Articles by Darius Baronas

Baltic Paganism, surviving in Europe up until the very late Medieval times, gave rise not only to hostility among the Christians, but also to a certain curiosity. As the Franciscan Bartholomew the Englishman described in his encyclopaedic treatise written in the mid-18th century, Baltic Paganism was regarded by Christians as a ritus mirabilis. […]

Life in the Baltic lands in the middle ages was full of dangers. In the 13th century, the old rivalries between the local tribes were accompanied by fights against the Knights of the Cross, and the Knights of the Sword. By comparing the art of warfare practised by local tribes and alien Germans, one can notice considerable differences in technical issues, such as weaponry, fortifications, and strategies, as well as in warfare customs. In this respect, the Livonian Chronicle by Henry of Latvia is particularly telling. While Germans and other western Christians would adhere to the knightly rules of war in Livonia, local Baltic and Finno-Ugric peoples acted very much like the barbarians did during the times of the Great Migration of the Nations. […]

The romantic attitude towards the pagan Lithuania, shaped in the 19th century, remains tenacious up to these days. Romantic authors, such as Teodor Narbutt and Józef Ignacy Kraszewski who wrote in Polish, saw the old Lithuania as a fairy tale country with an ideal state order and virtuous inhabitants. They were confident that the Lithuanian history of the 13th and 14h century was a period of “golden times”. This kind of standpoint made an essential impact on the leading figures of the Lithuanian national resurgence in the second half of the 19th century. They employed the visions of the pagan glory to wake the nation up considering the majority of people immature for high nationalist aspirations. […]

Alcohol, produced by fermenting liquids, has been known in many continents and cultures from as far back as the stone and bronze ages. The first knowledge of consumption of alcoholic beverages in the Balt lands, provided by the Anglo-Saxon traveller Wulfstan who visited the lower reaches of the Vistula River, date back to the end of the 9th century: “Kings and nobility drink mare milk, while the poor and slaves drink mead.” […]

Human sacrifice is attributable to the most forbidding customs of ancient tribes. Among Asian and European cultures, it permeated unevenly. The Greek myths speak of human sacrifice but historical sources provide no data of any actual practice of the kind. In the ancient Greece, it was considered an old yet no longer exercisable rite replaced by the sacrifice of animals. Although the gladiator fights point to the fact that the Romans enjoyed terrifying shows, neither can they be associated with the human sacrifice as a common feature of their customs. […]