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97-513: An early settlement [BE] existed in the area in the 12th-13th century under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , where a wooden fort was built. The village was also home to a palace , sometimes called the Schloss , which had been built by Jogaila as his summer home . Although the first settlers were pagans (hence the name Mstibovo, named after a pagan deity ), the village later became Christian, with

194-640: A Catholic church built in 1512 . During the Deluge , the village and its ancient fort were burnt down. The fort was rebuilt in 1715, and in 1770, burnt down again. In 1795, Mstibovo came under Russian rule with the Third Partition of Poland . During the French invasion of Russia in 1812, Napoleon's Grande Armée was welcomed in Mstibovo. Napoleon appointed a Jew as the village's mayor . Soon after however,

291-535: A blessed sword and hat , given by Pope Gregory XIII through the envoy Paweł Uchański. This was a recognition by the Pope of the ruler's successes in the struggle against the infidels. In Lithuania, this ceremony was treated as the celebration of the elevation of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, during which Lithuania's sovereignty was manifested. Báthory's reign was marked with successful Livonian campaign against tsar Ivan

388-546: A base for further military campaigns. Around 1307, Polotsk, an important trading centre, was annexed by military force. Vytenis also began constructing a defensive castle network along Nemunas . Gradually this network developed into the main defensive line against the Teutonic Order. The expansion of the state reached its height under Grand Duke Gediminas , also titled by some contemporaneous German sources as Rex de Owsteiten (English: King of Aukštaitija ), who created

485-458: A church. Valuable items from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are stored in the church. As of 2013, it has 500 residents, nearly twice as many than the 287 residents in 2007. Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania , to the late 18th century, when

582-584: A convention in Grodno (on 8-20 April 1576), protested this choice, threatening to break the union and giving themselves the right to choose a separate ruler. However, the king managed to rally the Lithuanian delegation by promising to preserve their rights and freedoms. On May 29, 1580, in Vilnius Cathedral , King and Grand Duke Stephen Báthory received from the hand of the bishop of Samogitia Merkelis Giedraitis

679-575: A decade of relative peace. Mindaugas later renounced Christianity and converted back to paganism. Mindaugas tried to expand his influence in Polatsk , a major centre of commerce in the Daugava River basin, and Pinsk . The Teutonic Knights used this period to strengthen their position in parts of Samogitia and Livonia, but they lost the Battle of Skuodas in 1259 and the Battle of Durbe in 1260. This encouraged

776-487: A decision about the land of Samogitia, which is our inheritance and our homeland from the legal succession of the ancestors and elders. We still own it, it is and has always been the same Lithuanian land, because there is one language and the same inhabitants . But since the land of Samogitia is located lower than the land of Lithuania , it is called Samogitia, because in Lithuanian it is called lower land [ Žemaitija ]. And

873-510: A few official documents until the second half of the 18th century. After the baptism, the use of Latin, still the main language of learning and writing in Western Europe, also spread in Lithuania as a language of document. Latin was the second language of the grand ducal chancellery in the 14th–16th centuries, although it was used less frequently than Ruthenian in internal administration. This

970-575: A manifestation of the sovereignty of Lithuania occurred when Casimir was elected as the Grand Duke of Lithuania upon his arrival to Vilnius on 29 June 1440 and subsequently titled himself as a "free lord" ( pan – dominus ), this way breaching the agreements of the Union of Grodno (1432) and terminating the Polish–Lithuanian union ; Casimir also became the King of Poland in 1447. Following Casimir's death in 1492,

1067-509: A privilege that equalized the rights of Orthodox and Catholics in Lithuania and abolished all previous restrictions on Orthodox. There was an effort to polarise Orthodox Christians after the Union of Brest in 1596, by which some Orthodox Christians acknowledged papal authority and Catholic catechism, but preserved their liturgy. The country also became one of the major centres of the Reformation. In

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1164-579: A small part of Latvia and Belarus . The largest city located entirely within this region, Panevėžys , is considered to be the capital, though not in a political sense. Sometimes Utena is regarded as a symbolical capital. The largest cities by population are: The region has many lakes, mainly on the eastern side. "We do not know on whose merits or guilt such a decision was made, or with what we have offended Your Lordship so much that Your Lordship has deservedly been directed against us, creating hardship for us everywhere. First of all, you made and announced

1261-686: A strong central government and established an empire that later spread from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea . In 1320, most of the principalities of western Rus' were either vassalized or annexed by Lithuania. In 1321, Gediminas captured Kiev , sending Stanislav , the last Rurikid to rule Kiev , into exile. Gediminas also re-established the permanent capital of the Grand Duchy in Vilnius , presumably moving it from Old Trakai in 1323, which previously served as

1358-525: Is the name of one of five ethnographic regions of Lithuania . The name comes from the fact that the lands are in the upper basin of the Nemunas , as opposed to the Lowlands that begin from Šiauliai westward. Although Kaunas is surrounded by Aukštaitija, the city itself is not considered to be a part of any ethnographic region in most cases. Aukštaitija is in the northeast part of Lithuania and also encompasses

1455-724: The Constitution of 3 May and Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations were passed in 1791. Following the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , most of the lands of the former Grand Duchy were directly annexed by the Russian Empire , the rest by Prussia . In 1812, just prior to the French invasion of Russia , the former Grand Duchy revolted against the Russians. Soon after his arrival in Vilnius, Napoleon proclaimed

1552-600: The Deluge in the mid-17th century most of the territory of Lithuania was annexed by the Tsardom of Russia and even the Lithuania's capital Vilnius was captured for the first time by a foreign army and ravaged . In 1655, Lithuania unilaterally seceded from Poland, declared the Swedish King Charles X Gustav as the Grand Duke of Lithuania and fell under the protection of the Swedish Empire . However, by 1657 Lithuania

1649-610: The Golden Horde , maintaining vassal relationships with a fair degree of independence. Lithuania annexed some of these areas as vassals through diplomacy, as they exchanged rule by the Mongols or the Grand Prince of Moscow with rule by the Grand Duchy. An example is Novgorod , which was often in the Lithuanian sphere of influence and became an occasional dependency of the Grand Duchy. Lithuanian control resulted from internal frictions within

1746-575: The Lithuanian nobility . After Vytautas's death, Lithuania's relationship with the Kingdom of Poland greatly deteriorated. Lithuanian noblemen, including the Radvila family , attempted to break the personal union with Poland. However, unsuccessful wars with the Grand Duchy of Moscow forced the union to remain intact. Eventually, the Union of Lublin of 1569 created a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . In this federation ,

1843-787: The Livonian Order and Teutonic Knights , crusading military orders , were established in Riga and in Prussia in 1202 and 1226 respectively. The Christian orders posed a significant threat to pagan Baltic tribes, and further galvanized the formation of the Lithuanian state. The peace treaty with Galicia–Volhynia of 1219 provides evidence of cooperation between Lithuanians and Samogitians . This treaty lists 21 Lithuanian dukes , including five senior Lithuanian dukes from Aukštaitija ( Živinbudas , Daujotas , Vilikaila , Dausprungas and Mindaugas ) and several dukes from Žemaitija . Although they had battled in

1940-589: The Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations . However, the newly reformed Commonwealth was invaded by Russia in 1792 and partitioned between neighbouring states. A truncated state (whose principal cities were Kraków , Warsaw and Vilnius ) remained that was nominally independent. After the Kościuszko Uprising , the territory was completely partitioned among the Russian Empire , the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria in 1795. The name of Lithuania ( Litua )

2037-580: The Samogitians call Lithuania Aukštaitija , that is, from the Samogitian point of view, a higher land. Also, the people of Samogitia have long called themselves Lithuanians and never Samogitians, and because of such identity ( sic ), we do not write about Samogitia in our letter, because everything is one: one country and the same inhabitants." Historically, Aukštaitija corresponded to the Duchy of Lithuania until

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2134-560: The Third Statute of Lithuania which stated that the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is a federation of two countries – Poland and Lithuania where both countries have equal rights within it and separated the powers of the ruler, the Seimas , the executive and the courts (this for the first time in European history ensured the rule of law in the state, but Lithuania's citizens, who were subjects to

2231-531: The Union of Krewo in 1386, bringing two major changes in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: the conversion to Christianity of Europe's last pagan state, and the establishment of a dynastic union between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland . This marked the beginning of the rule of other countries by the patrilineal members of the Lithuanian ruling Gediminid dynasty, who since

2328-529: The 13th century. Its initial capital was most likely Kernavė . In the 1322 treaty of Gediminas , Aukštaitija was called terra Eustoythen (land of Aukštaitians). Some German sources also titled Grand Duke Gediminas , after whom the Gediminids dynasty is named, Rex de Owsteiten (King of Aukštaitija). Aukštaitija was mentioned as Austechia in Chronicon terrae Prussiae , written around 1326. Politically, from

2425-430: The 14th century onward. Naming convention of both title of ruler ( hospodar ) and the state changed as it expanded its territory. Following the decline of the Kingdom of Ruthenia and incorporation of its lands into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Gediminas started to title himself as "King of Lithuanians and many Ruthenians", while the name of the state became the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia. Similarly

2522-564: The 14th–15th centuries ruled not only Lithuania, but also Poland , Hungary , Croatia , Bohemia , and Moldavia . The reign of Vytautas the Great , son of Kęstutis, marked both the greatest territorial expansion of the grand duchy (it became one of the largest countries territorially in Europe) and the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410. It also marked the rise of

2619-635: The 16th century. Ruthenians, ancestors of modern Belarusians and Ukrainians, living in the eastern and southern lands of the Grand Duchy spoke Ruthenian language . The Ruthenian language had an old writing tradition. The language of the Orthodox Church was Old Church Slavonic , while official documents used the so-called Chancery Ruthenian , close to but not identical to the spoken language, which over time absorbed many Lithuanian and Polish words. Some Poles (mainly burghers , clergy, merchants, and szlachta ) moved to Lithuania, although this migration

2716-569: The 17th century, there were relics of old faith reported by counter-reformation active Jesuit priests, like feeding žaltys with milk or bringing food to graves of ancestors. The lands of modern-day Belarus and Ukraine , as well as local dukes (princes) in these regions, were firmly Orthodox Christian (Greek Catholic after the Union of Brest ), though. While pagan beliefs in Lithuania were strong enough to survive centuries of pressure from military orders and missionaries, they did eventually succumb. A separate Eastern Orthodox metropolitan eparchy

2813-476: The 80,000 Muscovite soldiers, capturing their camp and commander. The Muscovites lost about 30,000 men, while the losses of the Poland–Lithuania army totalled only 500. While the battle is remembered as one of the greatest Lithuanian victories, Muscovy ultimately prevailed in the war. Under the 1522 peace treaty, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania made large territorial concessions. The wars with the Teutonic Order,

2910-476: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania maintained its political distinctiveness and had separate ministries, laws, army, and treasury. The federation was terminated by the passing of the Constitution of 3 May 1791 , when it was supposed to become a single country, the Commonwealth, under one monarch, one parliament and with no Lithuanian autonomy. Shortly afterward, the unitary character of the state was confirmed by adopting

3007-519: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania slowly became more centralized, as the governours loyal to Vytautas replaced local princes with dynastic ties to the throne. The governours were rich landowners who formed the basis for the nobility of the Grand Duchy. During Vytautas' rule, the Radziwiłł and Goštautas families started to gain influence. In 1440, Casimir IV Jagiellon was sent by his older brother Władysław III to Lithuania to rule in his name, however instead

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3104-455: The Grand Duchy to an end. Most of the lands of the former Grand Duchy were re-annexed by Russia. The Augustów Voivodeship (later Augustów Governorate ), including the counties of Marijampolė and Kalvarija , was attached to the Kingdom of Poland , a rump state in personal union with Russia. Administrative structure of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1413–1564). After the baptism in 1252 and coronation of King Mindaugas in 1253, Lithuania

3201-571: The Great , who reigned from 1392 to 1430. Vytautas was one of the most famous rulers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, serving as the Grand Duke from 1401 to 1430, and as the Prince of Hrodna (1370–1382) and the Prince of Lutsk (1387–1389). Vytautas was the son of Kęstutis , uncle of Jogaila, who became King of Poland in 1386, and he was the grandfather of Vasili II of Moscow . In 1410, Vytautas commanded

3298-571: The Holocaust , in late June 1941, the village's Jews were transported to Vawkavysk and from there to Treblinka where they were gassed to death. Reportedly, there was one survivor who went back to Mstibovo after the war. Mstibovo is currently under the governance of the Hniezna Selsoviet in the Vawkavysk District , Grodno Region , Belarus. The village is home to a school, a library, and

3395-601: The Horde but was defeated in the Battle of the Vorskla River , losing the steppe region. Lithuania was Christianized in 1387, led by Jogaila , who personally translated Christian prayers into the Lithuanian language and his cousin Vytautas the Great who founded many Catholic churches and allocated lands for parishes in Lithuania. The state reached a peak (becoming one of the largest countries territorially in Europe) under Vytautas

3492-579: The Lithuanian lands began in the late 13th century. Mindaugas , the first ruler of the grand duchy, was crowned as the Catholic King of Lithuania in 1253. The pagan state was targeted in a religious crusade by the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order , but survived. Its rapid territorial expansion started late in the reign of Gediminas , and continued under the co-leadership of his sons, Algirdas and Kęstutis . Algirdas's son Jogaila signed

3589-458: The Lithuanian language. The Lithuanian language was still strongly present at the Vilnius court of Casimir Jagiellon , who had to learn it when he assumed power in the Grand Duchy in 1444. Casimir's assumption of power in Poland in 1447 marked the end of the existence of a separate court in Vilnius (it later existed only in years 1492–1496 and 1544–1548 ). Many Lithuanians and Ruthenian nobles joined

3686-528: The Lithuanian sphere of influence. By about 1355, the State of Moldavia had formed, and the Golden Horde did little to re-vassalize the area. In 1362, regiments of the Grand Duchy army defeated the Golden Horde at the Battle at Blue Waters . In 1380, a Lithuanian army allied with Russian forces to defeat the Golden Horde in the Battle of Kulikovo , and though the rule of the Mongols did not end, their influence in

3783-616: The Livonian Order, winning the Battle of Karuse in 1270 and the Battle of Aizkraukle in 1279, and assisted the Yotvingians /Sudovians to defend from the Teutonic Order . For his military assistance, Nameisis recognized Traidenis as his suzerain . There is considerable uncertainty about the identities of the grand dukes of Lithuania between Traidenis' death in 1282 and the assumption of power by Vytenis in 1295. The country's capital

3880-408: The Livonian Order. He promised to convert to Christianity and exchange some lands in western Lithuania in return for military assistance against his nephews and the royal crown. In 1251, Mindaugas was baptized and Pope Innocent IV issued a papal bull proclaiming the creation of the Kingdom of Lithuania . After the civil war ended, Mindaugas was crowned as King of Lithuania on 6 July 1253, starting

3977-600: The Order, the Kingdom of Poland, and Ruthenia. Vytenis was involved in succession disputes in Poland, supporting Boleslaus II of Masovia , who was married to a Lithuanian duchess, Gaudemunda . In Ruthenia, Vytenis managed to recapture lands lost after the assassination of Mindaugas and to capture the principalities of Pinsk  [ lt ] and Turov . In the struggle against the Order, Vytenis allied with Riga 's citizens; securing positions in Riga strengthened trade routes and provided

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4074-645: The Polish language flowed into Lithuania. The first codification of Lithuanian laws, the Statute of Lithuania, was issued in Chancery Ruthenian (1529), but was quickly translated into Latin (1530) and Polish (1532). Court Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Lew Sapieha noted in the preface of the Third Statute of Lithuania (1588) that all state documents to be written exclusively in Ruthenian. Despite this, after

4171-469: The Polish translation of the statute was published in 1614, it was not reissued in Ruthenian ever again. Polish was increasingly used in official documents, especially after the Union of Lublin. Finally, in 1697, the Sejm, as part of the equalization of law between Lithuania and Poland, confirmed that only the Polish language was to be used in administration in Lithuania, although Ruthenian continued to be used on

4268-464: The Russians retook the region. In the late nineteenth century, the village grew exponentially, and in 1914, numbered 1,137 residents. During World War I, fighting erupted in Mstibovo, first between the Russians and Germans, and later between the Russians and Polish , which resulted in the partial destruction of the village. In 1921, Mstibovo came under Polish control. In 1939, during World War II,

4365-464: The Ruthenian lands stayed Orthodox , however, on 22 February 1387, Supreme Duke Jogaila banned Catholics marriages with Orthodox, and demanded those Orthodox who previously married with the Catholics to convert to Catholicism. At one point, though, Pope Alexander VI reprimanded the Grand Duke for keeping non-Catholics as advisers. Consequently, only in 1563 did Grand Duke Sigismund II Augustus issue

4462-616: The Statute, were only nobles). During the Polish–Swedish War (1600–1611) Polish and Lithuanian forces achieved victory and restored status quo ante bellum , notably winning the decisive Battle of Kircholm in 1605, while during the Polish–Muscovite War (1605–1618) Polish and Lithuanian armies achieved territorial gains (e.g. restored the control of Smolensk , the capital of the Smolensk Voivodeship , in 1611) and for

4559-544: The Terrible 's military forces, which resulted in the reintegration of Polotsk to Lithuania and the restoration of control of the Duchy of Livonia . The rule of Lithuania by the Gediminid–Jagiellonian family representatives resumed through matrilineal line following the death of Báthory (1586) when Sigismund III Vasa (son of Catherine Jagiellon ) was elected in 1587 . On 28 January 1588, Sigismund III confirmed

4656-468: The army of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, under Konyushy Ivan Chelyadnin and Kniaz Mikhail Golitsin. The battle was part of a long series of Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars conducted by Russian rulers striving to gather all the former lands of Kievan Rus' under their rule. According to Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii by Sigismund von Herberstein, the primary source for the information on the battle, the much smaller army of Poland–Lithuania (under 30,000 men) defeated

4753-507: The city, which attempted to escape submission to Moscow . Such relationships could be tenuous, however, as changes in a city's internal politics could disrupt Lithuanian control, as happened on a number of occasions with Novgorod and other East-Slavic cities. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania managed to hold off Mongol incursions and eventually secured gains. In 1333 and 1339, Lithuanians defeated large Mongol forces attempting to regain Smolensk from

4850-886: The conquered Semigallians and Old Prussians to rebel against the Knights. Encouraged by Treniota , Mindaugas broke the peace with the Order, possibly reverted to pagan beliefs . He hoped to unite all Baltic tribes under the Lithuanian leadership. As military campaigns were not successful, the relationships between Mindaugas and Treniota deteriorated. Treniota, together with Daumantas of Pskov , assassinated Mindaugas and his two sons, Ruklys and Rupeikis, in 1263. The state lapsed into years of internal fighting. From 1263 to 1269, Lithuania had three grand dukes – Treniota , Vaišvilkas , and Švarnas . The state did not disintegrate, however, and Traidenis came to power in 1269. Traidenis strengthened Lithuanian control in Black Ruthenia , fought with

4947-419: The conquests, already initiated by Mindaugas in 13th century, began the process of fusing Ruthenian and Lithuanian culture and, in the absence of its own writing tradition, adopting Ruthenian as the language of administration and written communication. From at least the time of Vytautas , but probably much earlier, the language of internal administration was Chancery Ruthenian , a language similar to, but not

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5044-514: The country's capital since 1316 or 1321. The state continued to expand its territory under the reign of Grand Duke Algirdas and his brother Kęstutis , who both ruled the state harmonically. During the inaugurations of Lithuanian monarchs until 1569, the Gediminas' Cap was placed on the monarch's heads by the Bishop of Vilnius in Vilnius Cathedral . Lithuania was in a good position to conquer

5141-634: The court in Kraków, they learned Polish language over time. Casimir was the last Grand Duke to know the Lithuanian language. From 1500, the elite of the Lithuanian state rapidly adopted the Polish language. The process of moving away from Ruthenian to Polish in administration was soon apparent. The first were the nobles of Podlachia , who adopted Polish laws as early as the 1440s, and repeatedly demanded that official documents be written in Polish, since they no longer knew Ruthenian. The political reforms of 1564–1566 established sejmiks , local land courts, appellate courts modelled on Polish system, through which

5238-403: The creation of a Commissary Provisional Government of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which, in turn, renewed the Polish-Lithuanian Union . The union was never formalized, however, as only half a year later Napoleon's Grande Armée was pushed out of Russia and forced to retreat further westwards. In December 1812, Vilnius was recaptured by Russian forces, bringing all plans for the recreation of

5335-402: The end of the 13th century, it comprised the Duchy of Vilnius/Lithuania and the Duchy of Trakai , and it is possible that the term was then used to refer to both of them. Since the 15th century, the Trakai and Vilnius voivodeships made up Aukštaitija, a political and ethnic entity also known as Lithuania proper . The local people mainly speak the Aukštaitian dialect of Lithuanian . Under

5432-412: The ethnically Lithuanian peasants and some middle nobility. Islam in Lithuania , unlike many other northern and western European countries, has a long history starting from 14th century. Small groups of Muslim Lipka Tatars migrated to ethnically Lithuanian lands, mainly under the rule of Grand Duke Vytautas (early 15th century). In Lithuania, unlike many other European societies at the time, there

5529-407: The factual termination of the Polish–Lithuanian union also occurred during the reign of Casimir's sons Alexander Jagiellon and John I Albert who had respectively ruled Lithuania and Poland separately in 1492–1501. The rapid expansion of the influence of Moscow soon put it into a comparable position to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and after the annexation of Novgorod Republic in 1478, Muscovy

5626-443: The first time fully captured Russia's capital Moscow in 1610. Sigismund III's son, Władysław IV Vasa , began ruling Lithuania in 1632 and achieved military success and popularity during the Smolensk War , but he renounced his claims to the Russian throne per the Treaty of Polyanovka in 1634 and failed at reclaiming the Swedish throne. John II Casimir Vasa 's reign was initially marked with disastrous military loses as during

5723-407: The forces of the Grand Duchy in the Battle of Grunwald . The battle ended in a decisive Polish-Lithuanian victory against the Teutonic Order . The war of Lithuania against military Orders , which lasted for more than 200 years, and was one of the longest wars in the history of Europe, was finally ended. Vytautas backed the economic development of the state and introduced many reforms. Under his rule,

5820-411: The former Kievan Rus' and other neighbouring states, including what is now Belarus , Lithuania , most of Ukraine as well as parts of Latvia , Moldova , Poland and Russia . At its greatest extent, in the 15th century, it was the largest state in Europe. It was a multi-ethnic and multiconfessional state, with great diversity in languages, religion, and cultural heritage. The consolidation of

5917-424: The fusion of Lithuanian and Ruthenian elements in its culture, became the trigger for a long-running debate among historians from Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine over whether the state was essentially Lithuanian or Ruthenian-Lithuanian, in which the more advanced Ruthenian culture played a central role. Before the Lithuanian expansion into the Ruthenian lands, Lithuanian was the only language of public life. However,

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6014-413: The last Baltic ally of Lithuania, in 1291. The Orders could now turn their full attention to Lithuania. The "buffer zone" composed of other Baltic tribes had disappeared, and Grand Duchy of Lithuania was left to battle the Orders on its own. The Gediminid dynasty ruled the grand duchy for over a century, and Vytenis was the first ruler of the dynasty. During his reign Lithuania was in constant war with

6111-405: The loss of land to Moscow, and the continued pressure threatened the survival of the state of Lithuania, so it was forced to ally more closely with Poland, forming a real union with the Kingdom of Poland in the Union of Lublin of 1569. The union was formally called the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , however now commonly known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth . During

6208-499: The main target of both orders. The battle provided a break in the wars with the Knights, and Lithuania exploited this situation, arranging attacks on the Ruthenian provinces and annexing Navahrudak and Hrodna . In 1248, a civil war broke out between Mindaugas and his nephews Tautvilas and Edivydas . The powerful coalition against Mindaugas included Vykintas, the Livonian Order, Daniel of Galicia and Vasilko of Volhynia . Taking advantage of internal conflicts, Mindaugas allied with

6305-504: The mid-16th century, already before the Union of Lublin in 1569. The first mention of the name Lithuania is found in the Annals of Quedlinburg , which describes the missionary expedition of Bruno of Querfurt to Yotvingians. In the 12th century, Slavic chronicles refer to Lithuania as one of the areas attacked by the Rus' . Pagan Lithuanians initially paid tribute to Polotsk , but they soon grew in strength and organized their own small-scale raids. At some point between 1180 and 1183

6402-407: The mid-16th century, the other being Ruthenian; later, both languages began to be replaced by Polish. Ruthenian culture dominated the courts of the Gediminid princes since the 14th century, especially those ruling directly over Ruthenian subjects. Grand Duke Jogaila was most likely bilingual, knowing and speaking Lithuanian and Ruthenian, and was able to communicate in the Samogitian dialect of

6499-481: The new classification of dialects, Lithuanian is divided into only two dialects, Aukštaitian and Samogitian , with all other varieties now classified as subdialects. The Sudovian and Dzūkian dialects are also considered subdialects of Aukštaitian; the specific subdialect spoken in Aukštaitija is thus known as East Aukštaitian. The region has Russian and Belarusian minorities in the east. The subdialects spoken there use more loanwords from those languages. However,

6596-402: The other hand, such a fact is not unprecedented in world history. A credible modern theory of etymology of the name of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuva ) is Artūras Dubonis's hypothesis that Lietuva relates to the word leičiai (plural of leitis , a social group of warriors-knights in the early Grand Duchy of Lithuania). The title of the Grand Duchy was consistently applied to Lithuania from

6693-423: The past, the Lithuanians and the Žemaičiai now faced a common enemy. Likely Živinbudas had the most authority and at least several dukes were from the same families. The formal acknowledgement of common interests and the establishment of a hierarchy among the signatories of the treaty foreshadowed the emergence of the state. Mindaugas, the duke of southern Lithuania, was among the five senior dukes mentioned in

6790-409: The peasants. Since the 16th century, Polish was used much more often than other languages for writing. Polish finally became the Commonwealth's official chancellery language in 1697. Other important ethnic groups throughout the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were Jews and Tatars . Jews spoke mainly in the eastern dialect of Yiddish. The Lithuanian Tatars used a language of Kipchak origin that

6887-404: The period of the Union, many of the territories formerly controlled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were transferred to the Crown of the Polish Kingdom , while the gradual process of Polonization slowly drew Lithuania itself under Polish domination. Following the death of Grand Duke Sigismund II Augustus in 1572, a joint Polish–Lithuanian monarch was to be elected as in the Union of Lublin it

6984-511: The region waned thereafter. In 1387, Moldavia became a vassal of Poland and, in a broader sense, of Lithuania. By this time, Lithuania had conquered the territory of the Golden Horde all the way to the Dnieper River. In a crusade against the Golden Horde in 1398 (in an alliance with Tokhtamysh ), Lithuania invaded northern Crimea and won a decisive victory. In an attempt to place Tokhtamish on the Golden Horde throne in 1399, Lithuania moved against

7081-751: The region was taken by the Russians and incorporated into the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR), and in 1941, it was conquered by the Nazis. During World War II, the town's rector , Mark Burak, was murdered along with 50 parishioners. After the Soviet victory in 1945, Mstibovo was once more part of BSSR. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the BSSR was renamed Republic of Belarus , under whose authority Mstibovo remains. Mstibovo

7178-530: The same as, the spoken language used by Ruthenians living in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. As for the correspondences with foreign courts the grand ducal chancellery prepared it in the language appropriate to the recipient: Latin for the correspondence with the West, German with the Teutonic Order and Chancery Ruthenian with the East Slavic and Tatar rulers. The language used at court continued to be Lithuanian until

7275-502: The second half of the 16th century, Calvinism spread in Lithuania, supported by the families of Radziwiłł , Chodkiewicz , Sapieha , Dorohostajski and others. By the 1580s the majority of the senators from Lithuania were Calvinist or Socinian Unitarians ( Jan Kiszka ). In 1579, Stephen Báthory , King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, founded Vilnius University , one of the oldest universities in Northern Europe . Due to

7372-733: The situation began to change, and the Lithuanians started to organize sustainable military raids on the Slavic provinces, raiding the Principality of Polotsk as well as Pskov , and even threatening Novgorod . The sudden spark of military raids marked consolidation of the Lithuanian lands in Aukštaitija . The Lithuanians are the only branch within the Baltic group that managed to create a state entity in premodern times. The Lithuanian Crusade began after

7469-427: The territory was suppressed during the 1795 partitions of Poland–Lithuania . The state was founded by Lithuanians , who were at the time a polytheistic nation of several united Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija . By 1440 the grand duchy had become the largest European state, controlling an area from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. The grand duchy expanded to include large portions of

7566-586: The title changed to "King of Lithuanians and Ruthenians, ruler and duke of Semigallia" when Semigallia became part of the state. The 1529 edition of the Statute of Lithuania described the titles of Sigismund I the Old as "King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Samogitia, Mazovia, and other [lands]". The country was also called the Republic of Lithuania ( Latin : Respublica Lituana ) since at least

7663-515: The treaty with Galicia–Volhynia. The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle , reports that by the mid-1230s, Mindaugas had acquired supreme power in the whole of Lithuania. In 1236, the Samogitians, led by Vykintas , defeated the Livonian Order in the Battle of Saule . The Order was forced to become a branch of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, making Samogitia, a strip of land that separated Livonia from Prussia,

7760-476: The two are from the same suffix branch. The river flows in the lowlands and easily spills over its banks, therefore the traditional Lithuanian form liet - could be directly translated as lietis (to spill), of the root derived from the Proto-Indo-European leyǝ- . However, the river is very small and some find it improbable that such a small and local object could have lent its name to an entire nation. On

7857-449: The western and the southern parts of the former Kievan Rus' . While almost every other state around it had been plundered or defeated by the Mongols , the hordes stopped at the modern borders of Belarus, and the core territory of the Grand Duchy was left mostly untouched. The weak control of the Mongols over the areas they had conquered allowed the expansion of Lithuania to accelerate. Rus' principalities were never incorporated directly into

7954-558: The work of the Jesuits during the Counter-Reformation the university soon developed into one of the most important scientific and cultural centres of the region and the most notable scientific centre of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The work of the Jesuits as well as conversions from among the Lithuanian senatorial families turned the tide and by the 1670s Calvinism lost its former importance though it still retained some influence among

8051-606: Was accompanied by the spread since mid-15th century of the legend of the Roman origin of the Lithuanian nobility (from the Palemon lineage ), and the closeness of the Lithuanian language and Latin. This let some intellectuals in the mid-16th century to advocate for replacement of Ruthenian with Latin, as they considered Latin as the native language of Lithuanians. Auk%C5%A1taitija Aukštaitija ( Lithuanian pronunciation: [ɐukʃˈtɐǐːtʲɪjɐ] ; literally Highland or Upland )

8148-478: Was agreed that the title "Grand Duke of Lithuania" will be received by a jointly elected monarch in the Election sejm on his accession to the throne, thus losing its former institutional significance, however the Union of Lublin guaranteed that the institution and the title "Grand Duke of Lithuania" will be preserved. In 1573, Henry Valua was elected as the first joint Polish–Lithuanian monarch, however his rule

8245-425: Was among the preeminent states in northeastern Europe . Between 1492 and 1508, Ivan III further consolidated Muscovy, winning the key Battle of Vedrosha and capturing such ancient lands of Kievan Rus' as Chernihiv and Bryansk . On 8 September 1514, the allied forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, under the command of Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski, fought the Battle of Orsha against

8342-614: Was created sometime between 1315 and 1317 by the Constantinople Patriarch John XIII . Following the Galicia–Volhynia Wars which divided the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland , in 1355 the Halych metropoly was liquidated and its eparchies transferred to the metropoles of Lithuania and Volhynia. In 1387, Lithuania converted to Catholicism , while most of

8439-468: Was first mentioned in 1009 in Annals of Quedlinburg . Some older etymological theories relate the name to a small river not far from Kernavė , the core area of the early Lithuanian state and a possible first capital of the would-be Grand Duchy of Lithuania, is usually credited as the source of the name. This river's original name is Lietava . As time passed, the suffix - ava could have changed into - uva , as

8536-461: Was full of borrowings from Turkish and Arabic . It ceased to be used in the 16th century, and was replaced by Ruthenian and Polish, written in the Arabic alphabet . Brought in 1397 from Crimea, Karaites used a dialect of West Karaite language , while Hebrew was used for religious purposes. In addition, Livonia , which had been politically connected to the Grand Duchy since the mid-16th century,

8633-470: Was home to an ancient Jewish community, dating back to the Middle Ages (evident from tombstones in the ancient Jewish cemetery). The community, approximately 80 families, lived in the center of the village, where its synagogue was situated. Rabbis in the community's history include Rabbi Meir HaKohen (father of Rabbi Shabbatai HaKohen ), Rabbi David HaLevi Segal , and Rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman . During

8730-571: Was inhabited by Latgalians who spoke a dialect of the Latvian language . Inhabiting the towns, mainly in Livonia, the mostly Protestant Germans used a local variety of German called Baltendeutsch . Prussian and Yotvingians refugees, pushed out by the Teutonic Knights, also found their footing in the Grand Duchy. Similarly, Russian Old Believers emigrated to Lithuanian lands in the 17th century. The Grand Duchy's linguistic and ethnic situation, as well as

8827-689: Was located in Kernavė until 1316 or 1321 where Traidenis and Vytenis mainly resided and led to its prosperity. During this time, the Orders finalized their conquests. In 1274, the Great Prussian Rebellion ended, and the Teutonic Knights proceeded to conquer other Baltic tribes: the Nadruvians and Skalvians in 1274–1277, and the Yotvingians in 1283; the Livonian Order completed its conquest of Semigalia,

8924-422: Was mentioned for the first time in 1558. There were 42 Tatar families in the village in 1630. The majority of inhabitants of Lithuania proper , which included the voivodeships of Vilnius , Trakai and Samogitia , spoke Lithuanian. These areas remained almost wholly Lithuanian-speaking, both colloquially and by ruling nobility. Despite its frequent oral use, Lithuanian did not begin to be used in writing until

9021-471: Was once again a part of the Commonwealth following the Lithuanian revolt against the Swedes. The Lithuania's capital Vilnius was liberated in 1661. Throughout this Polish–Lithuanian Union period, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania remained a separate state and retained many rights in the federation (including separate name, territory, coat of arms, ministries, ruling system, laws, army, courts, treasury, and seal) until

9118-522: Was recognized as a Christian state until 1260, when Mindaugas supported an uprising in Courland and (according to the German order) renounced Christianity. Up until 1387, Lithuanian nobles professed their own religion, which was polytheistic . Ethnic Lithuanians were very dedicated to their faith. The pagan beliefs needed to be deeply entrenched to survive strong pressure from missionaries and foreign powers. Until

9215-555: Was religious freedom. Lithuanian Tatars were allowed to settle in certain places, such as Trakai and Kaunas . Keturiasdešimt Totorių is one of the oldest Tatar settlements in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After a successful military campaign of the Crimean Peninsula in 1397, Vytautas brought the first Crimean Tatar prisoners of war to Trakai and various places in the Duchy of Trakai , including localities near Vokė river just south of Vilnius. The first mosque in this village

9312-456: Was short and he never personally visited the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, despite being announced as the Grand Duke of Lithuania. The double election of 1575 was held in the presence of a small number of Lithuanian lords, who additionally supported the Habsburg candidate Emperor Maximilian II, however, the race for the crown was won by Stephen Báthory, crowned on May 1, 1576. The Lithuanian lords, at

9409-406: Was small-scale. After the Union of Lublin , this movement significantly increased. Polish was adopted also gradually by the local inhabitants. Already in early 16th century, Polish became the Lithuanian magnates' first language. The following century it was adopted by the Lithuanian nobility in general. The Polish language also penetrated other social strata: the clergy, the townspeople, and even

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