1.
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
2.
Chancellor (Poland)
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Chancellor of Poland was one of the highest officials in the historic Poland. This office functioned from the early Polish kingdom of the 12th century until the end of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, a respective office also existed in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the 16th century. Chancellors powers rose together with the importance of written documents. The Chancellor was also supposed to ensure the legality of monarchs actions, finally, the Chancellor was also responsible for his office, the chancellery. A 16th-century Polish lawyer, Jakub Przybylski, described the Chancellor as the hand, eye and ear, translator of his thoughts. From 15th century onward there were two separate Chancellor offices, none of them subordinate to other, Great Chancellor and Deputy Chancellor. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, there were four Chancellors, Great Chancellor of the Crown, Great Chancellor of Lithuania, Deputy Chancellor of the Crown, also in the 15th century, the Chancellors office was split into that of the Great Chancellor and Deputy Chancellor. The Deputy Chancellor was however not a subordinate of the Chancellor, the Lithuanian Deputy Chancellor was created later, in the mid-16th century After the Union of Lublin in 1569 there were four Chancellors. At first, the Chancellors office was given to an ecclesiastic person. Chancellors, as most of the offices in Poland and later. The Chancellor and Deputy Chancellor were responsible for the work of their chancelleries, respectively Greater and they were supposed to be in constant contact and develop common policies, since their powers were equal. They were specifically forbidden from issuing illegal and contradictory documents, and could judge any documents contrary to the existing law irrelevant, in theory, the power of the Chancellors were equal. In practice, much depended on their personalities and political influence, conflicts between Chancellors, while rare, when it occurred, could paralyse the entire country. This was the case during the conflict between Krzesław z Kurozwęk and Maciej Drzewicki between 1501 and 1503 and they could judge in various cases, with the exception of when the sides had already reached a compromise or in cases of territorial disputes. The Chancellors offices were the Chancelleries, Chancelleries were staffed with officials known as the chancellists, the regent, secretaries 1, writers, archivists, metricants and other clerks. The Regent divided the work between the clerks,2 secretaries presented prepared letters to the king for his signature. Writers designed the letters, clerks readied the final drafts, no copies were made, but were instead entered in the archives – books called Metrics, who were taken care by the two metricans. The Metrican of the Great Chancellor was called the Great Metrican, of much smaller importance were the local, provincial chancelleries, which mostly served as archives for copies of various documents
3.
Nyasvizh
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Nesvizh is a city in Belarus. It is the center of the Nesvizh District of Minsk Province. Nesvizh was first documented in 1223, later becoming a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in the 15th century, while still a minor town, it passed to the Radziwiłł princely family, and remained the familys home until 1813. The first Belarusian language book printed in the Latin alphabet, a catechism by Symon Budny, was published in Nesvizh in 1562, Nesvizh Castle was founded in 1583, and between 1584 and 1598 two monasteries and a collegium, all belonging to different religious orders, were built. On the initiative of Mikołaj the Orphan Radziwiłł the city was granted Magdeburg rights in 1586, two epidemics that occurred in the city in the 17th century led to an establishment of a pharmacy in 1627. During the Great Northern War of 1700–21, the city was damaged by the Swedish troops. It was rebuilt in the 1720s by Michał Rybeńko Radziwiłł, michałs wife, Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłłowa, founded the Nesvizh Radziviłł Theater, which included a choir and a ballet school. Books from the library were granted to the Russian Academy of Sciences, the city was a county centre in Nowogródek Province during Polish rule between 1919-1939. The Jewish population in 1900 stood at 4,687,4,500 on the eve of the German invasion of Operation Barbarossa. With the occupation beginning on June 27,1941, they established a Judenrat, on October 30,4,000 of the towns Jews were murdered and the rest confined to a ghetto. The ghettos underground organization, based on a Soviet-era Zionist group, called for self-defense, having one machine gun but mostly knives, most of the Jews were killed, a few succeeded in escaping to nearby forests to join partisan units, including the Zhukov Jewish partisan unit. Nesvizh Castle, the complex of the Radziwiłł noble family, is a World Heritage Site. Slutsk Gate, a city gate constructed around 1700 and its name refers to the city of Slutsk. Старажытнае дойлідства Нясьвіжа Monuments of Nesvizh Photos on Radzima. org History and sightseeing on belarustourism. by The murder of the Jews of Nesvizh during World War II, about the Jewish community of Nesvizh, at Yad Vashem website
4.
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
5.
Dubingiai
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Dubingiai is a town in Molėtai district in Lithuania. It is situated near Lake Asveja, the longest lake in the country, the town has 260 inhabitants as of 2003. The settlement was first mentioned in 1334, when Teutonic knights razed terra Dubingam during one of their raids, other raids took place in 1373 and 1375. During the reign of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas the Great the town became an important place in part of Lithuania. In 1415 Vytautas ordered the building of a new masonry castle, later it was governed by the Radziwiłłs who built Dubingiai Castle from rock and town became one of the centres of the Reformation in Lithuania. Many famous members of Radziwiłł family were burned and are buried in the churchyard of Dubingiai castle, in the 17th century a weave and paper manufactures were established in the town. In the 17th century - 18th century the town was slowly re-converted to Catholicism, a massacre of over 20 Lithuanian inhabitants by a local Armia Krajowa unit occurred on 23 June 1944, during World War II. The crime was a retaliation by the Polish commander for a massacre of Polish villagers in Glitiškės by collaborationist Lithuanian police
6.
Nobility
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The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be largely honorary, and vary from country to country and era to era. There is often a variety of ranks within the noble class. g, san Marino and the Vatican City in Europe. Hereditary titles often distinguish nobles from non-nobles, although in many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil. The term derives from Latin nobilitas, the noun of the adjective nobilis. In modern usage, nobility is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies and it rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges. Nobility is a historical, social and often legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is based on income. Being wealthy or influential cannot, ipso facto, make one noble, various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece, Mexico, and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens. Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se, usually privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small and it also included infrastructure such as castle, well and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. Nobles were expected to live nobly, that is, from the proceeds of these possessions, work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank was either forbidden or frowned upon socially. In some countries, the lord could impose restrictions on such a commoners movements. Nobles exclusively enjoyed the privilege of hunting, in France, nobles were exempt from paying the taille, the major direct tax. In some parts of Europe the right of war long remained the privilege of every noble. During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, Nobility came to be associated with social rather than legal privilege, expressed in a general expectation of deference from those of lower rank. By the 21st century even that deference had become increasingly minimised, in France, a seigneurie might include one or more manors surrounded by land and villages subject to a nobles prerogatives and disposition. Seigneuries could be bought, sold or mortgaged, if erected by the crown into, e. g. a barony or countship, it became legally entailed for a specific family, which could use it as their title. Yet most French nobles were untitled, in other parts of Europe, sovereign rulers arrogated to themselves the exclusive prerogative to act as fons honorum within their realms. Nobility might be inherited or conferred by a fons honorum
