By Stefan Pajung and Mihkel Mäesalu On the 10th of September 2021, we were glad to be able to bid welcome to our long-awaited conference on Danish-Estonian relations in the Middle Ages. This conference was originally planned to take place in September 2020, but had to be postponed due to Covid-19 related circumstances. Now we…
Mihkel Mäesalu and Stefan Pajung Our research project has been going on for quite a while and has begun bearing its fruits. In this month’s blog-post we will look at Mihkel’s recently published paper on the St. George’s Night’s Uprising. The uprising began 22-23 April 1343 in Danish Estonia, but quickly spread to western Estonia,…
Mihkel Mäesalu & Stefan Pajung There are limits to historical knowledge, especially when studying periods so distant as the 13th or 14th century. The sources of information – chronicles, charters, documents etc. – dating from this period are rather scarce for both Denmark as well as Estonia. It is therefore often the case that we…
Stefan Pajung and Mihkel Mäesalu Soon after we started working on this research project, we discovered to our great surprise, that a comprehensive historiography of the Danish-Estonian relationship in the Middle Ages up to the present time was nowhere to be found. So, in the beginning of 2021 we attempted to fill that void and…
Mihkel Mäesalu and Stefan Pajung As we wrote in our twelfth and fourteenth blog-posts the communication between the Danish king and the Teutonic Order in Livonia went mostly over Prussia. This means that usually the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order represented his subordinate Master in Livonia in correspondence and negotiations with the Danish king.…
Author: Tania Lestal The district of Kalamaja was long regarded as home for my family. My grandfather Alexander Lestal (born 1921) grew up there and was surrounded by family who lived nearby. His cousin Ralf Lesthal (grandfather of Andrei Nazarov) lived in Graniidi Street and his cousins Dorothea and Karl Niggul lived at Köie 1a-1.…
by Stefan Pajung and Mihkel Mäesalu In the winter of 1245-1246, Pope Innocent IV decided to establish a new archbishopric in the Eastern Baltic. This archbishopric of Prussia, Livonia and Estonia was meant for those nine bishoprics – Kulm, Pomesania, Sambia, Warmia, Riga, Semigallia, Curonia, Osilia and Tartu – which did not yet belong to…
By Mihkel Mäesalu and Stefan Pajung In the Autumn of 1443, the Teutonic knights in Livonia launched an attack on their eastern neighbour, the Russian principality of Novgorod. The charge was led by the young lord Gerhard von Kleve, count of Mark in Westphalia, whose interpreter had been murdered in 1438 when he was travelling…
Stefan Pajung and Mihkel Mäesalu Now that the Christmas time is upon us, we thought we best share a story with you, which involves kind of a gift – and a substantial at that. Most of our readers, even if they only know little about the general history of Danish Estonia, have heard of or…
Mihkel Mäesalu & Stefan Pajung As far as historians know, Eric of Pomerania sent only two letters to the Master of the Livonian Branch of the Teutonic Order during his whole reign as king of Denmark, Sweden and Norway (1396–1439/40), and never sent his ambassadors to Livonia. We also know of only two letters and…