LDK kultūrinės tradicijos praradimas: Vytauto Didžiojo kultas Lietuvoje XV-XX a.

EN1. From the end of the fourteen-th. to the beginning of the twentieth century the inhabitants of present-day Lithuania, Belorussia and Poland were linked by a sense of shared heritage growing out of: (I) a common culture established in the Grand Duchy, and (ii): having belonged to the political rule of one Gediminid (Jagiellonian) Dynasty (until the end of the sixteenth century). A very clear cultural and, in part, political symbol of the Lithuanian and Belorussian territories was provided by the cult Grand Duke Vytautas in these regions which now form separate states. 2. It worth noting that the cult of Vytautas the Great spread in written form first and foremost in the east-Slavonic (i. e. Belorussian) lands, and in the sixteenth century it developed with a particular intensity in the capital of the Grand Duchy, Vilnius. Essentially, this permitted the formation of two similarly-constituted variations of the Vytautas Cult-one in what is now Belorussia and the other in „ethnic" Lithuania. 3. There were no great differences in the Vytautas Cult in these two territories. The east-Slavonic (Belorussian) variant stressed Vytautas's gains in the east, especially in his relations with the Tatars, while in Lithuania he is celebrated as a defender of the Christan faith and the ruler who converted Lithuania to Catholicism. Despite these minor differences, the essential nature of the cult was the cult was the same in both Lithuanian and Belorussian areas: Vytautas was portrayed as the ideal ruler, his reing was a golden age and, generally speaking, Vytautas's person was symbol uniting the forefathers of the citizens of the modern Lithuanian and Belorussian Republics. 4. Although a Vytautas cult did not develop in Poland, this grand duke's role as a representative of the Jagiellonian Dynasty was not forgotten there.Although Vytautas was not so important a figure in Polish social memory as Jogaila, quite a great deal of respect was paid to this historical hero in Poland as a result of the existence there of a strong sense of dynastic unity. In this way Vytautas became a symbol of tri-national unity in Poland too, although not to the same extent as in Lithuanian and Belorussian areas. 5. The practical significance of the Vytautas Cult began to change as modern national consciousness began to develop in Lithuania at the beginning of the twentieth century. Vytautas came to be seen as a uniquely Lithuanian national hero, the fiercest enemy of the Poles and other Slavs (including the Belorussians). The significance of the image of Vytautas as a national hero increased as disputes between Lithuania and Poland over Vilnius became more and more bitter in the inter-war years. As a result, Vytautas was turned into the first liberator of the Vilnius Region. 6. The search for a national or international hero began in earnest in Belorussia and Poland at that time too. Vytautas did not suit these needs. In Poland, Vytautas's general contribution to Lithuanian and Polish history was deliberately undervalued and in Soviet Belorrussian scholarship he was even described as an enemy of the Belorussian people. Thus, we can say that in the first half of the twentieth century the Vytautas Cult lost its earlier function as a unifying factor and began to serve uniquely Lithuanian national(ist) interests. 7. As moves were made during the last Lithuanian National Revival to politicise history, Vytautas was given yet another function - he remained a symbol of the defence of Lithuanian national values, but to this was added his role as the ideal „anti - Communist". [From the publication]