Economies typologically akin to Lithuania: The Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary in the Early Modern period

This article, for the first time in historiography, offers a comparison of countries with similar historical experience (Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary), trends of the formation and development of their economy structures in the early modern period, focusing for the most part on the highlighting of the main properties and changes in the Lithuanian economy in the context of the region. The analysis is based on the assumption that the comparison of Lithuania with typologically akin countries facilitates a more adequate disclosure and assessment of the development of the Lithuanian economy in the European context. Implementation of the objective resulted in the duality of the article: orientation towards the consideration of reasons behind the formation of the economy structures of the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, and discussion on the essential trends of their development (part 1); and orientation towards the analysis of the structure and evolution of the Lithuanian economy (part 2). The research revealed that the orientation of the economy development in the abovementioned countries towards agrarian (feudal) economy was predetermined by a certain disposition of internal and external social economic conditions. In the period under consideration, commodity-monetary relations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Lithuania came into existence and spread together with the foundation and growth of cities and together with the involvement of the countries in question in the new European commodity market. Due to internal reasons (weak cities, dominance of large-scale landownership, various political situations) and the new conjuncture of the European trade, economies of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Lithuania were left with the sole possibility, i.e. to intensify the agrarian type of economy which allowed the abovementioned regions to gain the status of mere raw suppliers in the European international trade. The research also suggests that the specialization of export commodities of the countries in question was also conditioned by different natural resources. Comparative analysis of the countries’ export nomenclature revealed that Lithuanian nomenclature was most akin to that of Poland. Timber and flax as well as grain products were among the most exported. Prevalence of flax in the export commodity structure was an exceptional feature of the Lithuanian economy. Due to favourable geographical location (close to the port of Riga) and natural conditions (the Nemunas water route, huge areas of forested and agricultural land suitable for cultivation), Lithuania (and Poland) as compared to the other countries under consideration, had the most favourable conditions to get involved into the international trade in consumer goods, especially grain and timber. However, if compared to Poland, Lithuania’s involvement in the said trade was even more meagre. The inability of the manorial-serf economy to produce the required quantity of (grain) production to be sold on the international market was the key reason accountable for the fact. The causes behind that inability were poor fecundity, belated introduction of the correct three-field crop rotation system, periods of war and crop failure, and – most importantly – the manorial-serf economy had not yet reached the maximum limits of its expansion in respect of the labour rent, which became typical in the period from the second half of the 18th century to 1861