Zenonas Ivinskis and Henryk Łowmiański: the changing medieval studies in the inter-war period in Kaunas and Vilnius

The paper investigates the parallels between the two scholars of medieval studies: Polish historian Henryk Łowmiański and Lithuanian historian Zenonas Ivinskis. During the inter-war period both authors have published influential studies introducing new research perspectives on the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, both studies did little outreach the political border that existed between Vilnius and Kaunas in the 1920s–1930s. The first part of the paper examines methodologies of the two authors in the context of the contemporary European historiography. Both historians demonstrate original integral approach towards the research object combining social, economic and political history. They also apply comparative method, focus on methodology and innovative historic source display.The second part of the paper is focused on the academic relations between the two countries, represented by Vilnius and Kaunas, in the context of the Polish and Lithuanian historians’ relations. It is worth mentioning that scholars of medieval studies pioneered and dominated in the academic relations between the two countries not only because of the similar historical interests and same sources or archives, but also because they could not frame themselves in the narrow national historiographies. Both Łowmiański and Ivinskis made attempts to review Lithuanian and Polish medieval studies. However, the lack of personal contacts between the two historians – who shared the interest for the same research object and later lived in the same city – is rather characteristic fact that reflects difficulties in communication between relatively closed Lithuanian and Polish historiographies.