What can we learn from Lithuania s very first census of 1790?
Ramunė Šmigelskytė-Stukienė, Orbis Lituaniae2021.07.17 10:00
Social strata in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth s society in 1655. From left: Jew, barber surgeon, painter, butcher, musician, tailor, barmaid, pharmacist, shoemaker, goldsmith, merchant and Armenian / Wikipedia
Modern ideas about population management reached the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the late 18th century, prompting the very first universal census in 1790 to take stock of the realm s subjects.
In the second half of the 18th century, ideas of cameralism and the science of statistics that spread in the Age of Enlightenment had a substantial impact on the changes in the principles of rule in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
When did potatoes come to Lithuania?
Aivas Ragauskas, Orbis Lituaniae2021.07.11 10:00
Potatoes / J. Stacevičius/LRT
Potatoes are a vital staple food across the world and a key ingredient in more than 200 dishes, including in the Lithuanian cuisine. However, it took a long time for them to reach current prominence in the Lithuanian diet.
It was in the mid-19th century that potatoes spread in Lithuania on a massive scale. Very little is known, however, about how and when potatoes first entered the country. Therefore, historical literature on the matter sometimes make rather mythological claims.
A botanical rarity, an exotic flower, a herb
The flavour of coffee in palaces and kafenhauses of 18th-century Vilnius
Eugenijus Saviščevas, Orbis Lituaniae2021.07.04 10:00
Cafe in Vilnius today / D. Umbrasas/LRT
It’s early morning, June 1786. Ludwika Byszewska, a noble lady from Warsaw, is visiting Vilnius and opens her diary to write a few lines: “Since I agreed to accompany the respectable mister Strecki to Antakalnis at four in the morning, I woke up at three, following Voltaire’s advice drank a cup of black coffee, and was quite ready.”
The Voltairian method says that you may start enjoying coffee at five in the morning and not count the cups until three in the afternoon. Voltaire, his contemporaries said, was obsessed with coffee. Was he alone?