Status report, February 2023

Happy Lithuanian Independence Day! At least the independence that hearkens back to 1918. Remember, Lithuania is the little country with two "independence days."

I apologize for not having kept up with this blog. I have not given up the SCA. Since the last entry here, I've been to a few local events and have regularly attended the Three Left Feet dance practice on Monday nights. (Three Left Feet is not, strictly speaking, an SCA dance troupe, but we share space with the ongoing Storvik fighter practices.) For the past year or so, I've been singing with Laydes Fayre, an interbaronial all-women group directed by the talented Mistress Arianna Morgan of Lochmere.

Never fear, I haven't given up on heraldry! I am the Sea Tyger Pursuivant, in charge of rounding up people to teach heraldry classes. (Of course, I totally forgot to register for the most recent University of Atlantia session a couple of weeks ago, so I couldn't take any of these classes. Ah, well...)

I haven't been doing much A&S stuff because I have been undergoing a lot of upheavals in my life, mostly related to my finances (my health is fine). Someday I will make myself some new garb, but this is not the time for that.

The "Before Times" and the "New Normal"

Despite my last post, I have not spent the past few months in sackcloth and ashes. Yes, we are still in the novel coronavirus pandemic. No, we will not have any in-person SCA events until the end of January 2021 at the earliest. However, I am plugging along.

Since I've been self-employed at home for the past decade, I am quite used to the concept of spending many hours alone at my desk. However, I "get out" quite a bit, thanks to Zoom (and the occasional Google Hangout or Facebook Live). Pretty much all my social outlets -- not just the SCA, but also my church, my professional organizations, and my Toastmasters club -- have moved online. I can "go out" in the evening and not worry about driving in the rain or catching the Metro train home.

If Virtual Atlantia had seams, it would be exploding at them. Check out the Activity Calendar for starters. Is that calendar packed or what? Not all the activities shown there are from Atlantia -- a few are from other Kingdoms. And some baronies don't always put their own activities in the Kingdom's calendar, so there are even more online goings-on than Virtual Atlantia would have you know.

Plus, so many online classes! Early in the pandemic I took several classes at an online university in the Kingdom of Atenveldt, mundanely Arizona. In our Kingdom we had two virtual University of Atlantia sessions, one in June and one in September. At the former, I taught a "Medieval Lithuania" class via Zoom -- and I had attendees from six Kingdoms! Two from as far away as Lochac (Australia)! In September I didn't teach anything, but I learned that my June effort had earned me a "Masters of SCA Studies" degree from the University. (Totally unaccredited from a mundane standpoint, but still a nice feather in my cap for all the work I've put in since 2004.)

Thanks to Zoom, I also had the chance to attend some classes at the Known World Heraldic and Scribal Symposium (KWHSS). This was only the second KWHSS I've been able to attend -- the first was the one that took place in Atlantia's Barony of Sacred Stone in 2011. For me, KWHSS involves expensive travel and hotel arrangements. This year the symposium would have been in Lochac, specifically the Barony of Stormhold, and there was no way I could have afforded that kind of trip. But thanks to the Web, I could even hear the voice of a Stormhold friend, Mistress ffride, with whom I've been corresponding for years.

Their Majesties have been recording nearly weekly messages to the Atlantian populace, and they have also started holding virtual courts to hand out actual awards. This past weekend, They traveled all the way up here to Storvik. Our barony rented a tiny live-theater space in downtown Silver Spring, and the only people permitted to attend Their Majesties and Their Excellencies in person were the herald (Duke Ragnarr) and a couple of tech-crew members. Two poignant moments took place. One was the tribute that Baron Celric and Baroness Ilania paid to the late Baron Rorik, in the presence of Rorik's faithful companion, Fred the goose.

In the other poignant moment, Their Majesties called Duke Ragnarr in front of them to present him with his long-delayed Award of Arms (AoA) scroll from way back when, before he was a Knight or a King or a Duke. Their Majesties pointed out that Ragnarr was always more concerned about other people getting their AoA scrolls than getting his own. What made this moment especially poignant was that the Royals who awarded him his Arms in 1993, Kane and Muirgen, were killed in a car accident a few years later.

These virtual courts are the only ones we're likely to see for a while still. Official SCA events in North America are banned through the end of January 2021, as the pandemic continues to rage. We didn't have Pennsic this year. Atlantia is not having War of the Wings this week.

This is the "New Normal," as opposed to the "Before Times" (I am not the only person using this terminology).

Some people don't like participating in online SCA classes and courts. I get that. I have a Toastmasters friend who spends so much time in videoconferences while working from home that she just cannot bear to sit through another 90 minutes of a club meeting in the evening. That's understandable.

I'm just glad that we Atlantians have some sort of online presence for those people who say, "Hey, I was thinking of getting involved in the SCA once the pandemic is over," or who are curious, or who are super-interested in online learning. We may even try some court video recording after the pandemic, so that people who have a hard time joining us in person because of health issues can still see what's going on. It may seem odd at first, but no more so than internet communications seemed to SCAdians of 20 or 25 years ago.

Only in Lithuania...

Some things about modern Lithuania just make me shake my head and smile. (Imagine the reaction people without any Lithuanian ancestry must have....)

For example, šaltibarščiai, or cold beet soup. I can take it in small doses, because I wasn't exposed to it while I was growing up in the USA, but real Lithuanians really, really love the stuff. In case you're wondering ... it consists of beets and dairy (buttermilk or cream), looks like Pepto-Bismol, and tastes like ... well, beets and milk. It's usually garnished with hard-boiled eggs and dill. You can find a recipe here or on many other websites.

So, imagine my jaw dropping when I stumbled upon a photo of these men's briefs on Facebook:

As George Takai might say: Ohhhh, myyyyy!! Especially note the strategic placement of the hard-boiled-egg slices. You cannot unsee that.

Even more amusing is Google Translate's English version of the product description:

Men's underwear with colds "Horseshoe". For real fanfare fans who are not afraid that the girl will want to eat them from the body. 😂

Apparently there's a whole website called Foodroobai.lt that sells a full line of men's and women's clothing made with this kind of cloth that's printed to look like an endless supply of cold beet soup. (More details on the underpants: "The underwear is made of an elastic microfiber that is pleasing to the body and absorbs moisture and prevents skin contact. Such underwear will be irreplaceable on hot summer days, workouts at the sports club or just if you tend to get more sweaty.") You can get sweatpants, leggings, T-shirts, swimwear ... all in šaltibarščiai cloth that will make you (apparently) look like a cool, delicious summer treat.

Skanaus, indeed!

Another "Restoration of Independence" Day

I've said before on this blog that Lithuania is the little country with two independence days. Today is the second -- the 29th anniversary of Lithuania's historic declaration of its independence from the Soviet Union (which ceased to exist less than two years later anyway).

Recently I read an online essay about what the Lithuanian revolution/restoration of March 1990 was really like. Heady days indeed -- and sharing the experience on television must have seemed extraordinarily amazing to viewers who were accustomed to nothing but Soviet TV.

I want to write an update-type post on my SCA activities, but that will have to wait until I finish my current crop of articles-for-pay.

Valio!

As I've said before on this blog, Lithuania is the little country with two independence days. Well, today is the first of those two holidays, and it's a big one: One hundred years ago today, the Republic of Lithuania got its independence back!

If you remember your Lithuanian history ... Lithuania was the biggest country in Europe circa 1400, but during the 1700s the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was carved up, with Russia ruling the land during the 19th century, to the point where Lithuanian cultural expression was driven underground, to the point where book smugglers helped to keep the language alive.

My grandfather came to America as a young man in 1911 to escape being forced into the Russian army. Seven years later, Lithuania regained its independence, so young men no longer had to worry about the Russian army. By then, though, my grandfather had married my grandmother and they had a baby boy (my father), so they just stayed in Massachusetts for the rest of their lives.

I'm very happy that Lithuania is celebrating its statehood today and I plan to join my friends at the Baltimore Lithuanian Hall in celebration. Valio!

Happy 25th Anniversary, Lithuania!

I often tell people that Lithuania is "the little country with two Independence Days." Well, there's a good reason for that.

Twenty-five years ago today, Lithuania became the first of the so-called Soviet Socialist Republics to declare itself free of the Soviet Union. This was a huge deal. It came only about four months after the Berlin Wall had fallen. During those heady weeks, new ideas swept through Eastern Europe, but the big cheese, the USSR, managed to stay intact. Suddenly, a giant ax smashed through the foundation of the central Soviet nation itself.

Vytautas Landsbergis, a music professor with the same first name as one of Lithuania's great historic figures, was the leader of the Supreme Council of Lithuania when it passed the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, and his signature is right there at the top where Soviet authorities wouldn't miss it. (That says "re-establishment" because Lithuania was an independent nation between 1918 and 1940, and, of course, the Lithuanian nation goes back many more centuries than that.)

In May 2011, as I noted on this blog, I got a chance to meet Dr. Landsbergis in person and shake his hand at the Baltimore Lithuanian Festival. I'm still thrilled that I was able to meet him once. After all, how many people on this Earth can say that they broke an evil empire?

Happy Rebirth-Day, Lithuania!

(And, yes, I'll post again soon so that I can describe my recent adventures in the SCA.)

Links and more links!

Recently I have been exchanging Facebook messages about medieval Baltic topics with a couple of my Slavic Interest Group (SIG) friends, Mistress ffride (Kingdom of Lochac) and Lady Magdalena (Kingdom of Aethelmearc). As a result, I have lots and lots of browser tabs open. Before my computer's memory gets tied up in knots, I really ought to save those links somewhere and close those tabs. What better place to save such links than right here?

Without further ado:

Link that mentions the Gediminas Sceptre in the context of Baltic cosmology. I really wish this page provided some sources.

Academia.edu page for a Lithuanian graduate student in archaeology. Her name is Augustina Kuriliene.

A Vilnius museum's exhibit on Grand Duke Alexander.

History of the palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania.

Some tiles from a cathedral (in Lithuanian). One of those medieval tiles shows a woman wearing what may be a very tall, flat-topped hat. In another tile, two rabbits seem to be consulting a recipe book while cooking a stew. In a third tile, two rabbits appear to be roasting a human chef over a spit. (Revenge of the bunnies!!)

PDF of a 2003 article on Lithuanian archaeology by Daiva Steponaviciene.

Website of some Lithuanian group called Vita Antiqua (I believe Daiva S. is involved with it).

This page seems to list all the commemorations of Lithuanian historical events that will take place in 2015.

Evidence of Lithuanian platform shoes. (Somebody wanted to look taller!)

Another 16th-century tile, this one showing rabbits fending off the hounds. (Somebody really, really liked bunnies!)

Finally, here are a few links that are not specific to the Baltic and Slavic regions but that I find interesting anyway:

The Tudor Tailor website is a companion to the series of books on 16th-century clothing.

Free, downloadable monographs on various topics pertaining to English archaeology.

A Web page on inkle weaving.

Beautiful clothing that one of my friends made for the Baron and Baroness of Dun Carraig (a nearby SCA branch).

And, finally, did you know that there's an authentic butterbeer recipe from the Tudor era? Now you can combine your SCA brewing with your Harry Potter fandom! :-)

As far as the rest of my SCA life goes, well, things are always quieter this time of year. Earlier this fall I skipped a couple of SCA events that I really would have liked to attend because of cash-flow issues. At least I had great fun participating in a "medieval maker faire" demo that Storvik was invited to organize as part of the University of Maryland at College Park's celebration of the 60th anniversary of the publication of Lord of the Rings. This fall Storvik has been welcoming a number of newcomers, both from the university and the region at large. And our barony is planning a performing-arts event in January 2015. And I'm still knitting socks for Lady Sonya's sock classes. So things are quiet but good.

My excuse this time...

OK, here is what happened between this blog post and the last one. (Some of it, anyway.)

The second weekend in May was the annual Lithuanian Festival in Catonsville, Maryland, but it was also full of other demands on my time. My dance group was supposed to perform at the Maryland Faerie Festival, quite a bit north of Catonsville, and a couple of friends of mine were moving their stuff from one apartment to another in Hyattsville, near Maryland's border with the District of Columbia. As things worked out, the dance group agreed to perform on Sunday, so I figured that I could go to the Lithuanian Festival on Saturday -- getting out the door earlier than I normally do -- and then see if my friends needed any help when I got back.

As always, I had a great time at the Lithuanian Festival. Someone had brought in his collection of Lithuanian beer cans, and I was amused to see that some of the brands were named in honor of the great victory at the Battle of Zalgiris:

I really enjoyed the tasty potato pancakes fried up as a fundraiser for Malunas, the Baltimore-based Lithuanian dance group.

And finally this year someone was actually doing a marguciai demonstration and selling basic egg-decorating supplies:

When I got home, I called my friends, whom I met in the SCA as Pedro and Devora, and asked them if they still needed help. Pedro answered the phone and said that they were all done moving stuff for the day, but he thanked me for my offer of help just the same.

It was the last time I ever spoke to him.

The following Thursday, Pedro had a massive hemorrhagic stroke. He had brain surgery to try to relieve the pressure on his brain, but to no avail. He passed away on Memorial Day at the age of 42.

I had met Pedro and Devora at my very first SCA event. Later he became my heraldry teacher; I looked up to him as if I was his protege, even though he never became a Pelican (he was the protege of Master Herveus, one of the SCA's top heralds). Still later, as his interests shifted toward his old love of amateur astronomy, he joined my science-writing group and we were once both on the same "trivia night" winning team -- our intellectual strengths and weaknesses complemented each other brilliantly (I didn't know which vegetable symbolized Wales; he didn't know which rock group had Paul Hewson for a lead singer).

Losing Pedro, and knowing that Devora had lost the love of her life, was like a giant punch to the gut in an otherwise good time of my life: I had been working a temporary job at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and cranking out freelance articles on the side. The loss has been hanging over me ever since, whether I'm practicing my heraldry, looking up at the night sky, or catching one of Devora's Facebook posts.

I didn't go to Pennsic War this year, not because of a lack of money, but by a time squeeze -- since Pennsic started earlier than usual, it overlapped the "crunch time" at the end of my Smithsonian contract. I missed Pennsic terribly, of course, but as we say in the SCA, real life always comes first.

So, now that the weather is getting cooler again, I'm trying to get back into the groove. Storvik has a new Baron and Baroness who have a lot of ideas for things to do. The Kingdom of Atlantia's Twelfth Night will take place in Storvik next January, which also happens to be the 10th anniversary of my first-ever SCA event. Anniversaries tend to make me pause and take stock of where I've been and, more importantly, where I still want to go. I may make some posts on this topic in the near future.

In the meantime, I know where I'm going this weekend: to the next Slavic University, again in the Kingdom of Aethelmearc. Woo-hoo!

Finally, congratulations to Lithuania for its election to one of the non-permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. And for the second half of 2013, Lithuania holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union. Lithuania is truly coming of age as a 21st-century nation!

Long time no post (AGAIN)

Wow ... yeah ... it HAS been a long time.

Now, I certainly haven't abandoned the SCA. I've been to a number of events and have continued to serve my Barony as a herald. But I've been focusing, by necessity, on trying to find gainful employment.

Still, I was happy to see that Wikipedia featured the article on the history of Lithuania from 1219 to 1295 in honor of today's independence/statehood day in Lithuania. Technically, today's holiday has nothing to do with the 13th century -- it's the "Day of Re-establishment of the State of Lithuania" dating from 1918. Modern Lithuania has two other statehood holidays -- the "Day of Restitution of Independence of Lithuania" on March 11 (commemorating its departure from the Soviet Union in 1990) and "Statehood Day" on July 6 (the anniversary of the crowning of Mindaugas in 1253, which actually did happen in the 13th century).

I still haven't given up my thought of teaching a class focusing on Lithuanian women (or, more broadly, Baltic women). It's just that, right now, economic survival comes first.

Happy Lithuanian Independence Day!

Remember, Lithuania is the country that has two "independence days": one in February to commemorate its 1918 independence from Russia and one in March to celebrate its 1990 break with the Soviet Union. So tonight I actually had some pierogies for dinner. Not the world's best pierogies, but still tasty.

And once again, to my dear readers, my apologies for not writing in this blog for so long. (By now, you're tired of reading THAT, right?) I actually did compile a list of A&S activities to write about ... and then I misplaced the list. Why, yes, I am disorganized.

I've been busy, but a friend and I planned to make this weekend (the one that's just ending) into a "project weekend." He has been wanting to make himself a steampunk costume, and I have been wanting to finish a light-blue linen tunic dress that I started last July (before my automotive transmission disaster).

Specifically, my friend wants to make a double-breasted vest from a commercial pattern, and in the past he's worked off of muslin patterns, not the printed-paper ones. So I transferred the pattern to muslin and added in the seam allowances, which aren't printed on these newfangled multi-size costume patterns. I also added a bit of length on the bottom because he's a tall guy. He was happy with how the muslin mockup fit him, so this afternoon he ironed his real fabric and cut out the pieces from the "real" fabric.

Then I dug out the pieces for the light-blue dress and sewed some of it before the threads jammed up near the bobbin of my machine. I think my friend and I can fix it, but we'll take another look at it in the daylight tomorrow. But then I have to get back to "real" work....

A brief encounter with a leader of the Rebel Alliance...

Why, yes, the title of this entry does sound more like Star Wars than medieval Lithuania. But, seriously, it's not every day you get your photo taken with someone who helped bring down an Evil Empire!

Let me explain. On May 22 I went to the Lithuanian Festival with a couple of friends, one who had gone there with me before and one who hadn't. (I like to go every year, but last year a business trip got in the way.) Of course I wanted to show my newcomer friend all around the various booths selling crafts and food. After a lunch of cepelinai and a chance to watch the dance group Malunas, I took him into the side room to look at the military and historical exhibits.

In that side room, I noticed an older gentleman with slightly hunched soldiers, a light-colored jacket and a boutonniere in the Lithuanian flag colors. The members of the Lithuanian post of the American Legion were pointing out various exhibits to him and having their picture taken with him. Chatter flew back and forth in a mixture of English and Lithuanian.

My friend nudged me. "That's Vytautas Landsbergis!" he whispered excitedly. "You should introduce yourself."

True enough -- if I didn't do it right then and there, I knew I'd regret it, maybe not right away but soon, and for the rest of my life. (Channeling Casablanca there, I know.) After briefly wishing that I'd made a better clothing choice than a T-shirt and shorts, I walked up to him and (with the hope that I was pronouncing my surname in the correct Lithuanian fashion), introduced myself with my real name: Patricia Daukantas.

He shook my hand and replied, "Ah, you have a famous name!"

I nodded and explained that my grandparents came from Lithuania but died before I was born. Then I said "it's an honor to meet you!" and asked if someone could take our photo together. He agreed, and here's the result.

So that was my brush with real-life greatness! I had no idea that this festival in Maryland would attract a former head of state of the home country -- an important figure in Lithuanian history at that.

So, what's next?

Wow, once again it has been a long, long time since I have updated this blog. Mostly I have been plugging away on my freelance career, my SCA heraldic endeavors, and my SCA musical endeavors. I even started a professional blog. But every once in a while I think about the "bigger picture," so here goes.

In one of my favorite TV series ever, The West Wing, President Bartlet frequently ended discussion of an issue by saying, "What's next?"

This phrase comes up for me every time I think ahead to what I want to accomplish in the SCA. And by "what I want to accomplish," I mean my Lithuanian studies. Yes, I do have other responsibilities to my barony and Kingdom, and those tasks will get done because they are part of being an all-volunteer group. For instance, at the most recent baronial business meeting, I took notes and then typed up the minutes and sent them to the seneschal, because our regular chronicler was out of town for the weekend.

For me, my Lithuanian studies are the "special sauce" on top of all the other cool things I do in the SCA. But the "special sauce" won't happen if I don't procure the ingredients and mix them together in a way that makes sense.

I've taught classes about Lithuania and I've been recognized by Their Majesties, but still, I can't help feeling that I've only barely scratched the surface. There are still so many "persona questions" (from lists like this and this) that I cannot answer yet. Thanks to the Web, I see photos of Lithuanian reenactors such as the members of Pajauta, but I don't have firm documentation for what they're wearing, and I'm not sure that documentation exists (Lithuanian medieval graves contain metal artifacts, but no fabric -- and they didn't document their lives with paintings the way western Europeans did). A few books out there may provide some answers, in either English or Lithuanian, but they're not generally available outside a few academic libraries and/or the Library of Congress. (Yes, I do live in the general metro area of the Library of Congress, but I'm not very good at finding the time to visit the place.)

Once I define what I'm looking for, and then I find it, then what do I do with the information? In the short term, I know that I missed the deadline for getting classes listed in the "Pennsic book" for Pennsic XL, coming this August. I still really, really want to go to Pennsic, but I may be able to attend for only a few days, perhaps an extended weekend. (Now that I don't have a steady job, I have time but no money; if I land a full-time job, I will have money but absolutely no vacation time.) I think it's better for my sanity to avoid teaching if I'm just going to be there for a couple of days (with a third day for setting up and a fourth day for packing out).

Perhaps the thing I need to jump-start my Lithuanian research efforts is to write up a short generalist article for something like Tournaments Illuminated, the SCA's quarterly magazine. Maybe I could give it a clever title, like "Seven Reasons to Consider a Lithuanian Persona" or "Ten Things You Didn't Know About Medieval Lithuania." Would anyone even be interested in reading such an article?

I also can't help feeling that I need to specialize in "an art" that has something to do with my persona: tablet weaving, naalbinding, clothes-making, amber-carving, music-making, etc. I tend to dabble in a lot of different things and specialize in none of them. Not quite sure what to do about that.

Sometimes I think I should be apprenticed to a Laurel who would guide me in the "how to do what I want to do" part of the SCA. Again, I know a lot of Laurels, but no one individual close enough to apprentice to. Maybe someday....

Companion of the Coral Branch

I have been meaning to post about this for a while ... but at the Bright Hills Baronial Investiture on February 12, Their Royal Majesties of Atlantia saw fit to make me a Companion of the Coral Branch for "divers Lithuanian Studies," according to the court report. You can read my account of the event and presentation here.

Needless to say, I was very excited! Not just because it is an honor to join the Order of the Coral Branch, but also because I am glad that medieval Lithuania is being recognized as a fit subject of study within our Society.

Of course, I would have to have an "attack of life" immediately thereafter ... between the flu, the car repairs and my freelance-for-pay deadline, things got interesting. Fortunately, I got past all three of these hurdles; I'm just now waiting on the final word count for the big feature article so I can send in a nice fat invoice.

My next project for the SCA really isn't about Lithuania at all, though. I have signed up to teach a University of Atlantia class on "Your First SCA War." I thought it would be helpful to newcomers to talk about things that aren't on any packing list or FAQ list for big events like Pennsic -- for instance, how do you find a group to camp with and how do you shower?

Defenders of Freedom Day - Laisvės gynėjų diena

OK, I didn't get to posting this last week because of other stuff going on in my life, but better late than never. January 13 of this year was the 20th anniversary of an important event in the emerging modern-day Republic of Lithuania.

Yes, Lithuania had declared itself independent of the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990, but of course Moscow didn't recognize that and indeed tried to impose an economic blockade on its wayward "Soviet Socialist Republic." Figuring that they who own the communications media control the message, the Soviets tried to take over the Vilnius TV tower, only to meet with mass opposition. The troops killed 13 unarmed civilians (sometimes given as 14; one more died of a heart attack), the news of the massacre got out to the world anyway, the Soviet troops had to retreat, and subsequently Lithuanians voted hugely for independence in a referendum on February 9.

Iceland's recognition of Lithuania's independence was already five days old at the time of the vote. On September 17, 1991, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia joined the United Nations in their own right. The Soviet Union was crumbling.

Grunwald reenactment videos

Greetings to all! Happy New Year!

The following is a post I started way back in September 2010 and saved as a draft. I am finally getting around to finishing it.

Happily (i.e., through Facebook) I stumbled across a fabulous post at Medievalists.net: a set of videos showing this year's commemorations of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald. Woo-hoo! Of course, being there in person would have been the best thing of all, but I guess this is the next best thing.

The first video is a short one (less than two minutes) and seems to be a random montage of scenes from the commemoration ceremony. (In all these videos, the blonde woman with the white jacket and black pants is Dalia Grybauskaitė, the current president of Lithuania.

The second video comes from the Lithuanian news broadcast "Panorama," which is shown regularly on TheLithuanians.com. Granted, the only words I can understand from the audio track are "Labas vakaras" ("Good evening"), "Grunwald," and "Zalgiris." But the Panorama camera people got some good shots of jousters on horseback and, about halfway through, an interview with a female living-history reenactor whom I'm quite sure I've seen in still photos of Kernavė. You can also see President Grybauskaitė reviewing the medieval troops. The last couple of minutes of this video are devoted to some sort of concert related to Grunwald. I wish I knew more about the performers and the musical pieces.

The third video is a montage of scenes from the day's proceedings without any kind of voice-over commentary. You can see some of the speechifying and jousting and wreath-laying, and you can see President G. and her entourage enter the living-history encampment. She even takes a bit of meat off a two-tined fork and eats it.

The fourth video is of a concert, "Banderia 1410," held at Malbork on July 15 (that's what "15 Lipca" means). The garishly lit stage with its LED backdrop is definitely not medieval, but the music is stirring. At least some of the musicians (not all) are playing plausibly period instruments, including a portative organ.

The fifth and final video is a short news clip from a Polish website. As far as I can tell, the guy in the video is talking about a complex sculpture depicting the battle in 3D, but whether he's the sculptor or just an art critic, I can't tell.

Anyhow, I hope you all enjoy watching these scenes!

Apologies for my long hiatus

The subject line says it all. For the last few months I have been quite wrapped up in personal issues -- specifically, transitioning from being a full-time worker bee to a home-based freelance writer who is still open to the idea of another full-time job with benefits, if such things can possibly be had in the new global economy.

Of course, I haven't completely abandoned the SCA. In September I was head troll/gatekeeper for the Storvik Baronial Birthday and Investiture, during which we welcomed our new Baron and Baroness, William and Sorcha. The following week I went to the East Kingdom Metalsmiths' Symposium, which was not in the East Kingdom this time around, but in Atlantia's Barony of Stierbach. Not only did I take an interesting class on learning how to distinguish Viking wire-woven (trichinopoly) chains from those made by the loop-in-loop method, I made my first-ever glass beads and forged an iron S-hook. Bead-making is highly addictive, because you get results in roughly five minutes from start to finish. And though I was tired and achy after all that iron-pounding, I felt truly amazed to pick up a hard S-hook that, only an hour previously, I had been twisting as if it were made of Sculpy.


In the meantime, if you want a fix of Lithuanian goodness, I commend you to the Loose Threads blog, where you can read a review of the Lithuanian costume calendar I've been drooling over. Gotta watch my pennies, though....

SIX HUNDRED years ago today...

As I said to a co-worker this morning, "How cool is it that we know that something big happened exactly 600 years ago today?" (OK, I'm ignoring differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars here.)

I'm looking for online news of the commemorations. I hesitate to say "celebrations" today because, although the victory at Grunwald/Zalgiris was A Big Deal for Poland and Lithuania, an awful lot of human beings lost their lives that day. I grew up in a community of 20,000 people, so if you estimate the total toll of that battle at 12,000 to 13,000, then it's almost like two-thirds of my hometown vanishing in a single day. That's a lot of blood.

But back to the news....

PressEurop.eu calls Grunwald "the battle that changed Central Europe." Belarus Digest claims that most of the Lithuanian units at the battle were from lands that are now part of Belarus and that the Belarusian president was not invited to the official commemoration "for obvious reasons." (Jealous much?) Expatica.com takes a look at the reenactors.

For a more Lithuanian perspective on the anniversary, check out this article (in Lithuanian) and especially the miniature version of the battle created by a Vilnius museum. An English-language article appears here. (It's a bit difficult to search Google News for "Zalgiris" because the name is so big in basketball.)

Since the New York Times did such a detailed writeup of the 500th-anniversary commemoration of Grunwald, I was a bit miffed that the publication did not mention it on its "On This Day" page today. After all the things that happened in the last 90 years of the 20th century, one could argue that it's even more important today to remember Grunwald than it was in 1910.

Finally, thanks to Wikipedia (which *did* mention Grunwald on ITS "on this date" page), I finally found the official website for the 600th anniversary. It's offered in six languages -- including Belarusian. (Ha!) Some of the historical articles contain interesting ideas, which I must study in preparation for my Pennsic classes.

The Grunwald/Zalgiris anniversary nears...

Woo-hoo, it's almost that time! Here's a roundup of stuff I've found just through a quick search on Google News.

First off, Reuters has a short feature on an armorer, Tomasz Samula, who is racing to finish outfitting the knights in all their shiny accoutrements. The gentleman who will portray King Jagiello predicts that 6,000 people will be in the military camp and 2,200 will take part in the battle reenactment. (Another report, however, places the expected number of fighters at 1,500.) Reuters has also sent out a short historical blurb for those people whose first reaction is "Grun-what?"

Suite101.com reports that Lithuanian's pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo is the host of recreated Grunwald/Zalgiris battles today through July 20. The pavilion has had more than 1 million visitors so far this year.

Meanwhile, the leaders of Minsk don't want their youths to celebrate the 600th anniversary of Grunwald with a pillow fight, the way they celebrated the 599th. (Today's capital of Belarus was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the time of Zalgiris.)

Tomorrow, the president of Lithuania will join the president-elect of Poland in laying a wreath on the grave of the real Jagiello in Krakow.

Also, the modern-day director of Wawel Castle discusses how this year's anniversary compares to the 500th anniversary in 1910 and how Grunwald resonates through other aspects of Polish history. Another part of this interview -- less related directly to Grunwald, but still interesting -- is here.

Early-summer update

Whew, it's mighty hot and humid here in the USA's capital city, and I'm thinking Pennsic -- what about you?

Currently I'm reading a book called The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence by Anatol Lieven. It was originally published right after the events of 1990-1991, so it's actually got a bit of a dated feel to it -- it would be interesting to read whether the author's initial hunches were borne out over time. I suspect that Algirdas Brazauskas, the first post-Soviet president of Lithuania, plays a pretty big role in this book -- I just learned from Wikipedia that he died a couple of days ago. (You'd never know that from the American media.)

Although most of the history outlined in Lieven's book is way past the SCA's time period, the author keeps placing the more recent events in the context of the cultural history (both real and imagined) of each of the three Baltic nations. Personally, I'm glad to know about this, if only to answer the question of "why do we care at all about Lithuania?"

In other post-SCA-period news, Wikipedia tells us that today is the anniversary of the Battle of Berestechko, which seems to have primarily involved folks from present-day Poland and Ukraine, even though it took place during the era of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

My Pennsic 39 teaching schedule

I've known this for a few weeks now, but due to a very hectic month of May, I haven't gotten around to posting it until now.

I will be teaching "Smackdown of the Teutonic Knights: The 600th Anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald" on Saturday, August 7, at 3 p.m. in AS 6 and on Wednesday, August 11, at 4 p.m., also in AS 6.

I will be teaching "Survey of Medieval Lithuania" on Sunday, August 8, at 5 p.m. in AS 11.

To my students and "fans": Mark your calendars now!

To myself: O.K., time to ramp up the research in earnest....

{Edited on May 26 to correct the date of the first session of the Grunwald class.}