Klaipėdos universitetas

The paper analyses the techniques and methods of creating propaganda narratives about Lutherans in the chronicle of Dominican monk Simon Grunau (the early 16th c.). It examines how, during the Reformation, in the debates of the propaganda character between its supporters and opponents, narratives or their complexes were used with the intention to belittle the image and the arguments of the opponents. It also explains how the Dominicans’ common European experience of the fight against the spreading Reformation was used in the stories of Grunau’s chronicle about the Reformation gaining a foothold in Prussia.

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.