In the 19th century it was written that the memory of Vytautas was alive among the Tatars, who officially commemorated him (they called him Vattad). In 1930, they built a mosque in Kaunas (the capital of Lithuania at the time) and named it after Vytautas. It enabled them to receive the support of Lithuanian authorities and complete the construction in the record time of only three years – just in time for the 500th anniversary of their patron’s death.
The origin of the Lithuanian Tatars (the same engaged in fighting with the Crimean Karaite men in the cartoon) is presented quite similarly in Tatar legends. They are also said to have been brought by Grand Duke Vytautas from Crimea. Some sources say they were prisoners of war while others call them ordinary settlers. Think about which version would bring greater honour to the Tatars, and which would be more embarrassing to them.
The stories pertaining to leading the Crimean Karaites and the Tatars are so similar that some suspect the Crimean Karaites of taking over the Tatars’ story and simply replacing the nationality of the settlers. Interestingly, no information about Vytautas has been preserved among the Crimean Karaites living in modern times in Crimea, as if they had not even recorded any of the events that became the founding myth of the Lithuanian Karaites. The absence of these facts in Crimea worries historians. If the Crimean Karaites had also transmitted the story about bringing families to Lithuania, one could assume that it had almost certainly happened. However, it may be that for those who stayed in Crimea not much had changed, and the fate of the displaced was not sufficiently important for the memory to have been passed on orally. It was the resettled Crimean Karaites who had to remake their lives in completely new surroundings, and hence the story would have originated with them. Vytautas was also remembered with appreciation by the Lithuanian Jews to whom he granted their first privilege in the Lithuanian state in 1389, giving them the same economic rights as Christians. Demanding the renewal of those rights, they always cited the legal regulations established by Vytautas (more about that in lesson 6). Finally, Vytautas is revered by Lithuanians themselves, but not as the creator of a multiethnic state who would lead and take care of various minorities, but as a mighty ruler, upholder of the country’s sovereignty and the creator of its territorial expansion. The monuments of Vytautas stand in many cities in Lithuania and Belarus, as well as in Poland.
Look at the monuments and decide which qualities of Vytautas are evident in them. –– Is it possible to recognise Vytautas from his facial features? –– What attributes of power does he have? –– What does his body language say? –– What is similar in all those monuments and what is different?
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Joanna Wojdon / Thinking about Multiethnicity