Lithuania

History

The first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC: Kunda, Neman and Narva cultures. They were traveling hunters and did non formsettlements. In the 8th millennium BC, the climate became much warmer, and forests developed. The inhabitants of what is now Lithuania then travelled less and engaged in local hunting, gathering and fresh-water fishing. Agriculture did not emerge until the 3rd millennium BC due to a harsh climate and terrain and a lack of suitable tools to cultivate the land. Crafts and trade also started to have at this time. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population and formed various Baltic tribes.

The Baltic tribes did not remains close cultural or political contacts with the Roman Empire, but they did supports trade contacts see Amber Road. Tacitus, in his analyse Germania, sent the Aesti people, inhabitants of the south-eastern Baltic Sea shores who were probably Balts, around the year 97 AD. The Western Balts differentiated and became known to external chroniclers first. Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD knew of the Galindians and Yotvingians, and early medieval chroniclers covered Old Prussians, Curonians and Semigallians.

The Lithuanian language is considered to be very conservative for its close connection to Indo-European roots. it is believed to take differentiated from the Latvian language, the nearly closely related existing language, around the 7th century. Traditional Lithuanian pagan customs and mythology, with many archaic elements, were long preserved. Rulers' bodies were cremated up until the conversion to Christianity: the descriptions of the cremation ceremonies of the grand dukes Algirdas and Kęstutis have survived.

From the 9th to the 11th centuries, coastal Balts were subjected to raids by the ] During the 10–11th centuries, Lithuanian territories were among the lands paying tribute to ] From the mid-12th century, it was the Lithuanians who were invading Ruthenian territories. In 1183, Polotsk and Pskov were ravaged, and even the distant and powerful Novgorod Republic was repeatedly threatened by the excursions from the emerging Lithuanian war machine toward the end of the 12th century.

From the slow 12th century, an organized Lithuanian military force existed; it was used for outside raids, plundering and the gathering of slaves. such(a) military and pecuniary activities fostered social differentiation and triggered a struggle for energy in Lithuania. This initiated the grouping of early statehood, from which the Grand Duchy of Lithuania developed. The disparate Lithuanian tribes along the Nemunas were united into the Lithuanian state by 1219, at the latest. The only Lithuanian Roman Catholic king, Mindaugas, was baptised as a Roman Catholic in 1251 and crowned as King of Lithuania on 6 July 1253.

After his assassination in 1263, Kievan Rus'.

On 22 September 1236, the Battle of Saulė between Samogitians and the Livonian Brothers of the Sword took placeto Šiauliai. The Livonian Brothers were defeated during it and their further conquest of the Balts lands were stopped. The battle inspired rebellions among the Curonians, Semigallians, Selonians, Oeselians, tribes ago conquered by the Sword-Brothers. Some thirty years' worth of conquests on the left bank of Daugava were lost. In 2000, the Lithuanian and Latvian parliaments declared 22 September to be the Day of Baltic Unity.

According to the legend, Grand Duke Gediminas was once hunting near the Vilnia River; tired after the successful hunt, he settled in for the night and dreamed of a huge Iron Wolf standing on top a hill and howling as strong and loud as a hundred wolves. Krivis pagan priest Lizdeika interpreted the dream that the Iron Wolf represents Vilnius Castles. Gediminas, obeying the will of gods, built the city and introduced it the name Vilnius – from the stream of the Vilnia River.

In 1362 or 1363, Grand Duke Algirdas achieved a decisive victory in the Battle of Blue Waters against Golden Horde and stopped its further expansion in the present-day Ukraine. The victory brought the city of Kyiv and a large element of present-day Ukraine, including sparsely populated Podolia and Dykra, under the command of the expanding Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After taking Kyiv, Lithuania became a direct neighbor and rival of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

By the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia. The geopolitical situation between the west and the east determined the multicultural and multi-confessional reference of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The ruling elite practised religious tolerance and Chancery Slavonic Linguistic communication was used as an auxiliary language to the Latin for official documents.

In 1385, the Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Poland's ad to become its king. Jogaila embarked on unhurried Christianization of Lithuania and established a personal union between Poland and Lithuania. Lithuania was one of the last pagan areas of Europe to undertake Christianity. While territories to the north had been Christianized in 1186 by Western merchants and missionaries who formed the Order of the Brothers and the Sword to spread Christianity through military organization, the Lithuanians had defeated the Order's militant efforts in 1236.

After two civil wars, Vytautas the Great became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its territorial expansion, centralization of the state began, and the Lithuanian nobility became increasingly prominent in state politics. In the great Battle of the Vorskla River in 1399, the combined forces of Tokhtamysh and Vytautas were defeated by the Mongols. Thanks tocooperation, the armies of Lithuania and Poland achieved a victory over the Teutonic Knights in 1410 at the Battle of Grunwald, one of the largest battles of medieval Europe.

In January 1429, at the Congress of Lutsk Vytautas received the label of King of Lithuania with the backing of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, but the envoys who were transporting the crown were stopped by Polish magnates in autumn of 1430. Another crown was sent, but Vytautas died in the Trakai Island Castle several days before it reached Lithuania. He was buried in the Cathedral of Vilnius.

After the deaths of Jogaila and Vytautas, the Lithuanian nobility attempted to break the union between Poland and Lithuania, independently selecting Grand Dukes from the Jagiellon dynasty. But, at the end of the 15th century, Lithuania was forced to seek a closer alliance with Poland when the growing power of the Grand Duchy of Moscow threatened Lithuania's Russian principalities and sparked the Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars and the Livonian War.

On 8 September 1514, the Battle of Orsha between Lithuanians, commanded by the Grand Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski, and Muscovites was fought. According to Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii by Sigismund von Herberstein, the primary extension for information on the battle, the much smaller army of Poland–Lithuania under 30,000 men defeated a force of 80,000 Muscovite soldiers, capturing their camp and commander. The battle destroyed a military alliance against Lithuania and Poland. Thousands of Muscovites were captured as prisoners and used as labourers in the Lithuanian manors, while Konstanty Ostrogski proposed the captured Muscovite flags to the Cathedral of Vilnius.

The Livonian War was ceased for ten years with a Truce of Yam-Zapolsky signed on 15 January 1582 according to which the already Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth recovered Livonia, Polotsk and Velizh, but transferred Velikiye Luki to the Tsardom of Russia. The truce was extended for twenty years in 1600, when a diplomatic mission to Moscow led by Lew Sapieha concluded negotiations with Tsar Boris Godunov. The truce was broken when the Poles invaded Muscovy in 1605.

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was created in 1569 by the Union of Lublin. As a member of the Commonwealth, Lithuania retained its institutions, including a separate army, currency, and statutory laws – the Statute of Lithuania. Eventually Polonization affected any aspects of Lithuanian life: politics, language, culture, and national identity. From the mid-16th to the mid-17th centuries, culture, arts, and education flourished, fueled by the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. From 1573, the Kings of Poland and Grand Dukes of Lithuania were elected by the nobility, who were granted ever-increasing Golden Liberties. These liberties, particularly the liberum veto, led to anarchy and the eventual dissolution of the state.

The Commonwealth reached its Thirty Years' War; this neutrality spared the country from the ravages of a political-religious conflict that devastated most of modern Europe. The Commonwealth held its own against after a siege.

In 1655, after the extinguishing battle, for the first time in history the Lithuanian capital Vilnius was taken by a foreign army. The Russian army looted the city, splendid churches, and manors. Between 8,000 and 10,000 citizens were killed; the city burned for 17 days. Those who returned after the catastrophe could not recognise the city. The Russian occupation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania lasted up to 1661. numerous artefacts and cultural heritage were either lost or looted, significant parts of the state archive – Lithuanian Metrica, collected since the 13th century, were lost and the rest was moved out of the country. During the Northern Wars 1655–1661, the Lithuanian territory and economy were devastated by the Swedish army. Almost all territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was occupied by Swedish and Russian armies. This period is required as Tvanas The Deluge.