1.
Baltic Sea
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The Baltic Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic countries, and the North European Plain. It includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga, the sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. The Baltic Sea is connected by waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea Canal. Traffic history Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at the border between the ocean and the land-locked Baltic Sea and they were collected in the Øresund at Kronborg castle near Helsingør, in the Great Belt at Nyborg. In the Little Belt, the site of intake was moved to Fredericia, the narrowest part of Little Belt is the Middelfart Sund near Middelfart. Oceanography Geographers widely agree that the physical border of the Baltic is a line drawn through the southern Danish islands, Drogden-Sill. The Drogden Sill is situated north of Køge Bugt and connects Dragør in the south of Copenhagen to Malmö, it is used by the Øresund Bridge, including the Drogden Tunnel. By this definition, the Danish Straits are part of the entrance, but the Bay of Mecklenburg, another usual border is the line between Falsterbo, Sweden and Stevns Klint, Denmark, as this is the southern border of Øresund. Its also the border between the shallow southern Øresund and notably deeper water, hydrography and biology Drogden Sill sets a limit to Øresund and Darss Sill, and a limit to the Belt Sea. The shallow sills are obstacles to the flow of salt water from the Kattegat into the basins around Bornholm. The Kattegat and the southwestern Baltic Sea are well oxygenated and have a rich biology, the remainder of the Sea is brackish, poor in oxygen and in species. While Tacitus called it Mare Suebicum after the Germanic people called the Suebi, the origin of the latter name is speculative. Adam of Bremen himself compared the sea with a belt, stating that it is so named because it stretches through the land as a belt and he might also have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. Pliny mentions an island named Baltia with reference to accounts of Pytheas and it is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia in On the Ocean by Pytheas. Baltia also might be derived from belt and mean near belt of sea, meanwhile, others have suggested that the name of the island originates from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, fair. This root and its meaning were retained in both Lithuanian and Latvian. On this basis, a related hypothesis holds that the name originated from this Indo-European root via a Baltic language such as Lithuanian, yet another explanation is that the name originally meant enclosed sea, bay as opposed to open sea. Some Swedish historians believe the name derives from the god Balder of Nordic mythology, in the Middle Ages the sea was known by variety of names
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
West Estonian archipelago
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West Estonian archipelago is a group of Estonian islands, around Väinameri, located in the Baltic Sea. The total area is about 4,000 km2, saaremaa Hiiumaa Muhu Vormsi and about 900 smaller islands. UNESCO established the West Estonian Archipelago Biosphere Reserve in 1990 under the Man, list of islands of Estonia The Väinameri Sea Estonica
4.
Estonia
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Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia, across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia consists of a mainland and 2,222 islands and islets in the Baltic Sea, covering 45,339 km2 of land and water, and is influenced by a humid continental climate. The territory of Estonia has been inhabited since at least 6500 BC, in 1988, during the Singing Revolution, the Estonian Supreme Soviet issued the Estonian Sovereignty Declaration in defiance of Soviet rule, and independence was restored on 20 August 1991. Estonia is a parliamentary republic divided into fifteen counties. Its capital and largest city is Tallinn, with a population of 1.3 million, it is one of the least-populous member states of the European Union, Eurozone, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, OECD and Schengen Area. Estonia is a country with an advanced, high-income economy that is among the fastest growing in the EU. Its Human Development Index ranks very highly, and it performs favourably in measurements of economic freedom, civil liberties, the 2015 PISA test places Estonian high school students 3rd in the world, behind Singapore and Japan. Citizens of Estonia are provided with health care, free education. Since independence the country has developed its IT sector, becoming one of the worlds most digitally advanced societies. In 2005 Estonia became the first nation to hold elections over the Internet, in the Estonian language, the oldest known endonym of the Estonians was maarahvas, meaning country people or people of the land. The land inhabited by Estonians was called Maavald meaning Country Parish or Land Parish, one hypothesis regarding the modern name of Estonia is that it originated from the Aesti, a people described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his Germania. The historic Aesti were allegedly Baltic people, whereas the modern Estonians are Finno-Ugric, the geographical areas between Aesti and Estonia do not match, with Aesti being further down south. Ancient Scandinavian sagas refer to a land called Eistland, as the country is called in Icelandic. Early Latin and other ancient versions of the name are Estia and Hestia, esthonia was a common alternative English spelling prior to 1921. Human settlement in Estonia became possible 13,000 to 11,000 years ago, the oldest known settlement in Estonia is the Pulli settlement, which was on the banks of the river Pärnu, near the town of Sindi, in south-western Estonia. According to radiocarbon dating it was settled around 11,000 years ago, the earliest human inhabitation during the Mesolithic period is connected to Kunda culture, which is named after the town of Kunda in northern Estonia. At that time the country was covered with forests, and people lived in communities near bodies of water
5.
Counties of Estonia
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Counties are the first-level administrative subdivisions of Estonia. Estonian territory is composed of 15 counties, including 13 on the mainland and 2 on islands, the government of each county is led by a maavanem who represents the national government at the regional level. Governors are appointed by the government for a term of five years. Each county is divided into municipalities of two types, urban municipalities and rural municipalities. Population figures are those of 31 December 2011, in the first centuries AD, political and administrative subdivisions began to emerge in Estonia. Two larger subdivisions appeared, the parish and the county, the parish consisted of several villages. Nearly all parishes had at least one fortress, the defense of the local area was directed by the highest official, the parish elder. The county was composed of several parishes, also headed by an elder, by the 13th century the following major counties had developed in Estonia, Saaremaa, Läänemaa, Harjumaa, Rävala, Virumaa, Järvamaa, Sakala, and Ugandi. Additionally there were several smaller elderships in central Estonia where danger of war was smaller – Vaiga, Mõhu, Nurmekund, the exact number and borders of some elderships are disputed. The first documented mentioning of Estonian political and administrative subdivisions comes from the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, the Autonomy of the Estonia counties and parishes ended after conquered and divided between Denmark, Livonian Order, Bishopric of Dorpat and Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek. The name of Rävala became Reval, replacing the name of an Estonian town Lindanisse, Ugandi, Sakala and the smaller elderships disappeared from common usage. In the 1580s, after the Livonian war as Sweden had conquered Northern Estonia, Harju, Järva, Lääne, southern Estonia, which belonged to Poland 1582-1625, was divided into voivodships of Pärnu and Tartu, the island of Saaremaa belonged to Denmark until 1645. They all became counties as they went under Swedish rule and this administrative system mostly remained as Estonia went under Russian rule as a result of the Northern War. In 1793 were formed Võru County in the south of Tartumaa, in 1796 Paldiski County was joined with Harjumaa again. Until 1888 Võrumaa and Viljandimaa were not completely independent from Tartumaa and Pärnumaa respectively, several changes were made to the borders of counties after Estonia became independent, most notably the formation of Valga County and Petseri County. During the Soviet rule, Petseri County once again became a part of Russia in 1945, hiiumaa seceded from Läänemaa in 1946, Jõgevamaa from Tartumaa in 1949 and Jõhvimaa from Virumaa in 1949. Counties were completely dissolved in 1950 as Estonian SSR was divided into regions, until the 1960s the borders of regions changed often until 15 of them were left. Out of them, Põlva and Rapla regions became separate, while the others were roughly corresponding to the pre-1950 counties, Counties were re-established on 1 January 1990 in the borders of the Soviet-era regions
6.
Saare County
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Saare County, or Saaremaa, is one of 15 counties of Estonia. It consists of Saaremaa, the largest island of Estonia, and several islands near it, most notably Muhu, Ruhnu, Abruka. The county borders Lääne County to the east and Hiiu County to the north, in January 2013 Saare County had a population of 30,966 – constituting 2. 4% of the population of Estonia. The County Government is led by a Governor, who is appointed by the Estonian government for a term of five years, currently, the Governor position is held by Kaido Kaasik. The county is subdivided into municipalities, there is one urban municipality and 13 rural municipalities in Saare County. Arable land is 570 km² and it has a maritime climate. The mean annual air temperature is 6.0 °C and the annual precipitation is 509 mm. The main religious affiliations are Lutheran, Orthodox and Baptist, according to archeological finds, the territory of Saaremaa has been inhabited for at least five thousand years. In the first centuries AD, political and administrative subdivisions began to emerge in Estonia, two larger subdivisions appeared, the parish and the county. The parish consisted of several villages, nearly all parishes had at least one fortress. The defense of the area was directed by the highest official. The county was composed of several parishes, also headed by an elder, by the 13th century, the following major counties had developed in Estonia, Saaremaa, Läänemaa, Harjumaa, Rävala, Virumaa, Järvamaa, Sakala, and Ugandi. In old Scandinavian sagas, Saaremaa is called Eysysla which means exactly the same as the name of the island in Estonian and this is the origin of the islands name in German and Swedish, Ösel, Danish, Øsel, and in Latin Osilia. The name Eysysla appears sometimes together with Adalsysla, the big land, Sagas talk about numerous skirmishes between islanders and Vikings. Saaremaa was the wealthiest county of ancient Estonia and the home of notorious Estonian pirates, sometimes called the Eastern Vikings, the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia describes a fleet of sixteen ships and five hundred Œselians ravaging the area that is now southern Sweden, then belonging to Denmark. In 1206, the Danish Valdemar II the Victorious built a fortress on the island and they burned it down themselves and left. In 1227, Saaremaa was conquered by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, the Order founded the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek there. When the Order was defeated by the Lithuanian army in the Battle of Saule in 1236, the conflict was ended by a treaty that was signed by the Œselians and the Master of the Order
7.
Island
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An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, an island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago, an island may be described as such, despite the presence of an artificial land bridge. Example, Singapore and its causeway, or the various Dutch delta islands, there are two main types of islands in the sea, continental and oceanic. The word island derives from Middle English iland, from Old English igland, Old English ieg is actually a cognate of Swedish ö and German Aue, and related to Latin aqua. There is a difference between islands and continents in terms of geology, continents sit on continental lithosphere which is part of tectonic plates floating high on Earths mantle. Oceanic crust is also part of tectonic plates, but it is denser than continental lithosphere, Islands are either extensions of the oceanic crust or geologically they are part of some continent sitting on continental lithosphere. This holds true for Australia, which sits on its own continental lithosphere, continental islands are bodies of land that lie on the continental shelf of a continent. A special type of island is the microcontinental island, which is created when a continent is rifted. Examples are Madagascar and Socotra off Africa, the Kerguelen Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, another subtype is an island or bar formed by deposition of tiny rocks where water current loses some of its carrying capacity. While some are transitory and may disappear if the volume or speed of the current changes, others are stable, oceanic islands are islands that do not sit on continental shelves. The vast majority are volcanic in origin, such as Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, the few oceanic islands that are not volcanic are tectonic in origin and arise where plate movements have lifted up the ocean floor above the surface. Examples are Saint Peter and Paul Rocks in the Atlantic Ocean, one type of volcanic oceanic island is found in a volcanic island arc. These islands arise from volcanoes where the subduction of one plate under another is occurring, examples are the Aleutian Islands, the Mariana Islands, and most of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean. The only examples in the Atlantic Ocean are some of the Lesser Antilles, another type of volcanic oceanic island occurs where an oceanic rift reaches the surface. There are two examples, Iceland, which is the second largest volcanic island, and Jan Mayen. A third type of oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the tectonic plate above it
8.
Hiiumaa
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Hiiumaa is the second largest island in Estonia. It is in the Baltic Sea, north of the island of Saaremaa, the Hiiu Shoal is located located off the northwestern shore of Hiiumaa Island. Hiiumaa is the island of Hiiu County, called Hiiumaa or Hiiu maakond in Estonian. The Swedish and German name of the island is Dagö, Dagø in Danish — a calque of its old Finnish name Päivänsalo, in modern Finnish, it is called Hiidenmaa, literally Hiisis Land. In Old Gutnish, it was Dagaiþ, from which the local North Germanic name Daë is derived, archaeological evidence of the first human settlement in Hiiumaa dates to the 4th century BC. The first documented record of the island of Dageida was made by contemporary chroniclers in 1228, when Hiiumaa, in 1254, Hiiumaa was divided between the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek and the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order, acting partly on behalf of the Hanseatic League. Most of the islands previously numerous Swedish-speaking population emigrated or were Estonianised during the period of Imperial Russian rule, Estonian Swedes are also known as aibofolke or rannarootslased. Hiiumaa was occupied during World War I by the Imperial German Army, after the war, it became a part of independent Estonia. The waters near Hiiumaa were active during World War II,23 June 1941- The Soviet destroyer Gnevny was sunk by a German seamine,25 June- the Soviet minesweeper T-208 Shkiv was destroyed by a German seamine. 27 June- Two German motor torpedo boats, S43 and S106, were destroyed by Soviet seamines,1 July- the Soviet submarine M-81 was destroyed by a German seamine north of Hiiumaa. 7 July- the Soviet minesweeper T-216 was sunk,30 July- the Soviet minesweeper T-201 Zarjad was sunk. 10 August- the German submarine U-144 was sunk by a torpedo from the Soviet submarine SC-307, Hiiumaa Island was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, by Nazi Germany in 1941, and by the Soviets again in 1944. It was part of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, during the Soviet era, Hiiumaa was declared a restricted zone, closed to foreigners and to most mainland Estonians. Since 1991, the island has been a part of independent Estonia, Hiiumaa is an island in Estonia located north of Saaremaa in the Baltic Sea. It is the northernmost island in the Muhu archipelago, which includes Saaremaa, the Soela Strait separates Hiumaa from Saaremaa to its south, and the Muhu Strait separates it from the mainland of Estonia. Road transport from Estonian mainland to Hiiumaa involves a 90-minute ferry crossing from Rohuküla to Heltermaa, there are about 10 ferry departures a day. In the summer weekends, getting car space on the ferry usually requires advance booking, there are about 2 scheduled buses a day between Tallinn and Kärdla. In the winter, the island can be reached, conditions permitting, Hiiumaa is served by Kärdla Airport, with regular flights to Tallinn
9.
Muhu
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Muhu, is an island in the Baltic Sea. With an area of 198 km2 it is the third largest island belonging to Estonia, together with neighbouring smaller islands of Kesselaid, Viirelaid, Võilaid and Suurlaid it forms Muhu Parish, the rural municipality within Saare County. The municipality has a population of 1,697 and covers an area of 206.12 km2, the most important villages in Muhu are Kuivastu, Liiva and Koguva. In Pädaste, an internationally renowned luxury hotel and spa operates in the manor house. The island is divided from mainland Estonia by the Suur Strait and it is linked by ferry to Virtsu in the mainland, and to Saaremaa by a causeway, the Väinatamm. In winter an ice road connects the island to the mainland, the Estonians surrendered on Muhu at a circular stronghold called Mona, the earthworks of which are still preserved near the causeway between the islands. The Battle of Karuse or Battle on the Ice was fought on 16 February 1270 between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Livonian Order on the frozen Baltic Sea between the Muhu Island and the mainland, the Lithuanians achieved a decisive victory. The battle, named after the Karuse village, was the fifth-largest defeat of the Livonian or Teutonic Orders in the 13th century, the same waters saw the Battle of Moon Sound in September–October 1917 between Russian and German naval forces. Muhu is also famous for having the only still-working traditional windmills in Estonia, Muhu is the home of Estonias first wine tourism farm – Luscher & Matiesen Muhu Winehouse
10.
Kuressaare
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Kuressaare, also known as Arensburg, is a town and a municipality on Saaremaa island in Estonia. It is the capital of Saare County and the westernmost town in Estonia, the population, according to the 2011 census, was 13,166. The town is situated on the coast of the Gulf of Riga and is served by the Kuressaare Airport, Roomassaare Harbor and its historic name Arensburg renders the Latin denotation arx aquilae for the citys castle. The fortress and the eagle, tetramorph symbol of Saint John the Evangelist, are depicted on Kuressaares coat of arms. Eventually, the name shortened to Kuressaare and became official in 1918 after Estonia had declared its independence from Bolshevist Russia. Under the Soviet rule, the town was renamed Kingissepa in 1952, the name Kuressaare was restored in 1990. It is called in Finnish, Kuressaari and in German, Arensburg, the town first appeared on maps around 1154. The island of Saaremaa was conquered by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword under Volkwin of Naumburg in 1227, the first documentation of the castle was found in Latin texts written in 1381 and 1422. Over time, a town, which known as Arensburg or Kuressaarelinn, grew. It became the see of the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek established by Albert of Riga in 1228, johann von Münchhausen, bishop since 1542, converted to Protestantism. With the advance of the troops of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia in the course of the Livonian War, Münchhausen sold his lands to King Frederick II of Denmark in 1559, Frederick sent his younger brother Prince Magnus to Kuressaare where he was elected bishop the following year. It was through his influence that the city obtained its charter in 1563. The bishopric was secularised in 1572 and Kuressaare fell to the Danish Crown. In 1645, it passed to Swedish control through the Treaty of Brömsebro after the Danish defeat in the Torstenson War. Queen Christina of Sweden granted her favourite, Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie, the title of Count of Arensburg, the city was burnt to the ground by Russian troops in 1710 during the Great Northern War and suffered heavily from the plague. Abandoned by the Swedes it was incorporated into the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire through the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, during the 19th century Kuressaare became a popular seaside resort on the Baltic coast. During World War I, between September and October 1917, German land and naval forces occupied Saaremaa with Operation Albion, during World War II, the Battle of Tehumardi took place. In October 1990, Kuressaare was the first town in Estonia to regain its self-governing status, the medieval episcopal Kuressaare Castle today houses the Saaremaa Regional Museum
11.
Thule
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Thule was a far-northern location in classical European literature and cartography. Though often considered to be an island in antiquity, modern interpretations of what was meant by Thule often identify it as Norway, other interpretations include Orkney, Shetland, and Scandinavia. In the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, Thule was often identified as Iceland or Greenland, another suggested location is Saaremaa in the Baltic Sea. The term ultima Thule in medieval geographies denotes any distant place located beyond the borders of the known world, sometimes it is used as a proper noun as the Latin name for Greenland when Thule is used for Iceland. The British surveyor Charles Vallancey was one of many antiquarians who argued that Ireland was Thule, the Greek explorer Pytheas is the first to have written of Thule, doing so in his now lost work, On the Ocean, after his travels between 330-320 BC. He supposedly was sent out by the Greek city of Massalia to see where their trade-goods were coming from, descriptions of some of his discoveries have survived in the works of later, often sceptical, authors. Nearly a half later, in 77, Pliny the Elder published his Natural History in which he also cites Pytheas claim that Thule is a six-day sail north of Britain. The Roman geographer Pomponius Mela placed Thule north of Scythia, after correcting for the mistakes, the scientists mapped Ptolemys Thule to the Norwegian island of Smøla. Other late classical writers and post-classical writers such as Orosius and the Irish monk Dicuil, describe Thule as being north, Dicuil described Thule as being beyond islands that seem to be the Faroe Islands, strongly suggesting Iceland. In the writings of the historian Procopius, from the first half of the sixth century and it is believed that Procopius is really talking about a part of Scandinavia, since several tribes are easily identified, including the Geats in present-day Sweden and the Sami people. He also writes that when the Herules returned, they passed the Warini and the Danes and then crossed the sea to Thule, virgil coined the term Ultima Thule meaning furthest land as a symbolic reference to denote a far-off land or an unattainable goal. The 1st century BC Greek astronomer Geminus of Rhodes claimed that the name Thule went back to a word for the polar night phenomenon – the place where the sun goes to rest. Dionysius Periegetes in his De situ habitabilis orbis also touched upon this subject as did Martianus Capella, avienus in his Ora Maritima added that during the summer on Thule night lasted only two hours, a clear reference to the midnight sun. Cleomedes referenced Pytheas journey to Thule, but added no new information, a novel in Greek by Antonius Diogenes entitled The Wonders Beyond Thule appeared c. Gerald N. Sandy, in the introduction to his translation of Photius ninth-century summary of the work, the Latin grammarian Gaius Julius Solinus in the 3rd century AD, wrote in his Polyhistor that Thule was a 5 days sail from Orkney. Ab Orcadibus Thylen usque quinque dierum ac noctium navigatio est, sed Thyle larga et diutina Pomona copiosa est, Thyle, which was distant from Orkney by a voyage of five days and nights, was fruitful and abundant in the lasting yield of its crops. The 4th century Virgilian commentator Servius also believed that Thule sat close to Orkney, Thule, insula est Oceani inter septemtrionalem et occidentalem plagam, ultra Britanniam, iuxta Orcades et Hiberniam, in hac Thule cum sol in Cancro est, perpetui dies sine noctibus dicuntur. This implies that Thule was Scotland, but in Against Rufinias, the Second Poem, Claudian writes of Thule lying icebound beneath the pole-star
12.
Estonian language
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Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken natively by about 922,000 people in Estonia and 160,000 outside Estonia. It belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family, Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages, along with Finnish, Karelian, and other nearby languages. The Uralic languages do not belong to the Indo-European languages, Estonian is distantly related to Hungarian and to the Sami languages. Estonian has been influenced by Swedish, German, and Russian, furthermore, the apocope of word-final sounds is extensive and has contributed to a shift from a purely agglutinative to a fusional language. The basic word order is subject–verb–object, modern standard Estonian has evolved on the basis of the dialects of Northern Estonia. The domination of Estonia after the Northern Crusades, from the 13th century to 1918 by Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the oldest written records of the Finnic languages of Estonia date from the 13th century. Originates Livoniae in Chronicle of Henry of Livonia contains Estonian place names, words, the earliest extant samples of connected Estonian are the so-called Kullamaa prayers dating from 1524 and 1528. In 1525 the first book published in the Estonian language was printed, the book was a Lutheran manuscript, which never reached the reader and was destroyed immediately after publication. The first extant Estonian book is a bilingual German-Estonian translation of the Lutheran catechism by S. Wanradt and J. Koell dating to 1535, an Estonian grammar book to be used by priests was printed in German in 1637. The New Testament was translated into southern Estonian in 1686, the two languages were united based on northern Estonian by Anton thor Helle. Writings in Estonian became more significant in the 19th century during the Estophile Enlightenment Period, the birth of native Estonian literature was in 1810 to 1820 when the patriotic and philosophical poems by Kristjan Jaak Peterson were published. His birthday on March 14 is celebrated in Estonia as the Mother Tongue Day, a fragment from Petersons poem Kuu expresses the claim reestablishing the birthright of the Estonian language, Kas siis selle maa keel Laulutuules ei või Taevani tõustes üles Igavikku omale otsida. In English, Can the language of this land In the wind of incantation Rising up to the heavens Not seek for eternity. Kristjan Jaak Peterson From 1525 to 191714,503 titles were published in Estonian, in modern times Jaan Kross and Jaan Kaplinski remain as two of Estonias best known and most translated writers. Writings in Estonian became significant only in the 19th century with the spread of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, after the Estonian War of Independence in 1919, the Estonian language became the state language of the newly independent country. In 1945,97. 3% of Estonia considered itself ethnic Estonian, when Estonia was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union in World War II, the status of the Estonian language changed to the first of two official languages. As with Latvia many immigrants entered Estonia under Soviet encouragement, in the second half of the 1970s, the pressure of bilingualism intensified, resulting in widespread knowledge of Russian throughout the country. The Russian language was termed as ‘the language of friendship of nations’ and was taught to Estonian children, although teaching Estonian to non-Estonians in schools was compulsory, in practice learning the language was often considered unnecessary
13.
Danish language
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There are also minor Danish-speaking communities in Norway, Sweden, Spain, the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. Due to immigration and language shift in urban areas, around 15–20% of the population of Greenland speak Danish as their home language. Along with the other North Germanic languages, Danish is a descendant of Old Norse, until the 16th century, Danish was a continuum of dialects spoken from Schleswig to Scania with no standard variety or spelling conventions. With the Protestant Reformation and the introduction of printing, a language was developed which was based on the educated Copenhagen dialect. It spread through use in the system and administration though German. Today, traditional Danish dialects have all but disappeared, though there are variants of the standard language. The main differences in language are between generations, with youth language being particularly innovative, Danish has a very large vowel inventory comprising 27 phonemically distinctive vowels, and its prosody is characterized by the distinctive phenomenon stød, a kind of laryngeal phonation type. The grammar is moderately inflective with strong and weak conjugations and inflections, nouns and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. As in English, Danish only has remnants of a case system, particularly in the pronouns. Its syntax is V2, with the verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence. Danish is a Germanic language of the North Germanic branch, other names for this group are the Nordic or Scandinavian languages. Along with Swedish, Danish descends from the Eastern dialects of the Old Norse language, Scandinavian languages are often considered a dialect continuum, where there are no sharp dividing lines between the different vernacular languages. Like Norwegian and Swedish, Danish was significantly influenced by Low German in the Middle Ages, Danish itself can be divided into three main dialect areas, West Danish, Insular Danish, and East Danish. Danish is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish, both Swedes and Danes also understand Norwegian better than they understand each others languages. By the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language was called the Danish tongue, or Norse language. Norse was written in the alphabet, first with the elder futhark. From the 7th century the common Norse language began to undergo changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, most of the changes separating East Norse from West Norse started as innovations in Denmark, that spread through Scania into Sweden and by maritime contact to southern Norway
14.
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
15.
Swedish language
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Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken natively by more than 9 million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is currently the largest of the North Germanic languages by number of speakers, Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the rural dialects still exist. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages, V2, Swedish morphology is similar to English, that is, words have comparatively few inflections. There are two genders, no cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are inflected according to gender, number. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes, complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles, the prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, by many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, the dialects of Old East Norse that were spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish while the dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish. The dialects are described as runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, from 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain, there was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr dead
16.
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
17.
Latvian language
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Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It was previously known in English as Lettish which remains the standard today in various forms in most other Germanic languages, there are about 1.3 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and 100,000 abroad. Altogether,2 million, or 80% of the population of Latvia, of those,1.16 million or 56% use it as their primary language at home. The use of the Latvian language in areas of social life in Latvia is increasing. Latvian is a Baltic language and is most closely related to Lithuanian, in addition there is some disagreement whether Latgalian and New Curonian, which are mutually intelligible with Latvian, should be considered varieties or separate languages. Latvian first appeared in Western print in the century with the reproduction of the Lords Prayer in Latvian in Sebastian Münsters Cosmographia Universalis. Latvian belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family and it is one of two living Baltic languages with an official status. The Baltic languages are of particular interest to linguists because they retain many archaic features believed to have present in the early stages of the Proto-Indo-European language. There is some evidence to suggest the existence of a Balto-Slavic language group after the break-up of Proto-Indo-European, there exist a number of Baltic words that are similar to Sanskrit or Latin and which lack counterparts in Slavic languages. Latvian, Lithuanian, Armenian, Albanian, Slavic and Indo-Iranian languages are grouped as satem languages, while the possession of many archaic features is undeniable, the exact manner by which the Baltic languages have developed from the Proto-Indo-European language is not clear. According to some speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from Western Baltic between 400 and 600. The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after 800, with a period of being one language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th century or 15th century and this process of consolidation started in the 13th century after the Livonian Crusade and forced christianization. These tribes came under Livonian rule thus forming a political, economic. The oldest known examples of written Latvian are from a 1530 translation of a made by Nikolaus Ramm. Until the 19th century, the Latvian language was influenced by the German language. In the middle of the 19th century the First Latvian National Awakening was started, led by “Young Latvians” who popularized the use of Latvian language, participants to this movement laid the foundations for standard Latvian and also popularized the Latvianization of loan words. However, in the 1880s, when Czar Alexander III came into power, during this period, some Latvian scholars even suggested adopting Cyrillic for use in Latvian
18.
Sami people
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The Sami people are an indigenous Finno-Ugric people inhabiting the Arctic area of Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. The Sami are the indigenous people of Scandinavia recognized and protected under the international conventions of indigenous peoples. Sami ancestral lands are not well-defined and their traditional languages are the Sami languages and are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family. Traditionally, the Sami have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including fishing, fur trapping. Their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding, currently about 10% of the Sami are connected to reindeer herding, providing them with meat, fur, and transportation. 2,800 Sami people are involved in herding on a full-time basis. For traditional, environmental, cultural, and political reasons, reindeer herding is legally reserved only for Sami people in regions of the Nordic countries. The Sámi are often known in other languages by the exonyms Lap, Lapp, some Sami regard these as pejorative terms, while others do not. Finn was the originally used by Norse speakers to refer to the Sami, as attested in the Icelandic Eddas. As Old Norse gradually developed into the separate Scandinavian languages, Swedes apparently took to using Finn exclusively to refer to inhabitants of Finland, Finnish immigrants to Northern Norway in the 18th and 19th centuries were referred to as Kvens to distinguish them from the Sami Finns. Ethnic Finns are a group from Sami. In fact, Saxo never explicitly connects the Sami with the two Laplands, there is another suggestion that it originally meant wilds. In Finland and Sweden, Lapp is common in names, such as Lappi, Lappeenranta and Lapinlahti in Finland. As already mentioned, Finn is an element in Norwegian place names. In the North Sámi language, láhppon olmmoš means a person who is lost, Sámi refer to themselves as Sámit or Sápmelaš, the word Sámi being inflected into various grammatical forms. It has been proposed that Sámi, Häme, and perhaps Suomi are of the origin and ultimately borrowed from the Baltic word *žēmē. The Baltic word is cognate with Slavic земля, which means land. The Sámi institutions—notably the parliaments, radio and TV stations, theatres, etc. —all use the term Sámi, including when addressing outsiders in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, or English
19.
History of Estonia
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The history of Estonia forms a part of the history of Europe. Humans settled in the region of Estonia near the end of the last glacial era, before German crusaders invaded in the early 13th century, proto-Estonians of ancient Estonia worshipped spirits of nature. From 1418 to 1562 the whole of Estonia formed part of the Livonian Confederation, after the Livonian War of 1558-1583, Estonia became part of the Swedish Empire until 1710/1721, when Sweden ceded it to Russia as a result of the Great Northern War of 1700-1721. Throughout this period the Baltic-German nobility enjoyed autonomy, and German served as the language of administration and education, the Estophile Enlightenment Period led to the Estonian national awakening in the middle of the 19th century. In the aftermath of World War I and the Russian revolutions of 1917, the Estonian War of Independence ensued on two fronts, the newly proclaimed state fought against Bolshevist Russia to the east and against the Baltic German forces to the south. The Tartu Peace Treaty marked the end of fighting and recognised Estonian independence in perpetuity, in 1940, in the wake of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, the Soviet Union occupied Estonia and illegally annexed the country. In the course of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany occupied Estonia in 1941, Estonia regained independence in 1991 in the course of the collapse of the USSR and joined the European Union and NATO in 2004. The region has been populated since the end of the Late Pleistocene Ice Age, the earliest traces of human settlement in Estonia are connected with the Kunda culture. The early mesolithic Pulli settlement is located by the Pärnu River and it has been dated to the beginning of the 9th millennium BC. The Kunda culture received its name from the Lammasmäe settlement site in northern Estonia, bone and stone artifacts similar to those found at Kunda have been discovered elsewhere in Estonia, as well as in Latvia, northern Lithuania and southern Finland. Among minerals, flint and quartz were used the most for making cutting tools, the beginning of the Neolithic Period is marked by the ceramics of the Narva culture, and appear in Estonia at the beginning of the 5th millennium. The oldest finds date from around 4900 BC, the first pottery was made of thick clay mixed with pebbles, shells or plants. The Narva-type ceramics are found throughout almost the entire Estonian coastal region and on the islands, the stone and bone tools of the era have a notable similarity with the artifacts of the Kunda culture. Around the beginning of 4th millennium BC Comb Ceramic culture arrived in Estonia, until the early 1980s the arrival of Finnic peoples, the ancestors of the Estonians, Finns, and Livonians, on the shores of the Baltic Sea was associated with the Comb Ceramic Culture. Some researchers have argued that a Uralic form of language may have been spoken in Estonia. The burial customs of the comb pottery people included additions of figures of animals, birds, snakes and men carved from bone, antiquities from comb pottery culture are found from Northern Finland to Eastern Prussia. The beginning of the Late Neolithic Period about 2200 BC is characterized by the appearance of the Corded Ware culture, pottery with corded decoration, evidence of agriculture is provided by charred grains of wheat on the wall of a corded-ware vessel found in Iru settlement. Osteological analysis show an attempt was made to domesticate the wild boar, specific burial customs were characterized by the dead being laid on their sides with their knees pressed against their breast, one hand under the head
20.
Oeselians
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The Oeselians, Osilians, Esths, or Ests were a historical subdivision of Estonians inhabiting Saaremaa, an Estonian island in the Baltic Sea. In modern Estonian, they are called saarlased, which applies to present-day inhabitants of the island. They are first thought to be mentioned as early as the 2nd century BC in Ptolemys Geography III, the Oeselians were known in the Old Norse Icelandic Sagas and in Heimskringla as Víkingar frá Esthland. Their sailing vessels were called pirate ships by Henry of Livonia in his Latin chronicles from the beginning of the 13th century. Eistland or Esthland is the historical Germanic language name refers to the country at the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea in general. The mainland of modern Estonia in the 8th century Ynglinga saga was called Adalsyssla in contrast to Eysyssel or Ösyssla that was the name of the island, in the 11th century, Courland and Estland were both denoted separately by Adam of Bremen. In summers when they can travel across the sea they oppress the surrounding lands by raiding both Christians and pagans, other Baltic tribes — i. e. the Letts and Lithuanians — are not mentioned by Saxo as participating in the fight. Snorri Sturluson relates in his Ynglinga saga how the Swedish king Ingvar, the son of Östen and a great warrior, the saga speaks of his invasion of Estonia where he fell in a battle against the men of Estland who had come down with a great army. After the battle, King Ingvar was buried close to the seashore in Estonia, on their journey, Oeselian Vikings raided the ship, killing some of the crew and taking others into slavery. Six years later, when Sigurd Eirikson traveled to Estonia to collect taxes on behalf of Valdemar, he spotted Olaf in a market on Saaremaa, a battle between Oeselian and Icelandic Vikings off Saaremaa is described in Njáls saga as occurring in 972 AD. About 1008, Olaf II Haraldsson, later king of Norway, the Oeselians, taken by surprise, had at first tried to negotiate the demands made by the Norwegians, but then gathered an army and confronted them. Around the year 1030, a Swedish Viking chief called Freygeirr may have killed in a battle on Saaremaa. From the 12th century, chroniclers descriptions of Estonian, Oeselian and Curonian raids along the coasts of Sweden, the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia describes a fleet of sixteen ships and five hundred Oeselians ravaging the area that is now southern Sweden, then belonging to Denmark. Perhaps the most renowned raid by Oeselian pirates occurred in 1187, among the casualties of this raid was the Swedish archbishop Johannes. Archaeological excavations have not verified the traditions of destruction of the town, normal life in Sigtuna continued until town started to slowly lose its importance during 13th century due to navigability problems caused by post-glacial rebound. The Livonian Chronicle describes the Oeselians as using two kinds of ships, the piratica and the liburna, the former was a warship, the latter mainly a merchant ship. A piratica could carry approximately 30 men and had a high prow shaped like a dragon or a snakehead as well as a quadrangular sail, viking-age treasures from Estonia mostly contain silver coins and bars. Compared to its neighbors, Saaremaa has the richest finds of Viking treasures after Gotland in Sweden
21.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
22.
Salme ships
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The Salme ships are two clinker-built ships of Scandinavian origin discovered in 2008 and 2010 near Salme village on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia. The first ship was discovered in 2008 during earth removal for infrastructure construction, an archaeological expedition has been working on site since 2008. The second ship was discovered in 2010 and it is possible that at least one more ship is yet to be discovered during future excavations. The ships were located near the ancient coastline, about 1.5 m above water level, the location is 230 m from the present coastline and 4 m above present water level. Both Salme ships are clinker-built and archaeologists has estimated their time of construction to be AD 650-700 in Scandinavia, there are signs indicating they have been repaired and patched for decades, before making the final voyage. One of the ships is 11.5 m long and 2 m wide, none of them had mast or sails, and they would have been rowed for short distances along the Baltic coast, or between islands in order to reach their destinations. Or straight across the Baltic, as rowing longer distances has proved perfectly feasible time and this is also indicated by the Old Norse word for distance across water vikusjö, vikja the distance to row before changing rowers, a distance of ca 4,2 nautical miles. Skeletal remains from at least 42 individuals were discovered in the two ships, most of them belonged to 30–40 years old males who had been killed in battle. Analysis of some of the teeth, combined with the design of the buried artifacts, the smaller ship contained the skeletal remains of 7 individuals. There were at least 36 individuals buried in four layers in the large ship, fragments of more than 40 swords of various types, remains of shields, spearheads and dozens of arrowheads were found in the burial. Most of them had been deliberately deformed, perhaps to discourage grave robbery, smaller objects included one small socketed axe, knives, whetstones, a bone comb with ornaments, a bear-claw necklace, and hundreds of gaming pieces made of whale bone and antler with six dice. The skeletal remains of two ritually sacrificed dogs as well as used for falconry were found in the burial. According to an early interpretation offered by Jüri Peets, the lead archaeologist at the site, the ships, according to the most likely scenario, a war party of Scandinavians attempted to carry out a raid against the Oeselians, but were attacked by Oeselian ships. The sides of the two ships contain numerous embedded arrowheads, some of which are of the type used to carry burning materials to set enemy ships aflame. After losing too many oarsmen to the Estonian archers, the raiders pulled their ships aground and it appears that after the battle, the Oeselians allowed either the survivors or some other group of Scandinavians to ritually bury their dead. The burial is unusual because the ships were not covered with earth mounds, the site was eventually forgotten by the local inhabitants after it had become overblown by sand and covered with vegetation. The raid-hypothesis has led to a questioning of when the Viking Age began exactly, the Salme event took place 50-100 years earlier than the infamous Lindisfarne Viking raid in England in the summer of AD793. The original interpretation was called into question after the second, larger, the presence of dogs and hawks used for falconry indicates that the original purpose of the trip to Estonia may have been leisure or diplomacy
23.
Vikings
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The term is also commonly extended in modern English and other vernaculars to the inhabitants of Viking home communities during what has become known as the Viking Age. Facilitated by advanced seafaring skills, and characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times also extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. A romanticized picture of Vikings as noble savages began to emerge in the 18th century, current popular representations of the Vikings are typically based on cultural clichés and stereotypes, complicating modern appreciation of the Viking legacy. One etymology derives víking from the feminine vík, meaning creek, inlet, various theories have been offered that the word viking may be derived from the name of the historical Norwegian district of Viken, meaning a person from Viken. According to this theory, the word simply described persons from this area, however, there are a few major problems with this theory. People from the Viken area were not called Viking in Old Norse manuscripts, in addition, that explanation could only explain the masculine and ignore the feminine, which is a serious problem because the masculine is easily derived from the feminine but hardly vice versa. The form also occurs as a name on some Swedish rune stones. There is little indication of any negative connotation in the term before the end of the Viking Age and this is found in the Proto-Nordic verb *wikan, ‘to turn’, similar to Old Icelandic víkja ‘to move, to turn’, with well-attested nautical usages. In that case, the idea behind it seems to be that the rower moves aside for the rested rower on the thwart when he relieves him. A víkingr would then originally have been a participant on a sea journey characterized by the shifting of rowers, in that case, the word Viking was not originally connected to Scandinavian seafarers but assumed this meaning when the Scandinavians begun to dominate the seas. In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the Anglo-Saxon poem, Widsith, in Old English, and in the history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen written by Adam of Bremen in about 1070, the term generally referred to Scandinavian pirates or raiders. As in the Old Norse usages, the term is not employed as a name for any people or culture in general, the word does not occur in any preserved Middle English texts. The Vikings were known as Ascomanni ashmen by the Germans for the ash wood of their boats, Lochlannach by the Gaels, the modern day name for Sweden in several neighbouring countries is possibly derived from rōþs-, Ruotsi in Finnish and Rootsi in Estonian. The Slavs and the Byzantines also called them Varangians, Scandinavian bodyguards of the Byzantine emperors were known as the Varangian Guard. The Franks normally called them Northmen or Danes, while for the English they were known as Danes or heathen. It is used in distinction from Anglo-Saxon, similar terms exist for other areas, such as Hiberno-Norse for Ireland and Scotland. The period from the earliest recorded raids in the 790s until the Norman conquest of England in 1066 is commonly known as the Viking Age of Scandinavian history, Vikings used the Norwegian Sea and Baltic Sea for sea routes to the south. The Normans were descended from Vikings who were given feudal overlordship of areas in northern France—the Duchy of Normandy—in the 10th century, in that respect, descendants of the Vikings continued to have an influence in northern Europe
24.
Denmark
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The term Danish Realm refers to the relationship between Denmark proper, the Faroe Islands and Greenland—three countries constituting the Kingdom of Denmark. The legal nature of the Kingdom of Denmark is fundamentally one of a sovereign state. The Faroe Islands and Greenland have been part of the Crown of Denmark since 1397 when the Kalmar Union was ratified, legal matters in The Danish Realm are subject to the Danish Constitution. Beginning in 1953, state law issues within The Danish Realm has been governed by The Unity of the Realm, a less formal name for The Unity of the Realm is the Commonwealth of the Realm. In 1978, The Unity of The Realm was for the first time referred to as rigsfællesskabet. The name caught on and since the 1990s, both The Unity of The Realm and The Danish Realm itself has increasingly been referred to as simply rigsfællesskabet in daily parlance. The Danish Constitution stipulates that the foreign and security interests for all parts of the Danish Realm are the responsibility of the Danish government, the Faroes received home rule in 1948 and Greenland did so in 1979. In 2005, the Faroes received a self-government arrangement, and in 2009 Greenland received self rule, the Danish Realms unique state of internal affairs is acted out in the principle of The Unity of the Realm. This principle is derived from Article 1 of the Danish Constitution which specifies that constitutional law applies equally to all areas of the Danish Realm, the Constitutional Act specifies that sovereignty is to continue to be exclusively with the authorities of the Realm. The language of Denmark is Danish, and the Danish state authorities are based in Denmark, the Kingdom of Denmarks parliament, with its 179 members, is located in the capital, Copenhagen. Two of the members are elected in each of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Government ministries are located in Copenhagen, as is the highest court, in principle, the Danish Realm constitutes a unified sovereign state, with equal status between its constituent parts. Devolution differs from federalism in that the powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government. The Self-Government Arrangements devolves political competence and responsibility from the Danish political authorities to the Faroese, the Faroese and Greenlandic authorities administer the tasks taken over from the state, enact legislation in these specific fields and have the economic responsibility for solving these tasks. The Danish government provides a grant to the Faroese and the Greenlandic authorities to cover the costs of these devolved areas. The 1948 Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands sets out the terms of Faroese home rule, the Act states. the Faroe Islands shall constitute a self-governing community within the State of Denmark. It establishes the government of the Faroe Islands and the Faroese parliament. The Faroe Islands were previously administered as a Danish county, the Home Rule Act abolished the post of Amtmand and these powers were expanded in a 2005 Act, which named the Faroese home government as an equal partner with the Danish government
25.
Valdemar II of Denmark
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Valdemar II, called Valdemar the Victorious or Valdemar the Conqueror, was the King of Denmark from 1202 until his death in 1241. The nickname Sejr is an invention and was not used during the Kings own lifetime. He was the son of King Valdemar I and Sophia Valadarsdattir, a daughter of Richeza of Poland. When Valdemars father died, young Valdemar was only twelve years old and he was named Duke of Southern Jutland, represented by the regent Bishop Valdemar Knudsen. Bishop Valdemar was a man and disguised his own ambitions as young Valdemars. When in 1192 Bishop Valdemar was named Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, his plot to overthrow King Canute VI with the help of German nobility, Duke Valdemar realized the threat Bishop Valdemar presented. He invited the archbishop to meet him in Aabenraa in 1192, then the bishop fled to Swedish Norway to avoid arrest. The following year Bishop Valdemar organised - supported by the Hohenstaufens - a fleet of 35 ships and harried the coasts of Denmark, in 1193 King Canute VI of Denmark captured him. Bishop Valdemar stayed in captivity in Nordborg and then in the tower at Søborg Castle on Zealand until 1206, Bishop Valdemar was released upon the initiative of the Danish Queen Dagmar and Pope Innocent III and after swearing to never interfere again in Danish affairs. Young Valdemar faced another threat from Count Adolph of Rendsburg, Adolph tried to stir up other German counts to take southern Jutland from Denmark to assist Bishop Valdemars plot to take the throne. With the bishop in prison, Duke Valdemar went after Count Adolph and with his own troop levies march south and he defeated and captured the count in the Battle of Stellau in 1201 and sent him to sit in a cell next to Bishop Valdemar. Two years later Duke Valdemar let Count Adolph buy his way out of due to an illness by ceding all of Schleswig north of the Elbe to Valdemar. In November 1202, Duke Valdemars elder brother, King Canute VI died unexpectedly at the age of 40, Duke Valdemar was subsequently proclaimed king at the Jutland Assembly. The nearby Holy Roman Empire was torn by civil war due to having two rivals contesting for its throne, Otto IV, House of Guelf, and King Philip, Valdemar II allied himself with Otto IV against Phillip. In 1203 Valdemar invaded and conquered Lybeck and Holstein, adding them to the controlled by Denmark. In 1204 he attempted to influence the outcome of the Norwegian succession by leading a Danish fleet and army to Viken in Norway in support of Erling Steinvegg and this resulted in the second Bagler War which lasted until 1208. The question of the Norwegian succession was settled and the Norwegian king owed allegiance to the king of Denmark. The German King Philip, recognised Valdemar as the legitimate Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, Valdemar II and the fled capitulars protested to Pope Innocent III, who first wanted to research the case
26.
Atgeir
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An atgeir, sometimes called a mail-piercer or hewing-spear, was a type of polearm in use in Viking Age Scandinavia and Norse colonies in the British Isles and Iceland. It is usually translated in English as halberd, but most likely resembled a bill or glaive during the Viking age. Another view is that the term had no association with a weapon until it is used as an anachronism in saga literature to lend weight to accounts of special weapons. Later the word was used for typical European halberds, and even later multipurpose staves with spearheads were called atgeirsstafir, the term is first used as a term in Teutonic sources before the Viking Age. It is not used in any Viking Age source and there are no remains from archæology which can be identified with the term, the references from saga literature are not relevant to the Viking Age but come from Iceland of the thirteenth century and later. Originally it meant most spear-like spear i. e. best spear, arguably the most famous atgeir was Gunnar Hámundarsons, as described in Njals Saga. According to the saga, this weapon would make a sound when it was taken down in anticipation of bloodshed. However, Njals saga is one of the latest and most obviously authored sagas, Viking Age arms and armour Cook, Robert Njals Saga. The Archaeology of Weapons, Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry, the Anglo-Saxon Weapon Names Treated Etymologically and Archæologically, Heidelberg 1906. The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition, Harvard University 2004
27.
Kuressaare Castle
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Kuressaare Castle, also Kuressaare Episcopal Castle, is a castle in Kuressaare on Saaremaa island, in western Estonia. The earliest written record mentioning Kuressaare castle is from the 1380s, some sources claim that the first castle was built of wood. From the outset, it was a belonging to the bishop of Saare-Lääne. In 1559, Denmark seized control over Saaremaa and Kuressaare castle, during this time, the fortifications were modernised. Following the Peace of Brömsebro, which ended the 1643-1645 war between Sweden and Denmark, Saaremaa passed into Swedish hands, the Swedes continued the modernisation of the fortress until 1706. Following the Great Northern War, Saaremaa and Kuressaare castle became a part of the Russian Empire, as the frontiers of the Russian Empire gradually pushed further west, Kuressaare lost its strategic value. Especially after the Finnish War and the Third Partition of Poland, in 1836, following the construction of the fortress of Bomarsund on Åland, the Russian garrison at Kuressaare withdrew. The fact that Kuressaare castle was not employed by the armies who fought in the Crimean War is also indicative of its lost strategic importance, in the 19th century, the castle was used as a poorhouse. In 1904–12 the castle was restored by architects Hermann Seuberlich and Wilhelm Neumann and it underwent a second restoration in 1968, this time led by architect Kalvi Aluve. Today the castle houses the Saaremaa Museum, Kuressaare castle is considered one of the best preserved medieval fortifications in Estonia. The castle is late Gothic in style and characterised by a simplicity of form, the central, so-called convent building, is a square building around a central courtyard. The so-called defence tower, in the corner, reaches 37 metres. A defence gallery with battlements running along the top of the building was restored in the 1980s, the portcullis and gate defences are also reconstructions. Here, a cloister surrounds the courtyard and connects all the main rooms, notable among these are the refectory, the dormitory, the chapel and the bishops living quarters. In the latter, eleven baroque carved epitaphs of noblemen from Saaremaa are displayed, at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th century, a wall,625 metres long, was built around the castle. Due to improvements made in firearms, additional elements were added between the 16th and 17th centuries. Erik Dahlbergh designed the Vauban-type fortress with bastions and ravelins that are largely intact. When the Russian garrison left the fortress in 1711 following the Great Northern War, they blew up much of the fortifications and the castle
28.
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
29.
Livonian Crusade
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The lands on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea were the last corners of Europe to be Christianized. After the success of the crusade, the German- and Danish-occupied territory was divided into six feudal principalities by William of Modena, Christianity had come to Latvia with the settlement of Grobiņa by Swedes in the 7th century and the Danes in the 11th. By the time German traders began to arrive in the half of the 12th century to trade along the ancient trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. Saint Meinhard of Segeberg arrived in Ikšķile in 1184 with the mission of converting the pagan Livonians, in those days the riverside town was the center of the upcoming missionary activities in the Livonian area. The first prominent Livonian to be converted was their leader Caupo of Turaida, Pope Celestine III had called for a crusade against pagans in Northern Europe in 1193. When peaceful means of conversion failed to produce results, the impatient Meinhard plotted to convert Livonians forcibly and he died in 1196, having failed in his mission. His appointed replacement, bishop Berthold of Hanover, a Cistercian abbot of Loccum arrived with a contingent of crusaders in 1198. Shortly afterward, while riding ahead of his troops in battle, Berthold was surrounded and killed, to avenge Bertholds defeat, Pope Innocent III issued a bull declaring a crusade against the Livonians. Albrecht von Buxthoeven, consecrated as bishop in 1199, arrived the year with a large force. In 1202 he formed the Livonian Brothers of the Sword to aid in the conversion of the pagans to Christianity and, more importantly, to protect German trade, as the German grip tightened, the Livonians and their christened chief rebelled against the crusaders. Caupos forces were defeated at Turaida in 1206, and the Livonians were declared to be converted, Caupo subsequently remained an ally of the crusaders until his death in the Battle of St. Matthews Day in 1217. By 1208 the important Daugava trading posts of Salaspils, Koknese, in 1209 Albert, leading the forces of the Order, captured the capital of the Latgalian Principality of Jersika, and took the wife of the ruler Visvaldis captive. Visvaldis was forced to submit his kingdom to Albert as a grant to the Archbishopric of Riga, and received back a portion of it as a fief. Tālava, weakened in wars with Estonians and Russians, became a state of the Archbishopric of Riga in 1214. With the help of the newly converted local tribes of Livs and Latgalians, the Estonian tribes fiercely resisted the attacks from Riga and occasionally sacked territories controlled by the crusaders. Hill forts, which were the key centers of Estonian counties, were besieged, captured, a truce between the war-weary sides was established for three years. It proved generally more favourable to the Germans, who consolidated their political position and they were led by Lembitu of Lehola, the elder of Sackalia, who by 1211 had come to the attention of German chroniclers as the central figure of the Estonian resistance. The Livonian leader Caupo was killed in the Battle of St. Matthews Day near Viljandi on September 21,1217, but Lembitu was also killed, the Christian kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden were also eager for expansion on the eastern shores of the Baltic
30.
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
31.
Battle of Saule
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The Battle of Saule was fought on September 22,1236, between the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and pagan Samogitians. Between 48 and 60 knights were killed, including the Livonian Master and it was the earliest large-scale defeat suffered by the orders in Baltic lands. The Sword-Brothers, the first Catholic military order established in the Baltic lands, was soundly defeated, the battle inspired rebellions among the Curonians, Semigallians, Selonians, Oeselians, tribes previously conquered by the Sword-Brothers. Some thirty years worth of conquests on the bank of Daugava were lost. To commemorate the battle, in 2000 the Lithuanian and Latvian parliaments declared September 22 to be the Day of Baltic Unity, the Sword-Brothers were established in 1202 in Riga to conquer and convert pagan Baltic tribes to Christianity. By the 1230s under the leadership of Master Volkwin, the Order was coping with strained financial resources, decreasing manpower, the Order was in conflict with the papacy under Pope Gregory IX and the Holy Roman Emperor, two of its biggest supporters, over Estonia. However, on February 19,1236, Pope Gregory IX issued a bull declaring a crusade against Lithuania. Volkwin targeted Samogitia, planning to conquer the coast of the Baltic Sea, the Sword-Brothers wanted to keep expanding along the Daugava River and was somewhat reluctant to march against Samogitia. In fall of 1236 a party of crusaders arrived from Holstein, Volkwin gathered a large war party, which included troops from Pskov Republic, Livonians, Latgallians, Estonians. The knights marched southward into Samogitia, raiding and plundering local settlements, the locals had only a few days to gather troops for defense. On the knights northward return, however, they encountered a group of Samogitians at a river crossing. Unwilling to risk losing their horses in the swampland, the Holsteiners refused to fight on foot, the next morning, on the day of Saint Maurice, the main pagan forces, possibly led by Duke Vykintas, arrived at the camp. The Lithuanian light cavalry flung javelins at range, which were highly effective against the unwieldy Livonian heavy cavalry. The swampy terrain was advantageous for lightly armed pagans, the slaughter of the Christian troops, including Volkwin, sowed the seeds of confusion in the Livonian ranks. The lightly armed forces under the command of the Brothers soon fled from the battle. Those crusaders and knights who tried to flee to Riga were allegedly killed by the Semigallians, the exact location where the battle took place is unknown. The Chronicum Livoniae by Hermann de Wartberge mentioned that the battle was fought in terram Sauleorum, traditionally, this was identified with Šiauliai in Lithuania or with the small town of Vecsaule near Bauska in what is today southern Latvia. In 1965 the German historian Friedrich Benninghoven proposed Jauniūnai village in Joniškis district, the theory gained some academic support and in 2010 the Lithuanian government sponsored construction of the memorial in Jauniūnai – a 29-metre tall sundial, a pond, and a park of oaks
32.
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
33.
Karja Church
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Karja Church is a medieval Lutheran church located in Linnaka village on Saaremaa island, Estonia. It is the church with the richest medieval stone sculpture decoration in all the Baltic states. The origins of the church are not well known, but it was most probably constructed sometime during the late 13th or early 14th century, originally it was dedicated to St. Catherine and St. Nicholas. In later times, these areas were used by pilgrims from Scandinavia travelling to Livonia. The fact that the served as a stop-over for pilgrims may also serve to explain how it got its rich decoration. The church is small, compared with other medieval churches on Saaremaa and elsewhere nearby. It has a nave, spanned by high, whitewashed vaults forming two bays, a simple choir and a vestry. Interior details worth mentioning are the font from the 14th century, a crucifix from the 15th century. What makes the church unique, however, is its interior decoration. The interior of the church displays several relatively well-preserved medieval mural paintings and these depict symbols, probably of pagan origin, such as a triskelion, pentagram, grotesque devils and other symbols of unclear significance. In addition, there are more purely decorative murals. The church is rich in carved stone sculpture, present on portals, brackets. The stone carvings have probably been executed by successive generations of master carvers, including, very probably, artisans from Germany, Sweden, the style of the decorations range from Romanesque to Gothic and high Gothic. Architecture of Estonia Media related to Karja Church at Wikimedia Commons
34.
Kihelkonna St. Michael's Church
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Kihelkonna St. Michaels Church, sometimes simply Kihelkonna Church, is a medieval Lutheran church on Saaremaa island in western Estonia. The church was founded sometime around 1250 as a joint undertaking by both the Livonian Order and the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek as a part of efforts to Christianise Estonia. The church was built at a location, by a harbour of some importance. Originally, the church was designed to have a tower but after a rebellion in 1260-1261, at which time the church was still unfinished. The present-day tower only dates from 1899, apart from the tower, the building of the church finished sometime in the later 1260s. Of the original furnishing, very little remains. The interior is dominated by high, white-washed vaults, the altarpiece dates from 1591, and depicts the last supper. In addition, the church has an organ and a carved epitaph dating from 1650 by local master carved Balthasar Raschky. The exterior of the church is dominated by the neo-Gothic tower. Such free-standing belfries were once popular in Estonia, but today the one at Kihelkonna church is the only one surviving. Architecture of Estonia Media related to Kihelkonna church at Wikimedia Commons
35.
Muhu St. Catherine's Church
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Muhu St. Catherines Church, sometimes simply Muhu Church, is a medieval Lutheran church on Muhu island, in Saare County, Estonia. The church was founded by the master of the Livonian Order Otto von Lutterberg in 1267, the founding of the church is mentioned in a medieval chronicle by Hermann von Wartberge. The first church was made of wood and only replaced by the current stone building in the final years of the 13th century. It was built in stages, with the walls of the nave constructed first, the master builders involved with building the nearby Karja church were apparently also at work here, as their builders marks have been found in the stones used to construct the church. A window in the west wall and the base of the dates from this period. Somewhat later are the murals, and considerably later are both the pulpit and the retable, the church has suffered tremendous damage throughout its history. It was damaged by fire in 1640, and in war during the Great Northern War, in 1941, the church was bombed in a German air raid and the roof destroyed, not to be replaced until 1958. This period without a roof, together with unprofessional attempts at restoration during the Soviet times. Following Estonias re-establishment of independence in 1991, a renovation was carried out with substantial financial aid from Sweden. The church is one of the simplest in form of the churches of the West Estonian archipelago. It is a church, with high whitewashed vaults and a simple choir. The church also lacks the relatively rich carved-stone décor which can be found in churches nearby. The most notable feature of the church is the mural paintings and these were discovered only in 1913, when plaster from the time of the Reformation was removed. The murals depict scenes from the Last Judgement and it is thought that the artist came from Gotland, as the murals show strong similarities with paintings from the island from the same time. The influence of Byzantine art is noticeable, architecture of Estonia Media related to Muhu church at Wikimedia Commons
36.
Valjala Church
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Saint Martins Church of Valjala is a Lutheran church in Valjala, on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia. It is the oldest stone church on Saaremaa and possibly the oldest surviving church in Estonia, christianity was brought to Estonia through the Northern Crusades, and construction of Valjala church started immediately following the Livonian Crusade, in 1227. The first church was a chapel built on the site of an ancient stronghold. The chapel was extended and still forms the nucleus of the current church. Remnants from this earliest period of the building include Romanesque fragments of murals depicting six of the apostles inside the church, in 1240, the church was expanded and it got its present form of a single-nave church. The builders stayed true to Romanesque forms as evidenced by the portals of the church. In 1343 the church was damaged during the St. Georges Night Uprising, restoration works and other additions to the church henceforth were more clearly Gothic in form. For example, the windows, the vaults of the parts of the building. The builders during this time came from Varnhem Abbey in Sweden. The church was built to be able to function as a refuge in times of troubles. There are rooms above the vaults that are constructed so that they could only be reached using a ladder which could be pulled up, also, an internal passageway just under the windows on the inside of the walls could be utilised to repel an advancing enemy. During the later part of the 14th century, the church got a new polygonal apse, the tower, which was probably not completed until the 17th century, was probably also started during this period. Tombstone fragments of archaic, trapezoid form have been discovered in the walls of the tower and they are rather unusual in that tombstones of this type have otherwise only been discovered in western Estonia. The church was damaged during the Great Northern War, there are two Baroque carved epitaphs in the church, dating from 1664 and 1667. In 1820, Nommen Lorenzen from Kuressaare, made the present altarpiece. The churchs organ is from 1888 and made by Gustav Normann, the church was again damaged in 1922 when lightning struck the building. The stained glass windows are made by artist Dolores Hoffman and date from the 1970s, the organ was refurbished in 2004 by Ago Tint. The western facade of the church, decorated with blind arches, the church walls are massive and the windows, coupled together, are narrow and tall
