Elaboration. No history youtube channels no shows, i don't see discussions about it. Furthest people ever go is Poland, before leaping back to big nations.
I was told that it was this great place, land covering from Baltic sea to the black. Great military power and at one point one of the largest countries in Europe, no one talks about it. Union with Poland and later commonwealth, everyone calls it Poland instead of Polish Lithuanian commonwealth.
I understand that people build up their history to get people bit patriotic but i think this is one of the special places where one could ask a question like mine.
It is not exactly right that Lithuanian history did not attract attention of western historians.
One of the most prominent historian that specialise in Lithuanian history is Rowell Stephen Christopher. He wrote two excellent books about pagan Lithuania: Lithuania Ascending: A Pagan Empire within East-Central Europe, 1295-1345 and The conversion of Lithuania. From pagan barbarians to late medieval Christians. He is also a co-author of very popular A history of Lithuania. The other well-known name is Robert I. Frost, who wrote absolutely excellent book about history of Polish-Lithuanian union: The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania. The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385-1569 (it is really brilliant book, I cannot recommend it more).
Very interesting is also book of German historian Mathias Niendorf, although I doubt it is avaiable in English, called Das Großfürstentum Litauen 1569–1795. Studien zur Nationsbildung in der Frühen Neuzeit, which speaks about pre-modern nationbuilding in Grand Duchy.
Modern history of independent Lithuania was studied and popularised by American historian Alfred E. Senn, who wrote several books on this topic: The Great Powers, Lithuania and the Vilna Question 1920-1928, Lithuania Awakening or Lithuania 1940: Revolution from Above.
It is also worth to mentions The Reconstruction of Nations. Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 by Tim Snyder. There are of course several other books, especially about history of Lithuanian Jews and Holocaust, but I am not familiar with them. Lithunian history was of course extensively studied in Poland (by such academics like Łowmiański, Wisner, Ochmański or Łossowski, to name a few), but I doubt you would conisder them "western historians".
In general problem with Lithuanian history is that it quite quickly entered into close relationiship with Poland, and basically since late 14th century the history of both countries was so closely related and interwined that it is almost impossible to study exclusively history of one country as a separate subject.
The period of pagan Lithuania, although interesting and important for everything what was after, was quite short and what for historian is much worse we don't have many, especially primary sources. Medieval Lithuania emerged in 13th century, in late 14th entered into union with Poland, and first Lithuanian chronicle, famous Bychowiec Chronicle, was created in the first half of 16th century. And even Bychowiec Chronicle was focusing mainly on history Ruthenian inhabitants of GDL. Ducal chancellery was created in first half of 15th century, so we have only handful of documents made in Lithuania for earlier period. As a result historians need to base their studies on external sources, mainly Teutonic, Ruthenian or Polish, which rarely were focusing on Lithuania extensively.
To sum it up, we simply don't know a lot about history of Lithuania before the union. That's I think is the main reason why Lithuanian history is not so popular, especially on YouTube chanells, it's hard to make interesting YouTube video when you need to repeat constantly "we don't know", "we are not sure", "probably" and so on.
Hi there! You’ve asked a question along the lines of ‘why didn’t I learn about X’. We’re happy to let this question stand, but there are a variety of reasons why you may find it hard to get a good answer to this question on /r/AskHistorians.
Firstly, school curricula and how they are taught vary strongly between different countries and even even different states. Additionally, how they are taught is often influenced by teachers having to compromise on how much time they can spend on any given topic. More information on your location and level of education might be helpful to answer this question.
Secondly, we have noticed that these questions are often phrased to be about people's individual experience but what they are really about is why a certain event is more prominent in popular narratives of history than others.
Instead of asking "Why haven't I learned about event ...", consider asking "What importance do scholars assign to event ... in the context of such and such history?" The latter question is often closer to what to what people actually want to know and is more likely to get a good answer from an expert. If you intend to ask the 'What importance do scholars assign to event X' question instead, let us know and we'll remove this question.
Thank you!