1.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
2.
Gediminids
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The Gediminids were a dynasty of monarchs in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that reigned from the 14th to the 16th century. One branch of this dynasty, known as the Jagiellons, reigned also in the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Hungary, several other branches ranked among the leading aristocratic dynasties of Russia and Poland into recent times. Their monarchical title in Lithuanian primarily was, by some folkloristic data, kunigų kunigas, in the 18th century the latter form was changed into tautological didysis kunigaikštis, which nevertheless would be translated as Grand Duke. The origin of Gediminas himself is much debated, some sources say he was Vytenis ostler, others that he was of peasant stock. Some historians consider him as the son or grandson of Lithuanian or Yatvingian duke Skalmantas, some of these families later converted to Roman Catholicism and became thoroughly Polonized. Others moved to Muscovy and became thoroughly Russified, in Poland, most Gediminid families are extinct, but at least some families survive to the present, Korecki, Khovanski, Czartoryski, Sanguszko, and Koriatowicz-Kurcewicz. The Russian Gediminid families include Bulgakov, Golitsin, Kurakin, Khovansky, Trubetskoy, Mstislavsky, Belsky, the descendants of Jaunutis, Dukes of Zaslavsky Dukes of Mstislavsky V. Genealogy of the House of Gediminas
3.
Algirdas
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Algirdas was a monarch of medieval Lithuania. He ruled the Lithuanians and Ruthenians from 1345 to 1377, with the help of his brother Kęstutis he created an empire stretching from the present Baltic states to the Black Sea and to within fifty miles of Moscow. Algirdas was one of the seven sons of Grand Prince Gediminas, before his death in 1341, Gediminas divided his domain, leaving his youngest son Jaunutis in possession of the capital, Vilnius. With the aid of his brother, Kęstutis, Algirdas drove out the incompetent Jaunutis and he devoted the next thirty-two years to the development and expansion of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Two factors are thought to have contributed to this result, the political sagacity of Algirdas, the division of their dominions is illustrated by the fact that Algirdas appears almost exclusively in East Slavic sources, while Western chronicles primarily describe Kęstutis. The Teutonic Order in the northwest and the Golden Horde in the southwest sought Lithuanian territory, while Poland to the west and Muscovy to the east were generally hostile competitors. Algirdas held his own, also acquiring influence and territory at the expense of Muscovy and his principal efforts were directed toward securing the Slavic lands which were part of the former Kievan Rus. Algirdas occupied the important principalities of Smolensk and Bryansk in western Russia, although his relationship with the grand dukes of Muscovy was generally friendly, he besieged Moscow in 1368 and 1370 during the Lithuanian–Muscovite War. According to modern historians, For Gediminas and Algirdas, retention of paganism provided a diplomatic tool. That allowed them to use promises of conversion as a means of preserving their power, hermann von Wartberge and Jan Długosz described Algirdas as a pagan until his death in 1377. His pagan beliefs were mentioned in 14th-century Byzantine historian Nicephorus Gregoras accounts. His alleged burial site has undergone archaeological research since 2009, Algirdas descendants include the Trubetzkoy, Czartoryski and Sanguszko families. Several Orthodox churches were built in Vilnius during his reign, despite contemporary accounts and modern studies, however, some Russian historians claim that Algirdas was an Orthodox ruler. The Kiev Monastery of the Caves commemorative book, underwritten by Algirdas descendants and his son Jogaila ascended the Polish throne, converted to Roman Catholicism and founded the dynasty which ruled Lithuania and Poland for nearly 200 years. Algirdas was Duke of Vitsebsk for over 20 years before becoming Grand Duke of Lithuania, gediminids House of Algirdas – Algirdas family tree
4.
Grand Duke of Lithuania
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The following is a list of rulers over Lithuania—grand dukes, kings, and presidents—the heads of authority over historical Lithuanian territory. The timeline includes Lithuania as an entity or legitimately part of a greater sovereign entity as well as Lithuania under control or occupation of an outside authority. The incumbents and office-holders are listed by names most commonly used in English language, where appropriate, the alternations in Lithuanian, Ruthenian and Polish are included. The state of Lithuania formed in 1230s, when threatened by the Livonian Order in the north and he became the only crowned king of Lithuania. His state became known as Grand Duchy of Lithuania, after Grand Duke Jogaila became also king of Poland in 1386, the two states became closer connected and since 1440 both were ruled by a common ruler. In 1569 Union of Lublin was signed and a new entity—the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—emerged, the commonwealth was partitioned in 1795 and Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire till 16 February 1918. The Council of Lithuania was able to establish the sovereignty only in 1919, the first republic of Lithuania existed until 1940 when it was occupied by the Soviet Union. During the Soviet-German War, Lithuania was occupied by Nazi Germany, in 1944, as Germany was losing the war, Russia re-occupied Lithuania and established the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence, the restored Republic of Lithuania is a democratic republic, a member of both the European Union and NATO. Title, Grand Duke except for Mindaugas, who became king of Lithuania, dates are approximate because of scant written sources. The act of union with Poland was signed as early as 1385, however. The monarchs retained separate titles for both parts of the state, and their numbering was kept separately, the Jagiellon dynasty was a direct continuation of the Gediminids. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was established by Union of Lublin in 1569, the elected King of Poland was to be elected by Lithuanian noble families as a Grand Duke of Lithuania. The first ruler of the country was Sigismund II Augustus. Following the partitions in 1772,1793, and 1795, the commonwealth ceased to exist, there are some gaps in the timeline as it took a while to elect a new king. Title, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, the Council of Lithuania declared independence on 16 February 1918 and invited Wilhelm of Urach to become king of Lithuania. The name of the state was the Kingdom of Lithuania, on 9 July 1918, the council declared that the Duke of Urach is to become King Mindaugas II of Lithuania. However, on 2 November, the council revoked this decision because of its unpopularity, the institution of President was created on 4 April 1919
5.
Belarusian language
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Belarusian is an official language of Belarus, along with Russian, and is spoken abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and small parts in far-eastern Poland. Following independence, it became known as Belarusian. Belarusian is one of the East Slavic languages and shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group, to some extent, Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian are mutually intelligible. Its predecessor stage is known as Ruthenian, in turn descended from Old East Slavic, at the 1999 Belarus Census, the Belarusian language was declared as a language spoken at home by about 3,686,000 Belarusian citizens. About 6,984,000 of Belarusians declared it their mother tongue, other sources put the population of the language as 6,715,000 in Belarus and 9,081,102 in all countries. According to a study done by the Belarusian government in 2009, 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home,29. 4% of Belarusians can write, speak, and read Belarusian, while 52. 5% can only read and speak it. Although closely related to other East Slavic languages, especially Ukrainian, Belarusian phonology is distinct in a number of ways, the phoneme inventory of the modern Belarusian language consists of 45 to 54 phonemes,6 vowels and 39 to 48 consonants, depending on how they are counted. When the nine geminate consonants are excluded as mere variations, there are 39 consonants, the number 48 includes all consonant sounds, including variations and rare sounds, which may be semantically distinct in the modern Belarusian language. The Belarusian alphabet is a variant of the Cyrillic script, which was first used as an alphabet for the Old Church Slavonic language, the modern Belarusian form was defined in 1918, and consists of thirty-two letters. Before that, Belarusian had also written in the Belarusian Latin alphabet, the Belarusian Arabic alphabet. The Glagolitic script had been used, sporadically, until the 11th or 12th century, there are several systems of romanizing written Belarusian text in existence, see Romanization of Belarusian. Standardized Belarusian grammar in its form was adopted in 1959. It was developed from the form set down by Branislaw Tarashkyevich. Historically, there had existed several other alternative standardized forms of Belarusian grammar and it is mainly based on the Belarusian folk dialects of Minsk-Vilnius region. Belarusian grammar is mostly synthetic and partly analytic, and overall is similar to Russian grammar. The most significant instance of this is in the representation of vowel reduction, and in particular akannye, the merger of unstressed /a/ and /o/, Belarusian always spells this merged sound as ⟨a⟩, whereas Russian uses either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩, according to what the underlying phoneme is. This can significantly complicate the task of foreign speakers in learning these paradigms, besides the literary norm, there exist two main dialects of the Belarusian language, the North-Eastern and the South-Western. In addition, there exist the transitional Middle Belarusian dialect group, the North-Eastern dialect is chiefly characterized by the soft sounding R and strong akanye, and the South-Western dialect is chiefly characterized by the hard sounding R and moderate akanye
6.
Lithuanian language
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Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.9 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania, Lithuanian is a Baltic language, related to Latvian. It is written in a Latin alphabet, Lithuanian is often said to be the most conservative living Indo-European language, retaining many features of Proto-Indo-European now lost in other Indo-European languages. Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant, among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is extraordinarily conservative, retaining many archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit or Ancient Greek. For this reason, it is one of the most important sources in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation, the Proto-Balto-Slavic languages branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic, according to some glottochronological speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between AD400 and AD600. The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name, the Galindai and Sudinoi in the 2nd century AD, the differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after AD800, for a long period, they could be considered dialects of a single language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century, also, the 13th- and 14th-century occupation of the western part of the Daugava basin by the German Sword Brethren had a significant influence on the languages independent development. The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lords Prayer, the Hail Mary, printed books existed after 1547, but the level of literacy among Lithuanians was low through the 18th century, and books were not commonly available. Brought into the country by book smugglers despite the threat of prison sentences. Jonas Jablonskis made significant contributions to the formation of the standard Lithuanian language and his proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitijan dialect with some features of the eastern Prussian Lithuanians dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor. These dialects had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian language, Lithuanian has been the official language of Lithuania since 1918. During the Soviet era, it was used in official discourse along with Russian, Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages, along with Latvian. An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian, was extinct by the 18th century, such an opinion was first represented by the likes of August Schleicher, and to a certain extent, Antoine Meillet. Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact while Schleicher, Meillet and others argued for a kinship between the two families. An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski and he proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities, they had posterior contact. The genetic kinship view is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody, vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov believed in the unity of Balto-Slavic, but not in the unity of Baltic. In the 1960s, they proposed a new division, that into East-Baltic, West-Baltic, the Ivanov–Toporov theory is gaining ground among students of comparative-historic grammar of Indo-European language, and seems to be replacing the previous two stances in most PIE textbooks
7.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
8.
Battle of the Vorskla River
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The Battle of the Vorskla River was a great battle in the medieval history of Eastern Europe. It was fought on August 12,1399, between the Tatars, under Edigu and Temur Qutlugh, and the armies of Tokhtamysh and Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania, the battle ended in a decisive Tatar victory. In late 1380s the relationship between Tokhtamysh, Khan of the Golden Horde, and his master, Timur, was growing tense. In 1395, after losing the Tokhtamysh–Timur war, Tokhtamysh was dethroned by the party of Khan Temur Qutlugh and Emir Edigu, Tokhtamysh escaped to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and asked Vytautas for assistance in retaking the Horde in exchange for surrendering his suzerainty over Ruthenian lands. This development was in harmony with Vytautas ambitions to become ruler of all Ruthenian lands, a surviving iarlyk shows that Tokhtamysh had asked for Polish–Lithuanian assistance previously in 1393. Vytautas gathered an army which included Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Poles, Moldavians. To enlist support from the Teutonic Knights, Vytautas signed the Treaty of Salynas, vytautass son-in-law, Vasily I of Moscow, formally a Tatar vassal, did not join the coalition. The joint forces organized three expeditions into Tatar territories, in 1397,1398, and 1399, the first expedition reached the Black Sea and Crimea. Vytautas took several thousand captives without much opposition, half of these captives were settled near Trakai and awarded privileges to practice their faith. Communities of their descendants, Lipka Tatars and Crimean Karaites, survive to this day, in 1398, the army of Vytautas moved from the Dnieper River and attacked northern Crimea, reaching as far east as the River Don. In order to strengthen his position, Vytautas built a castle at the mouth of Dnieper, inspired by their successes, Vytautas declared a Crusade against the Tatars and in May 1399 received blessing from Pope Boniface IX. The papal blessing for the crusade was an important political achievement for Lithuania, a converted to Christianity only in 1387. The campaign was organized from Kiev, in 1399, the army of Vytautas once again moved against the Horde along the Dnieper River. On August 5, his army met the Tatars at the Vorskla River just north of Poltava, once the two armies met, Temur Qutlugh proposed a three-day ceasefire to allow both sides to prepare their forces. It was a trick to win time while Edigus reinforcements arrived, Vytautas planned to build a great wagon-fort, to stop charging horsemen, and then to destroy them with cannons and artillery. Vytautas army was equipped, but smaller in number. However, Temur Qutlugh feigned a retreat and Vytautas left his wagon fort to pursue him, once Lithuanian forces were suitably far away from the wagon fort, the units of Edigu appeared from behind and surrounded the Lithuanian army. At this point Tokhtamysh decided the battle was lost and fled the battle with his men, the Tartars then used their own artillery to destroy the Lithuanian cavalry whilst simultaneously capturing the Lithuanians wagon fort
9.
Principality of Pskov
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The Principality of Pskov or Lordship of Pskov was a medieval state that grew out of the Rus Khaganate in the late 9th century. The city of Pskov was founded by the Rus, then expanded into a duchy or principality. It was a state of various Rus states between the 1230s and 1348, when the Treaty of Bolotovo recognized the independence of Pskov. Pskov is situated on the shore of the Lake Peipus, to the east of Livonia. In the 13th century, the Principality of Pskov was a strip of land along the eastern Narva River and Peipus. The division between Livonia and Pskov was made up by an area of water bodies and poorly settled areas, the town of Pskov was founded in the late 9th century by the Rus. Olga of Kiev, the wife of Igor of Kiev, was born in Pskov. In 1065–67, Vseslav attacked Pskov and Novgorod, then was captured by Iziaslav I of Kiev, in 1218, the princes of Novgorod and Pskov attacked Estonia and Latvia, while the Lithuanians had attacked Pskov in the meantime. A conflict ensued in the years between Pskov and Letgallia. Now, Pskov entered an alliance with Riga. The Novgorod nobility believed that Yaroslav had merely used the pretext of attacking Riga to conquer Pskov, Yaroslav now asked Pskov to take part in the attack, but Pskov refused. Between 1236 and 1242, the Kievan Rus, except Novgorod, Pskov, the Teutonic knights captured a fort southwest of Pskov, then occupied the city in 1240 and established rule to the west of Novgorod. After appeals from Novgorod, Grand Prince Yaroslav sent two brothers, Alexander and Andrey, who expelled the knights and halted their eastern advance, in 1316, Pskov troops took part in a Novgorod campaign against Tver. In the 1320s, the coalitions of the Teutonic knights and Novgorod, on one side, in 1322–23 Pskov campaigned as a Lithuanian dependency, probably first in the Lithuanian attack on Dorpat, then in the Grodno raid into Danish Estonia. In response, in May 1323, knight Kesselhuth launched a 18-day siege of Pskov, while Pskovs request to Novgorod, the siege was ended after an army dispatch from Lithuania, after which peace was agreed. Alexander Mikhailovich of Vladimir was forced to flee after a joint Muscovite–Tatar invasion in 1327 and he was excommunicated by the city metropolitan, but returned in 1331, ruling the city until 1337. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 6, C. 1300-c.1415, Livonia, Rus’ and the Baltic Crusades in the Thirteenth Century
