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Making a Great Ruler
Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania
Giedre Mickunaite is Associate Professor at
the Department of Art History and Theory of the Vilnius
Academy of Fine Arts in Lithuania.
How does a ruler become "the Great"? Is
greatness a part of authority exercised or a part of
an image created? These and other questions are addressed
in this volume on the life and memory of Grand Duke
Vytautas of Lithuania (r.1392-1430). The study raises
a hypothesis that Vytautas was the main engineer of
his image as the great ruler while his contemporaries
and later generations developed this image and adapted
it to their needs and understandings.
Investigating the propaganda surrounding the grand duke,
this study reveals that, in fact, there were two opposite
images: that of a good ruler and that of a tyrant. The
paradox is that frequently these opposites were based
on the same features of the grand duke's character or
episodes from his biography. The research is based on
a wide array of written and visual sources as well as
on records of oral tradition. Rich and diverse primary
materials are analysed from the perspectives of political
and social history, memorial culture, as well as iconography
and rhetoric.
Contents
Acknowledgements; List of illustrations; List of
abbreviations; A note on personal and geographic names;
Introduction; Chapter I Vytautas creating his own
image; The early years; Right of blood; On the grand
ducal seat; On the field;Within the system of Christian
values: from Saracen to a new Messiah; The visual expression
of lordship; The cherised and troubled crown; The final
word of praise; Chapter II The fifteenth century:
Shaping of the image; Memory and memorial; The good
old times of Vytautas in law and anecdote; Jan Dlugosz
on Vytautas; Chapter III The early-medern image
of Vytautas; In Lithuania and in Poland; Folklore tradition;
In other countries; Chapter IV Image and image;
Memory and oblivion: Medieval and early modern images
compared; Following the patterns of kingship; The sense
of Byzantium; The making of national hero; Paths not
pursued; Conclusions; Selected bibliography; Primary
sources; Secondary literature; Illustrations
"This handsome volume brings to the attention of
Anglophone readers a major player in early fifteenth-century
European affairs, a ruler wooed from Byzantium in the
east to Spain in the west. A Holy Roman emperor and
a pope offered him crowns. His image dominated Lithuanian
and Polish militant nationalist historiography in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries and remains potent
today." - Slavic Review
"The English of the text is sound, the bibliography
is excellent and the conclusions well-argued. An important
figure in the history of this region has here received
a reliable study of how his image was formed, how it
was subsequently shaped, and, more briefly, what role
it has played in the forging of modern Lithuanian national
identity." - Renaissance Quarterly
2006
358 pages, 80 illustrations (7 in color)
ISBN 978-963-7326-58-5 cloth $47.95 / €39.95 /
£26.95
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