Between Rome and Byzantium

The focus of this book is the unique socio-political and socio-cultural community of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth century. This ethnically diverse, multilingual, multi-faith, multicultural national space has had a great impact on the socio-political development of Central Europe.

Jūratė Kiaupienė was educated at the University of Vilnius, and was a senior research officer of the Institute for Lithuanian History in Vilnius and a professor of Vytautas the Great University (Kaunas). The focus of her research is the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Her publications include: “Mes Lietuva”. Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės bajorija XVI a. (viešasis ir privatus gyvenimas) (2003); The History of Lithuania before 1795 (edited, 2000); and Lietuvos istorija, vol. 4 and 5 (2009, 2013).

“Jūratė Kiaupienė, a historian known for [her] scholarship on the Baltic region and east-central Europe, has written a comprehensive and detailed history of the political development of Lithuania from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries. [Her] description and persuasive analysis are based on a wide range of primary sources and expert use of the existing literature. … The principal contribution of this learned, richly detailed treatise lies largely in its ability to show how, over the course of two centuries, disparate political elites with diverse interests, religions, and cultures built a state. … The book should stand for some time as the most thorough account of the emergence of early modern Lithuania.”

—Martin O. Heisler, University of Maryland, Hiperboreea