Lithuania past and present

Preface

In the following pages I have not attempted to do more than scratch the surface of a subject which, for adequate treatment, would require several large volumes. My main purpose is to arouse interest among English readers in a country and people whose glorious past and present renascence, under peculiarly moving conditions, are surely an earnest of great future achievement in all constructive activities. To this end I have tried to give a general outline of Lithuanian history, geography, economic position and possibilities, present-day political problems, cultural characteristics, etc., so that Britishers may no longer be able to plead ignorance as an excuse for their unfortunately apathetic attitude towards the legitimate aspirations of the Lithuanian people. Should the reception accorded this modest preliminary essay warrant it, I shall gladly hereafter embark upon a more exhaustive and ambitious handling of this fascinating subject.

For much of the material embodied in this book I am indebted principally to Stasys Salkauskis’ masterly study Sur les Confins de Deux Mondes , W. St. Vidunas’ La Lituanie dans le Passe et dans le Present , and Dr. Joseph Ehret’s Litauen , which have rendered readily accessible many facts which otherwise might have eluded com¬ pilation.

I make no apology for largely employing the Lithu¬ anian spelling of place names. The sooner we adapt

PREFACE ourselves to changed conditions the better. But for the reader’s convenience, I have appended a short glossarygiving the former Russian and present Lithuanian renderings of these centres.

A hint on pronunciation. The Lithuanian c is pro¬ nounced like our ch in church ; the s like sh in shall; and the z like 2 in azure.

Authors’ Club,

Whitehall Court, London, S.W. 1.

Contents

PAGE

PREFACE . 5

GLOSSARY. 13

Chapter I Introductory Remarks

My own experience is that, if we except certain business circles which before the war engaged in trade with the Baltic and to-day are making somewhat halfhearted attempts to resume these relations with the independent States that have succeeded to the old Russian regime in that part of the world, very few persons in England know anything at all about Lithuania. Spelling the name in syllables accomplishes little in the face of an abysmal ignorance extending to the very geography of the country. This unfortunate apathy goes to prove how' very super¬ ficially the average citizen reads his daily paper, because for months past there have been repeated press references, long and short, to the Polish-Lithuanian dispute and the futile efforts of the League of Nations to settle it at Brussels and Geneva.

And yet at the end of the XIVth and the beginning of the XVth century Lithuania was the most formidable Power in the North, and the boundaries of this compact State extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea. On one occasion Moscow was almost taken by Algird, who spared it only in deference to the prayers of the Grand Duke Demetrius, thus unconsciously and naively revealing the boundless gulf which separates the simple barbarous mentality of that age from our own vastly superior conception of wjiat is due to a military victor. The devastated region's of Northern France and East Prussia show conclusively how far we have advanced along the

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS road of civilization since those primitive days. Few are probably aware that this period of Lithuanian power has found a place in English literature. In the Canterbury Tales Chaucer sends a brave English knight to that country, and in this connexion it is interesting to note that Chaucer calls Lithuania “ Leetuwe ” (Lietuva), which is the Lithuanian word for Lithuania, the latter being used only abroad. Historians also relate that in the XIVth century Keistut, or Keistutis, the ruler of Lithuania, signed a commercial treaty with England. In Rymer’s Foedera there is also a document of Queen Elizabeth, written in 15G0, giving a licence to a Lithuanian in the following terms :

He by Himself, his Servants, or Factors, maye or shall brynge in this our Realme of Fingland within the space of one Monethe next hereafter following Thyrtie Tymber of Sabels and a Carkamet of Gold sett with Divers Pearles and pretiouse Stones without payinge Custome or Subsidie for the same

Lithuania has passed through many vicissitudes since that spacious epoch. Her disastrous association with Poland, of which more will be said elsewhere, involved her in the downfall of the latter in the XVIIIth century when the whole of Lithuania was attached to Russia by the sole right of conquest.

Although the Great War hit Lithuania hard and for a season led to the substitution of Teutonic tyranny for that of the Muscovite, its ultimate outcome proved on the whole favourable to Lithuanian national aspirations, which never ceased to be cherished in secret even during the darkest days of Russian and Polish oppression. During their period of military occupation, from 1915-18, the Germans tried in every way to suppress the national movement. They prohibited the publication of Lithuanian newspapers and threw the national leaders into jail. The object of the German Government was clearly to make Lithuania an integral part of Germany, but these efforts encountered a resistance which proved to be insuperable. Finally Lithuania succeeded in obtaining permission to call a convention at Vilnius in September

TERRITORY OF LITHUANIA

1917. This convention elected a State Council or Taryba, which on February 16, 1918, solemnly proclaimed the independence of the country. This day the young Republic annually celebrates as Independence Day.

After this came with bewildering swiftness the Allied victory, the German revolution, and the Bolshevik advance, which latter compelled the Lithuanian Government to withdraw from Vilnius to Kaunas, whence the defence of the country w r as energetically directed. The Bolshevik advance was checked at Koshedary, and the Lithuanians would again have entered Vilnius if they had not been deliberately forestalled by the Poles, who advanced from the south-east and occupied the city. The Polish occupa¬ tion of Vilnius on this occasion lasted till July 1920, when the Polish defeat at the hands of the Soviet armies necessitated its abandonment, and the Lithuanian Govern¬ ment re-entered into possession.

Under the Suvalki Agreement, signed between the two States on October 7, 1920, Poland recognized the right of Lithuania to provisional administration of Vilnius and its territory, but this trifling fact in no way prevented her from flagrantly violating the agreement two days later, when the notorious General Zeligowski recaptured the Lithuanian capital. Thus the Lithuanian Government was again obliged to remove to Kaunas, and pending a settlement of the Vilnius question the affairs of the country are still directed from this temporary capital.

According to the Russo-Lithuanian Peace Treaty, concluded on July 12, 1920, Lithuania comprises an area of approximately 82,000 square kilometres (approxi¬ mately 32,000 square miles), and the three governments of the former Russian Empire, Suvalki (Suvalkai), Kovno, (Kaunas) and Vilna (Vilnius), which is the ethnographical territory of the original Lithuanian Grand Duchy, and in past centuries was always recognized by both Poles and Russians as ethnographical Lithuania or Lithuania Proper. The population of this area numbers over 4,200,000, of which about 75 per cent, are Lithuanians by race and tongue, the rest being Jews, White Russians, Poles and others. Owing, however, to the loss of the

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Vilnius region through the force majeure of Polish filibuster¬ ing, the population actually under the jurisdiction of the Lithuanian Government at the time of writing is not probably much in excess of two millions, of which fewer than 3 per cent are Poles.

This, then, in brief, is the State which ever since the election of a Constituent Assembly, or Seim, in April 1920, by universal, direct, and secret suffrage, according to the system of proportional representation, has vainly sought for de jure recognition from the Allies, though this recognition has been granted by almost every other neutral country and former enemy state, large and small. 1

Into the motives which have hitherto dictated so conservative a policy I propose to enquire later on in these pages. Moreover, I make no sort of apology for doing this frankly as a partizan. No man of spirit with any firsthand knowledge of the facts, such as I possess, could be otherwise. It was my inestimable privilege to live through the makings of history in the Baltic from the summer of 1919 to the winter of 1921, for the last fourteen or fifteen months of that period as British Vice- Consul at Kaunas, and for an all-too-brief interval at Vilnius, in which capacity I enjoyed unique opportunities of acquainting myself with the true inwardness of the situation. What at the outset was an objective investi¬ gation led me by inevitable stages to wholesale con¬ demnation of the Poles and their post-bellum policy. Only an invertebrate degenerate could remain on the fence in such a quarrel. As a partizan, therefore, it shall be my special aim in the proper place to make as many other converts as possible by giving in some detail the reasons which in my own case proved so efficacious.

But before coming to that essentially controversial phase of my subject, I wish to excite public interest in

1 Since these lines were written, the United States Government has granted unconditional de jure recognition to Lithuania. On July 13, 1922, the Ambassadors’ Council in Paris offered de jure recognition on condition that Lithuania should consent to internationalization of the Niemen River. The Lithuanian Government accepted this condition in due course, and is therefore presumably recognized de jure.

FRANCO-POLISH INTRIGUES other aspects of the Lithuanian problem, historic, geo¬ graphical, sociological, aesthetic and cultural. Thus I hope to be the medium of removing from many British minds the reproach of ignorance of a country and a people with quite exceptional claims to our sympathy and support, not alone on grounds of international justice but equally on those of national expediency and self-interest. Indeed it is only to our proverbial middle-class and proletarian provincialism and indifference to foreign affairs, even when the latter have a vital bearing upon our destinies, that I can ascribe a popular attitude which has for so long tolerated Franco-Polish intrigues at our expense, and equally the very questionable laissez-faire policy of Great Britain herself in this regard.

If my own modest contribution to this branch of East European history helps, in however limited a degree, to disperse these clouds of ignorance and perhaps to galvanize the deadened national conscience into tardy recognition of its responsibilities, I shall not have laboured in vain.

Chapter II

In any description of Lithuania we must distinguish carefully between the historic and ethnographic Lithuanias. What is called historic Lithuania or the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, comprises the territories of the former Russian governments of Vilna, Kovno, Grodno, Suvalki, Kurland, Minsk, Mohilev, and Vitebsk. During several centuries they formed, under the style of Lithuania, a political unit. When, therefore, we speak of old Lithuania up to the end of the XVIIIth century we mean this group of governments, which were not inhabited exclusively by Lithuanians but included various foreign ethnic elements which had been wholly absorbed in the energetic expansion of the Lithuanian State and passed under its dominion.

Ethnographic Lithuania, on the other hand, includes the old Russian governments of Vilna, Kovno, Suvalki, part of Grodno, and a small portion of the government of Minsk (Novogrodek). It embraces also the northern part of East Prussia with the districts of Memel, Tilsit, Heydekrug, Niederung, Ragnit, Pillkallen, Labiau, certain parts of Insterberg, Gumbinnen, Stalluponen, and Goldapp. The former Lithuanian territory is called Lithuania Major and the German territory Lithuania Minor.

If we include the Vilnius territory as an integral por¬ tion of ethnographic Lithuania and also the Memel district, at present administered by the French for the Supreme Council, we get an area of over 30,000 square miles, and a population which, in 1914, was estimated at 4,345,000. Thus in area and population Lithuania is larger than

Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark or Switzerland.

PROVINCE OF VILNIUS

A large majority are of Lithuanian blood and speech. While much controversy has raged round this question, a fair estimate of the relative percentages appears to be Lithuanians about 75 per cent. ; Jews about 10 per cent. ; Polish-speaking element about 8 per cent, (for the entire district) ; Russians, White Russians and other nationalities 7 per cent. The population of the larger cities is approxi¬ mately : Vilnius 214,600 ; Kaunas 90,300 ; Gardinas 61,600 ; Memel 32,000 ; Suvalkai 31,600 ; Siauliai 31,300. These figures have been subjected to considerable modifications by the war. The present population of Kaunas, for example, owing to the tremendous influx of refugees from Vilnius and district in the wake of the Polish occupa¬ tion is not far short of 120,000. The rural population constitutes 86*2 per cent, of the whole, indicating that Lithuania is essentially an agricultural country.

The Lithuanian province of Vilnius has a superficies of 42,500 kilometres, i.e. approximately the size of Switzer¬ land. On the north it touches the province of Kaunas and the Vitebsk government ; on the east Vitebsk and Minsk ; on the south Minsk and the province of Gardinas ; on the west Suvalkai. It constitutes a plain traversed by a chain of hills. In view of the dearth of other means of communication the numerous rivers possess great importance. More than four hundred lakes cover 10 per cent, of the total surface, and lakes and rivers are sur¬ rounded by swamps. In the Trakai (Troki) district one marsh has a circumference of 85 kilometres. This province is divided into seven departments named after their respective capitals, viz. Vilnius, Trakai (Troki), Lyda, Sventionis (Svenciany), Vileika, Asmena and Dysna.

The capital of the province and of the entire country is Vilnius, situated at the confluence of the Vilija and Vileika, at the foot of Mt. Gediminas, the name of the founder of the city. Before the war Vilna, as the Russians called it, was the capital of the General Government of the same name and was an important railway and commerical centre with a big trade in timber and cattle. Baedeker mentions that the history of the city stretches back to the earliest times, when it was a great centre of Pagan worship. A sacred fire was kept constantly burning at the foot of the hill upon which Gediminas (Gedymin), Grand Duke of Lithuania, built his castle when he founded the city in the XlVtli century. In 1328 Vilnius was raised to the dignity of a town and was made the capital of Lithuania. The Grand Duke Ladislas Jagellon, who became King of Poland in 1386, introduced Christianity in 1387 and erected the cathedral of St. Stanislaus on the site of the heathen temple. Vilnius is afterw'ards often mentioned in the history of the struggles of the Lithuanians with the Teutonic Order, the Tartars, and the Russian Grand Dukes. During the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries Vilnius was frequently pillaged by the Swedes, Russians, and Cossacks, and lost much of its former importance. In 1704 it offered a gallant resistance to the Russian army, but was captured on August 12th after a severe bombardment. At the opening of the war of 1812 Napoleon fixed upon the line of the Niemen as his base of operations and made Vilnius (at the point of intersection of the roads from Konigsberg and Warsaw to St. Petersburg and Moscow) the strategic centre of the French line. On his retreat from Russia he again visited Vilnius, which he finally left in disguise on the night of November 24 (New Style December 6), 1812.

Vilnius’s public edifices, her churches, and the memories which they enshrine, the palaces of the Lithuanian aristocracy, all have a great historical and national signification for Lithuania, and are the fruit of the work of many centuries, whose toil was accomplished under the hard conditions of bondage. Vilnius’s other buildings are due to the work of the local labouring classes, composed for the most part of Lithuanian Jews. During the period of the Muscovite rule, the public edifices were constructed at the expense of the Russian Empire ; but one seeks in vain for any evidence of such work by the Polish people.

During a period of over four and a half centuries Vilnius was the capital of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, who were her national rulers. The capital of a State

VILNIUS, THE LITHUANIAN CAPITAL 23 which in addition to the Lithuanian land properly so-called embraced vast Slavo-Russian territories, Vilnius, thanks to the autonomous rule of government which these latter enjoyed, served especially as the centre of ethnographical Lithuania (Lithuania Proper), which was composed of the principality of Samogitia and of the two palatinates of Vilnius and Trakai. The Government, the legislative and judicial administrations, constituted in the domain of Vilnius an indivisible whole, which was separated from the Slavonic regions of the Grand Duchy. Even after the Russian annexation, Lithuania Proper formed an administrative unit, composed of the three governments of Vilnius, Kaunas, and Gardinas, and designated under the general name of the 44 North- Western Country,” with Vilnius as its capital, the seat of the central institutions of the whole land and the residence of the Governor-General.

Vilnius was the intellectual, artistic and religious centre of Lithuania, whose influence on the scientific and artistic development of Poland was considerable. However, even at that epoch, when the Polish language took the place of the Latin tongue, the University of Vilnius never lost its character as the home of Lithuanian culture.

During the whole of her existence as a sovereign State, and later, at the time of her struggle for independence, Lithuania, with Vilnius at her head, constantly asserted and defended with an untiring energy her real nationality and her right to absolute independence. In the same way, the unions with Poland were never an expression of free-will on the part of Lithuania but of combinations imposed on the country by Poland, who profited by the difficult situation of the Grand Duchy. The Union of Lublin, in 1569, was a striking example of this policy.

It was at Vilnius, at the time of the Russian dominion, that Lithuania experienced the most cruel losses in her struggle for liberty, and this city is the centre of the political and intellectual revival of Lithuania at the present day.

In view of the efforts made by the Polish delegation at Brussels and Geneva before the Council of the League of Nations, in 1921, to disprove the Lithuanian origin of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, it is interesting to recall that one of the oldest Polish chroniclers, i.e. Mathew Miechovita, himself states that the Lithuanians founded Vilnius (“ hiprimum condiderunt oppidum Vilno ”). Miechovita even mentions a Duke Vilis ( dux Vilis) who transported Lithuanians into that region and founded the city which from this Duke received the name of Vilnius. The Grand Duke Gediminas having transferred his capital thither assuredly maintained a Lithuanian garrison, as in the case of all ducal courts. There is no cause to doubt that at that time the inhabitants of Vilnius were Lithuanians, although there is no direct evidence available as to their precise nationality. The names of the children of both the Dukes Gediminas and Algirdas, as well as those of others, are Lithuanian of those times. Under Algirdas the nobles of his court Kiklis or Kuklejus, Miklis or Miklejus, and Niezila gained fame through their acceptance of the Orthodox faith about 1347 and their sufferings on that account at the hands of the Pagan Lithuanians. Even to-day they are revered as saints in the Orthodox Church under the style of Joannas, Antonius and Eustaclhus.

We have clear information about the nationality of the inhabitants of the town at the time of the introduction of Christianity into Vilnius by Jagellon in 1387. According to the testimony of J. Dlugosius (1415-80) Vilnius was then the capital of the Lithuanian nation ( caput et metropolis gentis) and here the Lithuanians were baptized. Miechovita (1476-1523), M. Stryjkowskis and A. Guagnini, writing about the introduction of Christianity into Vilnius, say that the sacred eternal fires of the Pagan Lithuanians were then extinguished, their idols destroyed, the sacred mounds levelled, and 30,000 Lithuanians baptized. More¬ over, as the Polish priests could not speak Lithuanian, the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jagellon himself explained their sermons to the baptized people. It appears from this that then the inhabitants of Vilnius, who were baptized en masse , were Lithuanians. That in the XIVth century

USE OF LITHUANIAN SPEECH 25 the inhabitants of Vilnius were Lithuanians we know from other evidence, i.e. Count Kyburg, who, during the reign of Vytautas the Great, visited the latter in the summer of 1397 on a political mission, and testifies that the prevailing language in the palace and among the people themselves was Lithuanian, though already there were White Russians, Germans and Poles among the inhabitants. At a later epoch also the Lithuanian speech was used and esteemed in the Grand-Ducal palace at Vilnius. For example, Stryjkowskis clearly testifies that when on the death of the Grand Duke Zigmantas at Trakai castle in 1440 the Lithuanian nobles nominated Jagellon’s son, Kazimieras, to be ruler of the country, the latter, who was born at Cracow, did not know Lithuanian and was therefore taught the language on his removal to Vilnius.

From writers of the XVth and XVIth centuries who travelled in Lithuania and visited Vilnius, such as Guillebert de Lannoy (1413-14) and Baron ILerberstein (1517-26), we have mention of Vilnius, but no information about its inhabitants or their language. Guagnini (1538-1614) in his work Sarmatice Europea description briefly describes Vilnius, but is also silent about the nationality of its inhabitants. The Italian writer Jonas Boterius Benesius, whose work was translated into Polish and published at Cracow in 1659, superficially describes the Lithuanian people, and when mentioning Vilnius does not differentiate its inhabitants from other residents of the country who were Lithuanian.

It is a fact that as late as 1737 the Jesuits at St. John’s Cathedral maintained preachers in Lithuanian, and it was only from that time that the Polonization of the Lithuanian inhabitants of Vilnius proceeded more rapidly till the majority lost their nationality. But even though denationalized the popular masses long retained the con¬ sciousness of their Lithuanian origin, as can be seen from the evidence of Father Hilarionas Karpinskis and M. Balinskis. The former of these writers, in his work Lexyhon geografiezny (Wilno 1766, p. 602), speaks of the population, numbering 60,000, as Lithuanian and German, and that besides Catholics there were Orthodox, Lutherans, Calvinists and Jews, even Mohammedan Tartars, who had a mosque there. Balinskis in his work Pisanie statystyezne miasto Wilna (Wilno 1835), when describing the inhabitants of the city, makes no mention at all of Poles among them. He says only, “ The inhabitants of the city of Vilnius are in their origin Lithuanians, Russians, Germans and Jews. There are so few inhabitants of other nationalities that in this respect they cannot make any distinction.”

The town of Lyda with its 20,000 inhabitants (seventy kilometres south of the capital) still possesses some importance. From a historic standpoint the town of Trakai (Troki), twenty-five kilometres south of Vilnius, on the shore of the lake of the same name, offers some interest. Trakai Lake is dotted with several islets, on one of which may be seen the ruins of the ship Konigsberg built by Keistutis, in which Vytautas the Great saw something of the world. Trakai, the capital of the Palatinate, formerly enjoyed great importance. Later its development was arrested and to-day it is only a small district town. On the upper course of the Vilija may be seen the chateau or castle of Verkai, where formerly the bishops of Vilnius resided during the summer months. To-day it is abandoned. At Birstonas are celebrated sulphur springs. Rodune has won an unenviable reputa¬ tion as the scene of many conflicts with the Russians.

Forty per cent, of the total surface of this province is cultivated ; 19 per cent, consists of pasturage and meadow ; 28 per cent, of forests ; and nearly 11 per cent, of unculti¬ vated lands. The peasants of this region experience no little difficulty in drawing subsistence from the sandy soil, being in this respect worse off than the peasants of Suvalkai who, farther to the west, are better able to obtain necessary auxiliaries to agriculture.

The province of Kaunas, covering an area of 40,640 square kilometres, is thus almost equal to Vilnius in size. In the west it includes Samogitia ; to the north it is bounded by Kurland ; to the east by Vitebsk ; to the south by Vilnius and Suvalkai ; to the south-west by

PROVINCE OF KAUNAS

Lithuania Minor. It forms a slightly undulating plain with an altitude a little over 150 metres. Only in the west are there any elevations, viz. the so-called mountains of Satrija, Girgzduta, Mcdvegalis, etc. Among the navig¬ able rivers are the Nemunas (Niemen), Vilija and Venta. Lakes are also very numerous, the district of Zarasai alone possessing four hundred of them. As in the province of Vilnius swamps hinder communication. The great swamp of Remygala, near Panevezis (Ponievezh), covers 136 square kilometres.

This province, like Vilnius, has seven districts, viz. Kaunas, Telsiai, Siauliai (Shavli), Raseiniai (Rossieny), Panevezis (Ponievezh), Zarasai and Ukmerge (Vilkomir). Kaunas, the capital, is situated at the confluence of the Vilija and Nemunas, and before the war had between ninety thousand and a hundred thousand inhabitants but to-day is even more densely populated. In this neighbourhood the banks of the Nemunas often rise to a height of two hundred feet and are very picturesque. Before the war Kaunas was regarded as a first-class fortress, but this reputation was speedily exploded by the German assailants who reduced it in a few days, though treachery is supposed to have played an appreciable role in this result. It is supposed that the town was founded in the Xlllth century. In the XIVth century it had already become a great bone of contention between the Lithuanians and the Teutonic Knights. At the time of the so-called “ personal ” union between Poland and Lithuania, when Jagellon became king of the former country, Kaunas began to serve as a centre for the export trade from Poland and Lithuania to Russia. An English trading factory was established here. In 1655 Kaunas was plundered and burned down by a Russian army under Tsar Alexis. At the Third Partition of Poland in 1795 it was finally annexed to the Russian Empire. On June 23, 1812, the French army reached the left bank of the Nemunas, opposite Kaunas, and a hill near the village of Ponyemon is still known as Napoleon’s Hill. Kaunas is the residence of the Bishop of Samogitia and his chapter and also of the Lutheran Provost of the Vilnius diocese. The Church of the Franciscans dates from the epoch of Vytautas the Great. The most remarkable of the Catholic churches is that of the Jesuits, which was built by Italians. The Jews, who are also numerous in Kaunas, possess four synagogues. The library of the Catholic seminary contains many very valuable manuscripts. Before the war Kaunas was well-known for its industries, one of the biggest iron foundries in Russia, that of Tillmann, doing a big business.

At Raseinial, a town of ten thousand inhabitants, the Diet of Samogitia formerly assembled. Kedainiai possesses a large Protestant church constructed in 1629 by the magnate Radvila, and it shelters the tomb of this princely house. The mortal remains of the Lithuanian historian Daukantas repose at Papile. The Radvila family at one time had their residence at Kraziai, where there is to-day a well-known monastery. The Lithuanian poet Sarbiewski used to pursue his literary studies at the Jesuit college of this town, while at one time the Jesuit church possessed, according to report, Leonardo da Vinci’s “ Ascension.”

Plunge, the home of the Princes Oginski, is the Lithuanian Jerusalem, the Jewish population being very large. On the banks of the Nemunas is the ancient fortress of Veliona, before which Gediminas died in 1341. Sidlava, in Samo¬ gitia, is a place of frequent pilgrimage, as also Kalvarija, which has a Calvary constructed on the model of the original at Jerusalem. The Birzai locality is known in history as the principal scene of Lithuanian opposition to Roman Catholicism and the headquarters of the Lithuanian Protestant Prince Nicolas Radvila the Black.

Under the Simpson boundary award between Latvia and Lithuania, the latter has acquired the wateringplace Palanga on the Baltic, with valuable medicinal springs, and is considering plans for its development, together with Sventoji at the mouth of the river of that name, into an ocean port. There is indeed quite a mass of historical evidence available to show that there were in former years deep-sea harbours at both these places. During the XHIth century, the Crusaders having taken

INHABITANTS OF PALANGA GREETING LITHUANIAN TROOPS.

LITHUANIAN CHILDREN PRAYING FOR DEAD COMRADE.

PALANGA AND SVENTOJI PORTS 29

Prussia and the Knights of the Sword Latvia, the towns of Konigsberg, Rusnis, Klaipeda (Memel) and Riga, which then belonged to the Germans, tried to seize the entire trade of Lithuania together with that of other regions. The Lithuanian Grand Dukes, on the other hand, did their best to thwart these schemes and to liberate Lithuanian trade from the German yoke. With this object, for example, Keistutis in 1342 concluded a commercial treaty with England. The trade of Lithuania at that time, in all probability, was conducted via Palanga or Sventoji. At any rate Yytautas the Great, wishing to open “ a window into Europe ” which should not be dependent upon Germany, restored those ports. It must therefore be supposed that they were situated very much where the present Palanga and Sventoji are to-day. Later, apparently, they were abandoned. The trade of Palanga-Sventoji even during the time of Vytautas had begun to decline. Lithuania having strengthened and improved her relations with Prussia and the Latvian Germans had revived the trade via the Nemunas and Dauguva (Dvina).