Ikonoklastinė polemika LDK. Vieno veikalo istorijos pinklės | Iconoclastic Controversy in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Tangled Story of One Work

Abstract

The article presents some introductory notes on research into the iconoclastic controversy in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and suggests reasons for their relevance. Writings from the early and mid-16th century which show traces of iconoclastic thought are presented. In his poem De vita et gestis Divi Hyacinthi carmen (1525), Mykolas Husovianas introduces the reader to the growing ‘Lutheran heresy’ in Western Europe, which also had an iconoclastic aspect. In the treatise by Mykolas Lietuvis De moribus Tartarorum, Lituanorum et Moscorum fragmina X, multipli historia referta (written in 1550, and printed in 1615), we can perceive not a conscious iconoclastic stance but rather a humanist criticism.A more conscious attempt to criticise the visuality of faith was made by Mikalojus Radvila Juodasis. His long letter to the papal nuncio Aloisio Lippomano (Duae epistolae, 1556) explains his intentions to form a separate Vilnius church, which would also have iconoclastic traits.The article also reviews the historiographically, but only separately, described facts about the most important work of iconoclastic polemics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Andrius Volanas’ Idololatriae Loiolitarum Vilnensium oppugnatio, which was printed in 1583. The author highlights a lot of questions posed by the work, the solutions to which might allow us to judge the extent of iconoclastic thought and the importance of religious imagery in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. By connecting the facts to a coherent narrative, the article identifies ‘blank spots’ in history, and suggests areas for further research.