Suicide in pagan Lithuania

The romantic attitude towards the pagan Lithuania, shaped in the 19th century, remains tenacious up to these days. Romantic authors, such as Teodor Narbutt and Józef Ignacy Kraszewski who wrote in Polish, saw the old Lithuania as a fairy tale country with an ideal state order and virtuous inhabitants. They were confident that the Lithuanian history of the 13th and 14h century was a period of “golden times”. This kind of standpoint made an essential impact on the leading figures of the Lithuanian national resurgence in the second half of the 19th century. They employed the visions of the pagan glory to wake the nation up considering the majority of people immature for high nationalist aspirations.