Vineta
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Vineta or Wineta (sometimes held to be identical with Jomsborg) was a possibly legendary ancient town believed to have been on the coast of the Baltic Sea. It was commonly said to be on the present site of Wolin in Poland or of Zinnowitz on Usedom island in Germany. Today it is said to have been near Barth in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. At all these places, Vineta museums and Vineta festivals try to attract tourists.
Around 970 Ibrāhīm ibn Ya`qūb, envoy of the Caliph of Córdoba, reported that in Pomerania was a large port "with twelve gates", whose armed force is superior to "all peoples of the north".
In 1043 Vineta was to be conquered by the fleet of the Danish and Norwegian king Magnus I of Norway.
Traders in the eleventh and twelfth century reported about a town that was the most powerful port of the Baltic Sea. Bishop Adam of Bremen wrote that Vineta was the largest of all towns in Europe.
A Danish fleet destroyed Vineta in 1159 during the Christianizing of the Wends (Wendish Crusade).
There is a legend that Vineta sank in a storm tide because of the sinfulness of its inhabitants, and that before the sinking there were warning portents. It is thought likely that Vineta sank because of shifting of distributary channels in the delta of the river Oder.[1]
In Europica Varietas (pub. Kassa, 1620) the Hungarian traveller Márton Szepsi Csombor says that Vineta was destroyed by God with thunderbolts, like the neighouring 'Julinum', and covered with the sea. Its buildings could be seen beneath the water in clear weather and dressed stones were removed from them to nearby towns.
In the 1840s, Timofey Granovsky dismissed the town as a Medieval legend. Scientific evidence for the existence of Vineta is still missing.
In fiction, Vineta is visited by Nils Holgersson in Selma Lagerlöf's The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. It also appears in Günter Grass' The Rat and Lawrence Norfolk's The Pope's Rhinoceros. "In Germany, especially during the 18th and 19th centuries, many works of art were created based on the myth of Vineta. There are paintings, poetry and even a Vineta symphony." [2]
[edit] References
- ^ J. Strzelczyk, Mity, podania i wierzenia dawnych Słowian, Rebis, Poznań 2007, ISBN 978-83-7301-973-7
- ^ A Lecture of Kings, Crusaders and Merchants by Michael Andersen, Danish National Museum, Nov 22, 2006
