Hanza Kaunas 2011

"Kaunas Hansa 2008": Surrender the Middle Ages!

Saturday and Sunday are the days when the medieval spirit will be felt in the air in the Old Town of Kaunas. The townspeople are welcome to join - dress up in ancient clothes, frame up, charge and punish, taste exotic food and drinks, make pots of clay, learn the old good manners and learn Latin.

Blood, knights and pigs

It is already for the fourth time that the Hanseatic Days will remind us the times when our town was a member of an influential merchant union and when it experienced the time of the greatest prosperity. The festival will be concentrated in four places of the Old Town: in the Hall Square, in the quay of Nemunas, in the square in front of Vytautas Church and in Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty of Humanities.

The old Hanseatic Town will be built next to Vytautas Church in the quay of Nemunas: the church, the knight area, craft yard, medieval playground. In the midtown, medieval gallows, an apparatus for execution, where every sinner will get his or her retribution, will be standing prepared.

Žiurauskas shortly introduced the programme of the festival as follows: "There is going to be much blood as townspeople has demanded it at all times. We will again be decapitating, chopping hands, burning and hanging. In the tournaments, the knights will demonstrate their strength, marksmanship and dexterity and the medieval puppet-plays, dance and music concerts, fire-shows and stuntmen performances will amaze the townspeople and the guests".

Piglets will be watching for their running start of the traditional medieval race, a restaurant of the authentic medieval food only made on fire and eaten without cutlery will be open. The cheerful monks of "The Hospice" will urge that one involve himself in gaieties and taste all the hard drinks brewed by them. The dispensary of the magic elixirs will also invite to come over. Here one will able to try healing drinks of various consistencies.

The illiterate to be birched

The "staff" priest of the improvised church will sell indulgences, i. e. the writing of remission of sins, and relics - bones and sculls of "the saints" and the "saint" nails. Pressed by armour weighing several ten kilos, the knights will fight in tournaments with the armament forged by them.

The garden of witches will wile mysteriously and the stakes of torture will rise up. "Last year everyone enjoyed sitting on the stakes. This year we inflamed the conditions - the stakes are going to be tapered and I can assure that sitting on them is not going to be comfortable. This experience will remind one of a historical punishment rather than of entertainment", as the director of the festival maintains.

In the quay of Nemunas, the medieval puppet-play "The Professor's New Adventures" will be staged. Here the erotic and marauding Punch's adventures will be continued.

In the Old Town, the medieval games will be organised and schools of good manners will invite to learn. Here the old teaching methods will be applied and thus the rod will help to transfer knowledge to the head. In this school both children and grown-ups will be able to learn and those through with the course will get certificates.

Foul-mouthed wretches and tattlers not tolerated

The opening celebratory walking, which will unite politicians dressed up in medieval clothes, business people, representatives of the academic world, actors and townspeople, will turn off the Town Hall to the mart.

The mart will be located next to Vytautas Church. It is not mere traders that will offer the freshest yield here, but it is the farmers themselves. "The farmers now will aim at having a good time rather than selling much", says Žiurauskas. At the beginning of the festival, the mayor will set the market balance.

Everyone here will have the opportunity to pillory a person at fault and to whip out his or her opinion of any issue. "You will be able to speak his piece on the government, police, the organisers of the festival and the neighbours. We will not only tolerate the foul-mouthed and gabblers", quips Žiurauskas. Besides, the folk music will be played in the festival as well.

University and Church join

"Accompanied by the medieval music, elegies, epitaphs, epigrams and panegyrics will run. At the university chamber, trials will be held and the townspeople will become "suolininkai", i.e. the equivalent of the present-day jury, and will help the judge to make decisions", as Anna Dorothy Vessel, the widow of a rich Kaunas merchant Hanus Naugard, nowadays introducing herself as Rima Kubiliūtė, the representative of VU KFH, relates it.

Registration for the excursion will be carried out in the quay of Nemunas by the gate of the Medieval Town. The festival of this year has also incorporated Church; during the Hanseatic Days, the 600th anniversary of the first parish in Kaunas will be commemorated. For this reason, in Kaunas Archchathedral Basilica the congregation will celebrate Mass. The clergy is also going to paticipate in the walking of the festival participants. Žiurauskas observes that the town celebrations never did without Church. The celebrations were arranged by the guild of trade people and the clergy together with the local government were used to running the whole show. Sunday evening is the time when the festival will be crowned by a spectacular show of lights and fireworks over the Town Hall, the building of which will then be illuminated.

Appeal to authenticity

"What we are distinguished for among other events is authenticity as we refer to history in organising the festival. We do not need to think of what to show in the festival. Everything is written in the chronicle of Kaunas, i.e. the way people lived and the way they celebrated; what you have to do is read and revive. This is what we have done by the instrumentality of historians", says Žiurauskas.

In the 15th century, the first office of the Hanseatic Guild in Lithuania was found. In spring, when the water of Nemunas flooded, the European merchants used to came to Kaunas and thus the marketing started. The town came alive and all the summer people could get goods brought from far countries.

The town had a "three-day stowage rule" in force; according to it, the merchants had to unload the goods from the ship and market them in Kaunas for three days. The merchandise was carried from the wharf to the market located in the Hall and to the store through the tunnels. Actually, VU KFH is directly related to the historical Hansa as a part of the faculty is established in a 16th century house that belonged to the German merchant Naugard; the substructure of the old Kaunas customs office remains in the university Sundial yard.

Preparing for international festival

In 2011, the international festival of the Hanseatic Union, which joins 163 European cities, will be organised in Kaunas. It is then that up to five thousand participators from the whole Europe will gather together; the representatives of the old crafts, singers and dancers will come here. According to Žiurauskas, the Middle Ages is the time of Hansa's greatest prosperity and it is the theme applied to third of all the international Hanseatic events. All that remains is what the city is interested in today. For instance, the city's achievements are subjected originally, artists of different spheres are introduced and concerts of the present-day music are arranged.

What Žiurauskas calls the most impressive passage of the international Hansa events is the festival organised in Tartu, Estonia, some years ago. The town then funded a part of it and several thousand students of Tartu University were dressed up in medieval clothes. This year, the Estonian representatives came to the international Hanseatic Festival organised in Salzwedel, Germany, and brought a huge colourful laboratory of ancient compounds and mixtures with them.

The director states that every year till the festival of the 2011th is like a repetition for them. They hope that until then all the universities in Kaunas and great part of the townspeople will join in the festival. Furthermore, he expects that there will be no spectators left and only the participators will remain.

The map of the events

1. The Town Hall - the centre of celebration. Here the opening is performed and after it the celebratory walking starts for the mart. When closing the festival, the Hall building is illuminated and the audience enjoys the spectacle of light and fireworks.
2. In the square in front of Vytautas church, the mart is located. In the ancient market, farmers sell the freshest yield. Here everyone has the opportunity to pillory a person at fault. A vat serves as the stage for "Vox populi", and for whipping out one's opinion of any issue. And also, the musicians are those who keep sunshine here.
3. In the medieval town, the yard of the ancient crafts and a stall of indulgences are open, perpetrators are punished publicly and stakes arise, pigs are racing and the garden of witches where the magic elixirs are sold invites one to come. And the knights fight armed authentically. The medieval puppet-plays are staged and the school of good manners is found.
4. Visiting the German and Latin square (Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty of Humanities, Muitinės st. 8), one can have a view of the cellars of the old town. Here a trial of the 16th century is being held and Latin is taught theatrically. Accompanied by the baroque music, the ancient poetry - elegies, epitaphs, epigrams and panegyrics - will be read ardently.

The information source Kauno diena.