1.
Principality of Pskov
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The Principality of Pskov or Lordship of Pskov was a medieval state that grew out of the Rus Khaganate in the late 9th century. The city of Pskov was founded by the Rus, then expanded into a duchy or principality. It was a state of various Rus states between the 1230s and 1348, when the Treaty of Bolotovo recognized the independence of Pskov. Pskov is situated on the shore of the Lake Peipus, to the east of Livonia. In the 13th century, the Principality of Pskov was a strip of land along the eastern Narva River and Peipus. The division between Livonia and Pskov was made up by an area of water bodies and poorly settled areas, the town of Pskov was founded in the late 9th century by the Rus. Olga of Kiev, the wife of Igor of Kiev, was born in Pskov. In 1065–67, Vseslav attacked Pskov and Novgorod, then was captured by Iziaslav I of Kiev, in 1218, the princes of Novgorod and Pskov attacked Estonia and Latvia, while the Lithuanians had attacked Pskov in the meantime. A conflict ensued in the years between Pskov and Letgallia. Now, Pskov entered an alliance with Riga. The Novgorod nobility believed that Yaroslav had merely used the pretext of attacking Riga to conquer Pskov, Yaroslav now asked Pskov to take part in the attack, but Pskov refused. Between 1236 and 1242, the Kievan Rus, except Novgorod, Pskov, the Teutonic knights captured a fort southwest of Pskov, then occupied the city in 1240 and established rule to the west of Novgorod. After appeals from Novgorod, Grand Prince Yaroslav sent two brothers, Alexander and Andrey, who expelled the knights and halted their eastern advance, in 1316, Pskov troops took part in a Novgorod campaign against Tver. In the 1320s, the coalitions of the Teutonic knights and Novgorod, on one side, in 1322–23 Pskov campaigned as a Lithuanian dependency, probably first in the Lithuanian attack on Dorpat, then in the Grodno raid into Danish Estonia. In response, in May 1323, knight Kesselhuth launched a 18-day siege of Pskov, while Pskovs request to Novgorod, the siege was ended after an army dispatch from Lithuania, after which peace was agreed. Alexander Mikhailovich of Vladimir was forced to flee after a joint Muscovite–Tatar invasion in 1327 and he was excommunicated by the city metropolitan, but returned in 1331, ruling the city until 1337. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 6, C. 1300-c.1415, Livonia, Rus’ and the Baltic Crusades in the Thirteenth Century
2.
Livonian Brothers of the Sword
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The Livonian Brothers of the Sword was a military order established by the third bishop of Riga, Bishop Albert of Riga, in 1202. Pope Innocent III sanctioned the establishment in 1204 for the second time, the membership of the order comprised German warrior monks who fought Baltic pagans in the area of modern-day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Alternative names of the Order include Christ Knights, Sword Brethren, from its foundation, the undisciplined Order tended to ignore its supposed vassalage to the bishops. In 1218, Albert asked King Valdemar II of Denmark for assistance, the Brotherhood had its headquarters at Fellin in present-day Estonia, where the walls of the Masters castle still stand. Other strongholds included Wenden, Segewold and Ascheraden, the commanders of Fellin, Goldingen, Marienburg, Reval, and the bailiff of Weißenstein belonged to the five-member entourage of the Orders Master. Pope Gregory IX asked the Brothers to defend Finland from the Novgorodian attacks in his letter of November 24,1232, however, no known information regarding the knights possible activities in Finland has survived. The Order was decimated in the Battle of Schaulen in 1236 against Lithuanians and Semigallians and this disaster led the surviving Brothers to become incorporated into the Order of Teutonic Knights in the following year, and from that point on they became known as the Livonian Order. They continued, however, to function in all respects as a branch of the Teutonic Order. It also appears prominently in The Mongoliad, where they appear as one of the antagonists of the fictional order to which the main characters belong. The Sword Brothers by Peter Darman is an account of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword set in the 13th century. The order is featured in Medieval II, Total War, available as an unit of the Teutonic Order. Teutonic Order Battle of Saule Livonian Crusade Northern Crusades Order of Dobrin
3.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
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The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 13th century until 1795. The state was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija, the Grand Duchy later expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus and other Slavic lands, including territory of present-day Belarus, parts of Ukraine, Poland and Russia. At its greatest extent in the 15th century, it was the largest state in Europe and it was a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state with great diversity in languages, religion, and cultural heritage. Consolidation of the Lithuanian lands began in the late 12th century, Mindaugas, the first ruler of the Grand Duchy, was crowned as Catholic King of Lithuania in 1253. The pagan state was targeted in the crusade by the Teutonic Knights. The multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state emerged only at the reign of Gediminas. The reign of Vytautas the Great marked both the greatest territorial expansion of the Grand Duchy and the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 and it also marked the rise of the Lithuanian nobility. After Vytautass death, Lithuanias relationship with the Kingdom of Poland greatly deteriorated, Lithuanian noblemen, including the Radvila family, attempted to break the personal union with Poland. However, the unsuccessful Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars with the Grand Duchy of Moscow forced the union to remain intact, eventually, the Union of Lublin of 1569 created a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In this federation, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania maintained its political distinctiveness and had separate government, laws, army, shortly after, the unitary character of the state was confirmed by adopting the Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations. The newly reformed Commonwealth was invaded by Russia in 1792 and partitioned between the neighbours, with a truncated state remaining only nominally independent, after the Kościuszko Uprising, the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and Austria in 1795. The Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania name the name of the state as Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia. The title of Grand Duchy was consistently applied to Lithuania from the 14th century onward, in the 12th century, Slavic chronicles refer to Lithuania as one of the areas attacked by the Rus. Pagan Lithuanians initially paid tribute to Polotsk, but they grew in strength. The sudden spark of military raids marked consolidation of the Lithuanian lands in Aukštaitija, the Livonian Order and Teutonic Knights, crusading military orders, were established in Riga in 1202 and in Prussia in 1226. The Christian orders posed a significant threat to pagan Baltic tribes, the peace treaty with Galicia–Volhynia of 1219 provides evidence of cooperation between Lithuanians and Samogitians. This treaty lists 21 Lithuanian dukes, including five senior Lithuanian dukes from Aukštaitija, although they had battled in the past, the Lithuanians and the Žemaičiai now faced a common enemy. Likely Živinbudas had the most authority and at least several dukes were from the same families, the formal acknowledgment of common interests and the establishment of a hierarchy among the signatories of the treaty foreshadowed the emergence of the state
4.
Pskov
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Pskov is a city and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, Russia, located about 20 kilometers east from the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Pskov is one of the oldest cities in Russia, the name of the city, originally spelled Pleskov, may be loosely translated as of purling waters. Its earliest mention comes in 903, which records that Igor of Kiev married a local lady, Pskovians sometimes take this year as the citys foundation date, and in 2003 a great jubilee took place to celebrate Pskovs 1, 100th anniversary. The first prince of Pskov was Vladimir the Greats youngest son Sudislav, once imprisoned by his brother Yaroslav, he was not released until the latters death several decades later. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the town adhered politically to the Novgorod Republic, in 1241, it was taken by the Teutonic Knights, but Alexander Nevsky recaptured it several months later during a legendary campaign dramatized in Sergei Eisensteins 1938 movie Alexander Nevsky. Having fortified the town, Daumantas routed the Teutonic Knights at Rakvere and his remains and sword are preserved in the local kremlin, and the core of the citadel, erected by him, still bears the name of Dovmonts town. By the 14th century, the town functioned as the capital of a de facto sovereign republic and its most powerful force was the merchants who brought the town into the Hanseatic League. Pskovs independence was recognized by Novgorod in 1348. Several years later, the veche promulgated a law code, which was one of the sources of the all-Russian law code issued in 1497. For Russia, the Pskov Republic was a bridge towards Europe, for Europe, the importance of the city made it the subject of numerous sieges throughout its history. The Pskov Krom withstood twenty-six sieges in the 15th century alone, at one point, five stone walls ringed it, making the city practically impregnable. A local school of icon-painting flourished, and the masons were considered the best in Russia. Many peculiar features of Russian architecture were first introduced in Pskov, finally, in 1510, the city fell to Muscovite forces. The deportation of families to Moscow is a subject of Rimsky-Korsakovs opera Pskovityanka. As the second largest city of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, most famously, it withstood a prolonged siege by a 50, 000-strong Polish army during the final stage of the Livonian War. The king of Poland Stephen Báthory undertook some thirty-one attacks to storm the city, even after one of the city walls was broken, the Pskovians managed to fill the gap and repel the attack. Its amazing how the city reminds me of Paris, wrote one of the Frenchmen present at Báthorys siege, as a consequence, the citys importance and well-being declined dramatically, although it has served as a seat of separate Pskov Governorate since 1777. During World War I, Pskov became the center of much activity behind the lines, Pskov was also occupied by the Estonian army between 25 May 1919 and 28 August 1919 during the Estonian War of Independence when Bułak-Bałachowicz became the military administrator of Pskov
5.
Old East Slavic
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Old East Slavic, Old Ruthenian, Old Rusian was a language used in the 10th–15th centuries by East Slavs in Kievan Rus and states which evolved after the collapse of Kievan Rus. Dialects of it were spoken, though not exclusively, in the area occupied by Belarus, central and northern Ukraine. Linguists from each of the three East Slavic countries tend to treat Old East Slavic as the predecessor of their own language. The Russian drevnerusskij jazyk means Old Rus’ian as well, Rusian is similarly used by some western scholars such as Horace Lunt. The language was a descendant of the Proto-Slavic language and faithfully retained many of its features, a striking innovation in the evolution of this language was the development of so-called pleophony, which came to differentiate the newly evolving East Slavic from other Slavic dialects. For instance, Common Slavic *gordъ settlement, town was reflected as OESl. gorodъ, Common Slavic *melko milk > OESl. moloko, other Slavic dialects are differed by resolving the closed-syllable clusters *eRC and *aRC as liquid metathesis, or by no change at all. Since extant written records of the language are sparse, it is difficult to assess the level of its unity, in consideration of the number of tribes and clans that constituted Kievan Rus, it is probable that there were many dialects of Old East Slavonic. Nonetheless, by 1150 it had more unity than any other branch of Slavic, with time, it evolved into several more diversified forms, which were the predecessors of the modern Belarusian, Russian, Rusyn and Ukrainian languages. The Ukrainian branch split away first, between 1200 and 1500, whereas Russian later separated from Belarusian by 1700, each of these languages preserves much of the Old East Slavic grammar and vocabulary. The Old Church Slavonic language was introduced, documentation of the language of this period is scanty, making it difficult at best fully to determine the relationship between the literary language and its spoken dialects. There are references in Arab and Byzantine sources to pre-Christian Slavs in European Russia using some form of writing, although the Glagolitic alphabet was briefly introduced, as witnessed by church inscriptions in Novgorod, it was soon entirely superseded by the Cyrillic. The following excerpts illustrate two of the most famous literary monuments, the spelling of the original excerpt has been partly modernized. The translations are best attempts at being literal, not literary,1110, from the Laurentian Codex,1377, Early language, fall of the yers in progress or arguably complete. South Slavic features include времѧньнъıх bygone, modern R прошлых, modern Ukr минулих, correct use of perfect and aorist, єсть пошла is/has come, нача began Note the style of punctuation. 1200, from the Pskov manuscript, fifteenth cent, illustrates the sung epics, with typical use of metaphor and simile. The Old East Slavic language developed a certain literature of its own, though much of it was influenced as regards style, the earliest dated specimen of Old East Slavic must be considered the written Slovo o zakone i blagodati, by Hilarion, metropolitan of Kiev. In this work there is a panegyric on Prince Vladimir of Kiev and this subtle and graceful oration admirably conforms to the precepts of the Byzantine eloquence. It is rivalled by another panegyric on Vladimir, written a decade later by Yakov the Monk, from the writings of Theodosius we see that many pagan habits were still in vogue among the people
6.
Seto dialect
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Seto is a dialect of the South Estonian or Võro language, spoken by 12,549 people. It is sometimes considered as a language, the speakers, Seto people, mostly inhabit the area near Estonias southeastern border with Russia, in the county of Setomaa. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Seto, näile om annõt mudsu ja süämetunstus ja nä piät ütstõõsõga vele muudu läbi kjauma. Võro, Kõik inemiseq sünnüseq avvo ja õiguisi poolõst ütesugumaidsis, näile om annõt mudsu ja süämetunnistus ja nä piät ütstõõsõga vele muudu läbi käümä. Estonian, Kõik inimesed sünnivad vabadena ja võrdsetena oma väärikuselt ja õigustelt, neile on antud mõistus ja südametunnistus ja nende suhtumist üksteisesse peab kandma vendluse vaim. Finnish, Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan, heille on annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä. English, All human beings are free and equal in dignity. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood, eichenbaum, K. Pajusalu, K. Setode ja võrokeste keelehoiakutest ja identiteedist. – Keel ja Kirjandus nr 7, lk
7.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
8.
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
9.
Estonian mythology
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Estonian mythology is a complex of myths belonging to the Estonian folk heritage and literary mythology. Information about the pre-Christian and medieval Estonian mythology is scattered in historical chronicles, travellers accounts, systematic recordings of Estonian folklore started in the 19th century. Pre-Christian Estonian deities included a known as Jumal or Taevataat in Estonian, corresponding to Jumala in Finnish. According to the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia in 1222 the Estonians even disinterred the enemys dead, some traces of the oldest authentic myths may have survived in runic songs. There is a song about the birth of the world – a bird lays three eggs and starts to lay out the nestlings – one becomes Sun, one becomes Moon, other Finno-Ugric peoples have also myths according to which the world has emerged from an egg. The world of the Estonians’ ancestors is believed to have turned around a pillar or a tree, milky Way was a branch of the World Tree or the way by which birds moved. These myths were based on animistic beliefs, changes occurred in proto-Estonian mythology as a result of the contacts with Baltic and Germanic tribes, as well as the transition from hunting and gathering to farming. Personifications of celestial bodies, sky and weather deities and fertility gods gained importance in the world of the farmers, there may have been a sky and thunder god called Uku or Ukko, also called Vanaisa or Taevataat. Proto Estonian pre-Christian deities may also have included a sky-god by name Jumal, known also by other Finnic peoples as Jumala in Finnish, many recorded legends and myths depicting a supreme sky god are however probably of later origin and feature Christian or foreign influences. Estonian legends about giants may be a reflection of Germanic influences, there are numerous legends interpreting various natural objects and features as traces of Kalevipoegs deeds. The giant has merged with Christian Devil, giving birth to a new character – Vanapagan (a cunning demon living on his farm or manor and his farm hand Kaval-Ants. In the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, cantos 47,48 and 49 can be interpreted as descriptions of the impact, faehlmann also wrote eight fictional myths combining motives of Estonian folklore, Finnish mythology and classical Greek mythology. Matthias Johann Eisen was another folklorist and writer who studied folk legends, many of their contemporary scholars accepted this mythopoeia as authentic Estonian mythology. The Estonian literary mythology describes the following pantheon, The supreme god and he is celebrated in sacred oak forests around Tartu. The god of thunder is Uku, ukus daughters are Linda and Jutta, the queen of the birds. Uku has two sons, Kõu and Pikker, Pikker possesses a powerful musical instrument, which makes demons tremble and flee. He has a naughty daughter, Ilmatütar, during the era of Estonian national awakening the elements in the literary mythology were quickly and readily incorporated into contemporary popular culture through media and school textbooks. It can be difficult to tell how much of Estonian mythology as we know it today was constructed in the 19th
Estonia
Russia
