1.
Coat of arms of Lithuania
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The coat of arms of Lithuania, consisting of an armour-clad knight on horseback holding a sword and shield, is also known as Vytis (pronounced. It is one of very few containing symbolism adopted from ducal portrait seals rather than from coats of arms of dynasties, which is the case for most European countries. Article 15 of the Constitution of Lithuania, approved by referendum in 1992, stipulates. Heraldic shield features the field Gules with a knight on a horse salient Argent. The knight is holding in his hand a sword Argent above his head. A shield Azure hangs on the shoulder of the knight with a double cross Or on it. The horse saddle, straps, and belts are Azure, the hilt of the sword and the fastening of the sheath, the stirrups, the curb bits of the bridle, the horseshoes, as well as the decoration of the harness, are Or. The blazon is the following, Gules, a knight armed cap-à-pie mounted on a horse salient argent, brandishing a sword proper, the knight on horseback without a specific name was mentioned in the Tobolsk Chronicle as a symbol of Narimantas. The charging knight is depicted on the seal of Grand Duke of Lithuania, Algirdas, the earliest coins featuring the knight come also from the last quarter of the 14th century, the other side of these coins depicts Columns of Gediminas. The emblem was handed down through the generations, from Algirdas to his son, Grand Duke Jogaila, then to Jogailas cousin Grand Duke Vytautas and others. In the 14th century, the knight was featured on a shield, first on Jogailas seal in 1386 or 1387. At first, the knight was depicted riding to left or right. Two seals of Lengvenis of 1385 and of 1388 exhibit this change, the lance was more often exhibited on the seals of Skirgaila and Kaributas. By the first half of the 15th century, the rider is shown riding to the left with a sword in his raised hand. During the 15th century, the colors of the seal became uniform, a charging knight holding a sword. By the 15th century, the knight became representative of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and of its central part. Its name Pogonia is first recorded in the Statutes of Lithuania of 1588, in the 16th century, the knights shield was depicted as blue with a gold double cross, constructed in such a way that all six ends are equal in length. The double cross was attributed to Jogaila, who was said to have adopted it after his baptism as Ladislaus and marriage with Hungarian princess and King of Poland Hedvig Angevin in 1386
2.
Voruta
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Voruta may have been the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Lithuania during the reign of king Mindaugas in the 13th century. Voruta is mentioned only once in written sources and its exact location is unknown. Despite all the uncertainties, the concept of Voruta is well-known, Mindaugas, the first and the only crowned Lithuanian king, defended himself in Voruta during an internal war against his nephews Tautvilas and Edivydas and Duke of Samogitia Vykintas in 1251. This information, taken from the Hypatian Chronicle, is the recorded message about Voruta. A castle of Mindaugas was mentioned on two occasions, but neither its name nor location was specified. It is unclear whether these brief mentions referred to the same location, nevertheless, some historians in 19th and 20th centuries called it the first capital of Lithuania and attempted to identify its location. In total there were about fourteen suggested locations of Voruta, others argue that Voruta was not an actual city, but just a misinterpretation of a word that means capital. In the opinion of Kazimieras Būga, one of the prominent Lithuanian philologists, the word voruta simply means castle
3.
Senieji Trakai
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Senieji Trakai is a historic Lithuanian village located 3 kilometres east of Trakai. According to the census of 2001, it has 1501 inhabitants – Lithuanians, Poles, the Saint Petersburg – Warsaw Railway passes through Senieji Trakai. The central part of the village is proclaimed an architectural reserve, the main street is dominated by uniform wooden houses, facing it with two-windowed sides. Sometime before 1321, Grand Duke Gediminas transferred the capital of Lithuania from Kernavė to Trakai, in 1337 it became a seat of the newly established Duchy of Trakai. Gediminas son Kęstutis erected a new castle in New Trakai, Kęstutis son Vytautas was born in Old Trakai ca. The castle in Senieji Trakai was destroyed by the Teutonic Order in 1391, the ruins of the castle were gifted to Benedictine monks by Vytautas in 1405. It is supposed that the present monastery building dating from the 15th century incorporates the remains of the Gediminas castle, the Trakai name, derived from Lithuanian, trakas - the glade, suggests that the castle was built in a hollow area after deforestation
4.
Vilnius
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Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania and its largest city, with a population of 542,664 as of 2015. Vilnius is located in the southeast part of Lithuania and is the second largest city in the Baltic states, Vilnius is the seat of the main government institutions of Lithuania as well as of the Vilnius District Municipality. Vilnius is classified as a Gamma global city according to GaWC studies and its Jewish influence until the 20th century has led to it being described as the Jerusalem of Lithuania and Napoleon named it the Jerusalem of the North as he was passing through in 1812. In 2009, Vilnius was the European Capital of Culture, together with the Austrian city of Linz, the name of the city originates from the Vilnia River. The city has also known by many derivate spellings in various languages throughout its history. The most notable names for the city include, Polish, Wilno, Belarusian, Вiльня, German, Wilna, Latvian, Viļņa, Russian, Вильнюс, Yiddish, ווילנע , Czech. A Russian name from the time of the Russian Empire was Вильна/Вильно, the name Vilna is still used in Finnish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Hebrew. Wilna is still used in German, along with Vilnius, the neighborhoods of Vilnius also have names in other languages, which represent the languages spoken by various ethnic groups in the area. Historian Romas Batūra identifies the city with Voruta, one of the castles of Mindaugas, during the reign of Vytenis a city started to emerge from a trading settlement and the first Franciscan Catholic church was built. These letters contain the first unambiguous reference to Vilnius as the capital, According to legend, Gediminas dreamt of an iron wolf howling on a hilltop and consulted a pagan priest for its interpretation. He was told, What is destined for the ruler and the State of Lithuania, is thus, the Iron Wolf represents a castle and a city which will be established by you on this site. This city will be the capital of the Lithuanian lands and the dwelling of their rulers, the location offered practical advantages, it lay within the Lithuanian heartland at the confluence of two navigable rivers, surrounded by forests and wetlands that were difficult to penetrate. The duchy had been subject to intrusions by the Teutonic Knights, Vilnius was the flourishing capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the residence of the Grand Duke. Gediminas expanded the Grand Duchy through warfare along with strategic alliances and marriages, at its height it covered the territory of modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Transnistria, and portions of modern-day Poland and Russia. His grandchildren Vytautas the Great and Jogaila, however, fought civil wars, during the Lithuanian Civil War of 1389–1392, Vytautas besieged and razed the city in an attempt to wrest control from Jogaila. The two later settled their differences, after a series of treaties culminating in the 1569 Union of Lublin, the rulers of this federation held either or both of two titles, Grand Duke of Lithuania or King of Poland. In 1387, Jogaila acting as a Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland Władysław II Jagiełło, the city underwent a period of expansion. The Vilnius city walls were built for protection between 1503 and 1522, comprising nine city gates and three towers, and Sigismund August moved his court there in 1544
5.
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
6.
Ruthenian language
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Ruthenian was the group of varieties of Eastern Slavonic spoken in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later in the East Slavic territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The written form is also called Chancery Slavonic by Lithuanian linguists, scholars do not agree whether Ruthenian was a separate language, or a Western dialect or set of dialects of Old East Slavic, but it is agreed that Ruthenian has a close genetic relationship with it. Old East Slavic was the language used in Kievan Rus. Ruthenian can be seen as a predecessor of modern Belarusian, Rusyn, indeed, all these languages, from Old East Slavic to Rusyn, have been labelled as Ruthenian. In modern texts, the language in question is sometimes called Old Belarusian or starabelaruskaya mova, as Ruthenian was always in a kind of diglossic opposition to Church Slavonic, this vernacular language was and still is often called prosta mova, literally simple language. On the other hand, there exists a school of thought that Old Belarusian, names in contemporary use Ruthenian — by the contemporaries, but, generally, not in contemporary Russia. Simple Ruthenian or simple talk — publisher Grigoriy Khodkevich, Lithuanian — possibly, exclusive reference to it in the contemporary Russia. West Russian, language or dialect — chiefly by the supporters of the concept of the Proto-Russian phase, esp. since the end of the 19th century, e. g. by Karskiy, Russian Wikipedia uses the term West Russian written language. Belarusian — rarely in contemporary Russia, lithuanian-Russian — by 19th-century Russian researchers Keppen, archbishop Filaret, Sakharov, Karatayev. Lithuanian-Slavonic — by 19th-century Russian researcher Baranovskiy, ruski — used by Norman Davies in Vanished Kingdoms, The History of Half-Forgotten Europe. Both were usually called Ruskij or Slovenskij, only when a differentiation between the language of Muscovy and the one of Lithuania was needed was the former called Moskovskij Muscovite. After the Union of Lublin in 1569, the territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania came under direct administration by the Polish Crown. It is possible that this resulted in differences concerning the status of Ruthenian as an official language, in his 1827 Little Russian Folksongs Mykhaylo Maksymovych used a new orthography for the Ukrainian language which was based on etymology. Maksymovychivka looked quite similar to Russian, but it was a first step towards an independent orthography, the split between literary Ruthenian and the successor literary languages can be seen at once in the newly designed Belarusian and Ukrainian orthographies. After that Belarusian only survived as a spoken language with almost no written tradition until the mid-19th century. For disambiguation, in English these people are called by the native form of their name. Thus, in the 19th century, the literary Ruthenian language had evolved into three modern literary languages, for their further development, see Belarusian language, Rusyn language, and Ukrainian language. Ukrainian language Belarusian language Rusyn language East Slavic languages Brogi Bercoff, Giovanna, “Plurilingualism in Eastern Slavic culture of the 17th century, The case of Simeon Polockij. ”In, Slavia, Časopis pro slovanskou filologii, danylenko, Andrii, Prostaja mova, Kitab, and Polissian Standard
7.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
8.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
9.
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
10.
Lithuanian mythology
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Lithuanian mythology is a type of Baltic mythology, developed by Lithuanians throughout the centuries. Surviving information about Baltic paganism in general is incomplete, most of the early written accounts are very brief and made by foreigners, usually Christians, who disapproved of pagan traditions. Some academics regard some texts as inaccurate misunderstandings or even fabrications, in addition many sources list many different names and different spellings, thus sometimes it is not clear if they are referring to the same thing. The Evangelical religion, established in Prussia by Albert of Brandenburg-Prussia, promised to preach to people in their own language, duke Albert established the Albertina University in Königsberg, where languages of the neighboring countries were taught and the first books in those languages were printed. The last conceptions of the old religion survived approximately until the beginning of the 19th century, however, as it was the tradition, they were never documented by followers of the religions themselves, and all known facts are from documents left by outsiders. Although the pre-Christian religions in Lithuania died out later than in any other European country, actual information on Lithuanian mythology is scattered. Interest in it has increased since the beginning of the 19th century, the relics of the old religions were interwoven with other stories of folkloric mythology, and were subsequently documented quite well, including many testimonies written by storytellers themselves. However, the more syncretic character of this mythology raised some uncertainties and, subsequently, hypotheses and discussions, because of this view, many scholars preferred to write their own reconstructions of Lithuanian mythology, based also on historical, archaeological, and ethnographic data. The first such reconstruction was written by the Polish-speaking Lithuanian historian Theodor Narbutt at the beginning of the 19th century, two well-known attempts at reconstruction have been attempted more recently by Marija Gimbutas and Algirdas Julien Greimas. This method of reconstruction is thorny, and none of the attempts has been satisfactory, the most modern academics exploring Lithuanian mythology in the second half of the 20th century were Norbertas Vėlius and Gintaras Beresnevičius. Their works are considered as the most objective and they are very critical and careful about mythological sources. On the other hand, individual elements have much in common with other mythological systems, there is a Finnic Mordvin/Erza thunder god named Pur’ginepaz which in folklore has themes resembling Lithuanian Perkunas. Sparks fly from the cartwheels and the hooves of fiery-red horses of Pur’ginepaz, the Erza thunder god, in several mythical songs the thunder god Pur’ginepaz marries an earthly girl Litova These also closely resemble the Vedic Parjanya. It is reflected in folk tales, such as Jūratė and Kastytis, the next period of Lithuanian mythology started in the 15th century, and lasted till approximately the middle of the 17th century. The myths of this period are mostly heroic, concerning the founding of the state of Lithuania, many stories of this kind reflect actual historical events. In general, these myths are coloured by patriotism, the third period began with the growing influence of Christianity and the activity of the Jesuits, roughly since the end of the 16th century. The earlier confrontational approach to the pre-Christian Lithuanian heritage among common people was abandoned and this also led to the inclusion of Christian elements in mythic stories. The last period of Lithuanian mythology began in the 19th century, when the importance of the old cultural heritage was admitted, not only by the upper classes, but by the nation more widely
11.
Eastern Orthodox Church
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The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had also shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are also many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration, conversion and missionary activity. The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin. Eastern, then, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, thus, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
12.
Politics of Lithuania
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Executive power is exercised by the President and the Government, which is headed by the Prime Minister. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the unicameral Seimas, judicial power is vested in judges appointed by the President of Lithuania and is independent of executive and legislature power. The judiciary consists of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania established these powers upon its approval on 25 October 1992. Since Lithuania declared independence on 11 March 1990, it has kept strong democratic traditions, through compromise, a semi-presidential system was settled. In a referendum on 25 October 1992, the first general vote of the people since their independence,56. 75% of the total number of voters supported the new constitution. All major political parties declared their support for Lithuanias membership in NATO, Lithuania joined NATO on 29 March 2004, and joined the EU on 1 May 2004. During this period, the minister was Gediminas Vagnorius. Valdas Adamkus has been the president for most of the time since 1998 and his prime minister was Rolandas Paksas, whose government got off to a rocky start and collapsed within seven months. President Adamkus played a key role in bringing the new centrist parties together, Artūras Paulauskas, the leader of the centre-left New Union, became the Chairman of the Seimas. In July 2001, the centre-left New Union party forged an alliance with the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, on 11 April 2006, Artūras Paulauskas was removed from his position and Viktoras Muntianas was elected Chairman of the Seimas. Brazauskas decided not to remain in office as acting Prime Minister, even so, he led the ruling Social Democratic Party of Lithuania for one more year, until 19 May 2007, when he passed the reins to Gediminas Kirkilas. On 27 November 2008, Andrius Kubilius was appointed as a Prime Minister, in 2012, Algirdas Butkevičius became the new Prime Minister and still holds that position. Government in Lithuania is made up of three branches originally envisioned by enlightenment philosopher Baron de Montesquieu, executive, legislative, and judicial, each branch is separate and is set up to do checks and balances on each other branch. The executive branch of the Lithuanian government consists of a President, a Prime Minister, and it is in charge of running the government. The President of Lithuania is the head of state of the country, elected directly for a five-year term, the President, with the approval of the Seimas, is first responsible of appointing the Prime Minister. Dalia Grybauskaitė has served as the president of Lithuania since July 2009, Grybauskaitė succeeded Valdas Adamkus who had served a total of two non-consecutive terms. Former President Rolandas Paksas, who had defeated Adamkus in 2003, was impeached in April 2004 for leaking classified information, the Prime Minister of Lithuania is the head of government of the country, appointed by the President and approved by the Seimas. The Prime Minister, within 15 days of being appointed, is responsible for choosing Ministers for the President to approve to each of the 13 Ministries
13.
Elective monarchy
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An elective monarchy is a monarchy ruled by an elected monarch, in contrast to a hereditary monarchy in which the office is automatically passed down as a family inheritance. The manner of election, the nature of candidate qualifications, historically it is not uncommon for elective monarchies to transform into hereditary ones over time, or for hereditary ones to acquire at least occasional elective aspects. Many, if not most, kingdoms were officially elective historically, the kings of Macedon and of Epirus were elected by the army, which was similar in composition to the ecclesia of democracies, the council of all free citizens. Military service often was linked with citizenship among the members of the royal house. In the ancient Kingdom of Rome, the kings were elected by the Assemblies, therefore, the office of Roman and Byzantine emperor remained vaguely elective and heredity never was, and could never be, formally established in law. The Holy Roman Empire is perhaps the best-known example of an elective monarchy, however, from 1453 to 1740, a Habsburg was always elected emperor, the throne becoming unofficially hereditary. During that period, the emperor was elected from within the House of Habsburg by a council of nobles called prince-electors. The secular electoral seats were hereditary, however, spiritual electors were usually elected by the cathedral chapters as religious leaders, but simultaneously ruled as monarch of a territory of imperial immediacy. Thus the prince-bishoprics were elective monarchies too, the same holds true for prince-abbeys, whose prince-abbesses or prince-abbots were elected by a college of clerics and imperially appointed as princely rulers in a pertaining territory. In the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, the kingship was partially elected, during the height of the kingdom in the mid-12th century there was a royal family and a relatively clear line of succession. Nevertheless, the king was elected, or at least recognized, here the king was considered a primus inter pares, and in his absence his duties were performed by his seneschal. Originally, the Kings of Sweden were elected by all men at the Mora Thing. Elective monarchy continued until 1544, when the Riksdag of the Estates designated the heirs of King Gustav Vasa as the heirs to the throne, the Danish monarchy was also officially elective, although the eldest son of the reigning monarch was usually elected. This continued until 1660, when a hereditary and absolute monarchy was instituted by Frederick III, though the monarchy of Norway was originally hereditary, it too became elective in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Candidates had to be of royal blood, but the kingship was elected by a council of noblemen, in 1905 Prince Carl was elected King of Norway, after the male population in an election decided Norway should still be a monarchy. Bernadotte eventually ascended the throne as Charles XIV John of Sweden, in Poland, after the death of the last Piast in 1370, Polish kings were initially elected by a small council, gradually, this privilege was granted to all members of the szlachta. During the election period, the function of the king was performed by an interrex and this unique Polish election was termed the free election. Since medieval times, the King of Bohemia was elected by the Estates of Lands of the Bohemian Crown, since 1526, when the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I assumed the Bohemian Crown, it was always held by the Habsburgs, who expected this situation to go on indefinitely
14.
Kingdom of Lithuania
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The Kingdom of Lithuania was a Lithuanian monarchy which existed from 1251 to roughly 1263. King Mindaugas was the first and only crowned king of Lithuania, the status of a kingdom was lost after Mindaugas assassination in 1263. Other monarchs of Lithuania are referred to as Grand Dukes, even though their status was almost identical to that of a king, two attempts were made to reestablish the Kingdom – by Vytautas the Great in 1430 and by the Council of Lithuania in 1918. In the early 13th century, Lithuania was inhabited by various pagan Baltic tribes, by the 1230s, Mindaugas emerged as the leader of the Grand Duchy. In 1249, a war erupted between Mindaugas and his nephews Tautvilas and Edivydas. The status of a kingdom was granted on July 17,1251, two years later, Mindaugas and his wife Morta were crowned as the King and Queen of Lithuania. In 1255, Mindaugas received permission from Pope Alexander IV to crown his son as King of Lithuania, the coronation and the alliance with the Livonian Order allowed a period of peace between Lithuania and Livonia. During that time the Lithuanians expanded east, while Livonia attempted to conquer Samogitia, enticed by his nephew Treniota, Mindaugas broke the peace after the Order was defeated in the Battle of Skuodas in 1259 and Battle of Durbe in 1260. Treniotas influence grew as he waged a war against the Order, the conflict resulted in assassination of Mindaugas and two of his sons in 1263. The country reverted to paganism and its status as a kingdom was lost, the state survived as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the subsequent monarchs are known as Grand Dukes as they could not be crowned as kings until they converted to Christianity. There was an attempt by Grand Duke Vytautas the Great to receive the royal crown, soon afterwards Vytautas died, without being crowned as king. After Lithuania declared independence in February 1918, the monarchy was reestablished, however, the monarchy was short-lived and Mindaugas II never visited Lithuania. The Kingdom of Lithuania was a client-state of the German Empire and following Germanys defeat in World War I in fall 1918, Duchy of Lithuania Grand Duchy of Lithuania Kingdom of Lithuania Lithuania proper
15.
Mindaugas
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Mindaugas was the first known Grand Duke of Lithuania and the only King of Lithuania. Little is known of his origins, early life, or rise to power, he is mentioned in a 1219 treaty as an elder duke, the contemporary and modern sources discussing his ascent mention strategic marriages along with banishment or murder of his rivals. He extended his domain into regions southeast of Lithuania proper during the 1230s and 1240s, during the summer of 1253 he was crowned King of Lithuania, ruling between 300,000 and 400,000 subjects. While his ten-year reign was marked by various state-building accomplishments, Mindaugass conflicts with relatives and other dukes continued and his gains in the southeast were challenged by the Tatars. He broke peace with the Livonian Order in 1261, possibly renouncing Christianity and his three immediate successors were assassinated as well. The disorder was not resolved until Traidenis gained the title of Grand Duke c, although his reputation was unsettled during the following centuries and his descendants were not notable, he gained standing during the 19th and 20th centuries. Mindaugas was the only King of Lithuania, while most of the Lithuanian Grand Dukes from Jogaila onward also reigned as Kings of Poland, in the 1990s the historian Edvardas Gudavičius published research supporting an exact coronation date –6 July 1253. This day is now a national holiday, Statehood Day. Contemporary written sources about Mindaugas are very scarce, much what is known about his reign is obtained from the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle and the Hypatian Codex. Both of these chronicles were produced by enemies of Lithuania and thus have anti-Lithuanian bias and they are also incomplete, both of them lack dates and locations even for the most important events. For example, the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle devoted 125 poetry lines to Mindaugas coronation, other important sources are the papal bulls regarding baptism and coronation of Mindaugas. The Lithuanians did not produce any surviving records themselves, except for a series of acts granting lands to the Livonian Order, due to lack of sources, some important questions regarding Mindaugas and his reign cannot be answered. Because written sources covering the era are scarce, Mindaugas origins and his year of birth, sometimes given as c. 1200, is at times left as a question mark. His father is mentioned in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle as a powerful duke, Dausprungas, mentioned in the text of a 1219 treaty, is presumed to have been his brother, and Dausprungas sons Tautvilas and Gedvydas his nephews. He is thought to have had two sisters, one married to Vykintas and another to Daniel of Halych, Vykintas and his son Treniota played major roles in later power struggles. In addition to Vaišvilkas and his sister, two sons, Ruklys and Rupeikis, are mentioned in written sources, the latter two were assassinated along with Mindaugas. Information on his sons is limited and historians continue to discuss their number and he may have had two other sons whose names were later conflated by scribes into Ruklys and Rupeikis
16.
Union of Krewo
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The act was very limited in scope and in the historiography the term Union of Krewo often refers not only to the particular document but to the events of 1385–1386 as a whole. After the negotiations in 1385, Jogaila converted to Christianity, married Jadwiga, the union was a decisive moment in the histories of Poland and Lithuania, it marked a beginning of the four centuries of shared history between the two nations. By 1569 the Polish–Lithuanian union grew into a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Louis I of Hungary died on 13 September 1382. Since he had two surviving daughters, Mary and Jadwiga, Poland faced a succession crisis. Candidates for the throne included Marys fiancé Sigismund of Luxembourg, Siemowit IV, Duke of Masovia, Mary and her fiancé were rejected by the Polish nobles, who did not wish to continue a personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary. Polish nobles competed with other and a brief civil war broke out in Greater Poland. Eventually, after negotiations with Jadwigas mother Elizabeth of Bosnia. The new monarch still needed a suitable husband and she was betrothed to William of Austria, who in summer 1385 traveled to Poland in an attempt to consummate the proposed marriage and present a fait accompli. He succeeded in reaching Wawel, but was removed by Polish nobles. It is unclear whether he succeeded in consummating the marriage, nobles from Lesser Poland, including Spytek of Melsztyn, Jan of Tarnów, and Jan Tęczyński, proposed that Jadwiga marry Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania. Grand Duke Algirdas died in 1377 and left the throne to his son Jogaila and he inherited a large state, inhabited by pagan Lithuanians and Orthodox Ruthenians. For the last century, Lithuanians defended themselves from the Teutonic Knights, Jogaila understood that the conversion was inevitable and searched for the best opportunities. The Treaty of Dubysa of 1382 with the Knights included provisions of Jogailas conversion within four years, however, the treaty was never ratified. Accepting Christianity from an enemy was dangerous, unpopular. However, in the eyes of Catholics, Orthodoxy was not any better than paganism, therefore, such conversion would not protect from the Teutonic attacks. A third option, presented by Polish nobles, avoided major pitfalls of the Teutonic or Muscovite proposals, the relations between Poland and Lithuania were not particularly friendly. The two states were allies before, when Jogailas aunt Aldona of Lithuania was Queen of Poland between 1325 and 1339. Poland and Lithuania battled each other in the decades-long Galicia–Volhynia Wars and it is unknown who and when proposed Jogaila as the groom for Jadwiga
17.
Union of Lublin
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The Union of Lublin was signed July 1,1569, in Lublin, Poland, and created a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was largely abandoned, the Duchy of Livonia, tied to Lithuania in real union since the Union of Grodno, became a Polish–Lithuanian condominium. The Commonwealth was ruled by an elected monarch who carried out the duties of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. The Union was a stage in the Polish–Lithuanian alliance and personal union. Constituting a crucial event in the history of nations, the Union of Lublin has been viewed quite differently by many historians. Sometimes identified as the moment at which the Szlachta rose to the height of their power, some Lithuanian historians are more critical of the Union, pointing out that it was an effect of domination by Polish nobles. The Polish nobility on the hand were reluctant to offer help to Lithuania without receiving anything in exchange. Still, the Polish and Lithuanian elite strengthened personal bonds and had opportunities to plan their united futures during increased military cooperation in the 1560s, a clear motivation for Sigismund is that he was the last Jagiello and had no children nor brothers who could inherit the throne. So the Union was an attempt to preserve the continuity of his dynastys work since the union of Poland and Lithuania at the marriage of Jadwiga of Poland. The Union was one of the changes required to establish a formal elected monarchy that would simultaneously reign over the two domains. The Sejm met in January,1569, near the Polish town of Lublin, one of the points of contention was the right of Poles to settle and own land in the Grand Duchy. Bratslav and eastern Podolia were also transferred to Poland and these historic lands of Rus comprise over half of modern Ukraine, and were at that time a substantial portion of the Grand Duchy of Lithuanias territory. The Rus nobles there were eager to capitalize on the economic and political opportunities offered by the Polish sphere, the Lithuanians were forced to return to the Sejm under the leadership of Jan Hieronimowicz Chodkiewicz and to continue negotiations, using slightly different tactics than Mikołaj the Red Radziwiłł. Though the Polish szlachta wanted full incorporation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into the Crown, on 28 June 1569, the last objections were overcome, and on 4 July an act was accordingly signed by the King at Lublin Castle. The Union of Lublin was superseded by the Constitution of May 3,1791 from 1791, the status of semi-federal state was restored by the Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations. However, the constitution was not fully implemented and the Commonwealth was ended by the late 18th century Partitions of the Commonwealth, with the last one in 1795. After the Union, the Lithuanian nobles had the formal rights as the Polish to rule the lands. However, political advancement in the Catholic-dominated Commonwealth was a different matter, by the late 15th century, the Polish language was already making rapid inroads among the Lithuanian and Rus elites
18.
Third Partition of Poland
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Accordingly, the partitioning powers agreed to permanently erase Polands name from existence, including from their respective encyclopaedias. In addition, to strengthen Polands international standings, King Stanislaus signed the Polish-Prussian Pact of 1790, angered by what was seen as dangerous, Jacobin-style reforms, Russia invaded Poland in 1792, beginning the War in Defense of the Constitution. Catherine II and Frederick William II were quick to respond and, despite initial successes by Kosciuszko’s forces, the uprising was crushed by November 1794. According to legend, when Kosciuszko fell off of his horse at the Battle of Maciejowice, shortly before he was captured, he said Finis Poloniae, meaning this is the end of Poland. Following the end of the Kosciuszko rebellion, Austria, Prussia, the partition coalition forced King Stanislaus to abdicate and he retired to St. Petersburg as Catherine IIs trophy prisoner, where he died in 1798. The high contracting parties are agreed and undertake never to include in their titles, the name or designation of the Kingdom of Poland, which shall remain suppressed as from the present and forever. The Third Partition of Poland ended the existence of an independent Polish state for the next 123 years and these Polish nationalists participated in uprisings against Austria, Prussia, and Russia in former Polish lands, and many would serve France as part of Napoleons armies. In addition, Polish poets and artists would make the desire for national freedom a defining characteristic of the Polish Romanticist movement, Poland briefly regained semi-autonomy in 1807 when Napoleon created the Duchy of Warsaw, but this effectively ended with the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The Congress created a Kingdom of Poland, sometimes called Congress Poland, even this, however, came to an end after a Polish insurrection in 1831, at which point Russia dissolved the Congress Kingdom and exacted multiple punitive measures on the Polish populace. Russia then made Poland an official part of the Russian Empire, Administrative division of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the course of partitions Administrative division of Polish territories after partitions Davies, Norman. Gods Playground, A History of Poland, revised Edition ed. Oxford, Clarendon Press,2005. The Slavonic Review Mar.1925, 481–498, steed, Henry Wickham, W. Alison Phillips, and David Hannay. A Short History of Austria-Hungary and Poland, Partitions of Poland – Britannica Online Encyclopedia. The Period of Partitions – resources Encyclopedia Britannica, Poland Europaworld Online, Poland The Partitions of Poland
19.
Geography of Lithuania
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Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, most populous of the Baltic states, Lithuania has 262 kilometres of coastline consisting of the continental coast and the Curonian Spit coast. The Neman River and some of its tributaries are used for internal shipping. Situated between 56.27 and 53.53 latitude and 20.56 and 26.50 longitude, Lithuania is glacially flat, except for morainic hills in the western uplands and eastern highlands no higher than 300 metres. The terrain is marked by small lakes and swamps. The growing season lasts 169 days in the east and 202 days in the west, according to some geographers, the geographical midpoint of Europe is just north of Lithuanias capital, Vilnius. Geographic coordinates, 54°54′24″N 25°19′12″E Lithuania is situated on the shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuanias boundaries have changed several times since 1918, but they have been stable since 1945, currently, Lithuania covers an area of about 65,200 square kilometres. About the size of West Virginia, it is larger than Belgium, Denmark, Latvia, the Netherlands, or Switzerland. Lithuania is situated on the shore of the Baltic Sea and borders Latvia on the north, Belarus on the east and south, and Poland. It is a country of gently rolling hills, many forests, rivers and streams and its principal natural resource is agricultural land. The two countries share a border that extends 453 kilometres, Lithuanias eastern border with Belarus is longer, stretching 502 kilometers. The border with Poland on the south is relatively short, only ninety-one kilometres, Lithuania also has a 227-kilometre border with Russia. Russian territory adjacent to Lithuania is Kaliningrad Oblast, which is the part of the former German East Prussia. Finally, Lithuania has 108 kilometres of Baltic seashore with a harbor at Klaipėda. The Baltic coast offers sandy beaches and pine forests and attracts thousands of vacationers, Lithuania lies at the edge of the North European Plain. Its landscape was shaped by the glaciers of the last Ice Age, Lithuanias terrain is an alternation of moderate lowlands and highlands. The landscape is punctuated by 2,833 lakes larger than 10,000 m² and 1,600 smaller ponds, the majority of the lakes are found in the eastern part of the country. Lithuania also has 758 rivers longer than ten kilometres, the largest river is the Nemunas, which originates in Belarus
20.
Demographics of Lithuania
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This article is about the demographic features of the population of Lithuania, including population density, ethnicity, level of education, health, economic status, and religious affiliations. The earliest evidence of inhabitants in present-day Lithuania dates back to 10,000 BC, see also, Demographics and Languages of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Demographics of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The name of Lithuania – Lithuanians – was first mentioned in 1009. Among its etymologies there are a derivation from the word Lietava, for a river, a possible derivation from a word leičiai. The primary Lithuanian state, the Duchy of Lithuania, emerged in the territory of Lietuva, at the birth of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, ethnic Lithuanians made up about 70% of the population. With the acquisition of new Ruthenian territories, this decreased to 50%. In addition to the Ruthenians and Lithuanians, other significant ethnic groups throughout GDL were Jews and Tatars. The combined population of Poland and GDL in 1493 is estimated as 7.5 million, with the Union of Lublin Lithuanian Grand Duchy lost large part of lands to the Polish Crown. An ethnic Lithuanian proportion being about 1/4 in GDL after the Union of Lublin was held till the partitions, there was much devastation and population loss throughout the GDL in the mid and late 17th century, including the ethnic Lithuanian population in Vilnius voivodeship. Besides devastation, the Ruthenian population declined proportionally after the losses to the Russian Empire. In 1770 there were about 4.84 million inhabitants in GDL, of which the largest ethnic group were Ruthenians, the voivodeships with a majority ethnic Lithuanian population were Vilnius, Trakai and Samogitian voivodeships, and these three voivodeships comprised the political center of the state. In the southern angle of Trakai voivodeship and south-eastern part of Vilnius voivodeship there were also many Belarusians, the Ruthenian language, corresponding to todays Belarusian and Ukrainian, was then called Russian, and was used as one of the chancellery languages by Lithuanian monarchs. However, there are fewer extant documents written in this language than those written in Latin, later, Ruthenian became the main language of documentation and writing. The Lithuanian language was used orally in Vilnius, Trakai and Samogitian voivodeships, at the court of Zygmunt August, the last king of the Duchy, both Polish and Lithuanian were spoken. After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the use of the Polish language noticeably increased in eastern Lithuania, there were population losses due to several border changes, Soviet deportations, the Holocaust of the Lithuanian Jews, and German and Polish repatriations during and after World War II. After World War II, the ethnic Lithuanian population remained stable,79. 3% in 1959 to 83. 5% in 2002, lithuanias citizenship law and the Constitution meet international and OSCE standards, guaranteeing universal human and civil rights. Lithuanians are neither Slavic nor Germanic, although the union with Poland, German and Russian colonization and settlement left cultural, among the Baltic states, Lithuania has the most homogeneous population. Poles are concentrated in the Vilnius Region, the controlled by Poland in the interwar period. There are especially large Polish communities in Vilnius district municipality and Šalčininkai district municipality, the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, an ethnic minority political party, has strong influence in these areas and has representation in the Seimas
21.
Kingdom of Prussia
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It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1871 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the kings of Prussia were from the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia was a power from the time it became a kingdom, through its predecessor, Brandenburg-Prussia. Prussia continued its rise to power under the guidance of Frederick II, more known as Frederick the Great. After the might of Prussia was revealed it was considered as a power among the German states. Throughout the next hundred years Prussia went on to win many battles and it was because of its power that Prussia continuously tried to unify all the German states under its rule. Attempts at creation of a federation remained unsuccessful and the German Confederation collapsed in 1866 when war ensued between its two most powerful states, Prussia and Austria. The North German Confederation which lasted from 1867–1871, created a union between the Prussian-aligned states while Austria and most of Southern Germany remained independent. The North German Confederation was seen as more of an alliance of military strength in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War, the German Empire lasted from 1871–1918 with the successful unification of all the German states under Prussian hegemony. This was due to the defeat of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, in 1871, Germany unified into a single country, minus Austria and Switzerland, with Prussia the dominant power. Prussia is considered the predecessor of the unified German Reich. The Kingdom left a significant cultural legacy, today notably promoted by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, in 1415 a Hohenzollern Burgrave came from the south to the March of Brandenburg and took control of the area as elector. In 1417 the Hohenzollern was made an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, after the Polish wars, the newly established Baltic towns of the German states including Prussia, suffered many economic setbacks. Many of the Prussian towns could not even afford to attend political meetings outside of Prussia, the towns were poverty stricken, with even the largest town, Danzig, having to borrow money from elsewhere to pay for trade. Poverty in these towns was partly caused by Prussias neighbors, who had established and developed such a monopoly on trading that these new towns simply could not compete and these issues led to feuds, wars, trade competition and invasions. However, the fall of these gave rise to the nobility, separated the east and the west. It was clear in 1440 how different Brandenburg was from the other German territories, not only did it face partition from within but also the threat of its neighbors. It prevented the issue of partition by enacting the Dispositio Achillea which instilled the principle of primogeniture to both the Brandenburg and Franconian territories, the second issue was solved through expansion
22.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
23.
Belarus
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Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres is forested and its strongest economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian Peoples Republic, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland after the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921, during WWII, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years, in 1945 the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR. The parliament of the declared the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990. Alexander Lukashenko has served as the president since 1994. Belarus has been labeled Europes last dictatorship by some Western journalists, Lukashenko continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. Though not directly espousing communism like the five remaining communist countries of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea, in 2000 Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, with some hints of forming a Union State. Over 70% of Belaruss population of 9.49 million resides in urban areas, more than 80% of the population is ethnic Belarusian, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages, Belarusian and Russian, the Constitution of Belarus does not declare any official religion, although the primary religion in the country is Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Belarus is the only European country to retain capital punishment in both law and practice, the name Belarus is closely related with the term Belaya Rus, i. e. White Rus. There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus, an alternate explanation for the name comments on the white clothing worn by the local Slavic population. A third theory suggests that the old Rus lands that were not conquered by the Tatars had been referred to as white, other sources claim that, before 1267, the land not conquered by the Mongols was considered White Rus. The name Rus is often conflated with its Latin forms Russia and Ruthenia, in some languages, including German and Dutch, the country is generally called White Russia to this day. The Latin term Alba Russia was used again by Pope Pius VI in 1783 to recognize the Society of Jesus there, exclaiming Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem, approbo, approbo. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, the Russian tsars used White Rus to describe the lands added from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
24.
Latvia
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Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe, one of the three Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2. The country has a seasonal climate. Latvia is a parliamentary republic established in 1918. The capital city is Riga, the European Capital of Culture 2014, Latvia is a unitary state, divided into 119 administrative divisions, of which 110 are municipalities and 9 are cities. Latvians and Livs are the people of Latvia. Latvian and Lithuanian are the two surviving Baltic languages. Despite foreign rule from the 13th to 20th centuries, the Latvian nation maintained its identity throughout the generations via the language, Latvia and Estonia share a long common history. Until World War II, Latvia also had significant minorities of ethnic Germans, Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant Lutheran, except for the Latgale region in the southeast, which has historically been predominantly Roman Catholic. The Russian population has brought a significant portion of Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Republic of Latvia was founded on 18 November 1918, however, its de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation of Soviet rule and it ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991. Latvia is a democratic and developed country and member of the European Union, NATO, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, CBSS, the IMF, NB8, NIB, OECD, OSCE, and WTO. For 2014, Latvia was listed 46th on the Human Development Index and it used the Latvian lats as its currency until it was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2014. The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, henry of Latvia coined the Latinisations of the countrys name, Lettigallia and Lethia, both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the name in Romance languages from Letonia. Around 3000 BC, the ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals, by 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia, Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians, as well as the Livonians speaking a Finnic language
25.
Lithuania
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Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in Northern Europe. One of the three Baltic states, it is situated along the shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden. It is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.9 million people as of 2015, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The official language, Lithuanian, along with Latvian, is one of two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. For centuries, the shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, the King of Lithuania, and the first unified Lithuanian state, with the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772–95, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuanias territory. As World War I neared its end, Lithuanias Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, in the midst of the Second World War, Lithuania was first occupied by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. As World War II neared its end and the Germans retreated, Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, a full member of the Eurozone, Schengen Agreement and NATO. It is also a member of the Nordic Investment Bank, the United Nations Human Development Index lists Lithuania as a very high human development country. Lithuania has been among the fastest growing economies in the European Union and is ranked 21st in the world in the Ease of Doing Business Index, the first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population, the first written mention of Lithuania is found in a medieval German manuscript, the Annals of Quedlinburg, in an entry dated 9 March 1009. Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, after his assassination in 1263, pagan Lithuania was a target of the Christian crusades of the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. Despite the devastating century-long struggle with the Orders, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly, by the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia. The geopolitical situation between the west and the east determined the multicultural and multi-confessional character of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the ruling elite practised religious tolerance and Chancery Slavonic language was used as an auxiliary language to the Latin for official documents. In 1385, the Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Polands offer to become its king, Jogaila embarked on gradual Christianization of Lithuania and established a personal union between Poland and Lithuania. It implied that Lithuania, the fiercely independent land, was one of the last pagan areas of Europe to adopt Christianity, after two civil wars, Vytautas the Great became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its expansion, centralization of the state began
26.
Moldova
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Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova (Romanian, Republica Moldova, listen, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. In 1856, southern Bessarabia was returned to Moldavia, but Russian rule was restored over the whole of the region in 1878, Bessarabia remained a province of the Russian Empire until 1917, when during the Russian Revolution it became an autonomous and then nominally independent Moldavian Democratic Republic. In 1918, following a vote of its assembly, Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania, the decision was disputed by Soviet Russia, which in 1924, created within the Ukrainian SSR, on a territory east of Bessarabia, a so-called Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia to the Soviet Union, the Soviets decided to split the region between a newly established Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian SSR. The Moldavian SSR included two-thirds of the territory of Bessarabia, on 27 August 1991, as part of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Moldavian SSR declared independence and took the name Moldova. The current Constitution of Moldova was adopted in 1994, the strip of the Moldovan territory on the east bank of the Dniester river has been under the de facto control of the breakaway government of Transnistria since 1990. Its economy is the poorest in Europe in per capita terms, Moldova is a parliamentary republic with a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. The name Moldova derives from the Moldova River, the valley of this served as a political centre at the time of the foundation of the Principality of Moldavia in 1359. The origin of the name of the river remains unclear, the dogs name, given to the river, extended to the Principality. For a short time in the 1990s, at the founding of the Commonwealth of Independent States, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country began to use the Romanian name, Moldova. Officially, the name Republic of Moldova is designated by the United Nations, in 2010, Oldowan flint tools were discovered at Bayraki that are 800, 000–1.2 million years old. This demonstrates that humans were present in Moldova during the early Paleolithic era. The inhabitants of this civilization, which lasted roughly from 5500 to 2750 BC, practiced agriculture, raised livestock, hunted, in antiquity, Moldovas territory was inhabited by Dacian tribes. Between the 1st and 7th centuries AD, the south was intermittently under the Roman, and then Byzantine Empires. The Principality of Moldavia, established in 1359, was bounded by the Carpathian Mountains in the west, the Dniester River in the east, and the Danube River and Black Sea to the south. Its territory comprised the territory of the Republic of Moldova, the eastern eight counties of Romania. Like the present-day republic and Romanias north-eastern region, it was known to the locals as Moldova, Moldavia was invaded repeatedly by Crimean Tatars and, beginning in the 15th century, by the Turks. In 1538, the principality became a tributary to the Ottoman Empire, the title used in the document of 6 July 1600 was The King of the country of Romania, Ardeal and of all of Moldavia
27.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
28.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
29.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
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Constitution of May 3, 1791
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The Constitution of 3 May 1791 was adopted by the Great Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a dual monarchy comprising Poland and Lithuania. Drafted over 32 months beginning on 6 October 1788, and formally adopted as the Government Act, the system of Golden Freedoms, also known as the Nobles Democracy, had conferred disproportionate rights on the nobility and over time had corrupted politics. The constitution sought to supplant the prevailing anarchy fostered by some of the magnates with a more democratic constitutional monarchy. It introduced elements of political equality between townspeople and nobility, and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, thus mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. It banned parliamentary institutions such as the veto, which had put the Sejm at the mercy of any deputy who could revoke all the legislation that had been passed by that Sejm. The Commonwealths neighbours reacted with hostility to the adoption of the constitution, the King, a principal co-author, eventually capitulated to the Confederates. The 1791 document remained in force for less than 19 months, by 1795, the Second and Third Partitions of Poland ended the existence of the sovereign Polish state. Over the next 123 years, the Constitution of 3 May,1791, was seen as proof of successful internal reform, in the words of two of its co-authors, Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, it was the last will and testament of the expiring Country. Polish constitutionalism can be traced to the 13th century, when government by consensus, the emergence of parliamentary bodies, the sejm and sejmiki, followed. This system, which benefited the Polish nobility, came to be known as the nobles democracy. In the 1590s, at the peak of the nobles democracy, as the Sejm failed to implement sufficient reforms, the state machinery became increasingly dysfunctional. A major cause of the Commonwealths downfall was the liberum veto, the threat of the liberum veto could only be overridden by the establishment of a confederated sejm, which was immune to the liberum veto. Declaring that a sejm either constituted a confederation or belonged to one was a prominently used by foreign interests in the 18th century to force a legislative outcome. By the early 18th century, the magnates of Poland and Lithuania controlled the state, the ineffective monarchs who were elected to the Commonwealth throne in the early 18th century, Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland of the House of Wettin, did not improve matters. Only 8 out of 18 Sejm sessions during the reign of Augustus II passed legislation, for 30 years during the reign of Augustus III, only one session was able to pass legislation. The government was near collapse, giving rise to the term Polish anarchy, the Enlightenment greatly influenced certain Commonwealth circles during the 1764–95 reign of its last king, Stanisław II August Poniatowski. Poniatowski was an enlightened Polish magnate who had been a deputy to several Sejms between 1750 and 1764 and had an understanding of Polish politics than previous monarchs. In part because his election was imposed by Empress Catherine the Great and these measures had already been authorized by the Convocation Sejm, more legislative and executive improvements inspired by Familia or the King were implemented during and after the 1764 Sejm
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Partitions of Poland
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The First Partition of Poland was decided on August 5,1772. Two decades later, Russian and Prussian troops entered the Commonwealth again, Austria did not participate in the Second Partition. The Third Partition of Poland took place on October 24,1795, with this partition, the Commonwealth ceased to exist. In Polish, there are two words for the two meanings. In Polish historiography, the term Fourth Partition of Poland has also been used, the term Fourth Partition in a temporal sense can also mean the diaspora communities that played important political role in re-establishing the Polish sovereign state after 1918. A single member of parliaments belief that a measure was injurious to his own constituency, even after the act had been approved and it became increasingly difficult to undertake action. The liberum veto also provided openings for foreign diplomats to get their ways and this applies particularly to the last Commonwealth King Stanisław August Poniatowski, who for some time had been a lover of Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Their alliance later became known in Poland as the Alliance of the Three Black Eagles, the Commonwealth could never be liquidated unless its long-time ally, Austria, allowed it, so Catherine had to use diplomacy to win Austria to her side. Frederick II retaliated by ordering enough Polish currency counterfeited to severely affect the Polish economy and this new constitution undid the reforms made in 1764 under Stanisław II. The liberum veto and all the old abuses of the last one, the irregular and poorly commanded Polish forces had little chance in the face of the regular Russian army and suffered a major defeat. In 1769 Austria annexed a small territory of Spisz and in 1770 – Nowy Sącz and these territories had been a bone of contention between Poland and Hungary, which was a part of the Austrian crown lands. In February 1772, the agreement of partition was signed in Vienna, early in August, Russian, Prussian and Austrian troops simultaneously invaded the Commonwealth and occupied the provinces agreed upon among themselves. The partition treaty was ratified by its signatories on September 22,1772, to Austria fell Zator and Auschwitz, part of Lesser Poland embracing parts of the counties of Kraków and Sandomir and the whole of Galicia, less the city of Kraków. Catherine of Russia was also very satisfied, by this diplomatic document Russia came into possession of that section of Livonia that had remained in Commonwealth control, and of Belarus embracing the counties of Vitebsk, Polotsk and Mstislavl. By this partition, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth lost about 30% of its territory and half of its population, by seizing northwestern Poland, Prussia instantly gained control over 80% of the Commonwealths total foreign trade. Through levying enormous customs duties, Prussia accelerated the collapse of the Commonwealth, after having occupied their respective territories, the three partitioning powers demanded that King Stanisław and the Sejm approve their action. By 1790 the First Polish Republic had been weakened to such a degree that it was forced into an unnatural and terminal alliance with its enemy, the Polish–Prussian Pact of 1790 was signed. The conditions of the Pact contributed to the succeeding and final two partitions of Poland–Lithuania, the May Constitution of 1791 enfranchised the bourgeoisie, established the separation of the three branches of government, and eliminated the abuses of the Repnin Sejm
32.
Habsburg Monarchy
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The Monarchy was a composite state composed of territories within and outside the Holy Roman Empire, united only in the person of the monarch. The dynastic capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, from 1804 to 1867 the Habsburg Monarchy was formally unified as the Austrian Empire, and from 1867 to 1918 as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The two entities were never coterminous, as the Habsburg Monarchy covered many lands beyond the Holy Roman Empire, the monarchy had no official name. The entity had no official name, Austrian Empire, This was the official name. Note that the German version is Kaisertum Österreich, i. e. the English translation empire refers to a territory ruled by an emperor, Austria-Hungary, This was the official name. An unofficial popular name was the Danubian Monarchy also often used was the term Doppel-Monarchie meaning two states under one crowned ruler, Crownlands or crown lands, This is the name of all the individual parts of the Austrian Empire, and then of Austria-Hungary from 1867 on. The Hungarian parts of the Empire were called Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen or Lands of Holy Stephens Crown, the Bohemian Lands were called Lands of the St. Wenceslaus Crown. Burgenland came to Austria in 1921 from Hungary, Salzburg finally became Austrian in 1816 after the Napoleonic wars. Vienna, Austrias capital became a state January 1,1922, after being residence, Upper and Lower Austria, historically, were split into Austria above the Enns and Austria below the Enns. Upper Austria was enlarged after the Treaty of Teschen following the War of the Bavarian Succession by the so-called Innviertel, formerly part of Bavaria. Hereditary Lands or German Hereditary Lands or Austrian Hereditary Lands, In a narrower sense these were the original Habsburg Austrian territories, i. e. basically the Austrian lands, in a wider sense the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were also included in the Hereditary lands. The term was replaced by the term Crownlands in the 1849 March Constitution, within the Habsburg Monarchy, each province was governed according to its own particular customs. Until the mid 17th century, not all of the provinces were even necessarily ruled by the same members of the family often ruled portions of the Hereditary Lands as private apanages. An even greater attempt at centralization began in 1849 following the suppression of the revolutions of 1848. For the first time, ministers tried to transform the monarchy into a bureaucratic state ruled from Vienna. The Kingdom of Hungary, in particular, ceased to exist as a separate entity, in this system, the Kingdom of Hungary was given sovereignty and a parliament, with only a personal union and a joint foreign and military policy connecting it to the other Habsburg lands. When Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed, it was not incorporated into either half of the monarchy, instead, it was governed by the joint Ministry of Finance. Austria-Hungary collapsed under the weight of the various unsolved ethnic problems that came to a head with its defeat in World War I, to these were added in 1779 the Inn Quarter of Bavaria, and in 1803 the Bishoprics of Trent and Brixen
33.
Lithuanians
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Lithuanians are a Baltic ethnic group, native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,561,300 people. Another million or more make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in such as the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Russia, United Kingdom. Their native language is Lithuanian, one of two surviving members of the Baltic language family. Most Lithuanians belong to the Roman Catholic Church, while the Lietuvininkai who lived in the part of East Prussia prior to World War II, were mostly Evangelical Lutherans. The territory of the Balts, including modern Lithuania, was inhabited by several Baltic tribal entities, as attested by ancient sources. The last Pagan peoples in Europe, they were converted to Christianity in 1387. The subsequent imperial Russian occupation accelerated this process, it pursued a policy of Russification and it was believed by some at the time that the nation as such, along with its language, would become extinct within a few generations. At the end of the 19th century a Lithuanian cultural and linguistic revival occurred, Lithuania declared independence after World War I, which helped its national consolidation. A standardised Lithuanian language was approved, however, the eastern parts of Lithuania, including the Vilnius Region, were annexed by Poland, while the Klaipėda Region was taken over by Nazi Germany in 1939. In 1940, Lithuania was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union, the Germans and their allies attacked the USSR in June 1941, and from 1941—1944, Lithuania was occupied by Germany. The Germans retreated in 1944, and Lithuania fell under Soviet rule once again, the long-standing communities of Lithuanians in the Kaliningrad Oblast were almost destroyed as a result. The Lithuanian nation as such remained primarily in Lithuania, few villages in northeastern Poland, southern Latvia, some indigenous Lithuanians still remain in Belarus and the Kaliningrad Oblast, but their number is small compared to what they used to be. Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, and was recognized by most countries in 1991 and it became a member of the European Union on May 1,2004. Among the Baltic states, Lithuania has the most homogeneous population, Poles are mostly concentrated in the Vilnius Region. Especially large Polish communities are located in the Vilnius District Municipality and this concentration allows Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, an ethnic minority-based political party, to exert political influence. Due to the excessive pro-Pole political agenda, the party is known to cause friction between Lithuanians and Poles, however, it has only held 1 or 2 seats in the parliament of Lithuania for the past decade. Thus, it is active in local politics by having a majority in a few minor municipality councils. Russians, even though they are almost as numerous as Poles, are more evenly scattered
34.
Balts
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One of the features of Baltic languages is the number of conservative or archaic features retained. German medieval chronicler Adam of Bremen in the part of the 11th century CE was the first writer to use the term Baltic in its modern sense to mean the sea of that name. This is the first reference to the Baltic or Barbarian Sea, the Germanics, however, preferred some form of East Sea until after about 1600, when they began to use forms of Baltic Sea. Around 1840 the German nobles of the Governorate of Livonia devised the term Balts to mean themselves and they spoke an exclusive dialect, Baltic German. For all practical purposes that was the Baltic language until 1919, scandinavians begin settling in Western Baltic lands in Lithuania and Latvia during Vendel Age and with interruptions their presence in Baltic lands continued most of Viking Age. In 1845 Georg Heinrich Ferdinand Nesselmann proposed a language group for Latvian and Lithuanian to be called Baltic. It found some credence among linguists but was not generally adopted until the creation of the Baltic states as part of the settlement of World War I in 1919, estonia and Finland, however, also became counted among the Baltic states in the geopolitical sense. Because the thousands of lakes and swamps in this area contributed to the Balts geographical isolation and it is possible that around 3, 500–2,500 B. C. there was massive migration of peoples representing the Corded Ware culture. They came from the southeast and spread all across Eastern and Central Europe and it is believed that Corded Ware culture peoples were Indo-European ancestors of many Europeans, including Balts. It is thought that those Indo-European newcomers were quite numerous and in the Eastern Baltic assimilated earlier indigenous cultures, over time the new people formed the Baltic peoples and they spread in the area from the Baltic sea in the west to the Volga in the east. This information is summarized and synthesized by Marija Gimbutas in The Balts to obtain a likely proto-Baltic homeland, a possible early reference to a Baltic people occurs in 98 CE, when Tacitus names a tribe living near the Baltic Sea as the Aesti and describes them as amber gatherers. However, it is not clear if the Aesti mentioned by Tacitus were, a Baltic people, or, the Aesti appear to have inhabited the Sambian peninsula (in or near the present Kaliningrad Oblast. Over time, the area of Baltic habitation shrank, due to assimilation by other groups, finally, according to Slavic chronicles of the time, they warred with Slavs, and perhaps, were defeated and assimilated some time in the 11th to 13th centuries. Balts became differentiated into Western and Eastern Balts in the late centuries BCE, the eastern Baltic region was inhabited by ancestors of the Western Balts, Brus/Prūsa, Sudovians/Jotvingians, Scalvians, Nadruvians, and Curonians. The Eastern Balts, including the hypothesised Dniepr Balts, were living in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine, many other Eastern and Southern Balts either assimilated with other Balts, or Slavs in the 4th–7th centuries and were gradually slavicized. Gradually Old Prussians became Germanized or some Lithuanized during period from the 15th to the 17th centuries, the cultures of the Lithuanians and Latgalians/Latvians survived and became the ancestors of the populations of the modern countries of Latvia and Lithuania. Old Prussian was closely related to the other extinct Western Baltic languages and it is more distantly related to the surviving Eastern Baltic languages, Lithuanian and Latvian. Compare the Prussian word seme, the Latvian zeme, the Lithuanian žemė, Old Prussian contained a few borrowings specifically from Gothic and even North Germanic
35.
Kievan Rus'
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Kievan Rus was a loose federation of East Slavic tribes in Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century, under the reign of the Rurik dynasty. The modern peoples of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia all claim Kievan Rus as their cultural ancestors, according to Russian historiography the first ruler to start uniting East Slavic lands into what has become known as Kievan Rus was Prince Oleg. He extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east, Sviatoslav I achieved the first major expansion of Kievan Rus territorial control, fighting a war of conquest against the Khazars. Vladimir the Great introduced Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, extended it to all inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav the Wise, his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the state declined beginning in the late 11th century and during the 12th century, disintegrating into various rival regional powers. The state finally fell to the Mongol invasion of the 1240s. During its existence, Kievan Rus was known as the land of the Rus, in Greek as Ῥωσία, in Old French as Russie, Rossie, in Latin as Russia, and from the 12th century also Ruthenia. Various etymologies have been proposed, including Ruotsi, the Finnish designation for Sweden, and Ros, the term Kievan Rus was coined in the 19th century in Russian historiography to refer to the period when the centre was in Kiev. Later, the Russian term was rendered into Belarusian and Ukrainian as Кіеўская Русь Kijeŭskaja Rus’ and Ки́ївська Русь Kyivska Rus’, prior to the emergence of Kievan Rus in the 9th century AD, the lands between the Baltic Sea and Black Sea were primarily populated by eastern Slavic tribes. In the northern region around Novgorod were the Ilmen Slavs and neighboring Krivichi, who occupied territories surrounding the headwaters of the West Dvina, Dnieper, to their north, in the Ladoga and Karelia regions, were the Finnic Chud tribe. In the south, in the area around Kiev, were the Poliane, a group of Slavicized tribes with Iranian origins, the Drevliane to the west of the Dnieper, and the Severiane to the east. To their north and east were the Vyatichi, and to their south was forested land settled by Slav farmers, controversy persists over whether the Rus’ were Varangians or Slavs. This uncertainty is due largely to a paucity of contemporary sources, attempts to address this question instead rely on archaeological evidence, the accounts of foreign observers, legends and literature from centuries later. To some extent the controversy is related to the myths of modern states in the region. According to the Normanist view, the Rus were Scandinavians, while Russian and Ukrainian nationalist historians generally argue that the Rus were themselves Slavs. Normanist theories focus on the earliest written source for the East Slavs, nevertheless, archaeological evidence from the area suggests that a Scandinavian population was present during the 10th century at the latest. On balance, it likely that the Rus proper were a small minority of Scandinavians who formed an elite ruling class. Liutprand of Cremona, who was twice an envoy to the Byzantine court, identifies the Russi with the Norse, leo the Deacon, a 10th-century Byzantine historian and chronicler, refers to the Rus as Scythians and notes that they tended to adopt Greek rituals and customs
36.
Catholicism
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The use of terms catholicism and catholicity is closely related to the use of term Catholic Church. The earliest evidence of the use of term is the Letter to the Smyrnaeans that Ignatius of Antioch wrote in about 108 to Christians in Smyrna. In 380, Emperor Theodosius I limited use of the term Catholic Christian exclusively to those who followed the faith as Pope Damasus I of Rome. Numerous other early writers including Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine of Hippo further developed the use of the term catholic in relation to Christianity. In Christian theology, and specially in ecclesiology, terms Catholicism, when used with small c, terms catholicism and catholicity generally designate theological doctrine of the catholicity of the Church without denominational connotations. A common belief in Catholicism is institutional continuity with the early Christian church founded by Jesus Christ, many churches or communions of churches identify singularly or collectively as the authentic church. The Bishop of Rome was also considered to have the right to convene ecumenical councils, when the Imperial capital moved to Constantinople, Romes influence was sometimes challenged. The first great rupture in the Church followed this Council and they are often called Ancient Oriental Churches. The next major break was after the Council of Chalcedon and this Council repudiated Eutychian Monophysitism which stated that the divine nature completely subsumed the human nature in Christ. This Council declared that Christ, though one person, exhibited two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation and thus is both fully God and fully human, the next great rift within Christianity was in the 11th century. This division between the Western Church and the Eastern Church is called the East–West Schism, several eastern churches reunited, constituting some of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Liturgical and canonical practices vary between all these particular Churches constituting the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches, in all these cases the beliefs and practices of Catholicism would be identical with the beliefs and practices of the Church in question. However, in Roman Catholicism, the term catholic is understood as to cover those who recognize and are in standing with the Magisterium. The sense given to the word by those who use it to distinguish their position from a Calvinistic or Puritan form of Protestantism. It is then meaningful to attempt to draw up a list of common characteristic beliefs, the Roman Catholic Church includes the 23 rites who recognize the Magisterium. Belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the belief that Christ is made manifest in the elements of Holy Communion, possession of the threefold ordained ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Belief that the Church is the vessel and deposit of the fullness of the teachings of Jesus and this teaching is preserved in both written scripture and in unwritten tradition, neither being independent of the other. A belief in the necessity and efficacy of sacraments, liturgical and personal use of the Sign of the Cross The use of sacred images, candles, vestments and music, and often incense and water, in worship
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King of Lithuania
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The Kingdom of Lithuania was a Lithuanian monarchy which existed from 1251 to roughly 1263. King Mindaugas was the first and only crowned king of Lithuania, the status of a kingdom was lost after Mindaugas assassination in 1263. Other monarchs of Lithuania are referred to as Grand Dukes, even though their status was almost identical to that of a king, two attempts were made to reestablish the Kingdom – by Vytautas the Great in 1430 and by the Council of Lithuania in 1918. In the early 13th century, Lithuania was inhabited by various pagan Baltic tribes, by the 1230s, Mindaugas emerged as the leader of the Grand Duchy. In 1249, a war erupted between Mindaugas and his nephews Tautvilas and Edivydas. The status of a kingdom was granted on July 17,1251, two years later, Mindaugas and his wife Morta were crowned as the King and Queen of Lithuania. In 1255, Mindaugas received permission from Pope Alexander IV to crown his son as King of Lithuania, the coronation and the alliance with the Livonian Order allowed a period of peace between Lithuania and Livonia. During that time the Lithuanians expanded east, while Livonia attempted to conquer Samogitia, enticed by his nephew Treniota, Mindaugas broke the peace after the Order was defeated in the Battle of Skuodas in 1259 and Battle of Durbe in 1260. Treniotas influence grew as he waged a war against the Order, the conflict resulted in assassination of Mindaugas and two of his sons in 1263. The country reverted to paganism and its status as a kingdom was lost, the state survived as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the subsequent monarchs are known as Grand Dukes as they could not be crowned as kings until they converted to Christianity. There was an attempt by Grand Duke Vytautas the Great to receive the royal crown, soon afterwards Vytautas died, without being crowned as king. After Lithuania declared independence in February 1918, the monarchy was reestablished, however, the monarchy was short-lived and Mindaugas II never visited Lithuania. The Kingdom of Lithuania was a client-state of the German Empire and following Germanys defeat in World War I in fall 1918, Duchy of Lithuania Grand Duchy of Lithuania Kingdom of Lithuania Lithuania proper
38.
Northern Crusade
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The crusades took place mostly in the 12th and 13th centuries and resulted in the conversion and baptism of indigenous peoples. Most notable campaigns were Livonian and Prussian crusades, some of these wars were called crusades during the Middle Ages, but others, including most of the Swedish ones, were first dubbed crusades by 19th-century romantic nationalist historians. And 1293, Livonians, Latgallians, Selonians, and Estonians, Semigallians and Curonians, the campaigns started with the 1147 Wendish Crusade against the Polabian Slavs of what is now northern and eastern Germany. The crusade occurred parallel to the Second Crusade to the Holy Land, the Swedish crusades were campaigns by Sweden against Finns, Tavastians, and Karelians during period from 1150 to 1293. The Danes are known to have made two crusades to Finland in 1191 and in 1202, the latter one was led by the Bishop of Lund Anders Sunesen with his brother. The difference in creeds was one of the reasons they had not yet been effectively converted. During a period of more than 150 years leading up to the arrival of German crusaders in the region, Estonia was attacked thirteen times by Russian principalities, Estonians for their part made raids upon Denmark and Sweden. There were peaceful attempts by some Catholics to convert the Estonians, starting with missions dispatched by Adalbert, however, these peaceful efforts seem to have had only limited success. Although the crusaders won their first battle, Bishop Berthold was mortally wounded, in 1199, Albert of Buxhoeveden was appointed by the Archbishop Hartwig II of Bremen to Christianise the Baltic countries. By the time Albert died 30 years later, the conquest and formal Christianisation of present-day Estonia, although he landed in the mouth of the Daugava in 1200 with only 23 ships and 500 soldiers, the bishops efforts ensured that a constant flow of recruits followed. The first crusaders usually arrived to fight during the spring and returned to their homes in the autumn, to ensure a permanent military presence, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword were founded in 1202. The founding by Bishop Albert of the market at Riga in 1201 attracted citizens from the Empire, at Alberts request, Pope Innocent III dedicated the Baltic countries to the Virgin Mary to popularize recruitment to his army and the name Marys Land has survived up to modern times. This is noticeable in one of the given to Livonia at the time. In 1206, the crusaders subdued the Livonian stronghold in Turaida on the bank of Gauja River. In order to control over the left bank of Gauja. By 1211, the Livonian province of Metsepole and the mixed Livonian-Latgallian inhabited county of Idumea was converted to the Roman Catholic faith, the last battle against the Livonians was the siege of Satezele hillfort near to Sigulda in 1212. The Livonians, who had been paying tribute to the East Slavic Principality of Polotsk, had at first considered the Germans as useful allies, the first prominent Livonian to be christened was their leader Caupo of Turaida. As the German grip tightened, the Livonians rebelled against the crusaders and the christened chief, Caupo of Turaida remained an ally of the crusaders until his death in the Battle of St. Matthews Day in 1217
39.
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
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Livonian Order
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The Livonian Order was an autonomous branch of the Teutonic Order, formed in 1237. It was later a member of the Livonian Confederation, from 1435 to 1561, the Order was formed from the remnants of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword after their defeat by Samogitians in 1236 at the Battle of Schaulen. They were incorporated into the Teutonic Knights and became known as the Livonian Order in 1237, in 1298 Lithuanians took Karkus castle north of Riga, and defeated the order in the Battle of Turaida, killing Livonian Land Master Bruno and 22 knights. In 1346, the Order bought the Duchy of Estonia from King Valdemar IV of Denmark, life within the Orders territory is described in the Chronicle of Balthasar Russow. The Livonian Orders defeat in the Battle of Swienta on September 1,1435, during the Livonian War, however, the Order suffered a decisive defeat by troops of Muscovite Russia in the Battle of Ergeme in 1560. After coming to an agreement with Sigismund II Augustus and his representatives, in the southern part of the Brothers lands he created the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia for his family. Most of the lands were seized by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The north of Estonia was taken back by Denmark and Sweden, the Livonian Master, like the grandmaster of the Teutonic Order, was elected by his fellow knights for a life term. The grandmaster exercised supervisory powers and his advice was considered equal to a command, the grandmaster of Teutonic knights did not limit local autonomy, he rarely visited Livonia or sent ambassadors for oversight
41.
Gediminas
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Gediminas was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1315 or 1316 until his death. He is credited with founding this political entity and expanding its territory which, at the time of his death, Gediminas was born in about 1275. Because written sources of the era are scarce, Gediminas ancestry, early life, various theories have claimed that Gediminas was either his predecessor Grand Duke Vytenis son, his brother, his cousin, or his hostler. For several centuries only two versions of his origins circulated, another version introduced in the Lithuanian Chronicles, which also appeared long after Gediminas death, proclaimed that Gediminas was Vytenis son. However, the two men were almost the age, making this relationship unlikely. Recent research indicates that Gediminias ancestor may have been Skalmantas and this discovery led to the belief that Skalmantas was the long-sought ancestor of the Gediminids. Ochmański posited that the poem skipped the generation represented by Butvydas, baranauskas disagrees, believing Skalmantas was Butvydas brother rather than his father, and that Vytenis and Gediminas were therefore cousins. Gediminas became the Grand Duke in 1316 at the age of 40 and he inherited a vast domain, comprising not only Lithuania proper, but also Samogitia, Navahradak, Podlasie, Polotsk and Minsk. However, these possessions were all environed by the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order, Gediminas allied himself with the Tatars against the Teutonic order in 1319. Gediminas also asked that legates should be dispatched to him in order to be baptized and this action was supported by the Archbishop of Riga, Frederic Lobestat. Following these events, peace between the Duchy and the Livonian order was conducted on 2 October 1323. The immigrants were to choose their own settlements and be governed by their own laws, priests and monks were also invited to come and build churches at Vilnius and Navahradak. A compact was then signed at Vilnius, in the name of the whole Christian World, thus his raid upon Dobrzyń, the latest acquisition of the knights on Polish soil, speedily gave them a ready weapon against him. Nevertheless, disregarding the censures of the church, the Order resumed the war with Gediminas by murdering one of his delegates sent to welcome the Grand Master for his arrival to Riga in 1325. Thus in about 1339-40 he executed two Franciscan friars from Bohemia, Ulrich and Martin, who had gone beyond the authority granted them and had publicly preached against the Lithuanian religion, Gediminas ordered them to renounce Christianity, and had them killed when they refused. Five more friars were executed in 1369 for the same offence, despite Gediminas chief goal to save Lithuania from destruction at the hands of the Germans, he still died as a pagan reigning over semi-pagan lands. Also, he was bound to his pagan kinsmen in Samogitia, to his Orthodox subjects in Belarus. Therefore, it is unclear whether the letters sent to the Pope were an actual request for conversion or simply a diplomatic maneuver
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