Prussian Lithuania against the Background of the Contrasts of the Prussian History

The creative heritage of Kristijonas Donelaitis makes us focus our attention on Prussian Lithuania as an ethnoculturalregion that provided the poet with significant creative impetuses; simultaneously, Donelaitis is associatedwith the Kingdom of Prussia as the space that formed his personality, the contours of his worldview, andhis national self-awareness. To deeper understand the works of Kristijonas Donelaitis as a significant layer ofLithuanian cultural heritage, it is important to study in-depth the modern approaches to Prussian history and, inthat context, the stereotypical interpretation of some aspects of the history of Prussian Lithuania in Lithuanianhistoriography of the 20th c., relevant to the present. The article analyzes the essential characteristic of Prussianhistory emphasized by its contemporary researchers, i.e. the spirit of contrast: the interchanging periods ofmodernity and regress have allegedly predetermined “the special way” of German history, Sonderweg, whichpreconditioned the dominance of nationalsocialism in 1933. Moreover, the issue of the contrast as the predominatingmotiff in the master narrative (Meistererzählung) which makes a strong impact on the collective memoryis highlighted, as well as the reflection on the issue in the field of the studies of the history of Prussian Lithuania.KEY WORDS: Prussian Lithuania, the Kingdom of Prussia, Donelaitis, a contrast, Sonderweg, stereotypes. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15181/ahuk.v26i0.49