When Did Potatoes Enter Lithuania?

Potatoes (lat. solanum tuberosum) represent one of the vital staples in the whole world. They serve as a key ingredient in making more than 200 food and other products. It was in the mid-19^th 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, the historical literature on the matter sometimes features certain mythologized assertions.

A botanical rarity, an exotic flower, and a herb

In the beginning, potatoes were considered exotic plants and only the representatives of the elite could afford to cultivate them. Emperors, kings, popes and cardinals would grow potatoes in their gardens like a botanic rarity and a remedy while the potato blooms were used for decoration. Some cooked potatoes would end up on their dinner tables as well. City residents eventually also started cultivating potatoes. It took several centuries for potatoes to spread from southern Europe to the remotest corners of the continent.

Potatoes were rare and expensive, therefore it took a while for them to enter the homes of the nobility after becoming a common food in the palaces of the rulers. In the long run, people discovered that potatoes are more resilient against bad weather compared to cereals and that potatoes is an important staple in the times of famine. Therefore, potatoes claimed a rank of valuable plants in France, Prussia and other countries in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Potatoes was a key staple in the late 18^th century Western Europe, especially among poor people and soldiers. It is no coincidence that the 1777–1779 Bavarian Succession war between Prussia and Austria bears a name of “potato war” because both armies were more involved in destroying potato fields than in actual military activity. Kristijonas Donelaitis mentions potatoes in his poem The Year written between 1765 and 1775 in the so-called Little Lithuania that belonged to Prussia at the time: “People would cook different potato dishes / And honey fungus boiling in sauce.”

A royal delicacy

A number of historical sources highlight the important role that John III Sobieski (1629–1696), the king of the Polish and Lithuanian Commonwealth, played in making potatoes a popular staple. He sent some potatoes to his wife Marysenka from the gardens of the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna in 1683 and ordered to plant them in royal estates. Soon potatoes became common both in Warsaw and the entire Commonwealth. Initially many people would look suspiciously at potato dishes served during royal celebrations but gradually they became trendy in many homes of the nobility. Nevertheless, this might only be a legend that imitates the real historical process because there are no reliable sources mentioning widespread consumption of potatoes in that area prior to the late 18^th century.

Despite that, we know that potatoes entered Lithuania and Poland much earlier and via different routes. The king and the members of the elite would grow potatoes in their private gardens already in the mid-17^th century. In the garden of the Kiszka, the GDL magnate family in Vilnius “bulbos americanos” or simply potatoes were grown in 1640 alongside other exotic plants such as melons, asparagus and figs. Władysław IV Vasa had a certain plant named pyra regalia in his royal garden in Warsaw in 1642, which must also have been potatoes. Therefore one should be critical about the statement which says that “potatoes were brought to Lithuania from Europe via Rietavas in around 1700.” Polish author S. Herka writes about potato dishes in his book printed in 1660.

The magnates began indulging in potato dishes in the early 18^th century and as soon as in the middle of the century most of the representatives of the nobility grew potatoes at their manors. A historical document mentions two carts of potatoes brought to the manor of Kurtuvėnai run by the Nagurski family in 1762. Jędrzej Kitowicz, the 18^th century Polish priest who wrote on various aspects of life, noted that potatoes spread throughout Poland during the reign of Augustus III of Saxony (1736–1763). Newcomers from Saxony and Holland were behind the growing popularity of potatoes in the first place, according to Kitowicz. 

The long road to a peasant’s table

The mainly catholic country considered potatoes almost a protestant “sabotage” and peasants usually refused to cultivate them. Underdeveloped artificial selection methods in plant breeding and low-level agriculture also hindered the spread of potatoes. Only two sorts of potatoes, white and red, were known at the time. They were vulnerable to low temperatures and diseases, ordinary peasants knew very little about their cultivation and storage. Very few fertilisers were used at the time, therefore harvests were poor. The massive cultivation of potatoes emerged together with the overall rise in agriculture. All attempts to force peasants grow potatoes, including those undertaken from 1765 to 1780 by Antony Tyzenhaus, the vice treasurer of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, proved unsuccessful. 

The more noticeable changes arrived only in the late 18^th century when more and more people started planting potatoes in large plots of lands rather than in their home gardens. Peasants finally discovered that potatoes have a much lower impact on soil impoverishment compared to hemp at the turn of the 19^th century. People could sow various cereals into the same soil the next year after potatoes and the harvest was usually good. Growing potatoes, however, required more labour than growing grain. On the other hand, cultivating potatoes called for changes in the traditional three-plot crop rotation system. Summer grain crop is reaped much earlier compared to the potato harvest, therefore potato fields hamper cattle grazing. It is no coincidence that potato cultivation first spread in the economically stronger western and northern territories of the Polish and Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was only later that potatoes reached the eastern lands of the Commonwealth in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Even in the late 18^th century, potatoes were a rare crop in Lithuania taking up no more than 0.4 percent of the total arable land. The Šilėnai manor run by the Nagurski family planted about 300 litres of potatoes in 1799. There are no documents to indicate whether the potatoes were grown for cooking or to produce spirit or starch. Potatoes were still very rare, therefore there’s not a single instance of mentioning them in the pricelists of various agricultural products that the press in Vilnius and other cities would usually publish in the late 18^th century.

Aivas Ragauskas