Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

The article focuses on a relevant problematic issue: the importance and value of the Middle Ages and their battles for the historical culture and for the consciousness of society of the nationalism era. In order to answer the question – firstly, from the perspective of Lithuanian historiography, historical culture, and the manifestations of the historical memory of the society – we invoke the potential of an interdisciplinary approach (i.e., historiography, literature, and cultural studies). The 19th-20th c. history of the research into and the interpretations of the Lithuanian Medieval battles, including the battle of Durbė, are studied in a wide thematic and problematic context. Taking a historiographical orientation towards the long term (longue durée) structural changes, we make a stop at the history and the position of the Medieval battles in the context of national movements. We also pay attention to the transformations of Lithuanian historiography which occur in the interpretations of the battle of Durbė in the Lithuanian historical culture. The hypothesis of the changes of the images, the importance, and the position of the battle of Durbė battle is formulated on the basis of the materials of historiography, literature studies, and cultural history.

The article reviews the development stages of the battle of Durbė narrative over the period of the 13th to the early 16th c. in Prussian and Livonian historiographical traditions. Attempts are made to find out the way and the reasons of the changes in the battle of Durbė narrative in different traditions, the impact that caused the changes, and the functions the narrative played in historical works. Major attention is focused on three chronicles: the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle (the 13th c.). The Chronicle of the Prussian Land of Peter of Dusburg (mid-14th c.) and Simon Grunau’s Chronicle (mid-16th c.). The chronicles present three versions of the battle of Durbė story which are related and which, however, differ in the plot, details, and functions. Each version marked three different stages of the narrative development and formed three different traditions of the battle of Durbė narrative, on the basis of which subsequent authors created historical myths of the said battle. Part of the details of the historical myths (and especially those borrowed from Simon Grunau’s version) survived and are employed in contemporary Lithuanian fiction, historical, and educational literature.

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.