In extrema fere Livonia: The Jesuit College in Tartu in Piotr Skarga’s Correspondence

In the relation addressed to his monastic confreres written in 1583, the Jesuit chronicler wrote that Tartu (Dorpat), where the Jesuit had recently moved to, was a city located in the most remote part of Livonia, as the territories belonging to today’s Latvia and Estonia were then called (Torpatum urbs est in extrema fere Livonia) (Kurtz 1925: 12).[1] The present article reminds us why the Jesuits arrived in these lands, which were little-known to Europeans at that time (and perhaps even today), and what Piotr Skarga wrote about them in his letters. The subject literature and archival sources available in Rome reveal that their arrival was aimed at the recatholicisation of Livonia undertaken by King Stefan Batory after his victorious wars with Russia. Regardless of the king’s obvious political goals, the Jesuits’ presence in the region was primarily linked with the evangelisation mission of the Order, whose tools included education, which, alongside direct pastoral work, was the leading form of its activity both in Livonia and elsewhere.[1] The book contains Latin relations called litterae annuae, which were sent by the Jesuits to Rome, and their German translation.