Well that went well.

My apologies for the typos in both links.

I'll try again:

http://www.britannica.com/place/Lithuanian/History

http://www.lietuva.it/100/en/discover-lithuania/history

My last attempt:

http://www.britannica.com/place/Lithuania/History

http://www.lietuva.it/100/en/discover-lithuania/history

Dear Foxy,

My account of Lithuanian history differs from what you found in Britannica. My sources are:

Fletcher, Richard, The Conversion of Europe from Paganism to Christianity: 371-1386, London: Fontana (HarperCollins), 1998

Eliach, Yaffa, There Once Was a World.

Britannica is probably more accurate. The second book is the history of the 950 years of my grandmother’s village in Lithuania.

Again; Many thanks to you David F. for appraising me of your early American history, I do appreciate and admire your scholarship very much indeed.

Strictly speaking, the first European settlement in what became the USA was in 1508 in Puerto Rico. But it failed rather badly.

There were several other settlements prior to that of the Pilgrims but most of them failed and/or were just trading and/or military settlements. (Incidentally they didn't call themselves 'The Pilgrims' - that was a name given to them centuries later). Their settlement was important for two reasons...1) it was a true settlement colony that operated outside British control; 2) they signed a compact about how they were to govern which formed a basis for the later US Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.

People like david f malign the Pilgrims when he says they "did their part in exterminating them [the natives]". In fact the natives in the region had been fighting a long standing internal war among the tribes. The Pilgrims, for the sake of their own survival, allied with one side of that fight and supplied them with guns. The resultant death toll was largely native on native

Its a bit disingenuous to call Lithuania pre-1368 "a free, multicultural society" while at the same time acknowledging that it was a feudal state. In what sense were the serfs free? Indeed they were no less free in 1369 as they were in 1367. It might be true that the rulers of that land had less freedom to operate as they wished after conversion to Christianity but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

As to Lithuania retaining its culture, well that's in the eye of the beholder. That they retain a culture which is somewhat different to that of their neighbours is true. But its also true that its somewhat different to that of those who occupied the land two, four or six centuries ago.

How could it be otherwise given that the land has been conquered by and assimilated by any number of empires? The Russification efforts of the 19th century. The Soviet suppression of the 20th century. The extermination of fully one in ten peoples (and a whole segment of that multicultural society) by the Nazis with the enthusiastic help of at least a part of Lithuania society which then went on to join the Nazis in the attempted conquest of their neighbours.

All of that changes a society in subtle but important ways. Sure they might still cook foods that have their origins in antiquity and dance in ways they think their ancestors did (much like the way Aboriginal groups do today). But is that all there is to a culture? Several centuries of authoritarian rule by others and by their own peoples has to change a society.

Its a comforting story that they came out of all this conflict unchanged. But its a myth.