Moments from History of Kaunas Atnaujinta: 2011-03-10 14:37:32
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What is a city? When and how does it emerge? What are its underlying features, distinguishing it from everything else? Speaking in a straightforward way, one may explain that city is a place with a lot of buildings and crowds of people. Maybe everything will become clear once somebody declares the exact number of buildings or people required to qualify the place as a city? Definitely not.
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What do the historians say? When and where do they discover cities as the proof of civilization in a certain region? There is no consensus about this, opinions differ substantially. Adopting the view that a city is a castle, a square, a church and a trading house, some may say that Lithuania had more than 10 cities already in the 13th century.
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Looking for Kaunas of the past in the misty pages of history, we have little hesitation conjuring up a city castle at the junction of Neris and Nemunas, besieged by crusaders. This strategically important location was a target for those involved in battles of the crusades in Lithuanian land. Therefore, the fall of Kaunas Castle in 1362 was one of the greatest defeats that Lithuanians suffered in their wars with the Teutonic Knights, but one can hardly consider this war episode an argument for the status of Kaunas as a city. This kind of argument became valid in 1408, when the Magdeburg Law was adopted by Vytautas the Great in Kaunas. After overcoming crusaders in the battle of Grunwald, new possibilities had emerged for Kaunas to exploit its strategic location: not only in military terms, but even in business and trade. While the 15th century history of the city has not been thoroughly researched, even provisional works of historians indicate that Kaunas of the time had become one of the most important centers of trade and commerce. Königsberg, Danzig and other members of the Hanseatic League became an influence on the economical interests of Kaunas. Kaunas could never become a Hanseatic city, because the trading post for this leading city alliance of the Middle Ages could not settle here. However, as far as business relations in the Baltic region went, Kaunas had no competition in Lithuania.
In the evaluation of Kaunas’ position in the enormous country of Lithuania, it is purposeful to remember a frequent argument used by historians – the amount of the taxes paid to the treasury of the Great Duchy of Lithuania. Kaunas was often the second Lithuanian city in this category, even though it was trailing behind Vilnius more than ten-fold.
There is yet another characteristic almost begging for a mention in a review of Kaunas history. In the rudiments of old Lithuanian cities, similarly to Polish or Czech circumstances, an important role was played by foreigners. German merchants and tradesmen, attracted by the letters of monarchs and business-friendly conditions, moved to Eastern European lands, settled in cities, influenced their life, order and habits, dictated the trends and law culture. Eventually, Lithuanian cities seemed to have drifted away from the core of Lithuanian nation. Even if that was really the case, it was far from unique in European history; quite the opposite. Sometimes a suspicion arises that our historians were and still are too heavily influenced by the rural tradition. For a villager – especially in the early ages – a city was always a bit of a strange land, no matter what language he spoke. Taking the step further away from agrarian regulations of historiography and looking at the sources of the history of Kaunas in the 15th and 16th century, we would see how sturdy the positions of local Lithuanian city dwellers were. Lithuanian first and last names are all over the lists of tradesmen and the busier merchants. The phenomenon has not been properly researched, but the hints seen in the sources are tempting to say “This city was always a home for the local people”.
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The century of Russian dominance had taken its toll on the city: many of its features have become ingrained in its architecture, place-names and narrative history. The Russian regime had just as adverse effects on the city and its urban culture as the last decades of the disintegrating Great Duchy of Lithuania. The Russian officer was always higher up the chain than the city dweller – craftsman, merchant or homeowner. In the first four decades of the 19th century, when Vilnius had shaped into an all but blooming intellectual centre with the largest and greatest university of the empire, Kaunas was drudgingly trying to rise from the darkest pit of decline. While only 100 kilometres away from Vilnius, young teacher and a talented poet Adomas Mickevičius lamented his odd exile in the letters to friends. At the time, there was nothing in Kaunas that could provide comfort to a soul aching for higher quality of intellectual life.
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At the end of the 19th century, the influence of Kaunas to the Lithuanian-speaking world kept rising. However, the city itself was more and more constricted by a rather enclosed regime of the fortress and a powerful ring of forts. All of this gave birth to a strange symbiosis of modernity and conservatism. The first decades of the 20th century made the positions of Lithuanian Catholicism and youthful Lithuanian nationalism even stronger in the city. For the first time, the rivalry of Kaunas and Vilnius emerged for their role in the creation of the new Lithuania. In this context, it is noteworthy to remember the discussion of this topic in the Lithuanian press at the beginning of the century, when it turned out that some of the leaders of the national movement have set their sights on making Kaunas the most important vortex of Lithuanian life.
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Nevertheless, the history of Kaunas was the most drastically influenced by the events after World War I. The restoration of independence, followed by the conflict with Poland and the loss of Vilnius, had made Kaunas the provisional capital of Lithuania. Over the next ten to fifteen years, the city had made remarkable progress. For the first time after long Lithuanian centuries, it was Kaunas, not Vilnius, that played the critical role in the history of the entire nation. Twenty years of independence helped Kaunas to transform itself from a dirty stronghold city to a provisional capital of sophisticated architecture and active intellectual life. After the central governmental institutions had moved to Kaunas, the city quickly underwent major changes: starting with the end of the 1920s, the contours of modern Bauhaus architecture grew sharper, cosy modern urban structure was in development, new centres of culture and science arose. The most important of those were Vytautas Magnus University, State Theatre (now known as the Kaunas State Academic Drama Theatre), Vytautas the Great War Museum, M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum. No matter how briefly Kaunas was the capital of Lithuania, it still captured a historical moment and put it to use, quickly rising with the integration of industrial suburbs, marked by factory chimneys. Lithuania of the interwar period was all about Kaunas.
1939 was the year of return to Vilnius. Now we can only speculate the possible historical fate of Kaunas, had World War II not commenced. The years of Soviet occupation had halted the tendency of all-round development in the former provisional capital. Vilnius became the capital of a Soviet Republic, where gradually all of the central administrative institutions and the most important cultural and scientific formations had migrated. Vytautas Magnus University was closed. After the liquidation of the institutions of social sciences and the humanities, two major higher education schools were established in Kaunas: the Kaunas Polytechnic Institute and the Kaunas Medical Institute (now Kaunas University of Technology and Kaunas University of Medicine, respectively). As the shining cultural spirit of the past had faded, the city became, that is, was forced by the Soviet government to become, the most important centre for technocratic intellectuals.
Still, at the same time Kaunas has remained the historical symbol of the Lithuanian state, it was the city least affected by russification. Here, all the alleys and backstreets were a reminder of the freedom lost. Moreover, Kaunas was the only city still showing signs for possible continuation of urban culture. What remained of Vilnius and Klaipėda after the bombings of World War II, the Jewish holocaust and Polish repatriations? Barely a handful of long-time urban habitants who had no authority on the expansion of the Soviet socialist lifestyle. Kaunas, however, still remained a home for many of its longstanding dwellers. In spite of numerous deportations, nationalizations and persecutions, these people have succeeded to preserve the elements of urban culture in Kaunas. Kaunas was the most urban city of Lithuania. It seemed to be the feature that distinguished it from other Soviet cities. This was the image that Kaunas had lived up to even in the eyes of other nations in the Soviet Union at the time.
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Many things have changed now. Kaunas is losing its memorial role of independence, as the actual independence has been achieved. There is no need to talk about the governmental rituals in the past – they now proceed in the capital Vilnius. Kaunas is becoming a normal city with less of flashy glitter and bureaucratic arrogance. This is a city concerned with its own traditions.
*More about this topic is available on the article “Twists and Turns of Kaunas History” by prof. Egidijus Aleksandravičius in the publication “Revelations of Kaunas”, 2009 (Kaunas: VMU).
