Established in 1919, the Vytautas Museum in Kaunas shows the history of the army from ancient times to the modern day. Laima Buceviciute, PhD in history who works at the museum and studies the borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, says that there are studies in Lithuania about southern Ukraine in the time of Grand Duke Vytautas, but very little is known about the Tiahyn Fortress. She believes that the Vytautas Museum was the right choice for the exhibition about Tiahyn, because the story of the true medieval history of the Ukrainian south is now also a weapon that destroys the myths of Russian propaganda.
The central hall on the first floor was allocated for the exhibition about Tiahyn, where a model of the Tiahyn fortress was placed on a pedestal near the sculpture of Grand Duke Vytautas. In addition to the model of the fortress, the museum features artistic images related to the work of archaeologists and their findings – digital collages on fabric, complemented by elements of hand embroidery. Textile with the elements of hand embroidery is a very sensitive material that shows how many hands were involved in Tiahyn. By this way the exhibition conveys the atmosphere of Tiahyn.
December 12, 2024 the museum presented a virtual museum and 3D-model of the fortress, created in 2024 despite the fact that Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine continues. During the discussions, both Ukrainian and Lithuanian participants pointed out that one of the largest European states of the late Middle Ages, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was formed not through military aggression, but through diplomacy and economics: it was a ‘velvet’ process in which rights and freedoms were respected, and the interests of the peoples joining the new union were taken into account. In fact, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the prototype of the European Union at that time, and this is important given how aggressively Russia has behaved and is behaving now.
The cooperation with the Vytautas Museum will not be limited with this exhibition in Kaunas. The museum is already preparing a new exhibition that will open in 2025 and will be dedicated to military engineering – fortifications from ancient times to the present. The Tiahyn fortress will take its rightful place in this exhibition as another scientifically proven link in the line of fortifications in southern Ukraine in the time of Vytautas.
