Milda Kvizikevičiūtė (National Mueum of Lithuania, Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, Lithuania)
In the aftermath of the Deluge (1655–1660), Lithuanian Protestants found themselves politically discredited and materially devastated. In response, Jan Krainski—a Calvinist lay treasurer from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania—published an English-language pamphlet in London titled A Relation of the Distressed State of the Church of Christ… (1661). Rich in graphic descriptions of torture, rape, and religious persecution, the text presents the Lithuanian Reformed community as both martyrs and outcasts, abandoned by their neighbors and threatened with extinction.
This paper explores how Krainski’s pamphlet transformed lived catastrophe into printed witness. Drawing on martyrological tropes familiar from Foxe and Crespin, the pamphlet offers not only a catalogue of suffering but a carefully constructed appeal to the Protestant conscience abroad. By foregrounding collective pain and moral innocence, Krainski uses the medium of print to cross geographic, linguistic, and political boundaries—aiming to reinsert Lithuanian Protestants into the wider Reformed world. The analysis emphasizes how extreme content—both emotional and physical—could function as a strategic element in the informational and affective circuits of early modern print culture.