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In today’s world the science of history is characterized by a surprising
diversity of theories and areas of research. And although everything
revolves around man, history’s tale about the processes of the past
survives. Historical sources provide the raw material for creating
narratives that help us understand the causes of today’s processes. The
saying that history is the teacher of life is true only if we comprehend
and create history ourselves. This is possible only through direct contact
with historical sources, i.e. the most diverse forms of our written
heritage.
Selecting sources for inclusion in Aruodai was not simple. In view of the
goals of this project, we will attempt to present fragments of writings
from the 13th-18th centuries that best show how Lithuanians lived in those
days. We thought it would be interesting to know what kinds of speeches
were delivered in the Seimas of those times and what pagan gods were still
worshiped by the peasants, what foreign wines noblemen drank and how the
children of noble families were brought up, what Lithuanian martial
traditions were like and how the women of that period dressed.
There are plenty of sources that reveal the most diverse aspects of our
ancestors’ lives. Unfortunately, when classifying our heritage from the
13th-18th century, we could not apply an established system simply because
such a system does not yet exist in our historiography. Therefore, we
conducted a preliminary classification of sources on the basis of accepted
historiographical principles that best suited our needs.
We have divided written historical sources into narrative and documentary
groups. This is the most general classification. On the next level each
group of sources is further divided into various types. On the third level
we intend to present specific texts, taking into consideration the nature
and scope of each source. Long texts (e.g. chronicles, memoirs, diaries)
will be excerpted; shorter documents (those taken from the Lithuanian
Metrica, letters, map annotations) will be presented in full. In view of
one of the main goals of the RaSa project – the preservation of national
identity under the conditions of globalization – we will try to select,
from numerous sources usually not written in Lithuanian (from the 13th to
the late 18th century), those materials that represent Lithuanians and
various areas of their life and culture.
Because of how written culture spread in Lithuania, the most valuable
sources for early Lithuanian history were not written in Lithuanian and
represent how another society viewed Lithuanians and Lithuania (in the
narrow sense of this word). These accounts are often the only ray of light
shining through the “dark” ages of Lithuanian history (the 13th-14th
centuries); however, even in later centuries they retain their charm
because they show how Lithuania and Lithuanians were perceived by their
neighbours. Many of the narrative sources consist of precisely such
descriptions of Lithuanians and Lithuania. This group will also contain
sources that directly attest to the culture of Lithuanians and Lithuania.
Such accounts, however, will form the greater part of the documentary
sources. We hope they enable us to form a picture of the “quality of life”
in Lithuania during the 16th-18th century.
Also, we hope to supplement the information contained in the historical
sources and help the reader better understand them with a dictionary of
historical terms that we are compiling and a biographical bank of
Lithuanian historical figures.
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