Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations

History is big, messy, layered, and complicated as you might expect if you think about how big and complicated the human race can be. You may have thought those history texts you used at school were big and complicated, but historian Norman Davies’ Vanished Kingdoms will amaze you at some of the stories they skipped over. Author Davies proves just how complicated and messy with In 739 pages and 15 chapters. “Vanished Kingdoms” offers a grand tour of ancient Scotland, Burgundia, Aragon, Litva, Byzantion, Borussia, Sabauda (Italy), Galicia, Etruria (Bonaparte’s Italy), Rosenau (Saxe-Coburg), Tsernagora (aka Montenegro), Rusyn (Ruthenia), Eire, and the USSR. The list of vanished states, kingdoms included several new to me or simply not covered in my own studies. I found myself wishing more than once that he had written this book when I was at university as I would have been better informed about several modern countries and regions for which I was responsible as an American diplomat and bureaucrat! A few of his stories also crossed paths with those of my ancestors uncovered via DNA testing and genealogical research, which made those chapters especially interesting.
Written with a scholarly mindset, this is not a text of dry prose as the author enlivens even the most dust laden elements of his narrative. Norman Davies supports and illustrates his well-written narrations with 14 dynastic family trees, 74 maps, and 82 illustrations. There is no separate bibliography but he includes bibliographic information in the text and 49 pages of end notes also fulfill that role. This was actually my first book of the author’s but I enjoyed it so much and learned so much from it that I’ve already picked up another of his books looking to continue the journey. I highly recommend it to everyone interested in knowing more about what contributed to modern Europe.

I am a European history buff and once again Norman Davies has delivered. I love the sections about Burgundy, Prussia, Rosenau and Etruria. My problem is with the Litva section when he writes about the Union of Brest in 1595. Eastern Orthodox Christians respect their bishops just as much as any other hierarch so his writings shows his pro Polish bias. The reality is that the Polish rulers pressured the Ruthenian bishops to accept Papal supremacy and persecuted the dioceses which refused. In fact the persecution and interference was so severe by the Polish Catholic rulers that many Eastern Orthodox Christians preferred to be ruled by Muslims rather than their fellow Christians. Professor Davies' pro Polish and Russophobic writings in the Litva section is the reason why I gave the book four stars.

I wasn't as blown away by this as I hoped to be. I think I expected a more cohesive story of how European kingdoms, important in their day, were lost to history, because they have no successor nations today. Instead this is episodic, each chapter a disjunct story. Some of these "kingdoms" are little more than chieftains. Much is unknown and only surmised, or imagined. Far too much "what if" or "maybe it could be that" for me.

As someone who knows about the northern/eastern European region, I am aware that this book will be a big misunderstanding, but I am willing to give it a try for the sake of scholarship pureness. Norman Davies outside of his ‘western scholar’ circles is highly criticized and from what I have read about him online it seems he enjoys targeting certain areas/countries either for the sake of arrogance or mere malice and ill will.

My initial impressions on the Lithuanian section of the book and Lukashenko's photo to represent Lithuania:

The choice of Norman Davies to present Lukashenko’s photo for his chapter on Lithuania (Litva: as he decided to use the Russian language term for Lithuania) is insulting, trollish, and rather pompously arrogant on Davies’s part. Which I am sure was meant to ‘shame’ and disregard the importance of Lithuanians and the Baltic - Aesti tribes in general, since he as an expert on ‘slavonic’ studies, he will essentially write biased pieces.

I must admit it is rather ironically a correct choice but I am assuming he will draw rather a wrong conclusion. The reason his choice is ironically a correct one is because what we today call Belarus (a rather makeshift country) stands on the historic and ethnic lands of the Lithuanians (who were part of Baltic tribes earlier known as the Aesti people, and even earlier than that as Sarmatians, the groups of people who belong to this category include the Samogitians, Lithuanians, Prussians, Yotvingians, Curonians and Latgalians). What we today call modern Lithuania is indeed the historic land of Samogitia, excluding a small part of the Vilnius region.

The solely Lithuanian ethnic lands stretched from the Vilnius region onwards to Minsk and north up to Vitebsk and south through Lida onto Naugardukas and Gardinas. Which are also one of the major cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania where Lithuanian grand dukes built castles in Naugardukas, Gardinas, Lida and so forth in an effort of protect the ethnic Lithuanian lands.

This historical Lithuanian region through the years has not been able to retain its traditional character however as various political actions made this region an utter strategic curse because of its openness from all fronts. The Lithuanian region has lost its Lithuanian character; its religion and language and have been systematically Russified. This is why a new nation, ‘Belarus’ was formed; it lacked the coherent sameness with the Russians but it also was completely different from its Lithuanian roots (at least the eastern of Belarus, western Belarus up until the 20th century retained its Lithuanian roots was even a part of the newly formed Lithuanian country in 1917/1918); the Romuvian religion and Lithuanian language.

Aside from Davies choosing to use a Russian term for Lithuania, demeaning the strength and past glory of the modern descendents of Lithuanians (modern day what we call Belarusian’s) I found his need to reproach and somehow to shame the modern Lithuanian country rather amusing. His arrogant statement by the use of Lukashenko’s photo to introduce the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is rather good PR.

Modern day Belarus is a makeshift territory with no history and no historical roots in the region; they are Russified ethnic Lithuanian descendents, whom Belarusian’s themselves call ‘Litvins.’ The Litvin movement is growing rather than dying in obscurity, so time will tell if the Lithuanians will once again unite with the modern Lithuanian nation.

Commentary after reading the section on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:

Overall, it was not as bad as expected; however, there are still some major issues with this piece. Overall, I found his writing inept, deceitful, and manipulative of years, number and facts, arrogant, biased and Christian-centric, leaves out necessary information that is relevant when it comes to understanding of this region. Most things that Norman Davies writes can be completely made untrue by a simple google search. But the chances of a reader to take his commentary with a grain of salt and double check his sources and the scholarly pureness of such sources is very unlikely, so I am willing to disseminate his piece.

What probably bothered me most about this section was that Davies did not have an objective standard upon which to write the names of the people, rivers and cities. Some names, rivers and cities where in Lithuanian form, others in Russian and still others in Polish. This can cause most readers to think that the person or place spoken of is a different person or place entirely, especially since the three languages differ so much. For example, Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas, at times was mentioned as Vitautas. Lithuania’s Grand Duke Algirdas was called – Algierdas for some odd reason. Barbora Radvilaitė was made to be Barbara Radziwill, giving her a Polish identity rather her native Lithuanian one. Žygimantas-Augustas was made into Sigismund-August. The Lithuanian cities of Trakai, Kaunas, Biržai and Vilnius where often mentioned in text and in maps as Troki, Kovno, Birze and Wilno (or Vil’nya), while Polish and Latvian names where marked in correct Polish and Latvian language and spelling. It seems for Davies the Lithuanian language is non-existent!

Davies also completely ignores the negative aspects of polonization in Lithuania, as if almost embracing it as completely normal and acceptable for those ‘feisty pagans to be polonized and completely be rid of their grand history, culture an language.’

Davies paints Grand Duke Vytautas as a bandit who stalled the ‘great Lithuanian-Polish union,’ completely failing to assert that the reason Vytautas did this because he saw that that through the Lithuanian-Polish commonwealth Lithuanian would loose its autonomy. The Union of Liublin as well as the betrayal of Jogaila, by marrying Jadvyga is a huge stain in Lithuania’s history, Jogaila is seen as a huge traitor rather than a hero that Davies paints him as.

In pagan culture names where given to children that would describe the said individual, the name Jogaila is made up of two words ‘jo’ ‘gaila’ the two words when translated mean something along the lines of ‘we are sorry for him,’ in Lithuanian since a direct translation is impossible. Jogaila was not a brave soldier who expanded the borders of Lithuanian, he was rather manipulated from an early age by his mother who was fanatically religious who sough to weaken the pagan Lithuanian Grand Duchy. In fact, when Jogaila moved to Poland, Grand Duke Vytautas was the one to oversee the Grand Duchy and expand the borders to its highest extent – from the Baltic Sea to the Black sea. Vytautas sought to become king himself two times the crown was stolen by the Polish, on the final time that the Pope sent the crown to Vytautas he was already too old and died of natural causes. Thus, the Grand Duchy began its slow descent, the lands that Lithuanians and Samogitians fought for where stolen by the Polish crown through various machinations of the parliament of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was indeed ruled by Lithuanian nobility and most of the royal dukes where of Lithuanian descent rather than Polish. The polonization of the elite of the Commonwealth gave further power to the Catholic Jesuits who further usurped and sabotaged Lithuania’s history and enslaved the once grand pagan culture to mere slaves of Catholicism and a new ‘Polish culture.’ Davies seems to have no problem with this, instead he writes how the Lithuanian pagans killed Christians, yet forgetting to mention how the Teutonic Knights stole children and turned them to Catholicism through force, how the Teutonic Knights raped and stole the land, riches and its people. How the Teutonic Knights where made of rapists, murderers and anyone who was promised salvation on this ‘noble’ endeavor to kill and enslave other religions and beliefs. How the Jesuits rewrote Lithuanian history.

The ‘bad’ pagans in Davies’s view where actually one of the most multicultural and accepting nation at the time in Europe, not only its cultural value, but also its vast expanses; freedoms of religion for all, for the Lithuanians, the Samogitians, the Tartars, the Jews and the Poles. Everyone was an equal the notion of discrimination based on religion was unheard of, until of course the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.

Davies uses Polish and Belarusian sources, without realizing the ineptitude of such sources especially the Belarusian scholars who quote that Lithuania was a homeland of the Slavic tribes. As said before Belarus is a makeshift country of Lithuanians who had been Russified, to go onwards with their nationhood Belarus must have a beautiful history and to create this beautiful history, the Belarusian scholars are doing everything to erase any trace of Lithuanians in their region, in order to distinguish themselves as a separate group. This is impossible because modern day Belarus is an essential part of Lithuanian history, without Lithuania there would be no Belarus, because Belarus is Lithuania.

The map on page 247 exposes the confusion that Davies has over the region. The region marked as Samogitia and Aukštaitija (what Davies calls Aukštota), is wrongly marked because that entire region is Samogitia (Žemaitija), Aukštaitija (Aukštota) aka Lithuania actually stretched from the region that Davies marks as Litva all the way through Polotsk up to Minsk and Vitebsk. Samogitia was always a separate an entity, yet always a vassal of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Davies makes the absolute absurd statement that Alexander Nevsky got his title as a Grand duke from the Mongols, as the Grad Duke of Litva. The Mongols did not have the power to grant any titles and where thoroughly beaten by the Lithuanian and Samogitain armies, thus the reason that the great Mongol Horde had better luck in Krakow and southern Europe than in the North by the Baltic Sea.

The idea that a Slav ruled a Grand Duchy of Litva (Lithuania) is so incomprehensible that Davies himself is unable to further his own poor scholarship. Later he begins to discuss the dukes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; Mindaugas, Gediminas, Algirdas, Vytautas, Jogaila and Kęstutis who were Lithuanians, so how can a duchy that was ruled by a Slav with a title given by the Mongols later become a Duchy ruled by Lithuanians?
Davies notes that Ruthenians accepted Lithuanian pagan overlords (alluding to the ‘modest’ Baltic origins) is once again a complete contradiction, the Ruthenians of Ukraine specifically Kiev where granted the same rights to their culture and traditions and where even ruled by a Lithuanian ‘pagan’ convert who converted to orthodox Catholicism. No nation even today is that accepting of its vassals. The idea of ‘modest’ Baltic origins as Davies purports can be solved by a look at Lithuanian/Baltic hidronym’s in the are that stretch all the way from Prussia to modern day Minsk and beyond. Davies maliciously stretches history to fit his agenda and those who pay him to propagate such false history against Lithuania.

Other lies by Davies include that Gediminas was a Ruthenian, although, historically Gediminas was a staunch pagan always looking out for Lithuania’s and Samogitia’s well being. He also says that Barbora Radvilaitė was never crowned as a queen on page 270, but under the picture of Barbora Radvilaitė a bit further in the book, it says that she was crowned for six months. Davies fails to mention the battle of Durbė, where the ‘bad’ pagans beat the Teutonic Knights, where one Christian warrior noted, “the pagans where helped by their God Perkūnas (thunder), bolts of lighting where thrown.” Davies manipulates the numbers when it comes to the Battle of Grunwald, says that the majority of the army was made up of Poles…and fails to mention that most Poles ran out of the battle even before its beginning. Vytautas was the main figure thanks to whom the battle was won by the use of Samogitian guerilla tactics, unknown at that time, while Jogaila and his Polish army where looting the camps of the Germans.

The entire discourse does not include any contextual data as to ‘why’ and ‘how’ where the individuals influenced to do what they did, Davies analysis is very artificial and his usage of dubious sources and manipulation of information does not make the writing any better or any more coherent. His irresponsible mention of Tadas Kosčiuška and Adomas Mickevičius promote his poor scholarship on the subject matter, both citizens are individuals of national importance in Lithuania, Poland and Belarus, instead Davies introduces them as Polish adding more fire, because they were polonized, inept reasoning. Although, he quotes Mickevičius as saying that Lithuania is indeed his fatherland in that same text he quotes in Polish. This is the multiculturalism of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; Mickevičius was Lithuanian a descendant from an old Lithuanian nobility Rimvydai - Mickevičių family that lived in the outskirts of the same ethnographic Lithuania - Rodūnės surroundings, in the seventeenth century, moved to the region of Naugardukas (ethnically Lithuanian lands but currently belong to Belarus). To decide ones nationality upon the language spoken was unheard of before the 20th century and the rise of nationalism as a relevant political discourse. Within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania nationalism was based on family ties and the loyalty to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, thus although polonized – the individuals still considered themselves to be Lithuanians. Many foreign writers write in English, yet retain the citizenship and nationality of their country rather consider themselves British or American.

Davies misunderstanding of such small nuisances and the lack of wider knowledge of the area allows Davies to make mistakes that really make it hard for anyone to take his scholarship seriously. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was truly a cosmopolitan nation, Davies tries to hide this fact by manipulating information and using biased sources that do not tell the entire truth.

Infuriating of all, Davies portrays Pilsudski, a Polish-Fascist who occupied Vilnius, killed countless of non-Poles, and polonized others by closing non-polish schools and taking away land and political rights from Lithuanians and Russians in the region, as a hero. This book is an anti-Lithuanian propaganda machine that supports polonization politics, hardly a democracy and freedom-loving thesis. The polonization of the landed elites led to the destruction of the truly cosmopolitan, first in history nation the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The author’s inability to show the illegality of Pilsudski’s action and the damage that the occupation did to the Lithuanian nation reveals his poor scholarship.

As with many people, I like to hear my own views expressed by others and object strongly when diametrically opposed views are given. A book can be excellent in all important respects and I would not enjoy it because I disagreed with the thesis. I would not give it a bad review for that reason.

This book is excellently written, it is intelligent and it is well researched. By all of these criteria it would deserve 5 stars. Furthermore, I fell in love with the opening pages because they happened to speak to me from my own conceits and biases. In describing his early life Professor Davies could have been describing me. In describing his disillusion with nationalism as he slowly realized how transient and artificial nation states really are, he was describing exactly how I felt and still feel. Truly this man is a soul brother? Well not exactly or at least not consistently.

The early part of the book describing long lost states in the West did not disappoint me. How silly were the Visigoths to believe their precious Tolosa was a fundamental entity that defined the people who lived in that part of what is now France. How silly of them to believe their place of birth somehow made them different from people born a few miles down the road. How preposterous! Burgundia, Aragon, and heaven help us Byzantium.. why on earth should their peoples have thought that because they were born in a particular region they were somehow different from the rest of humanity. How transient was their vanity! This might upset a few nationalists but for me each word was pure joy.

Storm clouds appeared quite early with the discussion of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Although again it was transient, it was also clearly good and (here lies the problem) superior to those nasty Russian folk who were clearly "foreign" usurpers. Those same foreigners seem also to have been beastly to the Galicians, who once more fought bravely to maintain their sovereignty. Apparently, in the space of a few chapters nationalism has become a good or even a great thing. I have many Polish friends and they will no doubt be delighted at how important and vital their nationalism is. I agree we owe their long dead countrymen a great debt in their opposition to the wicked Soviets and slightly less wicked Prussians... but doesn't this go a little against the original anti-nationalist sentiment.

By the time we get to the last Chapter the Professor Davies seems to have become comfortable with his books dual perspective and is now able to happily point out the arrant nonsense of a "British" identity while at the same time pointing out the obvious existence of the completely natural and inviolable nature of Scottishness and Welshness (the former named for a people who came from what is now Ireland and the latter being a name given to a group of people purely because they were thought of as foreign).

This is why in the end I hated this book, not that the arguments are poor but because they are contradictory. Professor Davies can believe that nation states are inherently artificial (as do I) or he can believe that nationality is somehow ingrained in our DNA (I have a doctorate in genetics - trust me it is not), he cannot choose which to believe purely on the basis of which countries he likes and which he does not.

You will find everything, that you wouldn't expect to find in the decent book: numerous factual errors (which are present in all parts of book); concepts that not only contradict established gold standard of the particular narratives, but also to the author himself; dubious and unreliable sources, etc. It is hard to believe that author of this "academic" book is the same Norman Davies, who delivered to the world such comprehensive studies like Europe:History; God's Playground etc.

This book is in such poor shape, that you start asking yourself, is it truly professor rather then a first year student who wrote it. Even to non professionals, factual mistakes in the book poke the eyes. And let me stress it: not the minor or stylistic ones, but the major ones. Likewise inaccurate Independence dates for some EE countries (while surviving contemporary documents states opposite to author) are the most obvious. Author went one step forward and exposed his imaginative nature: he started inventing various fictional tribes and even place names!

"Sources" of this book deserves a separate passage. N. Davies heavy really on web pages. Let me stress: not those established and sound academic ones, data bases, but mostly web pages, which are maintained and expanded by private (!) and amateur (!) persons. Those not only are lacking academic integrity but also full of mistakes. And this is why the book is full of the same fictional concepts and factual errors. Even more, N. Davies cunningly avoids sources (including primary ones), which are in direct contradiction to his theses, making this book way below any accepted standard.

And finally, last word to the tutors: you should not recommend this book to your students, except for illustrative purposes for how books shouldn't be written.

The subject matter is extremely interesting. It seemed like the perfect book for me. I was so excited when I finally got to read it. But alas, it was so dry! The first chapter was good actually, though now I forget which country it was about.... I know it was some small one that was in current day France... Anyway, the second chapter, on Alt Clut/Strathclyde, was deadly. It was extremely dry and the long lists of names put the Bible to shame. The author is from the UK and you could tell there was a definite bias in favor of this long vanished kingdom that try as he might, just didn't seem as important as the author wanted it to be. I couldn't finish the chapter. The third chapter which I had been particularly looking forward to, was on all of the different incarnations of the Kingdom/s of Burgundy. I had no idea there had been so many! Once again, deadly. Dry to the bone with lists of names that put the previous chapter to shame. I'm surprised the word 'begat' wasn't anywhere to be found. I tried really hard to finish it, but gave up with only a couple of pages left to the chapter. I really, really, wanted to like this book and felt incredibly guilty putting it down. Because of this guilt, I spent a lot more time trying to read it than I should have. This book was not written for people like. This book was written for people who have more than a passing knowledge of such things and a more academic interest. It was too dry to be read by a non-academic who studies/ed these particular subjects. This made me so sad. The perfect book!

Creative academically sourced exploration of cultures and civilizations as they evolve. The author is amazingly well read.

i see here so many English speaking people giving one star review and reffer that history of Lithuania is spoken not right and fake,
Guys first of all proffesor is very political correct and he already proved his facts in the embasy of Lithuani.
Second of all modern lithianians got their name in the 1860s after big uprising in Poland and Belarus Litva, Russian imperialist changed name Litva and Litvins to Belarus(white russia ) and belarusians, and only a small prvince of Samagotian Zhematian was left with this name, and new so called lithuaniians started rewrite history, Mindoug and Vitaut became Mindaugas and Vitautas, as Zhemaitian form ending of last name.
Glad that Truth is overcoming German RUssian and Zhemaitian Myths , and people see Belarus and their people as only descents of GDL and original Litva. Who wants to argue with me i can give you lot of proofs and maps with documents.

I bought this book largely for Davies' chapter on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which he belittling entitles Litva: A Grand Duchy with Kings. Since the Grand Duchy predated Lithuania's joint kingdom with Poland, Davies had to find some sort of angle that fit his Slavic-centered view of Eastern Europe. After all, little Lithuania couldn't have possibly come up with a kingdom like this on its own.

Amusingly, Davies spends the first pages of this chapter telling us all about contemporary Belarus, a nation in search of its pre-Soviet history. His lone photograph is that of President-for-life Lukashenko, who has indeed done quite a job in recent years claiming the history of the region as his own, restoring monuments of the Grand Duchy era throughout Belarus. There is an animated video, Budzma belarusmi, in which everyone from Mindaugaus to Vytautas is given a distinctly Belarussian spin. Belarus has even claimed the coat of arms of Lithuania as its own. Davies tries to give justification for all this, claiming that Litva is not a Slavic construction of Lietuva, but rather the opposite and that the kingdom owes its heart and soul to this Slavic land.

Many readers will probably accept this as Norman Davies is a respected historian, but unfortunately he is absolutely wrong. Not only does Lithuanian precede Ruthenian, the language spoken in Belarus at the time of the Grand Duchy, but many of the place names come from Baltic roots, not Slavic ones. Davies does admit that the well spring of the Grand Duchy came from the North, but that its expansion was largely the result of Slavic noble families, not Lithuanian ones. There is no doubt that a convergence took place, which often does with the expansion of kingdoms, but to place so much emphasis on Belarus is to literally make yourself blind to the kingdom as a whole, as it extended all the way to the Black Sea at one point, making it the largest kingdom in Europe in the 14th century.

But, there is this tendency to work backwards from existing political states rather than look at "Vanished Kingdoms" in the context of their historic time and place. There was no Belarus back then or even Ukraine for that matter. There was instead a broad swathe of Slavic lands run by feudal noble families who sought protection from the Lithuanian Dukes, bringing these families under one banner. Ruthenian became the lingua franca, with virtually all documents penned in this Slavic language. Hence, Lietuva became Litva, only in Cyrillic letters.

I can't speak for the book as a whole, but it strikes me that Davies has a great number of biases that he finds very difficult to overcome. If he can't get the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania right I would only find myself doubting his interpretation of other vanished kingdoms. Sadly, he seems to be relying on his reputation more so than scholarship, as even in English you will find much more reliable sources than those Davies dug up to write his chapter on "A Grand Duchy with Kings."