Awards

• Winner of Winner of the 2013 Przegląd Wschodni Award, the 20.

Overview

In the mid-seventeenth century, Wilno (Vilnius), the second capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was home to Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Ruthenians, Jews, and Tatars, who worshiped in Catholic, Uniate, Orthodox, Calvinist, and Lutheran churches, one synagogue, and one mosque. Visitors regularly commented on the relatively peaceful coexistence of this bewildering array of peoples, languages, and faiths. In Kith, Kin, and Neighbors, David Frick shows how Wilno's inhabitants navigated and negotiated these differences in their public and private lives. This remarkable book opens with a walk through the streets of Wilno, offering a look over the royal quartermaster's shoulder as he made his survey of the city's intramural houses in preparation for King Wladyslaw IV's visit in 1636. These surveys (Lustrations) provide concise descriptions of each house within the city walls that, in concert with court and church records, enable Frick to accurately discern Wilno's neighborhoods and human networks, ascertain the extent to which such networks were bounded confessionally and culturally, determine when citizens crossed these boundaries, and conclude which kinds of cross-confessional constellations were more likely than others. These maps provide the backdrops against which the dramas of Wilno lives played out: birth, baptism, education, marriage, separation or divorce, guild membership, poor relief, and death and funeral practices. Perhaps the most complete reconstruction ever written of life in an early modern European city, Kith, Kin, and Neighbors sets a new standard for urban history and for work on the religious and communal life of Eastern Europe.

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Reviews

David Frick has produced a book that is destined to become a classic. Kith, Kin, and Neighbors constitutes a model of masterful research technique, analysis, and writing. An essential study for scholars of Eastern Europe and early modern society, it deserves an audience far beyond those confines. -American Historical Review The book is studded with amusing anecdotes and memorable passages ... This is a multilayered 'thick description' of innumerable archival documents, not an attempt to make sweeping generalizations or provide an overview of religious history is the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Cornell University Press also deserves praise for producing this long, complex, and fascinating book on a topic that would probably not appear to be at the height of present scholarly fashions. For anyone interested in Slavic linguistics, Polish-Lithuanian history in the modern period, or urban history in east central Europe, Kith, Kin, and Neighbors is a must-read, while the rich material and lively writing will captivate historians, linguists, and Slavists of any period. -Theodore R. Weeks, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Slavic Review (2014) This remarkable volume spreads before the reader one of the most detailed pictures of social, cultural, and religious life in an early modern European town that I have ever seen. Since the town in question is Wilno (called Vilnius by Lithuanians and Vilna by Russians and Jews), capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which was one of the constituent parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the picture is a complex one. It combines in a fascinating blend much that is familiar from other parts of Europe with the features specific to Eastern Europe...The book's great success is in capturing the immediacy of Wilno's multiconfessionality through the intensive use of personal stories. The reader can thus get to know at least some of seventeenth-century Wilno's population by name, to recognize the prominent families, and often to see the same people in action in a range of different settings. The author's close attention to the source material also permits him to examine the full range of social structures and relations that made up early modern urban life without ignoring the frictions and tensions they inevitably caused. This is social history at its best[.] -Adam Teller,The Journal of Modern History(June 2015) Frick's work is an inspiration and a treasury of information to any scholar dealing with almost any aspect of early-modern European history. It is exuberant in detail, yet not overburdened; such a book could have been written very differently. Frick leads the reader by the hand through the streets of a city throbbing with life, echoing to the sounds of bells from different churches and an almost Pentecostal variety of Vilnian voices. The book is an exciting time-travel guide besides its scholarly excellence. -Maria Takala-Roszczenko, The Catholic Historical Review (Summer 2015) Kith, Kin, and Neighbors is a richly detailed portrait of the city of Wilno/Vilnius, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the seventeenth century. It is based on an impressive array of sources, in particular the local castle court books and a unique document drawn up in 1636 by the royal quartermaster, which provides a detailed topographical map of the city. David Frick looks at the major themes of human life: marriage and courtship, birth and baptism, divorce, education, work, and death. The stories of individual Wilnans give the book its power: we meet the same individuals across thematic chapters, in different stages of their lives and in different contexts. -Robert Frost, University of Aberdeen, author of After the Deluge: Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War Kith, Kin, and Neighbors is extraordinary; there is nothing quite like it in the historiography of Eastern Europe. This is perhaps the most complete, most detailed, most vivid, most altogether successful reconstruction of the life of an early modern city that I have ever encountered. David Frick has meticulously and brilliantly re-created seventeenth-century Vilnius almost house by house, neighbor by neighbor, so we can see with astonishing clarity the dynamics of society, sociability, and family in the urban context. -Larry Wolff, New York University, author of Inventing Eastern Europe This extraordinary book reconstructs the crisscrossing loyalties, affiliations, sodalities, and conflicts between and among segments of the population of early modern Wilno, home to five forms of Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Uniate), as well as to Jews and Muslims. David Frick poses fundamental questions about the possibilities and limits of tolerance and toleration in a multiethnic, multiconfessional city. The neighborhood interactions, the dynamics of movement through the city, the interplay of calendars, commerce, and culinary practices coalesce, in Frick's nuanced treatment, to create a vision of a city culture that tolerated multiplicity without articulating a sense of tolerance, and that was bound by personal, professional, and spatial ties across confessions while, at the same time, manifesting a range of frictions both across and within confessional groupings. Without in any way romanticizing the situation, Frick explores the communities of interest and the 'communities of litigation,' as well as the 'communities of violence' that functioned in early modern Wilno. One of the most exciting aspects of this book is Frick's willingness to carry the reader along on his journey of exploration and discovery. This is a book where the intellectual process is on view at its most appealing and engaging. Kith, Kin, and Neighbors is nothing less than a masterpiece. -Valerie A. Kivelson, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History, University of Michigan, author of Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia

David Frick has produced a book that is destined to become a classic. Kith, Kin, and Neighbors constitutes a model of masterful research technique, analysis, and writing. An essential study for scholars of Eastern Europe and early modern society, it deserves an audience far beyond those confines. -American Historical Review Kith, Kin, and Neighbors is a richly detailed portrait of the city of Wilno/Vilnius, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the seventeenth century. It is based on an impressive array of sources, in particular the local castle court books and a unique document drawn up in 1636 by the royal quartermaster, which provides a detailed topographical map of the city. David Frick looks at the major themes of human life: marriage and courtship, birth and baptism, divorce, education, work, and death. The stories of individual Wilnans give the book its power: we meet the same individuals across thematic chapters, in different stages of their lives and in different contexts. -Robert Frost, University of Aberdeen, author of After the Deluge: Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War Kith, Kin, and Neighbors is extraordinary; there is nothing quite like it in the historiography of Eastern Europe. This is perhaps the most complete, most detailed, most vivid, most altogether successful reconstruction of the life of an early modern city that I have ever encountered. David Frick has meticulously and brilliantly re-created seventeenth-century Vilnius almost house by house, neighbor by neighbor, so we can see with astonishing clarity the dynamics of society, sociability, and family in the urban context. -Larry Wolff, New York University, author of Inventing Eastern Europe This extraordinary book reconstructs the crisscrossing loyalties, affiliations, sodalities, and conflicts between and among segments of the population of early modern Wilno, home to five forms of Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Uniate), as well as to Jews and Muslims. David Frick poses fundamental questions about the possibilities and limits of tolerance and toleration in a multiethnic, multiconfessional city. The neighborhood interactions, the dynamics of movement through the city, the interplay of calendars, commerce, and culinary practices coalesce, in Frick's nuanced treatment, to create a vision of a city culture that tolerated multiplicity without articulating a sense of tolerance, and that was bound by personal, professional, and spatial ties across confessions while, at the same time, manifesting a range of frictions both across and within confessional groupings. Without in any way romanticizing the situation, Frick explores the communities of interest and the 'communities of litigation,' as well as the 'communities of violence' that functioned in early modern Wilno. One of the most exciting aspects of this book is Frick's willingness to carry the reader along on his journey of exploration and discovery. This is a book where the intellectual process is on view at its most appealing and engaging. Kith, Kin, and Neighbors is nothing less than a masterpiece. -Valerie A. Kivelson, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History, University of Michigan, author of Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia

Kith, Kin, and Neighbors is a richly detailed portrait of the city of Wilno/Vilnius, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the seventeenth century. It is based on an impressive array of sources, in particular the local castle court books and a unique document drawn up in 1636 by the royal quartermaster, which provides a detailed topographical map of the city. David Frick looks at the major themes of human life: marriage and courtship, birth and baptism, divorce, education, work, and death. The stories of individual Wilnans give the book its power: we meet the same individuals across thematic chapters, in different stages of their lives and in different contexts. -Robert Frost, University of Aberdeen, author of After the Deluge: Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War Kith, Kin, and Neighbors is extraordinary; there is nothing quite like it in the historiography of Eastern Europe. This is perhaps the most complete, most detailed, most vivid, most altogether successful reconstruction of the life of an early modern city that I have ever encountered. David Frick has meticulously and brilliantly re-created seventeenth-century Vilnius almost house by house, neighbor by neighbor, so we can see with astonishing clarity the dynamics of society, sociability, and family in the urban context. -Larry Wolff, New York University, author of Inventing Eastern Europe This extraordinary book reconstructs the crisscrossing loyalties, affiliations, sodalities, and conflicts between and among segments of the population of early modern Wilno, home to five forms of Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Uniate), as well as to Jews and Muslims. David Frick poses fundamental questions about the possibilities and limits of tolerance and toleration in a multiethnic, multiconfessional city. The neighborhood interactions, the dynamics of movement through the city, the interplay of calendars, commerce, and culinary practices coalesce, in Frick's nuanced treatment, to create a vision of a city culture that tolerated multiplicity without articulating a sense of tolerance, and that was bound by personal, professional, and spatial ties across confessions while, at the same time, manifesting a range of frictions both across and within confessional groupings. Without in any way romanticizing the situation, Frick explores the communities of interest and the 'communities of litigation,' as well as the 'communities of violence' that functioned in early modern Wilno. One of the most exciting aspects of this book is Frick's willingness to carry the reader along on his journey of exploration and discovery. This is a book where the intellectual process is on view at its most appealing and engaging. Kith, Kin, and Neighbors is nothing less than a masterpiece. -Valerie A. Kivelson, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History, University of Michigan, author of Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia

Author Information

David Frick is Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Polish Sacred Philology in the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation: Chapters in the History of the Controversies (1551-1632) and Meletij Smotryc'kyj.

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