Klaipėdos universitetas

The article discusses questions pertaining to the development of the socio-political structures of the West Balts. On the basis of archaeological studies and scarce historical sources, the conclusion is drawn that the first shoots of statehood might have emerged during the Viking era. It seems that the fortification of hill-forts, the emergence of castles, the increasing differentiation of material wealth, the emergence of proto-towns, and the formation of the stratum of warriors should allow us to talk of the emergence of chiefdoms in the land of the West Balts. However, all these attributes rather demonstrate the development of social structures. The question is put whether the social elite that stood out during the Viking era was at the same time the political elite. Thus, the main question is, what kind of chiefdoms can we talk about, and from when and how did the political elite emerge, which predetermined the emergence of a state in the lands of the East Balts, but which nevertheless did not lead the society of the West Balts to statehood?

The reception of the ideology of the 13th–14th c. Crusades on the Eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, the ideological imperatives of the Holy War, and their reflections in the Chronicle of Peter of Dusburg, one of the most famous chroniclers of the conquest of the Baltic tribes, are analyzed in the article. Even though lately the said Chronicle has been paid great attention to in foreign historiography, in Lithuanian historiography the rhetoric of the Holy War, related to the particular example of the Battle of Durbė, has not been analyzed so far. Moreover, the assessment of the spread of Christian missions in the contexts of the battle of Durbė, as well as its activeness, dynamics, and the relation to the Crusades, have not been analyzed, either.