Kith, Kin and Neighbors: Communities and Confessions in Seventeenth-Century Wilno

Kith, Kin and Neighbors: Communities and Confessions in Seventeenth-Century Wilno. By David Frick. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2013. Pp. xxvi, 529. $69.95. ISBN 978-0-8014-5128-7.)

In Kith, Kin and Neighbors, David Frick analyzes the ethno-confessional relations between the inhabitants of Wilno (Vilnius) in the seventeenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Although well known for its ethnic and confessional diversity, the city and its intertwined social networks have rarely been treated as extensively as in this book. Based on an impressive range of source material collected over years of research, the book surveys the Vilnians' sphere of life, private and social, from birth to earth, baptism to deathbed, and everything in between.

What makes reading the sources particularly enthralling is the topographical setting re-created for each story. The place, house, or street is depicted not only as background but also, in a way, to serve as one of the characters: it corrals people together, generates confrontations, and...