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Paper short abstract:

The importance of Gediminas' Castle Hill in Vilnius is grounded in Renaissance chronicles and folklore. After landslides in 2017 the graves of 19th c. rebels were found on the hill reviving the great national narrative and folk legends and turning it into a place of modern patriotic pilgrimage.

Paper long abstract:

The Gediminas' Castle Hill is a historic mound on which the Gediminas' Tower is located in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. This is a key historic site, the importance of which is grounded in the Renaissance chronicles about the founding of Vilnius and its founder, the Grand Duke Gediminas of pagan Lithuania. In the folk tradition, the historic legends about the great army which slumbered under the Gediminas' Hill and which if awakened could join the fight for the independence of the homeland were widespread.

In 2017, after a heavy rain season, the hill was severely damaged by landslides. Sophisticated and intrusive engineering measures of ground anchoring were to be implemented. During the archaeological monitoring the unmarked graves of the main leaders and other insurgents of the so-called January Uprising of 1863-64 against the Russian Empire were discovered. The insurrection spread in Poland, Lithuania, and a section of Belarus. In Vilnius, 22 rebels were brutally executed by the tsarist forces and secretly buried on the top of the hill.

The historical discoveries were regarded as a sign of a miracle - as if the personified hill itself would have decided to shake off the soil and to uncover the graves of the national heroes right before the Centennial of the restored Lithuania in 2018. Thus, geotechnical and archaeological measures gave a new impetus to the dissemination of Lithuania's great historical narrative about the pagan forefathers of the nation, the historic freedom fighters, and place-lore as well as strengthened the feelings of national pride in Belarus and Poland. The Gediminas' Castle Hill gained a renewed significance as a place of modern patriotic pilgrimage both for the Lithuanians, the Belarusians, and the Poles.