kind of vassals of non-Christian Lithuanian rulers, but culturally the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (G.D.L.) remained bipolar. It consisted of a non-Christian Lithuanian part in North-West (later known as Lithuania Propria) and Eastern Christian Orthodox Ruthenian regions (partial Duchies).
The price of cooperation and recognition of pagan dominance by Ruthenian Orthodoxes in G.D.L. was recognition of wide cultural rights for orthodoxes. These rights included, for example, customs, that Lithuanian dukes had to be christened before taking office in a partial duchy in orthodox parts. Wives of Lithuanian dukes, if they were Ruthenians, stayed orthodox, but Grand Dukes in this case had to ensure that it was possible for his wife to perform orthodox rites and take part in orthodox services. Children of orthodox duchesses officially became observers of their father's religion, the old-Lithuanian one in that case. In reality, the religion of the mother could have some (sometimes great) influence.
In this period, both nations of G.D.L. insistently stood on their cultural basis, and the main directions of Lithuanian culture remained unchanged until Christianization. Lithuanian culture stayed far from growing significant literacy in Europe and there were no significant changes, for example, in cult architecture. However, there were some new tendencies too. Religious intolerance, hardly avoidable during religiously-based war as with crusaders, was offset by tolerance to orthodox Christians, so the Lithuanian community stayed tolerant in the cultural and religious sense. There were some attempts to modernize Lithuanian religious life too. For example, there were at least two Christian churches, Catholic and orthodox, both of brick stonework, in Vilnius town. The main shrine of the old-religion in the town was bricked, and not wooden as it was customary.
The Early Christian period (the end of the 14th to the middle of the 15th century)
Cultural changes in higher estates
The cultural background of formation and persistence of higher estates before Christianization is almost unknown. Christianization of Lithuania brought changes towards European feudalism of the 15th century. It is logical that Lithuanian political culture had some influence of Western European and, especially, Ruthenian feudalism before Christianization, but the christening broke the isolation barrier and the influence became more direct.
Adding to this, the strengthening of Western cultural constituent by Christianization mostly affected political culture. For example, this situation caused interesting effects on jurisprudence. Presence of old Ruthenian legal norms and old Lithuanian traditions as well as coming of Western European legal norms raised various inconveniences, and, in the beginning of the 16th century, the Lithuanian law codex, the First Statute of Lithuania of 1529 was issued. Lithuanian law was exercised in the territory of G.D.L. till 1840, survived not only times of state independence before Union of Lublin of 1569, but the state itself. Thus, since its beginning, Lithuanian law became one of the factors of political integrity of G.D.L. and distinguished Lithuania from other European regions including The Crown of the Polish Kingdom.
The issuance of the codex is an illustration of two different tendencies in the political elite of G.D.L. The issuance of a written law codex shows a significant western influence on Lithuanian political culture of this time. However, the existence of a Lithuanian system of law shows that cultural differences from Western Europe existed and were acknowledged by ruling classes.
In this time, Lithuanians were getting acquainted with Western European culture and this process had interesting discoveries, which also caused later ruling political ideas. However, the process was not trivial. To become "educated in aristocratic manner" a Lithuanian had to learn at least three languages: Ruthenian, Polish and Latin. German with variety of its dialects and Italian were also used. In reality, this educational objective could not usually be realised, so knowledge of languages (and even cultural orientation) depended on estate of person. Priests and humanitarians learned Latin, merchants learnt German. Polish was preferred by the upper classes, but Ruthenian by the lower strata of nobles.
Since the end of the 14th century, Lithuanians began to study in universities abroad, mostly in Kraków and Prague Universities and, sometimes, in Western European ones. Latin, being a church and humanitarian language, was studied by a number of Lithuanian citizens, mostly Catholics. Latin had a specific reason to be considered interesting for Lithuanian-speaking Lithuanians. Being acquainted with Latin language, Lithuanian humanitarians discovered great similarities between a large number of Lithuanian and Latin words, such as (Lithuanian words are given in their modern form) aušra – aurora (a dawn), dūmas – fumus (fume, smoke), mėnesis – mensis (a month), senis – senex (an old man) and so on. This paradoxical similarity was explained by raising an idea that Lithuanian was directly derived from Latin.