A borrowed form
Islamic architecture used to celebrate an Ottoman defeat.
Hugo.arg — Public domain · Laima Gūtmane (simka… — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Vilensija — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Hugo.arg — Public domain
A minaret standing alone in a park in the town of Kėdainiai north of Kaunas, the only one of its kind in Lithuania — and never built for a mosque. Its story is odd. The Russian general Eduard Totleben built it on his estate in the 1870s to commemorate Russia's victory in the Russo-Turkish war. The minaret is therefore a monument to a victory over the Ottomans, cast in Islamic architectural form — a kind of borrowing common in nineteenth-century European commemorative architecture. It is said that Ottoman prisoners of war helped build it and that its stones were brought from the battlefield, though these details vary with the telling. The minaret today is a protected monument in a public park, with no religious function and never any. Kėdainiai itself rewards the trip: a small town with a preserved historic centre and churches of several confessions — Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic and Orthodox — along with a Jewish cemetery, traces of a multi-religious past. Practical points: the minaret is in a public park, free and open, and cannot be climbed. The visit is minutes within a tour of the town.
Islamic architecture used to celebrate an Ottoman defeat.
Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic and Orthodox churches and a Jewish cemetery.
Ottoman prisoners and battlefield stones — details vary with the teller.
Kėdainiai, north of Kaunas
Because in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was a centre of the Protestant Reformation in Lithuania under the patronage of the noble Radvila family, who adopted Calvinism and invited craftsmen and merchants from Scotland, Germany and the Netherlands. A large Jewish community also settled. The result was a small town with four or five confessions, which is rare in the region.
Kėdainiai yes if you are in Kaunas several days and interested in history: its old centre is preserved, small and walkable in two hours, and the minaret is a detail within it rather than a reason for the trip. With only two days, Rumšiškės and the Ninth Fort come first.
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