Events

Prof. Erik Sven Ekdahl, Member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Turns 90

04 06 2025

The Presidium of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences extend heartfelt congratulations to you on the occasion of your distinguished jubilee.

Lithuania is sincerely grateful to you for many years of research that have contributed significantly to the understanding of our country's history.Your scholarly works have fundamentally changed the way the Lithuanians and Vytautas the Great are evaluated in the historiography of European nations; they have become an extremely valuable source not only for Lithuanian, but also for European studies in medieval warfare, battle strategy, and ideology.The entirety of your research points to your scholarly consistency, diligence, ability to discern the important things in the smallest details, and your devotion to historical truth.

We greatly appreciate your long-standing productive and sincere cooperation with the Lithuanian scientific community, especially Vilnius University, the collection of rare historical literature you donated to the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, your lectures, joint research projects, conferences, and other significant activities.

Dear Professor, we wish you strength, abundant inspiration, new endeavours and insights, success and personal happiness.

Many happy returns!

Prof. Jūras Banys
President of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences                                  

Prof. Vytautas Nekrošius
Chair of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences

4 June 2025
Vilnius

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In 1963, Sven Erik Ekdahl, a Swedish historian living in Germany, discovered a letter in the Prussian Secret State Archives, which he soon published in the journal Zeitschrift für Ostforschung. The letter described an episode of the Battle of Žalgiris, which gave a completely new perspective on the tactics of the Lithuanian troops during the battle. This discovery led to S. E. Ekdahl’s subsequent career as a scholar. The Battle of Žalgiris/Tannenberg/Grünwald became the theme of his life.

Having graduated in history from the University of Gothenburg, Ekdahl linked his academic life with Germany. During his studies in Göttingen, he met professors Hermann Heimpel, Josef Fleckenstein, Reinhard Wenskus, and Hartmut Boockmann, who pushed his interests in the direction of the Teutonic Order. Coincidentally, Göttingen was at the time the location of the Prussian Secret State Archives, part of which, the Archive of the Teutonic Order Correspondence (Ordensbriefarchiv), is the most important set of sources for the history of the Order that also provides a wealth of information for historians in neighbouring countries. When the archive was moved to West Berlin, the historian moved to that city as well. Later, in their apartment in the Friedenau residential area, he and his wife Heide hosted a number of historians who came to Berlin to work in the archives. At the same time, he maintained his links with Sweden and Finland: he defended his thesis at the Swedish Åbo Akademi University in Turku in 1977, and a year later he was conferred a professorship in Gothenburg.

In 1976, a monograph on Jan Dlugosz’s work Banderia Prutenorum (The Prussian Banners) was published, which examined the origins and its source value of the manuscript in great detail. S. E. Ekdahl’s most important book on the criticism of the sources of the Battle of Žalgiris was published in 1982. In it, he analyses all known sources on the battle, from written to cartographic. In his third monograph, S. E. Ekdahl deals with the matter of mercenary recruitment, which was relevant for the Teutonic Knights.

His medieval research is distinguished by attention to little-known issues that are difficult to grasp in the sources and the ability to identify important things in minute details. In his numerous articles, the professor has analysed various aspects of late medieval warfare, battles, logistics, and ideology. Yet in addition to wars and battles, he devoted several articles to some of his personal interests in Swedish and art history.

In the 1960s, Ekdahl established contacts with colleagues in Poland. After Lithuania regained its independence, he started visiting Lithuania as well – giving lectures, attending conferences, interacting with Lithuanian historians, providing them with literature that was not yet readily available, and sharing archival references. On behalf of the German Ministry of Culture, he collected material on Prussian historical documents stored in the libraries and archives of Lithuania and organised their restoration. He took part in the exhibitions ‘The Žalgiris Battle of Jan Matejko’ and ‘Christianity in the Art of Lithuania’ organised by the Lithuanian National Art Museum of Art. On 6 July 1999, Sven Erik Ekdahl was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas for his services to Lithuanian scholarship.   

Close ties – joint projects, lectures, book donations – were also established with the Faculty of History of Vilnius University. In 2004, Prof. S. E. Ekdahl was awarded an honorary doctorate from Vilnius University, and in 2005 he was elected a foreign member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.

In recent years, S. E. Ekdahl has been working actively and consistently on the issue of locating the site of the Battle of Žalgiris, organising field research with his colleagues, which in 2019 was summarised in the monograph Ieškant 1410 m. Žalgirio mūšio lauko. Nauji 2014-2019 m. tyrimai su metalo ieškikliais (In Search of the Žalgiris Battlefield of 1410. New Metal Detector Surveys 2014–2019) published by The National Museum – Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania.

As we wish dear and respected Professor many happy returns, we look forward to his new insights, publications and ... his cards, with which he always cheers us up at Christmas time. 

Academician Rimvydas Petrauskas