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Hey everybody, this is Razib Khan with the Unsupervised Learning podcast. Today I am here with Dr. Francis Young, who is a historian of religion, in particular of Christianity and paganism. And he has a book coming out soon "Pagans in the early modern Baltic: 16th century ethnographic accounts of Baltic paganism". I do want to mention that I kind of got in touch with Dr. Young with Francis, because we have a book that we both like quite a bit. "Lithuania accending: A pagan Empire within East Central Europe 1295 to 1345". If you were wondering how I know what you might think, is Lithuanian Arcana, I think a lot of it would be from that book. I read it about 20 years ago, I think, you know, and it's a pretty dense academic book. And I've read other things about the topic, but really, that's the core source of a lot of my information. So you know, if you want to check that out, check that out. Before I get into it with Francis, I want to like set the stage here. For listeners who might not be entirely aware of the Baltic peoples and I want to say the Baltic peoples because that's somewhat different than the Baltic region, or what you've probably heard about the Baltic Sea. So, you know, the Baltic peoples are a group of you know, Indo European tribes, languages, dialects, that obviously were found in the Baltic in particular, they flourished within historical memory on the shores of the East Baltic region. There has been some discussion within the archeology and historical linguistic community. Whether the hydronium distribution of much of western Russia indicates an earlier expanse. Today, they are represented mostly by Latvians and Lithuanians are these two nation states or both of the nation states are actually a fusion, on the ethno linguistic scale of you know, smaller groups of you know, smaller tribes, you know, in in late medieval period, but probably the Baltic peoples name that we know the best are the Prussians. So the old Prussians, the original Prussians, were actually a pagan, Baltic speaking people that were subjected to conquest and Christianization. During the medieval period, this was pretty brutal, but the reality is, there were still some around down into the early modern period, I believe, and they were just assimilated either assimilated into, you know, the Eastern German ethno linguistic context, right. And so, you know, there's pretty widespread group of people along the East Baltic. What we see today is actually kind of a remnant of an earlier expanse, much of it was Germanized, or Slavicized. And, you know, there's there's a lot of admixture, as we were saying genetics between these different groups. So what we see today is a little bit of a shadow of the past, and might be seen as an exemplar or representative of a greater past in terms of expanse. From the Ethno linguistic perspective, maybe Francis could clarify this later, if he has opinions. There's all these arguments which are outside of my paygrade, of comprehension of the relationship between the Balts and the Slavs, and I feel like, I should probably address that, from the get go here. You know, there are some researchers who claim that the two populations have a close genealogical connection, linguistically, and that's why the two language families are very similar. And then other researchers claim. Well, there's a lot of Slavic people around the Baltic people. And so, you know, you have lexical flow between the two populations, and they kind of converge. So, you know, we'll be focusing on the Balts Lithuanians. But obviously, you know, this is in the context of Eastern Europe, North Eastern Europe, which is today predominately Slavic, with with a Finnic. minority.
You know, and I'm a geneticist, I've talked about the genetics, with some people, you know, some of you probably know, this area is kind of unique because ecologically it was relatively resistant to agriculture, to a very late period, compared to the rest of Europe. And so that results in some unique dynamics, the area and the East Baltic has some of the highest fractions probably the highest fractions of Europeanhunter gatherer ancestry, which, basically Europeans who were present on the continent at the end of the last ice age, so the highest fractions in all of Europe, and you know, if you just look at the climate and the local ecology, that kind of makes sense why it'd be resistant to agriculture. And it wasn't just agriculture that came to the area late Christianity came to the area late, you know, as we will talk about extensively, officially, the Lithuanian people did not convert to Christianity until the end of the 1300s, when they became Catholic, after the union of the Duke of Lithuania with the Queen of Poland. But the Christianization of a people does take longer than the official rubber stamp Christianization. And so Lithuania had a active, I mean, folk pagan tradition, maybe you could say, a pretty late in history, because it was Christianized so late in history. And this is interesting, because, you know, maybe you can give us an in a window into tribal, European, pagan and Indo European practices that are much further back in time elsewhere. So I think that's important. And then I think the final thing I want to say, is, when we're talking about Lithuania, you look it on the map, it's a little dot of a nation with, you know, on the order of low millions of people. So, you know, let's ... you know, why would we even be talking about this, you know, like, I mean, shall we should we talk about Andorra? Okay Andorra is smaller, but one thing you have to remember, though, is, or actually like, as we'll make it clear during this conversation, historically, Lithuania, the region, Lithuania, dominated for much of the late medieval, and like early, early modern period, like, let's say, like the 16th century Renaissance, Lithuania actually included much of pretty much all of Belarus parts of western Russia, and Western Ukraine. It was a vast, vast territory, under the rule of the Dukes of Lithuania. And majority of the people were Eastern Orthodox, Slavic peasants. But the ruling nobility, you know, was rooted and derived from the Lithuanians. And there's some historical reasons for this, which which we will get into. So, you know, with that introduction, Francis, take it away. Like, I mean, what do you think of what I said there? Like, do you have anything to add?
I think that what you said there is a great summary of the situation with regard to the Baltic and Lithuania. And I think it's absolutely right that yes, what we can see in Lithuanian religion, in Lithuanian paganism, is a glimpse perhaps, of what the indigenous pagan beliefs of Indo Europeans may have been like. And I think that's one of the things that makes the study of this people so interesting. And we have these sources that are so late, compared to most of the other sources we have. I mean, if you think that, for Germanic paganism, most of the sources, we've got our we've got Tacitus, his Germania, we've got the Norse Eddur that kind of give hints of Germanic paganism, but those are all quite early sources. Whereas suddenly with Lithuanian paganism, we've got people writing within this 16th and 17th century, advanced historiographical tradition, and they're analyzing that religion. So I think it's this kind of window into the past almost.
Yeah, you know, people say that, you know, we look through the mirror darkly, I think it's a way of saying that maybe this mirror is not as dark. So you know, if you're talking about, you know, what are, obviously the Greco Roman traditions are extensively documented, but the process of mass Christianization really started in the three hundreds, whereas in Lithuania, it started in the 1300s. So that just makes a huge difference. By the time Lithuania, was officially becoming Christian, really, the medieval period was kind of winding down. And we're almost a century away from Christopher Columbus, just to just to give a sense of the time. So I think that's critical. You know, I don't like the idea of living fossils of cultural fossils, like nothing is a fossil, everything evolves. But I think one way you can think of Lithuania, and the Northeast Baltic is that it is a region of Europe that was brought in to Europe, into the main stem of European culture. And in particular, I would argue Western European culture, Western Christianity, Latin Christianity, relatively late. So that introduces some uniqueness. And some elements of its culture that are very insightful about what it meant to be European at the time or what it became to be European how they change. And so I think it's important to talk about these people and I want to talk real quickly, before we go into these books and this particular topic of religion and paganism. I want to mention something called the northern crusades. There's a bunch of books on it, you guys can read it. So one thing that people talk about in relation to the Crusades is obviously Islam and Pope Urban's speech about retaking the Holy Land. But the Crusades were bigger, or they became bigger, than just retaking the Holy Land. There were crusades all over Europe, many of them were started for petty reasons sometimes where they would claim like, oh, like, you're actually a pagan, I'm going to do a crusade against you. But in the northeast of Europe,
as you know, we're going to discuss here, there were pagans, pagan societies that were flourishing well into the 12 and 1300s. And when I'm saying pagan, I'm not talking about peasants in rural areas that are continuing their old you know, animistic traditions, we are talking official, elite cultural paganism, all of these elite cultures were to be candid, less complex, in many ways less integrated into the international global system of the of the of the period than others. Um, that's why they remained pagan. They were not Christian. But you know, the Dukes of Lithuania. They worship pagan gods there was a pagan temple in Vilnius, I believe, you know, there was a crusade against the Wends, I think ancestors of the modern Sorbs, if I'm correct, yeah, they're West Slavic people, like into the 1200s, their capital at Arkona, I believe their temples were burned. So I mean, this is kind of in a stereotypical way, a cut out of what some people would claim would be like a religious war, a holy war, but that's what it was. These people were not Christian, for various reasons, they resisted Christianity. And so, you know, Europe proper, decided to bring them into the fold into the orbit of Christianity. And so the northern crusades lasted in various forums for centuries. And the emergence of Lithuania and the emergence of Poland. Catholic Poland is a little... there's an irony in that the brutality of these crusades, and in particular of German, adventurers, knights and nobles, triggered the emergence of state formation and a counter elite, a counter reaction that led to what we now know as Poland-Lithuania, the union of Poland, Lithuania, because they were fighting the Teutonic Knights and you know, they were there for obviously conversion that was their 'casus belli', but if you look at the details, some of their behavior can be explained, basically, by a very, you know, simple Marxist, dynamic, you know, they were there for riches. So I think we need to think of them in some ways like the conquistadores. And whereas in Latin America, the Mayan, the Inca collapsed, or were absorbed into the Spanish system. In the northeast of Europe, you did have successful resistance, in particular, in the form of Lithuania, which arose, you know, to face off Muscovy to the east, but really, these Teutonic Knights to the west. And so I think that is a framing dynamic that you need to keep in mind. What these people are emerging into, because they're not isolated at this point. Outside of the edge of Europe, Europe is trying to encircle them, swallow them and bring them in by force. What do you think? What do you think about that characterization, Francis?
I think that's right. I think when we look at the creation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, it's something that happens as a result of the unification of various Baltic tribes. I mean, the Baltic tribes are a pretty disparate bunch throughout the 12th and throughout most of the 13th centuries, you've got all these different groups speaking slightly different languages, often fighting in amongst themselves, and yet it becomes clear as the Teutonic Knights move up into that Baltic litoral area. So eventually founding these two monastic states, one of which is Prussia, so dominating the pagan Prussian people, and the other is Livonia, which is a much more composite, much larger state, but that's what's now today the territory of Latvia and Estonia, and Livonia is named after a Finnic speaking people that the Livonian who live on the coast, but in fact, it incorporates people like the Baltic Semigallians, the Lett's the Estonians, all these people. And so these areas are conquered over the course of a number of decades. But the Lithuanians who are further inland and are protected by geographical features, such as forests, marshes, very inaccessible people, very difficult to conquer. They make the decision under the leadership of a man called Mindaugas that they are going to unite as a Grand Duchy. And that title of Grand Duchy is significant because you couldn't at that time, at least in the eyes of Christendom claim the title of king unless you received the permission to do so from the Pope. And so Mindaugas initially is Grand Duke of Lithuania. But then Mindaugas makes the decision that not only will he unify these Baltic tribes as Lithuanians, but he's also going to accept Christianity himself. And he sees this as this kind of killer move, that will disable the Teutonic Knights and essentially, make them powerless to conquer him, because their raison d'etre is crusade. And so he makes this decision to go Christian, and is crowned and given a crown by the pope in 1253. But unfortunately, it backfires, for vbecause some of his people, particularly the Samogitians, who are the people in what's now Western Lithuania, they are resolutely pagan, the most pagan of the pagan Balts. And they do not accept this, this decision that he makes not only to become Christian, but also to essentially hand over Samogitia to the Teutonic Knights as the price of peace. And so they ally themselves with some of the Semigallians, the Latvians and there's a big battle the battle battle of Saule, but which they destroy one of these crusading orders, the Livonian Brethren of the Sword are completely wiped out as a result of this. And so not only does this establish that Lithuania is a powerful state. But it also establishes that Lithuania is not going to be a Christian state. And in fact, Mindaugus is probably murdered. He may have recanted his faith, we don't know for certain, but he's probably at this point murdered in about in about 1263. And that completely changes the picture where you've got this powerful pagan state facing off against the Knights.
Yeah, so you know, at this point, I do want to contextualize like these things that we'll be talking about, you know, they do have precedence in other parts of Europe. So, you know, concretely, much more well known is the West, it's usually not called the West Baltic, it's usually called Scandinavia, but due to television TV series, like the Vikings, Valhalla, and all this, and just, you know, as Anglo people, you know, we are familiar with the history of the Vikings. So Harald Bluetooth was there might have been other nominal Christian kings of Denmark, but really, he was the first Christian king of Denmark. And there's a lot of debate in the historiography from what I know about like, okay, like, why did you convert how sincere was this conversion, but a simple way of explaining it is, you know, Paris is worth a mass. And, you know, the German emperor was basically threatening to conquer the whole kingdom and swallow it up, Juttland because, you know, pagan land, and he was a Christian. And the king was a pagan. So Harald became a Christian, still, you know, fought with the Germans, I mean, it didn't change that much fundamentally, there is a shift of burial goods to, you know, Christian style burial goods, I think that there's some discussion about whether Harald took his sweet time before putting aside his old gods. And, I mean, this is this is a common issue. This also happened in the Anglo Saxon conversion, where, you know, the initial, supposed that convert King may just have continued with the religion of, you know, their upbringing, but nominally converted, but you know, the children were raised as Christians. So the next king was, you know, a more sincere, straightforward, Christian, I don't want to psychologize and put, you know, motives in people's brains, like, you know, whether they're, like totally self interested, I think people are complex. And they're faced with complex situations and complex decisions, and maybe they're rationalized in different ways. So I think we need to keep that in mind when we're thinking about the Lithuanians and the situation that they're facing in a rapidly Christianizing world, and why they wouldn't or would become Christian. You know, and so I think it's just important to keep in mind, I do think, though, it's a little interesting, that they remained pagan, so long. A lot of the situations that you have with with what Francis is describing with Mindaugus is, it really takes one to two generations. Like if you see in Scandinavia, usually there is a recalcitrant ruler, that a ruler who kind of compromises and then eventually, paganism becomes a folk belief. And, you know, there is there's a dramatic, romanticized or not romanticized but there's a dramatic reading, where pre modern states are conceived as if they can be totalitarian. In some way and they can't. The reality is paganism, non Christian practices and beliefs fade very slowly outside of elite circles in these areas because there's no control, right? But they do, and they fade out and disappear from view. In Lithuania, though, we'll go in like, a century, you know, like, let's say like the first interactions happen more than a century earlier, before the final, you know, official conversion. And, you know, as we'll probably get into parts of the Lithuanian elite had already converted Eastern Orthodoxy. But the core group in Lithuania, the, the family of the Duke did not, in fact, like the Duke who did convert Jagiełło, like his mother, I believe, was an Orthodox Christian. So Francis, can you talk about the thesis, I think presented in, in Rowell's book that I mentioned, "Lithuania ascending" of why they took their sweet time?
Well, essentially, what the grand dukes do is they come up with a strategy of preserving their independence by playing off the great powers against one another. And not only are they playing off the great powers against one another, they're playing off the great monotheistic religions against one another. And essentially, you've got a situation where Lithuania is geographically and geopolitically vulnerable. It's it's sandwiched between the Teutonic Knights on one side on the coastal side, who are constantly mounting raids into Lithuanian territory, but aren't really capable of establishing a foothold in that territory. And then on the other side, you've got the ever present menace of Muscovy. Now, of course, that is a particular menace that has not gone away till this very day. But the presence of this predecessor state of the Russian Empire, which is a bastion of, of Eastern Orthodoxy, and essentially would like to dominate this whole area of, I suppose we would call it sort of East Central Europe, this marshy area that you've got, what's now Lithuania, what's now Belarus and Western Ukraine. The Muscovites would would certainly like to dominate that. However, Lithuania, its solution to preserving its independence is to say, well, we're going to be different. We're going to say that we're pagan, but at the same time, our paganism is not really a religion in its own right. It's it's more a refusal to adopt your religion. However, we'll enter into negotiations with you about the possibility of adopting your religion. And so you've got a series of grand dukes who they use this as a political ploy. They keep saying, oh, yeah, okay, I will consider getting baptized, I will consider submitting to Constantinople or Kyiv, or submitting to Rome. But in fact, they're not really that serious about it. It's more of you know, but it's part of their diplomatic playbook. But ultimately, it becomes impossible to maintain this strategy. This is not a strategy that can last forever, clearly, you know, there's going to be a shift in the balance of power. And when there is a shift in the balance of power towards the Teutonic Knights, then Jogaila makes this decision. Well, what's the least bad ally that I can join myself to? And he looks to that South Western partner, which has traditionally been an enemy Poland. Because the Poles, of course, have been Christians since the 10th century. They have sent their knights to fight alongside the Teutonic Knights at various points. They've sent their own crusading expeditions. So they are enemies historically, and yet, they're not Germans. They're not the same as the Teutonic Knights. And they're not Muscovites. And so Jogaila that makes this calculation will actually, this situation has arisen, where Poland has a female King, Jadwiga was always known as King of Poland, despite being a woman. And this was not acceptable to the Polish nobility, they didn't think it was right that they should have a female king. And so they are looking for a dynastic solution. They're looking for a husband for Jadwiga, and they're looking for a dynastic solution to this crisis, if you like. And so Jogaila is a very cunning and intelligent character. And he really slots into that Polish plan. And so we end up in 1385, with the Union of Krewo, as it's known, what Jogaila agrees to, is to be baptized, and to marry Jadwiga. And to enter into this rather ambiguously worded perpetual union between Poland and Lithuania, and for as long as he remains alive, he remains King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, in some sort of personal union, but at this stage, it's still quite vaguely defined. And he also crucially agrees that he will bring about the Christianization of his own domain.
Yeah, and so I do want to be clear here, though, his domain is, is gigantic at this point. So we're talking like, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, from, you know, the forests of the north to the steppe in this in the southeast. It's a huge, huge state, it's actually in terms of area, and probably population just because, you know, it's just so big, probably, I mean, I don't know, correct me, Francis, probably more populous than Poland, definitely much bigger than Poland. Right.
It wasn't hugely populous. So I think you have to bear in mind, this is a pretty dispersed population. I imagine that the I'm not an expert on demographics. But I imagine that the population probably would have equaled that of Poland. But you have to bear in mind that there are quite large, uninhabited wastes within that area. But Jogaila and his family have nevertheless managed to establish control of the key cities. So they've managed to establish control, for example of Kyiv, which is a hugely important city, you know, the mother of Rus, the center of Eastern Orthodoxy in the north. And so the Lithuanians have established themselves not only as really powerful, but they've also got this hold over the patrimony of the Slavic peoples.
Yeah, yeah. And I think, for listeners right now, you know, I try to keep these podcasts, evergreen, so you know, hopefully you're listening in the far future. Hello, year 3000. But right now, we are thinking a lot of Kyiv in that whole area for geopolitical reasons. And so, you know, I wanted to talk to Francis for a while, but I thought also people would be kind of interested a little bit in this topic, partly because there's just so much going on. And we're hearing names in nations that we don't normally hear about in the United States. So in terms of this paganism, can you just talk about it in terms of like, the phenomenon of, you know, like, the gods they worshipped? When there was state paganism in Lithuania, when by state paganism, I mean, it was, you know, the default religion of the state, the ruling family, and like, what their rituals were. Like, do we know much about that? I'm assuming the sources are mostly going to be Christian. But in any case,
Yes, most of the sources that we've got are, in fact, not only Christian, but they're also foreign. So they are people trying to understand after 1387, which is the date of the official conversion of Lithuania, exactly what it is that the Lithuanians might believe. I mean, there are earlier sources than that, but they tend to be extremely hostile, because they are Crusader sources. So you've got you know, people denouncing these these pagans as terrible barbarians, and you know, flesh eating cannibals, and you name it sort of these these lurid accusations drawn almost certainly false. But then after 1387 was interesting is that you get these not exactly sympathetic, that would perhaps be an exaggeration, but they are more curious accounts of Baltic paganism. And that's because Lithuania has suddenly burst upon the world stage or the European stage as this important power within Christendom because it's now officially a Christian polity. As you've mentioned, it's huge. It extends from the Baltic to the Black Sea. And so they want to understand, you know, what is the religion that these people follow, and the earliest models that writers use, they look to Roman religion, and they say, well, the religion that these Lithuanians follow seems to be a bit like elements of Roman religion, for example, they worship snakes, and this is repeated again and again and again. And this is linked to the cult of Aesculapius, the god of healing by these these commentators, and in one way that's fanciful and far fetched, but in another way, it's quite true, because throughout Indo European mythology, we find the snake is associated with new life and with healing, and that's simply because the snake casts off its skin. And the snake was believed to be immortal, essentially, because it can endlessly regenerate itself. And you've also got the worship of trees. And that's linked, of course, to the Roman idea of worshipping groves. And you've got the worship of stones and fire, and then worship of fire and the maintenance of perpetual fires is linked by these medieval writers, to the Vestal virgins and the maintenance of a perpetual fire. And again, this is something that we find throughout Indo European mythology. So when we look at Lithuanian religion, it seems to be almost stereotypically Indo European, insofar as we understand, you know, primitive Indo European religion. It seems to be focused on a sort of sky deity who is associated very strongly with thunder and in the case of Lithuanian religion. It's this God called Perkūnas. We also have an Earth Mother. So you know Žemyna. And you've got these spirits at the forest, you've got a form of animism, which imbues trees and rocks and the sun and the moon with these divine characteristics. And yeah, it seems to be quite distinctive to the Baltic peoples to put a very strong emphasis on snakes, and also this very strong emphasis on the sacred fire. And the sacred fire appears to be used in some kind of divination. So not only is it worshipped, and kept in honor of the gods, but it's also in some way it serves as some sort of pyromancy some kind of divination, where people look into the flames, priests look into the flames, and they divine the future. So those are some of the features that we can reconstruct of Baltic paganism.
Yeah, and first for the listeners here, you know, last - was it last year now, I did some podcasts on Indo Europeans, really, with archaeologists, but with David Anthony, in particular, and some of the stuff that you're talking about is like, pretty interesting, because you know, I have read that Perkūnas is cognate, with Varuna, who is the Vedic sky god. And obviously, the role of fire in both Zoroastrianism and Hinduism, is pretty well known. So some of the stuff that you are talking about, is, is just very common. And also, I think snakes are there still like elements of snake worship, or a snake cult within the Hindu tradition. Although, to be fair, there is almost something - always something within Hindu tradition that fits any given parameter, right. But yeah, so you're basically describing something that seems to be a straightforward outgrowth of Indo European religion, as we understand. And I will say from, from a genetic perspective, it does look like the Lithuanians have among the highest fractions of what we would call steppe ancestry in the world, they're really not that far, probably from what the Germans would call the Indo European, proto Indo European Urheimat. So that kind of makes sense, in a way, even if some of their ancestry was not Indo European, it might still be assigned in the genetic algorithms as Indo European, because all of the people in a given region are just naturally going to be similar to each other. So that's one thing that I think is important. And I also think, I do believe in the hypothesis that the closer you are, to the origin of an expansion zone, not only will you have a greater genetic signature, but there's going to be some - let me just say decreased cultural dilution. So when the Mycenaeans, the ancestors of the Mycenaeans, show up, probably now we know genetically 2300 BCE, that's when steppe ancestry shows up in mainland Greece. And you know, it declines but obviously, the language is Indo European, they bring some burial customs that David Anthony is like, tell it has told me that are clearly either borrowed from or they gave to the Indo Aryans, these are the two groups that have particular inhumation customs early on, in any case, but culturally, Greek religion and Greek language you just cannot deny its indigenous Aegean substrate. So most Indo European language families have non Indo European substrate within them, it's pretty obvious and easy to figure out what the Indian one is. The ones in Western Europe is a little bit more difficult because outside of Spain, there are no you know, indigenous and non Indo European languages left. But you know, there's there is a substrate hypothesis for German. I think it would be a little harder to figure it out for Lithuanian, or the Slavic languages, because they are so close to the origination zone of the Indo European, proto Indo European and Indo European languages. What do you what do you think about that, for instance?
Well, there is quite a bit of vocabulary that's deeply embedded in Lithuanian and Latvian, which is Finnic in origin. So So yeah, a link to, you know, the Finnic languages that we know were spoken on that litoral. So if, you know, going back, maybe to the Bronze Age, there are archaeologists and linguists who suggested that maybe that litoral area was dominated more by the, Finno-Ugric speakers. So you know, now you've just got the Estonians there, but you did have the Livonian's, and you had other other other Finnic speaking peoples that of course, you had Finnic speaking peoples right down the river systems deep into what's now Russia. Moscow once had a Finnick speaking population it has been suggested. So yeah, so it seems that it's possible that where the Lithuanians now live, at least Some of that territory might once have been Finnic speaking, and that might be a reason for that. On the other hand, they're also very close to finished speaking populations. And so, you know, lexical exchanges is pretty locally in the same way that you've got a lot of lexical exchange with [uninteligable] languages. But yes, you're quite right that there's no obvious substrate to Lithuania. I mean, Lithuanian is a language that has derived pretty much with, you know, without significant interference from the, you know, the proto Indo European substrate, and that's why Lithuanian has been for centuries, absolutely fascinating to linguists. Linguists have been obsessed with Lithuanian since, you know, the beginning of the 19th century. And you know, if you go even further before that, as early as the 16th century, you had Poles who were learned Latin, recognizing that there were strong similarities in a grammatical, grammatical similarities, and also vocabulary similarities between Lithuanian and Latin. Now, of course, in one way, they were completely barking up the wrong tree with that. But on the other hand, there was a sense in which they were right, because they were - they were discerning the archaic nature of the Lithuanian language. And that later, of course, develops into the Indo European hypothesis, and is explored by these 19th century linguists. So yeah, the German philologists particularly, were very preoccupied with Lithuanian in the 19th century, and terrified that Lithuanian was going to die out. Because Lithuania at that point was part of the Russian Empire. There were extensive attempts at Russification to try and wipe out Lithuanian language and culture. And yeah, many of the Germans who really wanted Lithuanian to survive, were worried that it wouldn't.
Yeah, so I'm gonna I did want to mention this, because it's a little off topic. And I do want to get to your book, and I want to talk about your new book, because I'm interested in this topic. But so you mentioned the Finnic aspect. Readers of my substack will know that I have a five part series on the history and genetics of the Finns. We know a lot now, and what I will say, one of the first things 20 years ago, when I started looking at this genetic history topic, Lithuanian men they overwhelmingly carry, what is diagnostically, a Finnic Y chromosomal lineage that almost certainly has origins in in Central North central Siberia. 4000 years ago, it's found in about 80% of men in Finland, I think, like 60, it's called N1c, are just it's a branch of N. And it's it's obviously dominant in Estonia as well. It's about like, 20% of Russian males. So what you said about Finnick people in Moscow, yes, like the whole, basically from, you know, the East Baltic to Moscow the zone north and east of that was probably almost all Finnic until relatively recently. But in Lithuania, it was like a surprise for the geneticists notice that there's all those, this Finnic male lineage, in fact, like the Jagiellon , the people who are paternally descended, they have this lineage. And there's another, another royal family in Europe that has that lineage, the Rurikids. So that's really strange, because it's really, really clear, genetically, that this is a Siberian lineage, and it's extremely strongly associate with Finnic people. So I think with the Rurikids, I think an easy hypothesis that presents itself is that they were, they were Scandinavianized. They were originally a Finnic tribe, or at least the leader was from a Finnic background and Scandinavian eyes. And so you know, they were Varangians or whatnot. That makes sense. I, I don't think there's been a thorough explanation of how this male lineage became so dominant in Latvia and Lithuania. across the whole genome, there's actually not that much evidence of East Asian ancestry far less than the Estonians and way less than the Finns, but it's there. There's a little bit there. You know, which that would make sense. But it does look like it was just only men, and there was really strong social cultural selection for this elite Finnic lineage. And I don't know why. So in the Basque Country, you do see a similar dynamic where they're genetically clearly distinct from their neighbors, but on the Y chromosome, they have Indo European lineages, and they're not indo European speaking. The explanation some people make for this is I think, Strabo mentions, the Basque were matrilineal. So they had a very straightforward system for integrating outsiders. So Indo European males, may have been integrated to the Basque system, and the offspring, you know, as opposed to other Indo Europeans as opposed to indo European societies, which patrilineal it's matrilineal and so they remained ethnically Basque. But I just wanted to bring that up. I don't know if you ever comment on that, Francis. But that's always something that's been there and I've never seen a good explanation for it.
Well, I think we have to bear in mind that with Lithuania as with this whole region, we simply do not have a written history until very late. Lithuania is not mentioned in any written source until the 11th century. And so, yes, I mean, we just don't know. You know, all we've got to go on is the genetics and the archaeology, which tell their own story, but it's always going to be a very powerful story. And it's always going to be very speculative. So, yeah, we, we just don't know is the honest answer.
Okay, so let's, let's, you know, let's get to something like less speculative 16th century ethnographic accounts of Baltic paganism. So obviously, this is, you know, this is based on textual evidence now, like people who've seen it, witnessed it. And I think by the 16th century, I just want to say for the listeners out there, I think we're going beyond Adam of Bremen territory, like hopefully, it's a little less fantastical and legendary, because I know there are arguments about what really went down in Uppsala, no matter what you've seen in the latest Vikings Valhalla TV show, right. So you know, I want to I want to get into that, like, I want you to, you know, tell us what you learned, and which ones to know. But I will say like, two things, couple of things. So when I was young, very young, in the 1980s, I read a book. It was like, you know, something about European history, you know, I was eight or nine. One thing I still remember from that book, is that the author - and this the book that was written in the 1930s, I think so it was a long time ago, now, the author claimed that the last snake groves in Lithuania, were destroyed in the 18th century, I want to know if that's true or not, or if you would know. And the second thing is, when I was in college and university, my minor was basically German history. And one of the readings primary literature that we had to read was an an account from the 1800s was late 1800s, of a district in Prussia actually it was a village in Prussia. And because of a bureaucratic snafu, they had not had a pastor in a generation. And so they had not been ministered to. And what ended up happening is the local villagers, there was a series of bad harvests and to assure a good harvest, they killed a bull and buried it. And so there's an extensive account of this because they sent a pastor and he interviewed everybody, and they're like, why are you doing this? And they really weren't sure. They just, you know, it was like, there was a game of telephone and just rumor had it you kill a bull and you bury it and the harvest is, is, is going to be good. And I just bring this up, because I believe that that is actually that these were German speaking peasants by this point. But it was in historic, old Prussia. I believe that is a Baltic practice. But anyways, could you speak to those two issues and then just get into what you found out?
Yes, I mean, that's essentially accurate that certain pagan practices, whether we can talk about paganism is more controversial, but certain pagan practices do endure into in Lithuania into the late 18th century. And in fact, we've got accounts from the 1770s of Bernadines. These observant Franciscan friars and Jesuits being sent out every summer into the remote localities around Lithuania, in order to preach in order to carry out these parish missions, and to cut down groves and to cut down sacred trees. And it's almost formulaic. It's something which happens every season. And then of course, that all comes to an end because we have the partitions of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth by Austria, Prussia, as in German Prussia by this point, and the Russian Empire. And so the the landscape completely changes. And suddenly, Catholicism becomes the defining feature of the Poles and the Lithuanians as peoples whose countries have been taken away from them. And suddenly, this becomes the center of their identity. And so I would argue that it's not really until after 1795, which is when you have the final partition of Poland-Lithuania, and Lithuania becomes part of the Russian Empire, that Catholicism really gets a hold of the hearts and minds of the Lithuanian people. And then it really becomes important because they are Catholics as opposed to the Orthodox Russians. But up to that point, really, the Lithuanians are quite reluctant. But I think it's also true, as you mentioned, in that account of German Prussians burying a bull and not really being sure why they did it. There's no evidence that these Lithuanians really were consciously pagan. It's not as though they would have called themselves pagan, or understood necessarily that what they were doing was totally inconsistent with Christianity. It's really in default of anything else. It's because the pastoral provision, the number of priests, the number of churches, is so weak in Lithuania, historically, it was there was never really a proper process of conversion. That was carried through in that in those early days. And so it just carries on as this kind of piecemeal process. And another factor, which you mentioned earlier in the podcast was the Counter Reformation. So initially, of course, you've got all this conversion happening before the reformation is ever thought of in the in the end of the 14th century. But then when the Reformation comes along, Lithuania actually becomes a bit of a hotbed of Protestantism of both Calvinism and Lutheranism. And so that really puts back the conversion process, because you've got the Catholics and the Protestants arguing between themselves and the Lithuanian country people saying, well, you know, I'm out of here, I'm just going to carry on with my traditional religious indigenous practices. And so it's not really until the 1630s when the Catholic Church gains ascendancy in Lithuania again, it comes back in strong then you get this Lithuanian Counter Reformation, these campaigns of preaching and the the sort of the proper missionary effort to convert the Lithuanians
Alright, so you are focusing on the 16th century, that is the 1500s. That is the period of the Reformation, the Counter Reformation, the Catholic Reformation, and the emergence of Lutheranism, Calvinism, also Unitarianism, Baptism. And you know, the Council of - the First Council of Trent, I think there's a lot of stuff going on. Tell me really quickly, what's the most surprising thing you learned? What's the most surprising thing that's in this book? For the listener?
Well, one of the surprising things is the way in which the rise of the Protestant Reformation and the rise of concern by Protestants about Catholicism and that the pernicious influence of Catholicism actually leads to a greater influence or greater interest, sorry, in Baltic and Lithuanian paganism. And you might think, you know, before approaching this subject, that the Protestants would be even hotter than the Catholics against the idea of idolatry, and paganism, and so forth. And in one sense they were, but they're also interested in the vernacular languages. They're interested in reaching people in their own language, not simply having the liturgy in Latin and gaining the submission of the laity. But they want an engaged laity who are reading and understanding the Bible. And therefore it's got to be translated into Lithuania. And if it's got to be translated into this language, that has not previously been a written language, there has to be a reckoning with the concepts of that language, with the vocabulary of that language, with the religion that the people who speak that language are practicing. And so when you encounter somebody like Martynas Mažvydas, who is the composer of the first Lithuanian catechism, and this is in 1547. And it's the first book ever published in Lithuanian, and as a written language, Lithuanian at this point is absolutely in its infancy, even though as we've said, it's a very, very archaic language, in and of itself, as a written language, it's completely new. And he's got to try and find a way to express these beliefs that he is guiding people away from, if you like, but if you want to guide people away from their pagan beliefs, you've got to understand those beliefs. And if you're a Protestant, interested in the vernacular language, you've got to understand those beliefs in the language that people express them. So that certain, that's one of the most surprising things really, is the role of Protestantism in the exposure to the light of these pagan beliefs.
So So would you say that, I mean, so was your source material, was that really enriched by this? Like, you know, right. I mean, obviously, Lithuania is a Catholic country today or to be Lithuanian is to be culturally Catholic, let me just put it that way. Just like to be Polish is to be culturally Catholic, but I want to make it clear for the listeners, you know, at the time that Francis is probably collecting the documents, like much of East Central Europe, you know, Central Europe, was in play, and a lot of the Polish nobility, especially the lesser nobility, were actually not Catholic, whether it's, you know, various types of Protestantism, even, you know, pretty radical groups like Unitarians and whatnot. So this was like a pretty virile environment. But So would you say, like, a lot of your a lot of your source material is from Protestants.
Yes, so some of it is, some of it, it's about half and half really what's from Protestants and from Catholics, and they have, you know, in some ways, they share the same preoccupations. You know, they're both concerned about the persistence of idolatry and so forth. But yeah, the Protestants are slightly different, because they are really interested in understanding the language that people are using. So yeah, what you say it's quite true. It's very, very diverse at this time, and that's really because the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was a beacon of toleration as we would understand it in The 16th century it's one of the few places in Europe where you can be Christian of almost any flavor. So you can be Catholic, Orthodox, Unitarian, you can be a Baptist Anabaptist you can be, you know, Lutheran, Calvinists and so forth Orthodox, but you can also be Jewish, you can also be Muslim. And so you've got this extraordinarily mixed religious picture, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And in fact, the the majority group within the Grand Duchy, at any of these times in history was actually the Orthodox because most of the population of the Grand Duchy that is to say, this expanded area, that's not just today's Lithuania, but also today's Belarus, large parts of today's Ukraine, parts of what's now western Russia. The most of the people there are Slavs, and therefore, they are the inheritors of that orthodox heritage. So yeah, it's very religiously diverse, but the Slavs are always demographically dominant, but the Lithuanians are politically dominant. And the Lithuanians at this point are in play. They are some of them are Protestants. Some of them are Catholics, some of them are still pagan.
Alright, so pagans that's what we're here to talk about. I mean, I know there's Romuva, there's like Neo pagan, Lithuanian, Reconstructionist. But like, I want to know what they were like in the 1500s. Tell me what they were like if you met... Like, Where were these people? Like could you ever encounter them in cities like what were they doing? What was their religious practice? What were their beliefs? Can you just break it down for us?
Well, in the 16th century, Lithuanian pagans are certainly on the backfoot they are in decline, and they are people who are confined to more remote rural areas, whether you would have found pagans in cities very probably yes, but probably on a market day they would have been the trader who came in from the countryside in order to sell their honey, you know, which was a major product of the of the country. They are Yeah, they would have been looked down upon as backward as rustic. On the other hand, they are not looked upon as a different ethnic group. And therefore, there's a major difference between Lithuania and say, Livonia were in Livonia or indeed, in Prussia, being a pagan marks you out as an ethnic Balt, and therefore have lower social status than the dominant Germans or Danes who are in those areas. Whereas of course, the aristocracy in Lithuania are Lithuanians, they may be Lithuanians have adopted Christianity, but they are the same people as these pagans, and therefore they have a certain respect for these Stara Litva, as they're known in in East Slavonic. They are the old Lithuanians, the Old Believers, the ones who hold on to the traditional views, and they're not seen as a threat. They're just seen as a superstitious group of people who eventually need to be won over but it's not a priority. It's not something which, you know, the elites are really going to sweat about, in one way the pagans are less of a threat than the Orthodox because the Orthodox there's always that worry that their allegiance might turn to Moscow, because Moscow is seen as the head of the Orthodox of the Orthodox principalities. But no, the pagans are really a remnant. And yet, they're a very strong remnant. We know that, for example, pagan communities in Lithuania was still punishing people for renouncing paganism. There are a few cases where people had renounced paganism. And then they had demonstrated their newfound faith by for example, attacking a sacred tree or putting out a sacred fire. And there are cases where they are essentially murdered by their communities as punishment for that. So it is still powerful, even if it's not something which is elite.
So, you know, so this actually kind of reminds me a little bit. So again, like there's a lot of resonances, to things that you read elsewhere in terms of Christianization Islamization, Buddha, you know, whatever, like higher institutional religions, they often start with elites or sub elites in cities with literate classes. And these pagan masses are pretty much invisible to you. So for example, you know, there are kingdoms like, like, I think Mali, you know, that are, are Muslim, in like the 12-1300s. But it's pretty clear from the descriptions of Arab travelers and even Europeans in the late - in the 19th century, that the majority of of the people in these nominally Islamic domains were actually pagan, they were practicing their traditional religions. We know that you know, they were not adhering to Sharia. So for example, Arab traders routinely notice like, okay, the women are not maintaining the type of modesty that an imam or like Ulem would, would ask right and so they're like, Okay, they're obviously not Muslim. They're not practicing the religion and Islam practice is super important, right? Um, So you see these similarities and other places. So are there are there pagans like you, I guess what I'm asking is like, Are there pagans in the 1500s who didn't even read and write? Or are they all basically just illiterates? Like, is it just like, is reading and writing a Christian thing?
Basically, yes. I mean, one of the curious things about Lithuania, at its height, medieval Lithuania as a pagan state, is that it does have a written culture of a kind Gediminas one of the great grand dukes of the 14th century does send numerous letters, but they're all written for him by this staff of Franciscan and Dominican friars that he keeps, as scribes and letter writers. So yes, Christianity is very much associated with the word, the official language of administration in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, right up until the 17th century, when Polish takes over, is in fact, East Slavic was the ancestor of the language that today is Belarusian. So there's this sort of proto, proto rus, kind of, of language. And that, of course, is the language of the Orthodox Church. So yes, the idea that you would write down Lithuanian, and it's pretty much unthinkable until the middle of the 16th century, when the Protestants come up with the idea of, of writing it down. And so Christianity is associated with literacy. In fact, Lithuanian, is a language that is kept secret by the elites, the elites tend to use it as a way of communicating so that others can't understand them. It's an oral tradition, it's something which you do within your own community, you don't you're not interested in making anyone else pagan you're not going to it's not proselytizing, religion, you're not interested in expanding, you're only interested in maintaining your traditions, your way of doing things. And yeah, it's a very inward looking very conservative approach.
Yeah, and I, you know, I just want to make it clear here, if you, you know, some of the best work in religious ethnography is actually by missionary. So, I'm not making an endorsement here, obviously, I'm just this was, but if you know the World Christian encyclopedia, they actually do have like, pretty detailed tabulations of what percentage of various religions, obviously, you have religious censuses today. So they're kind of straightforward. And I say kind of what people say and what people do can be different. But you know, if you look back to 1900, you'll see a lot of like, Islamic West Africa. Now, what is Christian, West Africa, the vast majority of the population is tabulated as basically African traditional religion. And then there are many African societies, especially in West Africa. I don't know why it's different in East Africa. But in East Africa, public paganism is basically gone. In West Africa, it's still around, but only and I think benign Vodoun given like any really public elite recognition, the pop... all the elites in the public domain is totally dominated by Islam and Christianity. And even within Christianity, the African churches tend to have lower social status. So the elites in Nigeria, if they're Christian, they tend to be Roman Catholic or Anglican. So if you like looked at the correspondence of, you know, the 1% of Nigeria, they would all be conservative Muslims, Anglicans, and Catholics. Whereas like, you know, the majority of Christians in Nigeria are not I think Anglican? Well, the plural majority might be Anglican, and Catholic, but all of the other types of Christians would be invisible and the traditional religion minority in southern Nigeria would be invisible. Out of curiosity, can you just give a ballpark estimate? Like if we would do a census in 1550 And it was, let's just say it was a Protestant census taker. How would they classify like ethnic Lithuanians in 1550, by religion, by confession?
Well, I think, you know, I'd have to make an educated guess, with regard to this, that the last kind of sign that we have any kind of elite involvement in paganism is in the 1440s. So we're kind of a century out from the last elite pagans. I would, I would suggest that it was probably less than half of of Lithuanians who would have been identified as basically pagan. So probably we're talking 30 to 40% of ethnic Lithuanians in about 1550 would have been essentially pagans, you know, with with very little understanding or instruction in Christianity. However, I would say that the number of those Lithuanians who'd actually been baptized as infants or as young people, but without any subsequent religious instruction would have been much higher. I'd say we're probably talking you know, 80-85% had probably been baptized because there was is a determined effort to make sure that people were baptized. What there wasn't there's any kind of follow up to that. So you might be looking at forms of syncretism. But yeah, I'd say it probably 30 to 40% of ethnic Lithuanians would have been basically pagan. And in one particular province and the province of Samogitia, that western area of Lithuania, it would have been higher, because Samogitia was the most the area of the most hardened pagans if you like. But yeah, I mean, these are only educated guesses. As I say, we don't have religious censuses. We don't have detailed information. But yeah, 1550 is a period when, yeah, it's up for grabs between the Protestants and the Catholics. And, you know, to some extent, the Orthodox as well. But yeah, there are still plenty of pagans.
Well, so can you can you tell me about like, okay, so you know, you're based on ethnography, your work is based on an ethnography. So what is like the specific beliefs and practices? I'm sure, I'm assuming they're, you know, as you said, groves, maybe shrines were there ever any temples in Lithuania? I believe there was a temple in Vilnius before Christianization. Did any of those temples persist? Were there institutional structures, like if paganism something that's just so seamlessly integrated into Lithuanian peasant lifestyle, then that you wouldn't even notice it? Or is are there salient visible signs of the sort of heterodoxy?
Well, the question is temples is a bit contested. There are lots of sources that talk about temples, but the only one, as you've mentioned, that we really have proper evidence for is the one in Vilnius, and the one in Vilnius is unique because when Mindaugus abandons Christianity, and when his successors abandoned Christianity, they turn a cathedral that Mindaugus, had built in Vilnius into a pagan temple. So effectively, it becomes this kind of pagan showpiece. It used to be a Christian church. Now it's a pagan temple, we're going to have a state religion here, which is the state religion of the grand dukes, which almost is is confected as a kind of mirror image of Christianity, but is unique to the ruling family, it's not something that you'd find elsewhere in Lithuania, or at least we don't have any evidence for it. So my own feeling on this is that probably, temples would have been confined either to Vilnius, or, you know, possibly to other, you know, very major Hill forts and very major kind of centers of grand ducal power, I think they're not something that you would normally have found in the countryside. So certainly, by the 16th century, the idea of pit of pagan temples would have been fairly unthinkable. But what you do have is you have these images that are set up a little bit like totem poles, they're there, they're carved, wooden sculptures that are set up all over the countryside as sort of Wayside markers, shrines, almost as artificial trees, they always have this pole like appearance, and they do play a sort of religious function, and they are very thinly Christianized. And they become a form of Lithuanian folk art, which persists to the present day, where you've got these wonderful carvings that are found throughout the countryside, just kind of Wayside shrines, and they depict saints and and events from the Bible. But because they're carved in this particular way, there are certain scenes you can't really represent. So the crucifixion would not be common because the crucifixion requires Jesus to have outstretched arms on the cross. And it's not really possible in this pole like design. And so the Lithuanians came up with this unique image called Rūpintojėlis, which is the sorrowful Christ. So it's Christ sitting down, rather like Rodin's Thinker with his, with his head on his fist, deeply thinking wearing the crown of thorns. And it's, it's designed in such a way that it can be carved out of a single pole of wood. But it does seem that a lot of these images they do derive from a pagan source. But yes, exactly what the nature of veneration was, you know, to some extent, we can only guess at it, but clearly it was quite unobtrusive. So you have people visiting rocks, people visiting sacred trees, it doesn't seem to have been something which involved temples, and also the sacred fires, we have various attempts that are made by pagans to reignite the sacred fires, but ultimately, a sacred fire will be quite conspicuous, especially at night, and therefore is a is a target for missionaries and other authorities who want to stamp out paganism. So the sacred fires essentially do disappear quite quickly.
Okay. Okay. So a, you know, is this... it seems like, you know, you gave an estimate, like 30% 30 to 40% default, you know, pagans and like, I mean, there's even some unbaptized people, although that's always true everywhere, right? Is this, Is this exceptional to your knowledge to this corner of the Baltic? Like, let's exclude like Northern Scandinavia where the Sami are still un Christianized at this point, but aside from that,
Yes, it's essentially unique. So I think, you know, the the Lithuanians are not technically the last European pagan people that the Sami would hold that title , or indeed the people of the sort of the Siberian peoples of the very far northern Russia Islands. Which, yeah, technically, technically a Europe. But,
They're on the west side of the world. So they count.
Yes, indeed. Yeah. But assuming that we're excluding those peoples then in terms of yeah, in terms of speakers of an indo European language, yeah, undoubtedly they are, they are the last they are the last pagans. And around the same time that the Lithuanians are being Christianized, the Guanches of Gran Canaria, are having their first encounter with with with Iberian explorers, and are being Christianized. So there is this kind of parallelism between the the expansion of Christianity to the east and the expansion of Christianity to the west, which ultimately becomes the expansion of Christianity to the new world in that in that subsequent 16th century. But yeah, so they are absolutely unique. And certainly Lithuania can claim the title of being the last pagan polity in Europe. So if we're talking about a pagan state, and Lithuania is a state, it does have all the features that you would expect of a medieval, you know, organized medieval state or regime or politic, whatever term you want to use. It's every bit as sophisticated in terms of its political leadership, as any other state, you know, that that's bordering on it, at the end of that period of being a pagan society. So yes, it is an outlier, definitely. But there are also other pagans in the Baltic area. So the Estonians and the Latvians also cling on to paganism for a long time, but they're always under the domination of the Livonianss sorry, the the Livonian order or the Teutonic Order. So, yeah, they're in a slightly different position. They're in this position of kind of colonial subjugation, whereas the Lithuanians are, yeah, they are their own people, their own state.
Okay. So, you know, we've talked for a while, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you go soon. So I want two final things. One kind of unrelated to what we've been talking about, but you know, kind of related. I have talked to so you know, you're talking about Lithuanian language and you know, how it's seems. It's just, I mean I don't want to use the word archaic, but you know, there are Lithuanians. So I think it was like his name was like, Šarūnas Marčiulionis. There were these Lithuanian basketball players that that would show up on TV, when I was - when I was like a big NBA fan. And my dad would just be like, is that guy Indian? So I mean, it was like, just like, you know, my family is Muslim. So we don't have you know, whatever. Sanskritic names. But, you know, in India, obviously, a lot of people do. So the archaism of the language is so weird to the point where like, sometimes Indians, like look at Lithuanian names and wonder if they're Indian, which is, I don't think that happens to any other a little bit Slavic. There's some Slavic names that actually do overlap, like pet names, like Maya Asha. But I was told by somebody once, though, that the archaic aspect of Lithuanian could be an artificiality that was kind of constructed when they were made into a written language because they were really proud of being ancient or something. And the second thing is like, what are your future directions? Like, what are you interested in? Like this book is out and done? What are you going to do next?
Yeah, you're talking really about the the question Lithuanian orthography. And yeah, the way in which the Lithuanian language has been written down certainly when you go back to the earliest examples of Lithuanian written down it looks very different from what we might see today. And in fact, you get orthography is that is influenced by German, and orthography's that are influenced by Polish, particularly throughout this period of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. And certainly Lithuanian in the 18th century, the evidence that we have is that it was much more much more kind of mixed. There was a mixture of a lot of Polinized vocabulary borrowings from Polish. And it's really when we get down to the 19th century you've got these German philologists, who do have a particular image of Lithuanian is very archaic. And they Yeah, that their approach in Lithuania minor, which is the area inhabited by Lithuanians, but was then part of the German Empire. So around around sort of East Prussia. Yeah, that's a very sort of becomes quite a it's revived if you like as a purified form if you own it, and then there's there's a guy called Jonas Basanavičius who's the father of the Lithuanian national revival in the Lithuanian nation in the 19th and 20th century and Basanavičius has particular ideas about how Lithuanian should be spoken. And today, you know, there are institutions which promote the the Lithuanian language in common with many European languages, including French, you know, there are these sort of state driven drives to ensure that the language remains pure and unadulterated by foreign influence. It's one of the outcomes of sort of that romantic nationalism of the 19th century. I don't think it would be true to say that Lithuanian is - is, you know, it's archaism is confected, the archaism is real. But the way that that archaism is expressed, the orthography that Lithuania now uses, is, to some extent, a deliberate artifact of that kind of romantic national revival. So yeah, there's there's an element of, there's an element of truth in that. In terms of what's next for me. Well, after this book comes out, I'd really like to do some more work on Lithuania, and really to make use of these sources, to construct a new narrative, if you like, of pagan Lithuania, and to allow pagan Lithuania to take its place as one of the great polities of medieval Europe. And you've mentioned the book, Lithuania, ascending by Steven Rowell, but the chronological scope of that book is quite narrowest 1295 to 1345. And of course, Lithuania is history as a pagan nation continues up to 1387. And as a semi pagan or syncretistic nation, it continues for a lot longer after that. So I'd love to write a an accessible history of the Lithuanian Empire, if you like as this kind of last pagan empire of Europe, because, you know, particularly in the current political situation that we're in where you've got, you know, eastern and central Europe, once more seems to be this contested zone between, you know, great powers that you know, to understand this intermediate zone, this kind of Intermarium in between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea seems to be more important than ever. And the Lithuanians, in my view are the key to understanding it.
Okay, okay. Well, I mean, looking forward to it, you know, love your work. Everyone should follow. Dr. Francis Young on Twitter, I will put the link in the show notes and the book, it is available now-ish. You know, I'm probably gonna post this after the books out just for the listener. We recorded it earlier. But you know, just check it out if you're interested or go to the library and check it out. And it was great talking to you Francis. I really enjoy interacting with you on Twitter. And I will see you around there.
Thank you very much.
Is this podcast for kids? This is my favorite podcast!
