1.
Battle of Grunwald (Matejko)
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The canvas dates to 1878 and is one of the most heroic representations of the history of Poland. It is displayed in the National Museum in Warsaw, the painting has been both hailed and criticized for its complexity. It is one of Matejkos most recognizable works, and has contributed to the popular image of the battle of Grunwald. Matejko began collecting materials for the painting in 1874 and he started painting the canvas some time in 1875 and finished it in 1878. Soon afterwards, he received a scepter from the council of Kraków in a ceremony, in recognition of his work. The painting was sold that year to Dawid Rosenblum, an individual in Warsaw. Displayed in numerous exhibitions, in 1902 the painting was bought from Rosenblums heirs by the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts. Like many other works, the Battle of Grunwald was hidden during the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany, the painting survived the war years hidden near Lublin. Restored after World War II, since 1949 this oil painting has been on display in the National Museum in Warsaw. In 1999 the Battle of Grunwald was loaned to Lithuania, where it garnered a positive reception because it prominently features Vytautas, by the 2000s, the painting needed restoration. In 2010, the condition of the painting prevented its inclusion it in a special exhibition at Wawel Castle to mark the 600th anniversary of the battle. The painting was renovated, with the finished in 2012. After restoration the painting is once again on display at the National Museum, in the center of the painting is the Lithuanian duke Vytautas, dressed in red with a raised sword. Vytautas holds a prominent position in the painting than his cousin, Polish king Władysław Jagiełło. While Lithuanian sources claim that Vytautas The Great have got the major role in the battle by actually commanding troops. In the skies above the carnage, Saint Stanislaus, a patron of Poland, another central scene depicts death of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Ulrich von Jungingen. Dressed in white Order garb and riding a horse, von Jungingen is being killed by two anonymous figures, which historian of art Danuta Batorska identifies as savage looking Lithuanian peasants. Next to the spearman is an executioner, who symbolizes the punishment Jungingen receives for the Order raids, near Władysław are also, his relative, Zygmunt Korybut, Deputy Chancellor of the Crown, Mikołaj Trąba, Siemowit IV, Duke of Masovia
2.
Jan Matejko
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Jan Alojzy Matejko was a Polish painter known for paintings of notable historical Polish political and military events. His works include oil on canvas paintings like Rejtan, Union of Lublin or Battle of Grunwald, numerous portraits, a gallery of Polish kings. He is counted among the most famous Polish painters, Matejko spent most of his life in Kraków. His teachers at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts included Wojciech Korneli Stattler, later, he became a director at this institution, which eventually was renamed the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts. A number of his students became prominent painters themselves, including Maurycy Gottlieb, Jacek Malczewski, Józef Mehoffer, Matejko was born on June 24,1838, in the Free City of Kraków. His father, Franciszek Ksawery Matejko, a Czech from the village of Roudnice, was a graduate of the Hradec Králové school who became a tutor. He first worked for the Wodzicki family in Kościelniki, Poland, then moved to Kraków, Jan was the ninth child of eleven that his parents had. He grew up in a building on Floriańska Street. After the death of his mother in 1845, Jan and his siblings were cared for by his maternal aunt, Anna Zamojska. At a young age he witnessed the Kraków revolution of 1846 and the 1848 siege of Kraków by the Austrians and his two older brothers served in them under General Józef Bem, one died and the other was forced into exile. He attended St. Anns High School, which he dropped out of in 1851 because of poor results, from his earliest days Matejko showed artistic talent, but he had great difficulty with other subjects. He never mastered a foreign language, despite that and because of his exceptional talent he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków from 1852 to 1858. His teachers included Wojciech Korneli Stattler and Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and he selected historical painting as his specialization, and finished his first major work, Tsars Shuyski before Zygmunt III, in 1853. During this time, he began exhibiting paintings at the Kraków Society of Friends of Fine Arts. His seminal project for his graduation in 1858 was Sigismund I the Old ennobles the professors of the Jagiellonian University, following his graduation, Matejko received a scholarship to study under Hermann Anschütz at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich in 1859. Next year he received a scholarship to study at Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, but after a few days. There he opened a studio at his house at Floriańska Street. It would however be years before he would gain success, for a time he was the proverbial starving artist
3.
Masuria
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Masuria is a region in northern Poland famous for its 2,000 lakes. Before the end of World War II, it was inhabited by Polish-speaking Lutheran Masurians. Masuria occupies much of the Masurian Lake District, administratively, it belongs to Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. Its biggest city is Ełk, often regarded as its capital and it has territory of about 10,000 km2 and population of 500,000. Before 13th century, the territory was inhabited by the Old Prussians also called Baltic Prussians, the territory later called Masuria was then known as Galindia and was probably a peripheral, deeply forested and lightly populated area. Its inhabitants spoke a language now known as Old Prussian and had their own mythology, although a 19th-century German political entity bore their name, they were not Germans. They were converted to Roman Catholicism in the 13th century, after conquest by the Knights of the Teutonic Order, estimates range from about 170,000 to 220,000 Old Prussians living in the whole of Prussia around 1200. The wilderness was their natural barrier against attack by would-be invaders, during the Northern Crusades of the early 13th century, the Old Prussians used this wide forest as a line of defence. They did so again against the Knights of the Teutonic Order, the orders goal was to convert the native population to Christianity and baptise it by force if necessary. In the subsequent conquest, which lasted over 50 years, the population was nearly exterminated. After the Orders acquisition of Prussia, Poles began to settle in the part of the conquered region. German, Dutch, Flemish, and Danish colonists entered the area afterward, western half of the province was ceded to Poland, and the grand master became a vassal of the Polish crown. The secularization of the Teutonic Order in Prussia and the conversion of Albert of Prussia to Lutheranism in 1525 brought Prussia including the later called Masuria area to Protestantism. The Polish language predominated due to the immigrants from Mazovia. While the countryside was inhabited by Protestant Polish-speakers, who took refuge, the ancient Old Prussian language survived in parts of the countryside until the early 18th century. Areas that had many Polish language speakers were known as the Polish Departments, in 1656, during the Battle of Prostki, the forces of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including 2,000 Tatar raiders, beat the allied Swedish and Brandenburg army capturing Bogusław Radziwiłł. The war resulted in the destruction of most towns,249 villages, over 50% of the population of southern Prussia died within the years 1656–1657,23,000 killed, another 80,000 died of diseases and famine,3,400 people were enslaved. In Lötzen 800 out of 919 people died, the last group of refugees to emigrate to Masuria were the Russian Philipons in 1830, when King Frederick William III of Prussia granted them asylum
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
History of Poland during the Jagiellonian dynasty
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The rule of the Jagiellonian dynasty in Poland between 1386 and 1572 spans the late Middle Ages and early Modern Era in European history. The dynasty was founded by the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila, whose marriage to Queen Jadwiga of Poland formed a Polish–Lithuanian union, in the Baltic Sea region, Polands maintained an ongoing conflict with the Teutonic Knights. In the south, Poland confronted the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Tatars, Polands and Lithuanias territorial expansion included the far north region of Livonia. In the Jagiellonian period, Poland developed as a state with a predominantly agricultural economy. The Nihil novi act adopted by the Polish Sejm in 1505 transferred most of the power in the state from the monarch to the Sejm. This event marked the beginning of the known as Golden Liberty. Protestant Reformation movements made deep inroads into the Polish Christianity, which resulted in unique policies of tolerance in the Europe of that time. The European Renaissance as fostered by the late Jagiellonian Kings Sigismund I the Old, in 1385, the Union of Krewo was signed between Queen Jadwiga of Poland and Jogaila, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, the ruler of the last pagan state in Europe. The act arranged for Jogailas baptism and the marriage, which established the beginning of the Polish-Lithuanian union. After Jogailas baptism, he was known in Poland by his baptismal name Władysław, the union strengthened both nations in their shared opposition to the Teutonic Knights and the growing threat of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Vast expanses of Rus lands, including the Dnieper River basin, the population of the Grand Duchys enlarged territory was accordingly heavily Ruthenian and Eastern Orthodox. The territorial expansion led to a confrontation between Lithuania and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which found itself emerging from the Tatar rule and itself in a process of expansion. The intention of the union was to create a state under Władysław Jagiełło. Territorial disputes led to warfare between Poland and Lithuania or Lithuanian factions, the Lithuanians at times found it expedient to conspire with the Teutonic Knights against the Poles. Geographic consequences of the union and the preferences of the Jagiellonian kings instead created a process of orientating Polish territorial priorities to the east. Between 1386 and 1572, the Polish-Lithuanian union was ruled by a succession of monarchs of the Jagiellonian dynasty. The political influence of the Jagiellonian kings gradually diminished during this period, while the nobility took over an ever-increasing role in central government. The royal dynasty, however, had an effect on Polands politics
6.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
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The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 13th century until 1795. The state was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija, the Grand Duchy later expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus and other Slavic lands, including territory of present-day Belarus, parts of Ukraine, Poland and Russia. At its greatest extent in the 15th century, it was the largest state in Europe and it was a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state with great diversity in languages, religion, and cultural heritage. Consolidation of the Lithuanian lands began in the late 12th century, Mindaugas, the first ruler of the Grand Duchy, was crowned as Catholic King of Lithuania in 1253. The pagan state was targeted in the crusade by the Teutonic Knights. The multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state emerged only at the reign of Gediminas. The reign of Vytautas the Great marked both the greatest territorial expansion of the Grand Duchy and the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 and it also marked the rise of the Lithuanian nobility. After Vytautass death, Lithuanias relationship with the Kingdom of Poland greatly deteriorated, Lithuanian noblemen, including the Radvila family, attempted to break the personal union with Poland. However, the unsuccessful Muscovite–Lithuanian 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, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania maintained its political distinctiveness and had separate government, laws, army, shortly after, the unitary character of the state was confirmed by adopting the Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations. The newly reformed Commonwealth was invaded by Russia in 1792 and partitioned between the neighbours, with a truncated state remaining only nominally independent, after the Kościuszko Uprising, the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and Austria in 1795. The Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania name the name of the state as Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia. The title of Grand Duchy was consistently applied to Lithuania from the 14th century onward, 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 grew in strength. The sudden spark of military raids marked consolidation of the Lithuanian lands in Aukštaitija, the Livonian Order and Teutonic Knights, crusading military orders, were established in Riga in 1202 and in Prussia in 1226. The Christian orders posed a significant threat to pagan Baltic tribes, 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, although they had battled in 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 acknowledgment of common interests and the establishment of a hierarchy among the signatories of the treaty foreshadowed the emergence of the state
7.
Czechs
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Ethnic Czechs were called Bohemians in English until the early 20th century, referring to the late Iron Age tribe of Celtic Boii and the land Bohemia. The Czech diaspora is found in numbers in the United States, Canada, Israel, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Switzerland, Italy. The Czech ethnic group is part of the West Slavic subgroup of the larger Slavic ethno-linguistical group, the West Slavs have origin in early Slavic tribes which settled in Central Europe after East Germanic tribes had left this area during the migration period. The West Slavic tribe of Bohemians settled in the area of Bohemia during the migration period and they formed an independent principality in the 9th century, the Duchy of Bohemia, under the Přemyslid dynasty. According to mythology, the father of the Czech people were Forefather Čech. The Czech are closely related to the neighbouring Slovaks, the Czech–Slovak languages form a dialect continuum rather than being two clearly distinct languages. Czech cultural influence in Slovak culture is noted as having much higher than the other way around. Czech people have a history of coexistence with Germanic people. The Czech National Revival took place in the 18th and 19th centuries aiming to revive Czech language, culture, the Czech were the initiators of Pan-Slavism. The Czech ethnonym was the name of a Slavic tribe in central Bohemia that subdued the tribes in the late 9th century. The origin of the name of the tribe itself is unknown, according to legend, it comes from their leader Čech, who brought them to Bohemia. Research regards Čech as a derivative of the root čel-, the Czech ethnonym was adopted by the Moravians in the 19th century. The name Bohemia is Germanic, English used that name until after the establishment of Czechoslovakia, the population of the Czech lands has been influenced by different human migrations that wide-crossed Europe over time. In their Y-DNA haplogroups, which are inherited along the male line,34. 2% of Czech males belong to R1a, which is particularly common in a large region extending from South Asia and Southern Siberia to Central Europe and Scandinavia. The population of the Czech Republic descends from diverse peoples of Slavic, Celtic and Germanic origin, presence of West Slavs in the 6th century during the Migration Period has been documented on the Czech territory. Slavs settled in Bohemia, Moravia and Austria sometime during the 6th or 7th centuries, according to a popular myth, the Slavs came with Forefather Čech who settled at the Říp Mountain. The Duchy of Bohemia emerged in the late 9th century, in 880, Prague Castle was constructed by Prince Bořivoj, founder of the Přemyslid dynasty and the city of Prague was established. Vratislav II was the first Czech king in 1085 and the duchy was raised to a kingdom under Ottokar I in 1198
8.
Bohemia
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Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech lands in the present-day Czech Republic. Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg Monarchy, after World War I and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state, Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia. Between 1938 and 1945, border regions with sizeable German-speaking minorities of all three Czech lands were joined to Nazi Germany as the Sudetenland, in 1990, the name was changed to the Czech Republic, which become a separate state in 1993 with the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Until 1948, Bohemia was a unit of Czechoslovakia as one of its lands. Bohemia was bordered in the south by Upper and Lower Austria, in the west by Bavaria and in the north by Saxony and Lusatia, in the northeast by Silesia, and in the east by Moravia. In the 2nd century BC, the Romans were competing for dominance in northern Italy, the Romans defeated the Boii at the Battle of Placentia and the Battle of Mutina. After this, many of the Boii retreated north across the Alps, much later Roman authors refer to the area they had once occupied as Boiohaemum. The earliest mention was by Tacitus Germania 28, and later mentions of the name are in Strabo. The name appears to include the tribal name Boi- plus the Germanic element *haimaz home and this Boiohaemum was apparently isolated to the area where King Marobods kingdom was centred, within the Hercynian forest. The Czech name Čechy is derived from the name of the Slavic ethnic group, the Czechs, Bohemia, like neighbouring Bavaria, is named after the Boii, who were a large Celtic nation known to the Romans for their migrations and settlement in northern Italy and other places. Another part of the nation moved west with the Helvetii into southern France, to the south, over the Danube, the Romans extended their empire, and to the southeast in Hungaria, were Sarmatian peoples. In the area of modern Bohemia the Marcomanni and other Suebic groups were led by their king Marobodus and he took advantage of the natural defenses provided by its mountains and forests. In late classical times and the early Middle Ages, two new Suebic groupings appeared to the west of Bohemia in southern Germany, the Alemanni, many Suebic tribes from the Bohemian region took part in such movements westwards, even settling as far away as Spain and Portugal. With them were also tribes who had pushed from the east, such as the Vandals, other groups pushed southwards towards Pannonia. These are precursors of todays Czechs, though the amount of Slavic immigration is a subject of debate. The Slavic influx was divided into two or three waves, the first wave came from the southeast and east, when the Germanic Lombards left Bohemia. Soon after, from the 630s to 660s, the territory was taken by Samos tribal confederation and his death marked the end of the old Slavonic confederation, the second attempt to establish such a Slavonic union after Carantania in Carinthia. Other sources divide the population of Bohemia at this time into the Merehani, Marharaii, Beheimare, Christianity first appeared in the early 9th century, but only became dominant much later, in the 10th or 11th century
9.
Moravia
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Moravia is a historical country in the Czech Republic and one of the historical Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. Moravia has an area of over 22,348.87 km2 and about 3 million inhabitants, the statistics from 1921 states, that the whole area of Moravia including the enclaves in Silesia covers 22,623.41 km2. The people are historically named Moravians, a subgroup of Czechs, the land takes its name from the Morava river, which rises in the northern tip of the region and flows southward to the opposite end, being its major stream. Moravias largest city and historical capital is Brno, however before being sacked by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years War, though officially abolished by an administrative reform in 1949, Moravia is still commonly acknowledged as a specific land in the Czech Republic. Moravian people are aware of their Moravian identity and there is some rivalry between them and the Czechs from Bohemia. Moravia occupies most of the part of the Czech Republic. Moravian territory is naturally strongly determined, in fact, as the Morava river basin, with effect of mountains in the west and partly in the east. Moravia occupies a position in Central Europe. All the highlands in the west and east of part of Europe run west-east. Moravia borders Bohemia in the west, Lower Austria in the south, Slovakia in the southeast, Poland very shortly in the north and its natural boundary is formed by the Sudetes mountains in the north, the Carpathians in the east and the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands in the west. The Thaya river meanders along the border with Austria and the tripoint of Moravia, Austria and Slovakia is at the confluence of the Thaya, the northeast border with Silesia runs partly along the Moravice, Oder and Ostravice rivers. Between 1782–1850, Moravia also included a portion of the former province of Silesia – the Austrian Silesia. Geologically, Moravia covers an area between the Bohemian Massif and the Carpathians, and between the Danube basin and the North European Plain. Its core geomorphological features are three wide vales, namely the Dyje-Svratka Vale, the Upper Morava Vale and the Lower Morava Vale, the former two form the westernmost part of the Subcarpathia, the latter one is the northernmost part of the Vienna Basin. The vales surround the low range of Central Moravian Carpathians, the highest mountains of Moravia are situated on its northern border in Hrubý Jeseník, the highest peak is Praděd. Second highest are the Moravian-Silesian Beskids at the very east, with Smrk, the White Carpathians along the southeastern border rise up to 970 m at Velká Javořina. The spacious, but moderate Bohemian-Moravian Highlands on the west reach 837 m at Devět skal. The fluvial system of Moravia is very cohesive, as the border is similar to the watershed of the Morava river
10.
Ruthenia
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Ruthenia is a proper geographical exonym for Kievan Rus and other, more local, historical states. It was applied to the area where Ruthenians lived, the word Ruthenia originated as a Latin rendering of the region and people known originally as Rus. A group of Varangians known as the Rus settled in Novgorod in 862 under the leadership of Rurik. In European manuscripts dating from the 13th century, Ruthenia was used to describe Rus, a territory long disputed as an early part of Hungary, and from the 10th century Ruthenia and Poland, formed the Chervian Towns, now mostly in Poland, partly in Ukraine. This laid the foundation of the modern Russian state, the Muscovy population was Eastern Orthodox and used the Greek transcription of Rus, being Rossia, rather than the Latin Ruthenia. Due to their usage of the Latin script rather than the Cyrillic script, other spellings were also used in Latin, English and other languages during this period. The use of the term Ruthenia in the lands of ancient Rus survived longer as a used by Ukrainians for Ukraine. By 1840 the superior term, Малая Русь, Little Rus, or Rus Minora, for Ruthenians became derogative in the Russian Empire, and they began calling themselves Ukrainians, for Ukrayina. In the 1880s and 1900s, the popularity of the ethnonym Ukrainian spread, in time the term Ruthenian became restricted to western Ukraine, an area then part of the Austro-Hungarian state. By the early 20th century, the term Ukraine had replaced Ruthenia in Galicia/Halychyna, rusin has been one of official self-identifications of the Rus population in Poland. Until 1939, for many traditional Ruthenians and Polish, the word Ukrainiec meant a person involved in or friendly to a nationalist movement, however, some other Slavish languages definitely separate the Ruthenian meaning from its Russian neighbour. While Galician Ruthenians considered themselves to be Ukrainians, the Carpatho-Ruthenians were the last East Slavic people that kept the ancient historic name, nowadays, the term Rusyn is used to describe the ethnicity and language of Ruthenians who are not forced to the Ukrainian national identity. Carpatho-Ruthenia formed part of the Hungarian Kingdom from the late 11th century, in May 1919, it was incorporated with nominal autonomy into Czechoslovakia. After this date, Ruthenian people have been divided among three orientations, on 15 March 1939 the Ukrainophile president of Carpatho-Ruthenia, Avhustyn Voloshyn, declared its independence as Carpatho-Ukraine. On the same day Hungarian Army fascist regular troops, allies of Adolf Hitler, in 1944 the Soviet Army occupied Carpatho-Ruthenia, and in 1946, annexed it to the Ukrainian SSR. Officially, there were no Rusyns in the USSR, in fact, Soviet and some modern Ukrainian politicians, as well as Ukrainian government claim that Rusyns are part of the Ukrainian nation. Nowadays some of the population in the Zakarpattya oblast of Ukraine consider themselves Rusyns yet they are still a part of the whole Ukrainian national identity, a Rusyn minority remained after World War II in northeastern Czechoslovakia. According to critics, the Ruthenians rapidly became Slovakized, in 1995 the Ruthenian written language became standardized
11.
Mazovia
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Mazovia is a historical region in mid-north-eastern Poland. Borders of the Mazovian Voivodeship, which was created in 1999, do not reflect exactly its original shape, historical Mazovia existed since the Middle Ages until the partitions of Poland and consisted of three voivodeships with the capitals in Warszawa, Płock and Rawa Mazowiecka. In a narrower sense, the Mazovian Voivodeship was only the first of them, between 1816 and 1844 another Mazovian Voivodeship existed, encompassing the south of the region. In the Middle Ages the main city of the region was Płock, since 1138 Mazovia had a separate branch of the Piast dynasty and was incorporated to the Polish Crown as late as in the 15th and 16th centuries. As much as over 20% of Mazovian population was the yeomanry, inhabitants of Mazovia are Mazurzy – hence the region of Masuria, settled by them. Mazovia has a landscape without hills and without lakes and it is spread over the Mazovian Lowland, on both sides of the Vistula river and its confluence with Narew and Bug. Forests cover one-fifth of the region, with the large Kampinos Forest, Puszcza Biała, in the north Mazovia borders on the Masurian subregion of former Prussia, in the east on Podlachia, in the south on Lesser Poland and in the west on Greater Poland. The area of Mazovia is 33,500 km2 and it has population of 5 million. When the Slavs came to this region from the area of Polesie, they mingled with the descendants of Vistula Veneti. This created a Lechitic tribe, Mazovians, the historical region of Mazovia in the beginning encompassed only the territories on the right bank of Vistula near Płock and had strong connections with Greater Poland. In the period of the rule of the first monarchs of the Piast State, Płock was one of their seats, in the period 1037–1047 it was the capital of the independent, Mazovian state of Masław. Between 1079 and 1138 this city was de facto the capital of Poland, during the 9th century Mazovia was perhaps inhabited by the tribe of Mazovians, and it was incorporated into the Polish state in the second half of 10th century under the Piast ruler Mieszko I. In 1138 the duchy of Mazovia was established, and during the 12th and 13th centuries it joined temporarily various adjacent lands and endured invasions of Prussians, Yotvingians, and Ruthenians. To protect its northern section Conrad I of Masovia called in the Teutonic Knights in 1226, after the reunification of the Polish state by Władysław I in the early 14th century, Mazovia became its fief in 1351. In the second half of 15th century western Mazovia and in 1526/1529 the main part was incorporated into the Polish state, in the 15th century eastern part of the region was settled, mainly by the yeomanry. Mazovia was considered underdeveloped in comparison with Greater Poland and Lesser Poland, in the Early Modern Times Mazovia was known for exporting grain, timber, and fur. It was also distinct because there was no reformation here, Mazovia was divided into three voivodeships, each of them divided into lands, each of them divided into counties. The Polish-Lithuanian Union of Lublin established Mazovia as the region of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, with Warsaw rising to prominence as the seat of the state legislature
12.
Principality of Moldavia
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Moldavia is a historical region, and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river. The western half of Moldavia is now part of Romania, the eastern side belongs to the Republic of Moldova, the original and short-lived reference to the region was Bogdania, after Bogdan I, the founding figure of the principality. Dragoș was accompanied by his female hound called Molda, when reached the shores of an unfamiliar river. The dogs name would have given to the river and extended to the country. The old German Molde, meaning open-pit mine the Gothic Mulda meaning dust, dirt, a Slavic etymology, marking the end of one Slavic genitive form, denoting ownership, chiefly of feminine nouns. In several early references, Moldavia is rendered under the composite form Moldo-Wallachia, Ottoman Turkish references to Moldavia included Boğdan Iflak and Boğdan. See also names in other languages, the name of the region in other languages include French, Moldavie, German, Moldau, Hungarian, Moldva, Russian, Молдавия, Moldaviya, Turkish, Boğdan Prensliği, Greek, Μολδαβία. The inhabitants of Moldova were Christians, archaeological works revealed the remains of a Christian necropolis at Mihălășeni, Botoșani county, from the 5th century. The place of worship, and the tombs had Christian characteristics, the place of worship had a rectangular form with sides of 8 and 7 meters. Similar necropolis and place of worship were found at Nicolina, in Iași The Bolohoveni, the chronicle shows that this land is bordered on the principalities of Halych, Volhynia and Kiev. Archaeological research also identified the location of 13th-century fortified settlements in this region, Alexandru V. Boldur identified Voscodavie, Voscodavti, Voloscovti, Volcovti, Volosovca and their other towns and villages between the middle course of the rivers Nistru/Dniester and Nipru/Dnieper. The Bolohoveni disappeared from chronicles after their defeat in 1257 by Daniil Romanovichs troops, in the early 13th century, the Brodniks, a possible Slavic–Vlach vassal state of Halych, were present, alongside the Vlachs, in much of the regions territory. On the border between Halych and the Brodniks, in the 11th century, a Viking by the name of Rodfos was killed in the area by Vlachs who supposedly betrayed him. In 1164, the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, was prisoner by Vlach shepherds around the same region. In 1342 and 1345, the Hungarians were victorious in a battle against Tatar-Mongols, the Polish chronicler Jan Długosz mentioned Moldavians as having joined a military expedition in 1342, under King Władysław I, against the Margraviate of Brandenburg. In 1353, Dragoș, mentioned as a Vlach Knyaz in Maramureș, was sent by Louis I to establish a line of defense against the Golden Horde forces of Mongols on the Siret River and this expedition resulted in a polity vassal to Hungary, centered around Baia. His realm extended north to the Cheremosh River, while the part of Moldavia was still occupied by the Tatar Mongols. After first residing in Baia, Bogdan moved Moldavias seat to Siret, disfavored by the brief union of Angevin Poland and Hungary, Bogdans successor Lațcu accepted conversion to Roman Catholicism around 1370, but his gesture was to remain without consequences
13.
Tatars
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The Tatars are a Turkic people living in Asia and Europe who were one of the five major tribal confederations in the Mongolian plateau in the 12th century CE. The name Tatar first appears in form on the Kul Tigin monument as
14.
Wallachia
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Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians, Wallachia is traditionally divided into two sections, Muntenia and Oltenia. Wallachia as a whole is referred to as Muntenia through identification with the larger of the two traditional sections. In 1417, Wallachia accepted the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire, in 1859, Wallachia united with Moldavia to form the United Principalities, which adopted the name Romania in 1866 and officially became the Kingdom of Romania in 1881. In the Early Middle Ages, in Slavonic texts, the name of Zemli Ungro-Vlahiskoi was also used as a designation for its location, official designations of the state were Muntenia and Țara Românească. The traditional Hungarian name for Wallachia is Havasalföld, or literally Snowy Lowlands, in Ottoman Turkish, the term Eflâk Prensliği, or simply Eflâk افلاق, appears. Mavrovlachi is another name of the Balkan Vlachs or Aromanians, both names could come from a confusion, Kara Iflak, the Turkish name of Wallachia, means land of Wallachians, but later kara was misconstrued as kara. Later, the Turks renamed Moldavia and Wallachia as Kara Iflak and Ak Iflak according to the Turkish cardinal points symbolism, north is symbolized by black, and west is symbolized by white. Ardeal/Erdel was the name of Transylvania, and Kara Iflak, Northern Wallachia was either Wallachia, north of the Balkan territories inhabited by Vlachs, the second explanation is typologically better. In the Second Dacian War western Oltenia became part of the Roman province of Dacia, the Roman limes was initially built along the Olt River, before being moved slightly to the east in the 2nd century—during which time it stretched from the Danube up to Rucăr in the Carpathians. The Roman line fell back to the Olt in 245 and, in 271, in 328, the Romans built a bridge between Sucidava and Oescus which indicates that there was a significant trade with the peoples north of the Danube. A short period of Roman rule in the area is attested under Emperor Constantine I, the period of Goth rule ended when the Huns arrived in the Pannonian Plain and, under Attila, attacked and destroyed some 170 settlements on both sides of the Danube. Wallachia was under the control of the First Bulgarian Empire from its establishment in 681, in 1241, during the Mongol invasion of Europe, Cuman domination was ended—a direct Mongol rule over Wallachia was not attested, but it remains probable. His successor was his brother Bărbat.1334, Basarab was succeeded by Nicolae Alexandru, followed by Vladislav I. Under Radu I and his successor Dan I, the realms in Transylvania, as the entire Balkan Peninsula became an integral part of the growing Ottoman Empire, Wallachia became engaged in frequent confrontations in the final years of Mircea the Elders reign. Mircea initially defeated the Ottomans in several battles, driving away from Dobruja and briefly extending his rule to the Danube Delta, Dobruja. He swung between alliances with Sigismund of Hungary and Jagiellon Poland, and accepted a treaty with the Ottomans in 1417, after Mehmed I took control of Turnu Măgurele. The two ports remained part of the Ottoman state, with interruptions, until 1829
15.
State of the Teutonic Order
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The state was based in Prussia after the Orders conquest of the Pagan Old Prussians which began in 1230. It expanded to include at various times Courland, Gotland, Livonia, Neumark and its territory was in the modern countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. Most of the territory was conquered by military orders, after which German colonization occurred to varying effect, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword controlling Terra Mariana were incorporated into the Teutonic Order as its autonomous branch Livonian Order in 1237. In 1346, the Duchy of Estonia was sold by the King of Denmark for 19,000 Köln marks to the Teutonic Order, the shift of sovereignty from Denmark to the Teutonic Order took place on 1 November 1346. Following its defeat in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 the Teutonic Order fell into decline, the Teutonic lands in Prussia were split in two after the Peace of Thorn in 1466. The western part of Teutonic Prussia was converted into Royal Prussia, the monastic state in the east was secularized in 1525 during the Protestant Reformation as the Duchy of Prussia, a Polish fief governed by the House of Hohenzollern. The Livonian branch continued as part of the Livonian Confederation until its dissolution in 1561, the Old Prussians withstood many attempts at conquest preceding that of the Teutonic Knights. Bolesław I of Poland began the series of unsuccessful conquests when he sent Adalbert of Prague in 997, in 1147, Bolesław IV of Poland attacked Prussia with the aid of Kievan Rus, but was unable to conquer it. Numerous other attempts followed, and, under Duke Konrad I of Masovia, were intensified, the West-Baltic Prussians successfully repelled most of the campaigns and managed to strike Konrad in retaliation. However, the Prussians and Yotvingians in the south had their territory conquered, the land of the Yotvingians was situated in the area of what is today the Podlaskie Voivodeship of Poland. The Prussians attempted to oust Polish or Masovian forces from Yotvingia and Culmerland, Konrad of Masovia had already called a crusade against the Old Prussians in 1208, but it was not successful. Konrad, acting on the advice of Christian, first bishop of Prussia, established the Order of Dobrzyń, the Order, however, was soon defeated and, in reaction, Konrad called on the Pope for yet another crusade and for help from the Teutonic Knights. As a result, several called for crusades against the Old Prussians. The crusades, involving many of Europes knights, lasted for sixty years, in 1211, Andrew II of Hungary enfeoffed the Teutonic Knights with the Burzenland. In 1225, Andrew II expelled the Teutonic Knights from Transylvania, early in 1224, Emperor Frederick II announced at Catania that Livonia, Prussia with Sambia, and a number of neighbouring provinces were under Imperial immediacy. This decree subordinated the provinces directly to the Roman Catholic Church, at the end of 1224, Pope Honorius III announced to all Christendom his appointment of Bishop William of Modena as the Papal Legate for Livonia, Prussia, and other countries. As a result of the Golden Bull of Rimini in 1226, the Knights began the Prussian Crusade in 1230. Under their governance, woodlands were cleared and marshlands made arable, upon which many cities and villages were founded, the cities were heavily fortified, accounting for the long lasting conflicts with the resistive native Old Prussians, with armed forces under command of the knights
16.
Vytautas
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Vytautas, also known as Vytautas the Great from the 15th century onwards, was one of the most famous rulers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which chiefly encompassed the Lithuanians and Ruthenians. He was also the Prince of Hrodna, Prince of Lutsk, in modern Lithuania, Vytautas is revered as a national hero and was an important figure in the national rebirth in the 19th century. Vytautas is a male given name in Lithuania. In commemoration of the 500-year anniversary of his death, Vytautas Magnus University was named after him, monuments in his honour were built in many towns in the independent Republic of Lithuania during the interwar period, from 1918–1939. Vytautas uncle Algirdas had been Grand Duke of Lithuania until his death in 1377, Algirdas and Vytautas father Kęstutis had practically ruled jointly, with Algirdas governing the east and Kęstutis the west, primarily responsible for defense against the Teutonic Order. Algirdas was succeeded by his son Jogaila, and a struggle for power ensued, in 1380, Jogaila signed the secret Treaty of Dovydiškės with the Teutonic Order against Kęstutis. When Kęstutis discovered this in 1381, he seized Vilnius, imprisoned Jogaila, however, Jogaila escaped and raised an army against Kęstutis. The two sides confronted each other but never engaged in battle, Kęstutis was ready to negotiate, but he and Vytautas were arrested and transported to Kreva Castle. One week later, Kęstutis was found dead, whether he died of natural causes or was murdered is still a matter of debate. In 1382, Vytautas escaped from Kreva and he sought help from the Teutonic Order, who were negotiating with Jogaila at the time. Jogaila and the Order agreed to the Treaty of Dubysa, by which Jogaila promised to accept Christianity, become an ally of the Order, however, the treaty was never ratified. In summer 1383, the war between Jogaila and the Order resumed, Vytautas was baptised as a Catholic, receiving the name of Wigand. Vytautas participated in raids against Jogaila. In January 1384, Vytautas promised to cede part of Samogitia to the Teutonic Order, however, in July of the same year, Vytautas broke with the Order and reconciled with Jogaila. He then burned three important Teutonic castles, and regained all Kęstutis lands, except for Trakai, in 1385, Jogaila concluded the Union of Krewo with Poland, under which he married Jadwiga of Poland and became King of Poland as Władysław II Jagiełło. Vytautas participated in the Union and in 1386 was re-baptised as a Catholic, Jogaila left his brother Skirgaila as regent in Lithuania. However, Skirgaila was unpopular with the people and Vytautas saw an opportunity to become Grand Duke, in 1389, he attacked Vilnius but failed. In early 1390, Vytautas again allied with the Teutonic Order, Vytautas had to confirm his agreement of 1384, and cede Samogitia to the Order
17.
Ulrich von Jungingen
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Ulrich von Jungingen was the 26th Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, serving from 1407 to 1410. A scion of the Swabian noble house of Jungingen, he was born at Hohenfels Castle near Stockach. Ulrich and his elder brother Konrad von Jungingen, as younger sons excluded from succession, took the vow of the Teutonic Knights, Ulrich resided in Schlochau and was Komtur of Balga. His career profited from the patronage of his elder brother Konrad, in 1404 Ulrich was appointed the Orders Marshal and Komtur of Königsberg. He had to deal with several Samogitian uprisings, which he fought both with strict suppression and bribery of the local nobles, upon the sudden death of Grand Master Konrad von Jungingen in 1407, Ulrich on 26 June, was chosen for his succession. Unlike his brother, Ulrichs diplomatic capability was limited, the situation in Samogitia remained tense, incited by Grand Duke Vytautas, who intended to make use of the turmoils to regain the ceded lands. Furthermore, the new Grand Master had inherited the rising conflict with Vytautas cousin King Jogaila of Poland over Dobrzyń Land, the Polish ambassador Archbishop Mikołaj Kurowski declared, that any attack on Lithuania would inevitably entail an armed conflict with Poland. Despite the threat of a two-front war, Ulrich prepared for an preemptive strike and he forged an alliance with King Sigismund of Hungary, levied mercenaries in the Holy Roman Empire, and on 6 August 1409 declared war against Poland. Sigismunds brother King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia arranged a temporary truce, on 2 July 1410, the Grand Master at the head of his army left Malbork Castle for the final battle against the united Polish and Lithuanian forces. Both sides met on 15 July between the villages of Grunwald and Stębark and this act, seen as a bold provocation, sparked the Lithuanian attack, at first repulsed by the Knights but soon followed by a second strike by Jogailas forces. Battle luck changed, after Ulrich, sure of victory, decided to lead his remaining regiments against the Polish troops. He nearly got hold of the king, but at the time lost oversight of the Orders military operations. After the allied Prussian forces of the Lizard Union under Nicholas von Renys broke away, when the Lithuanians attacked him from the rear, Ulrichs troops were routed and he himself was killed in action. According to Jan Długosz, he was met and defeated by the Polish knight Mszczuj of Skrzynno, King Jogaila arranged the transportation of his body to Malbork Castle before he began the Siege of Marienburg. Based on Długoszs description, later generations have imputed Ulrich von Jungingen with hot-bloodedness, the book was made into a film by Aleksander Ford in 1960. In 1901 a glacial erratic, commemorating a heros death in the struggle for German spirit, the stone is still in its place but has toppled over with the result that the inscription is no longer readable. A more recent second memorial stone marks the place of Jungingens death. The surrounding area is today the site of an historical reenactment
18.
Siege of Marienburg (1410)
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The Siege of Marienburg was an unsuccessful two-month siege of the castle in Marienburg, the capital of the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights. However, the castle withstood the siege and the Knights conceded only to territorial losses in the Peace of Thorn. Marienburg defender Heinrich von Plauen is credited as the savior of the Knights from complete annihilation, allied Polish and Lithuanian forces invaded Prussia in July 1410 with a goal of capturing Marienburg. Their path was blocked by the Teutonic Knights, who engaged the forces in the decisive Battle of Grunwald on 15 July 1410. The Knights suffered a defeat, leaving most of their leadership dead or captured. The victorious Polish and Lithuanian forces stayed on the battlefield for three days, during this time Heinrich von Plauen, Komtur of Schwetz, organized defense of Marienburg. Von Plauen did not participate in the battle and was trusted to command forces of about 3,000 men in Schwetz. It is not entirely clear whether von Plauen marched to Marienburg based on instructions of Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen or on his own initiative to fill the leadership void. As the Polish–Lithuanian forces moved on to Marienburg, three Teutonic fortresses – Hohenstein, Osterode, and Christburg – surrendered without resistance, the allied forces moved slowly, averaging only about 15 km per day, giving time for von Plauen to organize the defense. This delay has been criticized by historians as one of the greatest Polish–Lithuanian tactical mistakes and has been a subject of much speculation. The main Polish–Lithuanian forces arrived only on 26 July 1410, the day before von Plauen ordered the town outside the Marienburg Castle to be burned, depriving allied soldiers of shelter and clearing the battlefield. The siege was not intense, Polish King Jogaila was confident that Prussia had already fallen and he sent his troops to capture numerous small castles that were left without garrisons. Only eight castles remained in Teutonic hands, the Knights were allowed to communicate with their allies. They send envoys to Sigismund of Hungary and Wenceslaus, King of the Romans, the Livonian Order sent 500 men as soon as its three-month truce with Lithuania expired. The siege, holding Jogailas army in place, helped to organize forces in other parts of Prussia. The besiegers expected capitulation and were not prepared for an engagement, suffering from lack of ammunition, low morale. The nobles wanted to return home for the harvest and the wanted to get paid. Lithuanian troops, commanded by Vytautas, were the first to withdraw, the siege was eventually lifted on 19 September
19.
Teutonic Order
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The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious order founded as a military order in the 12th century in Acre. Purely religious since 1929, it still confers limited honorary knighthoods, the order was formed to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals. Formed in the year 1190 in Acre, in the Levant, after Christian forces were defeated in the Middle East, the Order moved to Transylvania in 1211 to help defend the South-Eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Kipchaks. Starting from there, the Order created the independent Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, adding continuously the conquered Prussians territory, the Order theoretically lost its main purpose in Europe with the Christianization of Lithuania. However, it initiated numerous campaigns against its Christian neighbours, the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Novgorod Republic. The Teutonic Knights had an economic base, and so hired mercenaries from throughout Europe to augment their feudal levies. In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Order and broke its military power at the Battle of Grunwald, however, the capital of the Teutonic Knights was successfully defended in the following Siege of Marienburg and the Order was saved from collapse. In 1515, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I made an alliance with Sigismund I of Poland-Lithuania. Thereafter, the empire did not support the Order against Poland, in 1525, Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg resigned and converted to Lutheranism, becoming Duke of Prussia as a vassal of Poland. Soon after, the Order lost Livonia and its holdings in the Protestant areas of Germany, the Order did keep its considerable holdings in Catholic areas of Germany until 1809, when Napoleon Bonaparte ordered its dissolution and the Order lost its last secular holdings. However, the Order continued to exist as a charitable and ceremonial body and it was outlawed by Adolf Hitler in 1938, but re-established in 1945. Today it operates primarily with charitable aims in Central Europe, the Knights wore white surcoats with a black cross. A cross pattée was sometimes used as their coat of arms, the motto of the Order was, Helfen, Wehren, Heilen. The full name of the Order in German is Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus St. Mariens in Jerusalem or in Latin Ordo domus Sanctæ Mariæ Theutonicorum Hierosolymitanorum, thus, the term Teutonic refers to the German origins of the order in Latin. It is commonly known in German as the Deutscher Orden, historically also as Deutscher Ritterorden, Deutschherrenorden, Deutschritterorden or Die Herren im weißen Mantel. However, based on the model of the Knights Templar, it was transformed into an order in 1198. It received papal orders for crusades to take and hold Jerusalem for Christianity, during the rule of Grand Master Hermann von Salza the Order changed from being a hospice brotherhood for pilgrims to primarily a military order. The Order was founded in Acre, and the Knights purchased Montfort, northeast of Acre, the Order also had a castle at Amouda in Armenia Minor
20.
Malbork
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Malbork is a town in northern Poland in the Żuławy region, with 38,478 inhabitants. Situated in the Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999, it was assigned to Elbląg Voivodeship. It is the capital of Malbork County, the town was built in Prussia around the fortress Ordensburg Marienburg, which was founded in 1274 on the east bank of the river Nogat by the Teutonic Knights. Both the castle and the town were named for their patron saint and this fortified castle became the seat of the Teutonic Order and Europes largest Gothic fortress. During the Thirteen Years War, the castle of Marienburg was pawned by the Teutonic Order to their soldiers from Bohemia. They sold the castle in 1457 to King Casimir IV of Poland in lieu of indemnities, under continuous construction for nearly 230 years, the castle complex is actually three castles combined in one. A classic example of a fortress, it is the world’s largest brick castle. The castle was in the process of being restored by the Germans when World War II broke out, during the war, the castle was over 50% destroyed. Restoration has been ongoing since the war, the castle and its museum are listed as one of UNESCOs World Heritage Sites. The town of Marienburg grew in the vicinity of the castle, the river Nogat and flat terrain allowed easy access for barges a hundred kilometers from the sea. During Prussias government by the Teutonic Knights, the Order collected tolls on river traffic, the town later became a member of the Hanseatic League, and many Hanseatic meetings were held there. The Teutonic Order weakened greatly after the Battle of Grunwald against advancing Poles, the Siege of Marienburg left the Teutonic Order in control only of the town, until it sold the castle and in 1457 transferred its seat to Königsberg. The town of Marienburg, under Mayor Bartholomäus Blume and others, but when the Poles finally took control, Blume was hanged and quartered, and fourteen officers and three remaining Teutonic knights were thrown into dungeons, where they met a miserable end. A monument to Blume was erected in 1864, the town became part of the Polish province of Royal Prussia after the Second Peace of Thorn. In the town of Marienburg,9,641 votes were cast for Germany,165 votes for Poland, as a result, Marienburg was included in the Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder within the German Province of East Prussia. During the Weimar era, Marienburg was located at the tripoint between Poland, Germany and the Free State of Danzig, the town was hit by an economic crisis following the end of World War I. After a brief recovery in the mid-1920s, the Great Depression was particularly severe in East Prussia. ), after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, leaders of the Polish minority were arrested and sent to concentration camps. During World War II a Focke-Wulf aircraft factory was set up at the airfield to the east of Marienburg and it was bombed twice by the USAAF in 1943 and 1944
21.
Peace of Thorn (1411)
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It was signed on 1 February 1411 in Thorn, one of the southernmost cities of the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. In historiography, the treaty is often portrayed as a failure of Poland–Lithuania as they failed to capitalize on the decisive defeat of the Knights in the Battle of Grunwald in June 1410. The Peace of Thorn was not stable and it took two other brief wars, the Hunger War in 1414 and Gollub War in 1422, to sign the Treaty of Melno that solved the territorial disputes. However, large war reparations were a significant financial burden on the Knights, causing internal unrest, the Teutonic Knights never recovered their former might. In May 1409, an uprising started in Samogitia, which had been in Teutonic hands since the Peace of Raciąż of 1404, Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas supported the uprising. Poland, which had been in a union with Lithuania since 1386. Thus the local uprising escalated into a regional war, the Teutonic Knights first invaded Poland, catching the Poles by surprise and capturing the Dobrzyń Land without much resistance. However, neither side was ready for a war and agreed to a truce mediated by Wenceslaus. When the truce expired in June 1410, allied Poland–Lithuania invaded Prussia, the Knights were soundly defeated, with most of their leadership killed. Following the battle, most Teutonic fortresses surrendered without resistance and the Knights were left only eight strongholds. However, the allies delayed their Siege of Marienburg, giving the Knights enough time to organize defense, the Polish–Lithuanian army, suffering from lack of ammunition and low morale, failed to capture the Teutonic capital and returned home in September. The Knights quickly recaptured their fortresses that were taken by the Poles, Polish King Jogaila raised a fresh army and dealt another defeat to the Knights in the Battle of Koronowo in October 1410. Heinrich von Plauen, new Teutonic Grand Master, wanted to continue fighting, however, the Teutonic Council preferred peace and both sides agreed to a truce, effective between 10 December 1410 and 11 January 1411. Three-day negotiations in Raciąż between Jogaila and von Plauen broke down and Teutonic Knights invaded Dobrzyń Land again, the incursion resulted in a new round of negotiations that ended with the Peace of Thorn. According to the treaty, the borders were returned to their pre-1409 state with exception of Samogitia. The Teutonic Order relinquished its claims to Samogitia, but only temporarily – for the lifetimes of Polish King Jogaila, after their deaths, Samogitia was to return to the Knights. At the time both rulers were aged men, in the south, the Dobrzyń Land, captured by the Knights during the war, was ceded back to Poland. Thus the Knights suffered virtually no territorial losses – a great diplomatic achievement after the defeat in the Battle of Grunwald
22.
Treaty of Melno
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The Treaty of Melno or Treaty of Lake Melno was a peace treaty ending the Gollub War. It was signed on 27 September 1422, between the Teutonic Knights and an alliance of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at Lake Melno, east of Graudenz. A portion of the original border partially survives as the border between the Republic of Lithuania and Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, making it one of the most stable national borders in Europe. The First Peace of Thorn of 1411 did not resolve long-standing territorial disputes between the Teutonic Knights and the Polish–Lithuanian union, the peace transferred Samogitia to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but only for the lifetimes of Polish King Jogaila and Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas. At the time both rulers were aged men, soon disagreements arose as to the Samogitian borders, Vytautas claimed that the entire northern bank of the Neman River, including the port of Memel, was Samogitian territory. The dispute was mediated at the Council of Constance and by Sigismund, when Sigismund delivered an unfavorable judgment to the Lithuanians, Jogaila and Vytautas invaded the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights in July 1422, starting the Gollub War. The Teutonic Knights, led by Grand Master Paul von Rusdorf, were unable to mount a suitable defense, however Poland–Lithuania decided to end the conflict before reinforcements from the Holy Roman Empire could arrive through Farther Pomerania. A truce was signed on 17 September 1422, each side named eight representatives, gave them full authority to negotiate, and sent them to the Polish Army camp near Lake Melno. The Treaty of Melno was concluded ten days later, on 27 September, according to the terms of the treaty, the Teutonic Knights for the first time renounced all territorial, political, and missionary claims against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Samogitia was permanently ceded to Lithuania, the Prussian–Lithuanian border ran from sparsely inhabited wilderness in Suvalkija, through the triangle north of the Neman River, to Nemirseta on the Baltic Sea. Thus the Knights still controlled Nemans lower reaches and Memel, an important seaport, Lithuania retained access to the Baltic Sea between the towns of Palanga and Šventoji – a distance of about 15 kilometres. However, Lithuania failed to develop harbors in Palanga or Šventoji as there were competition with the nearby established ports Memel and Libau. Thus it could not be considered a real access to the sea, for the Knights this short coastline strip was a major sacrifice as it separated the Teutonic Knights in Prussia from their branch in Livonia. The treaty is often described as a mutual Prussian–Lithuanian compromise and these results were described as a disappointment for Poland. At the time of the treaty, the parties did not have their official seals, Grand Master Rusdorf attempted to exploit the recess and renegotiate the treaty because his subjects were not satisfied with the terms. He hoped to wage a war with assistance from the Holy Roman Emperor and this meant that Vytautas had to abandon his interventions in Bohemia. The agreement was signed on 30 March 1423, the Treaty of Melno was subsequently ratified on 9–18 May in Veliuona and approved by Pope Martin V on 10 July 1423. Poland–Lithuania affixed some 120 official seals to the treaty, the first Lithuanian signatories were voivode of Vilnius Albertas Manvydas, starosta of Vilnius Kristinas Astikas, voivode of Trakai Jonas Jaunius, elder of Samogitia Mykolas Skirgaila
23.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
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Romantic nationalism
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Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes, depending on the manner of practice, the language, race, culture, religion. Such downward-radiating power might ultimately derive from a god or gods, among the key themes of Romanticism, and its most enduring legacy, the cultural assertions of romantic nationalism have also been central in post-Enlightenment art and political philosophy. The ideas of Rousseau and of Johann Gottfried von Herder inspired much early Romantic nationalism in Europe, in 1784 Herder argued that geography formed the natural economy of a people, and that their customs and society would develop along the lines that their basic environment favored. The Brothers Grimm, inspired by Herders writings, put together a collection of tales. Because of the Germans role in the Protestant Reformation, Hegel argued that his historical moment had seen the Zeitgeist settle on the German-speaking peoples. In continental Europe, Romantics had embraced the French Revolution in its beginnings, in Prussia, the development of spiritual renewal as a means to engage in the struggle against Napoleon was argued by, among others, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a disciple of Kant. The word Volkstum, or folkhood, was coined in Germany as part of resistance to French hegemony. In the Balkans, Romantic views of a connection with classical Greece, verdis opera choruses of an oppressed people inspired two generations of patriots in Italy, especially with Va pensiero. In Norway, romanticism was embodied, not in literature, but in the movement toward a national style, following the Congress of Vienna, and subsequent Concert of Europe system, several major empires took control of European politics. Among these were the Russian Empire, the restored French monarchy, the German Confederation, under the dominance of Prussia, the Austrian Empire, the conservative forces held sway until the Revolutions of 1848 swept across Europe and threatened the old order. Numerous movements developed around various cultural groups, who began to develop a sense of national identity, Romantic nationalists expected patriots to then learn that language and raise their children speaking that language – as part of a general program to establish a unique identity. Katharevousa Greek was constructed as a form of Modern Greek drawing on classical Greek morphology, the linguistic processes of romantic nationalism demanded linguistic culture models. Romantic historiography was centered on biographies and produced culture heroes, the modern Italian of Risorgimento patriots like Alessandro Manzoni was based on the Tuscan dialects sanctified by Dante and Petrarch. In English, Shakespeare became an iconic figure, Romantic nationalism inspired the collection of folklore by such people as the Brothers Grimm. The Brothers Grimm were criticized because their first edition was insufficiently German and they also altered the language used, changing each Fee to an enchantress or wise woman, every prince to a kings son, every princess to a kings daughter. Discussing these views in their editions, they particularly singled out Giambattista Basiles Pentamerone as the first national collection of fairy tales. Among those influenced were the Russian Alexander Afanasyev, the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, many artists and writers also drew on their native countries folklore and folktunes for their own work to express their nationalism
25.
Propaganda in Nazi Germany
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The pervasive use of propaganda by the Nazis is largely responsible for the word propaganda itself acquiring its present negative connotations. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler devoted three chapters of his 1925/26 book Mein Kampf, itself a tool, to the study. He claimed to have learned the value of propaganda as a World War I infantryman exposed to very effective British, the argument that Germany lost the war largely because of British propaganda efforts, expounded at length in Mein Kampf, reflected then-common German nationalist claims. Although untrue – German propaganda during World War I was mostly more advanced than that of the British – it became the truth of Nazi Germany thanks to its reception by Hitler. Mein Kampf contains the blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts, assessing his audience, Hitler writes in chapter VI, Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. All propaganda must be presented in a form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and this sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth, the receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget, such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion, the leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. It was joined in 1927 by Joseph Goebbelss Der Angriff, another unabashedly and crudely propagandistic paper, during most of the Nazis time in opposition, their means of propaganda remained limited. With little access to media, the party continued to rely heavily on Hitler. One study finds that the Weimar governments use of pro-government radio propaganda retarded Nazi growth, in April 1930, Hitler appointed Goebbels head of party propaganda. Goebbels, a former journalist and Nazi party officer in Berlin, among his first successes was the organization of riotous demonstrations that succeeded in having the American anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front banned in Germany. On 13 March 1933, The Third Reich established a Ministry of Propaganda, a major political and ideological cornerstone of Nazi policy was the unification of all ethnic Germans living outside of the Reichs borders under one Greater Germany. In Mein Kampf, Hitler denounced the pain and misery of ethnic Germans outside of Germany, throughout Mein Kampf, he pushed Germans worldwide to make the struggle for political power and independence their main focus, made official in the Heim ins Reich policy beginning in 1938. On 22 August, Adolf Hitler told his generals, I will provide a casus belli
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Propaganda in the Soviet Union
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Communist propaganda in the Soviet Union was extensively based on the Marxism-Leninism ideology to promote the Communist Party line. In societies with pervasive censorship, propaganda was omnipresent and vigorously enforced, with truths repressed, falsehoods in every field were incessantly rubbed in print, at endless meetings, in school, in mass demonstrations, on the radio. The main Soviet censorship body, Glavlit, was employed not only to eliminate any undesirable printed materials, in the Stalin Era, deviation from the dictates of official propaganda was punished by execution and labor camps. In the post-Stalin era, these measures were replaced by punitive psychiatry, prison, denial of work. Today a man only talks freely to his wife – at night, with the pulled over his head. According to historian Peter Kenez, the Russian socialists have contributed nothing to the discussion of the techniques of mass persuasion. The Bolsheviks never looked for and did not find devilishly clever methods to influence peoples minds and this lack of interest, says Kenez, followed from their notion of propaganda. They thought of propaganda as part of education, an important goal of Communist propaganda was to create a new man. The idea that the upbringing of children was the concern of their parents was explicitly rejected, one schooling theorist stated, We must make the young into a generation of Communists. Children, like soft wax, are very malleable and they should be moulded into good Communists and we must rescue children from the harmful influence of the family. From the earliest days of their lives, they must find themselves under the beneficent influence of Communist schools. To oblige the mother to give her child to the Soviet state – that is our task and those born after the Revolution were explicitly told that they were to build a utopia of brotherhood and justice, and to not be like their parents, but completely Red. Lenins corners, political shrines for the display of propaganda about the founder of the Soviet state have been established in all schools. Schools conducted marches, songs and pledges of allegiance to Soviet leadership, one of purposes was to instill in children the idea that they are involved in the World revolution, which is more important than any family ties. Pavlik Morozov, who betrayed his father to the secret police NKVD, was promoted as a positive example. Teachers in economic and social sciences were responsible for inculcating unshakable Marxist-Leninist views. Children of socially alien elements were often the target of abuse or expelled, early in the regime, many teachers were drawn into Communist plans for schooling because of a passion for literacy and numeracy, which the Communists were attempting to spread. Young Pioneers, the group, was an important factor in the indoctrination of children
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Marcin Bielski
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Marcin Bielski was a Polish chronicler and satirical poet. He was born of noble parentage on the estate of Biała, Pajęczno County. The name Wolski is derived from his estate at Wola, one of two Polish writers of the same name, he was the first to use the Polish language, hence his designation as the father of Polish prose. Bielski was educated at the University of Kraków, founded by Casimir the Great in 1364 and he served in the army in the wars against the Wallachians and Tatars, and participated in the Battle of Obertyn in 1531. He was the author of works, including, Zywoty Filosofow Kronika Swiata, from the earliest time down to his day. It contains valuable data about the Polish army and kindred subjects
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German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
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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
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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
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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
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Ukrainian language
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Ukrainian /juːˈkreɪniən/ is an East Slavic language. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic script, historical linguists trace the origin of the Ukrainian language to the Old East Slavic of the early medieval state of Kievan Rus. After the fall of the Kievan Rus as well as the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, the Modern Ukrainian language has been in common use since the late 17th century, associated with the establishment of the Cossack Hetmanate. From 1804 until the Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian language was banned from schools in the Russian Empire and it has always maintained a sufficient base in Western Ukraine, where the language was never banned, in its folklore songs, itinerant musicians, and prominent authors. The Ukrainian language retains a degree of intelligibility with Belarusian and Russian. The first theory of the origin of Ukrainian language was suggested in Imperial Russia in the middle of the 18th century by Mikhail Lomonosov and this theory posits the existence of a common language spoken by all East Slavic people in the time of the Rus. Another point of view developed during the 19th and 20th centuries by linguists of Imperial Russia, like Lomonosov, they assumed the existence of a common language spoken by East Slavs in the past. This general point of view is the most accepted amongst academics worldwide, the supporters of this theory disagree, however, about the time when the different languages were formed. Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at time periods. During the time of the incorporation of Ruthenia into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and this point of view is, however, at variance with some historical data. In fact, several East Slavic tribes, such as Polans, Drevlyans, Severians, Dulebes, White Croats, Tiverians, notably, some Ukrainian features were recognizable in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic as far back as the language can be documented. In contrast, Ahatanhel Krymsky and Alexei Shakhmatov assumed the existence of the spoken language of Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times. According to their point of view, the diversification of the Old East Slavic language took place in the 8th or early 9th century, Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky went even further, denying the existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past. Similar points of view were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko, Vsevolod Hantsov, Olena Kurylo, Ivan Ohienko, according to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language was formed by convergence of tribal dialects, mostly due to a migration of the population within the territory of todays Ukraine in later historical periods. This point of view was supported by George Shevelovs phonological studies. During the 13th century, when German settlers were invited to Ukraine by the princes of Galicia-Vollhynia and their influence would continue under Poland not only through German colonists but also through the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Often such words involve trade or handicrafts, examples of words of German or Yiddish origin spoken in Ukraine include dakh, rura, rynok, kushnir, and majster
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Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
34.
Czech language
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Czech, historically also Bohemian, is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group. It is spoken by over 10 million people and is the language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of being intelligible to a very high degree. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the written standard was codified in the context of the Czech National Revival. The main vernacular, known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague, the Moravian dialects spoken in the eastern part of the country are mostly also counted as Czech, although some of their eastern variants are closer to Slovak. The Czech phoneme inventory is moderate in size, comprising five vowels, words may contain uncommon consonant clusters, including one consonant represented by the grapheme ř, or lack vowels altogether. Czech orthography is simple, and has used as a model by phonologists. Czech is classified as a member of the West Slavic sub-branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and this branch includes Polish, Kashubian, Upper and Lower Sorbian and Slovak. Slovak is by far the closest genetic neighbor of Czech, the West Slavic languages are spoken in an area classified as part of Central Europe. Around the 7th century, the Slavic expansion reached Central Europe, the West Slavic polity of Great Moravia formed by the 9th century. The Christianization of Bohemia took place during the 9th and 10th centuries, the Bohemian language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the early 14th century, the first complete Bible translation also dates to this period. Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were produced outside the university as well, literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation. There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century, the publication of the Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries. In 1615, the Bohemian diet tried to declare Czech to be the official language of the kingdom. After the Bohemian Revolt which was defeated by the Habsburgs in 1620 and this emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, the modern standard Czech language originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century. Changes include the shift of í to ej and é to í and the merging of í
35.
Romanian language
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Romanian is a Romance language spoken by around 24 million people as a native language, primarily in Romania and Moldova, and by another 4 million people as a second language. It has official status in Romania and the Republic of Moldova and it is one of the official languages of the European Union and the Latin Union. Romanian is a part of the Balkan-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin separated from the Western Romance during the 5th–8th centuries. To distinguish it within that group in comparative linguistics it is called Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. Eastern Romance languages, like the branches of Romance languages, descend from Vulgar Latin. These vestiges of military usage are unique to Romanian in its language family. s. o, sat village, șes plain, a supune, tindă veranda, țară homeland a. s. o. This linguistic evidence challenges the Roeslerian theory, the vestiges from sermo castrensis particularize the Romanian language in the neolatin area, together with its isolated history. e. With Rom. māgurā and Alb. magulë etc, the Roman Empire withdrew from Dacia in 271–272 AD, leaving it to the Goths. The history of Eastern Romance between the 3rd century and the development of Proto-Romanian by the 10th century, when the area came under the influence of the Byzantine Empire, is unknown. It is a matter of debate whether Proto-Romanian developed among Romanized people who were left behind in Dacia by the Roman withdrawal or among Latin-speakers in the Balkans south of the Danube, during the Middle Ages, Romanian became influenced by the Slavic languages and to some degree by Greek. Romanian remains unattested throughout the Middle Ages, and only enters the record in the early 16th century. The use of the denomination Romanian for our language and use of the demonym Romanians for speakers of this language predates the foundation of the modern Romanian state. In 1534, Tranquillo Andronico notes, Valachi nunc se Romanos vocant, francesco della Valle writes in 1532 that Romanians are calling themselves Romans in their own language, and he subsequently quotes the expression, Știi Românește. After travelling through Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania Ferrante Capecci accounts in 1575 that the population of these regions call themselves românești. Pierre Lescalopier writes in 1574 that those who live in Moldavia, Wallachia, the Transylvanian Saxon Johann Lebel writes in 1542 that Vlachi se numeau între ei Romuini and the Polish chronicler Stanislaw Orzechowski notes in 1554 that în limba lor walachii se numesc romini. In Palia de la Orăștie stands written «, că văzum cum toate limbile au și înfluresc întru cuvintele slăvite a lui Dumnezeu numai noi românii pre limbă nu avem. și le-au dăruit voo fraților români. », nevertheless, the oldest extant document written in Romanian remains Neacșus letter and was written using Cyrillic letters. There are no records of any documents written in Romanian from before 1521
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Chancellor (Poland)
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Chancellor of Poland was one of the highest officials in the historic Poland. This office functioned from the early Polish kingdom of the 12th century until the end of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, a respective office also existed in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the 16th century. Chancellors powers rose together with the importance of written documents. The Chancellor was also supposed to ensure the legality of monarchs actions, finally, the Chancellor was also responsible for his office, the chancellery. A 16th-century Polish lawyer, Jakub Przybylski, described the Chancellor as the hand, eye and ear, translator of his thoughts. From 15th century onward there were two separate Chancellor offices, none of them subordinate to other, Great Chancellor and Deputy Chancellor. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, there were four Chancellors, Great Chancellor of the Crown, Great Chancellor of Lithuania, Deputy Chancellor of the Crown, also in the 15th century, the Chancellors office was split into that of the Great Chancellor and Deputy Chancellor. The Deputy Chancellor was however not a subordinate of the Chancellor, the Lithuanian Deputy Chancellor was created later, in the mid-16th century After the Union of Lublin in 1569 there were four Chancellors. At first, the Chancellors office was given to an ecclesiastic person. Chancellors, as most of the offices in Poland and later. The Chancellor and Deputy Chancellor were responsible for the work of their chancelleries, respectively Greater and they were supposed to be in constant contact and develop common policies, since their powers were equal. They were specifically forbidden from issuing illegal and contradictory documents, and could judge any documents contrary to the existing law irrelevant, in theory, the power of the Chancellors were equal. In practice, much depended on their personalities and political influence, conflicts between Chancellors, while rare, when it occurred, could paralyse the entire country. This was the case during the conflict between Krzesław z Kurozwęk and Maciej Drzewicki between 1501 and 1503 and they could judge in various cases, with the exception of when the sides had already reached a compromise or in cases of territorial disputes. The Chancellors offices were the Chancelleries, Chancelleries were staffed with officials known as the chancellists, the regent, secretaries 1, writers, archivists, metricants and other clerks. The Regent divided the work between the clerks,2 secretaries presented prepared letters to the king for his signature. Writers designed the letters, clerks readied the final drafts, no copies were made, but were instead entered in the archives – books called Metrics, who were taken care by the two metricans. The Metrican of the Great Chancellor was called the Great Metrican, of much smaller importance were the local, provincial chancelleries, which mostly served as archives for copies of various documents
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