Ivan Kalita, Dmitry Donskoy, Ivan the Terrible - these creators of the Moscow state are known to us from school. Are the names of Gediminas, Jagiello or Vytautas also familiar to us? At best, we will read in textbooks that they were Lithuanian princes and once fought with Moscow a long time ago, and then sunk somewhere into obscurity ... But it was they who founded the Eastern European power, which, with no less reason than Muscovy, called itself Russia.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Chronology of the main events of history (before the formation of the Commonwealth):
IX-XII centuries- development of feudal relations and the formation of estates on the territory of Lithuania, the formation of the state
Early 13th century- increased aggression of the German crusaders
1236- Lithuanians defeat the Knights of the Sword at Siauliai
1260- Lithuanian victory over the Teutons at Durba
1263- unification of the main Lithuanian lands under the rule of Mindaugas
14th century- a significant expansion of the territory of the principality due to new lands
1316-1341 years- reign of Gediminas
1362- Olgerd defeats the Tatars in the battle of Blue Waters (the left tributary of the Southern Bug) and occupies Podolia and Kyiv
1345-1377 years- reign of Olgerd
1345-1382 years- reign of Keistut
1385- Grand Duke Jagiello
(1377-1392)
concludes the Union of Krevo with Poland
1387- adoption of Catholicism by Lithuania
1392- as a result of internecine struggle, Vytautas becomes the Grand Duke in Lithuania, who opposed the policy of Jagiello 1410 - the combined Lithuanian-Russian and Polish troops utterly defeat the knights of the Teutonic Order in the Battle of Grunwald
1413- Union of Horodil, according to which the rights of the Polish gentry apply to Lithuanian Catholic nobles
1447- the first Priviley - a set of laws. Together with Sudebnik
1468 he became the first experience of codifying law in the principality
1492- "Privilege the Grand Duke Alexander." First charter of gentry liberties
End of the 15th century- Formation of the all-gentry Sejm. The growth of the rights and privileges of the lords
1529, 1566, 1588 - the release of three editions of the Lithuanian statute - "charter and praise", zemstvo and regional "priviley", securing the rights of the gentry
1487-1537 years- intermittent wars with Russia against the background of the strengthening of the principality of Moscow. Lithuania lost Smolensk, captured by Vitovt in 1404. According to the truce of 1503, Russia regained 70 volosts and 19 cities, including Chernigov, Bryansk, Novgorod-Seversky and other Russian lands
1558-1583 years- the war of Russia with the Livonian Order, as well as with Sweden, Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for the Baltic states and access to the Baltic Sea, in which Lithuania was accompanied by failures
1569- the signing of the Union of Lublin and the unification of Lithuania into one state with Poland - the Commonwealth
A century later, Gedimin and Olgerd already had a power that absorbed Polotsk, Vitebsk, Minsk, Grodno, Brest, Turov, Volyn, Bryansk and Chernigov. In 1358, the Olgerd ambassadors even declared to the Germans: "All Russia must belong to Lithuania." In support of these words and ahead of the Muscovites, the Lithuanian prince opposed the "most" Golden Horde: in 1362 he defeated the Tatars at Blue Waters and secured ancient Kyiv for almost 200 years for Lithuania.
“Will Slavic streams merge into the Russian sea?” (Alexander Pushkin)By no coincidence, at the same time, the Moscow princes, the descendants of Ivan Kalita, gradually began to “collect” the lands. Thus, by the middle of the 14th century, two centers had developed that claimed to unite the ancient Russian “heritage”: Moscow and Vilna, founded in 1323. The conflict could not be avoided, especially since the main tactical rivals of Moscow, the princes of Tver, were in alliance with Lithuania, and the Novgorod boyars also sought to “under the arm” of the West.
Then, in 1368-1372, Olgerd, in alliance with Tver, made three trips to Moscow, but the forces of the rivals turned out to be approximately equal, and the matter ended with an agreement that divided the “spheres of influence”. Well, since they failed to destroy each other, they had to get closer: some of the children of the pagan Olgerd converted to Orthodoxy. It was then that Dmitry offered the undecided Jagiello a dynastic union, which was not destined to take place. And not only did it not become according to the prince's word: it became - on the contrary. As you know, Dmitry could not resist Tokhtamysh, and in 1382 the Tatars allowed Moscow "to flow and plunder." She again became a tributary of the Horde. The union with the failed father-in-law ceased to attract the Lithuanian sovereign, but rapprochement with Poland gave him not only a chance for a royal crown, but also real help in the fight against the main enemy - the Teutonic Order.
And Jagiello nevertheless married - but not to the Moscow princess, but to the Polish queen Jadwiga. Baptized according to the Catholic rite. He became the Polish king under the Christian name Vladislav. Instead of an alliance with the eastern brothers, the Kreva union of 1385 with the western brothers happened. Since that time, Lithuanian history has been firmly intertwined with Polish: the descendants of Jagiello (Jagellon) reigned in both powers for three centuries - from the 14th to the 16th. But still, they were two different states, each retaining its own political system, system of law, currency and army. As for Vladislav-Jagiello, he spent most of his reign in new possessions. The old ones were ruled by his cousin Vitovt and ruled brightly. In a natural alliance with the Poles, he defeated the Germans at Grunwald (1410), annexed the Smolensk land (1404) and the Russian principalities in the upper reaches of the Oka. A powerful Lithuanian could even put his henchmen on the throne of the Horde. Pskov and Novgorod paid him a huge “payoff”, and the Moscow prince Vasily I Dmitrievich, as if turning his father’s plans inside out, married Vitovt’s daughter and began to call his father-in-law “father”, that is, in the system of the then feudal ideas, he recognized himself as his vassal. At the pinnacle of greatness and glory, Vitovt lacked only the royal crown, which he announced at the Congress of Monarchs of Central and Eastern Europe in 1429 in Lutsk in the presence of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Sigismund I, the Polish King Jagiello, the princes of Tver and Ryazan, the Moldavian ruler, Embassies of Denmark, Byzantium and the Pope. In the autumn of 1430, Prince Vasily II of Moscow, Metropolitan Photius, princes of Tver, Ryazan, Odoev and Mazovia, the Moldavian ruler, the Livonian master, and ambassadors of the Byzantine emperor gathered for the coronation in Vilna. But the Poles refused to let the embassy pass, which was carrying royal regalia from Rome to Vitovt (in the Lithuanian “Chronicle of Bykhovets” it is even said that the crown was taken from the ambassadors and cut into pieces). As a result, Vytautas was forced to postpone the coronation, and in October of the same year he suddenly fell ill and died. It is possible that the Lithuanian Grand Duke was poisoned, because a few days before his death he felt great and even went hunting. Under Vitovt, the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and its eastern border passed under Vyazma and Kaluga ...
“What angered you? Lithuania's unrest? (Alexander Pushkin)
The daring Vitovt had no sons - after a protracted strife, the son of Jagiello Kazimir, who occupied the thrones of Lithuania and Poland, ascended to power in 1440. He and his immediate descendants worked hard in Central Europe, and not without success: sometimes the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary ended up in the hands of the Jagiellons. But they completely stopped looking to the east and lost interest in Olgerd's ambitious "all-Russian" program. As you know, nature does not tolerate emptiness - the task was successfully "intercepted" by the Moscow great-grandson of Vitovt - Grand Duke Ivan III: already in 1478 he showed claims to the ancient Russian lands - Polotsk and Vitebsk. The church also helped Ivan - after all, Moscow was the residence of the all-Russian metropolitan, which means that Lithuanian adherents of Orthodoxy were also spiritually ruled from there. However, the Lithuanian princes more than once (in 1317, 1357, 1415) tried to appoint “their” metropolitan for the lands of the Grand Duchy, but in Constantinople they were not interested in dividing the influential and rich metropolis and making concessions to the Catholic king.
And now Moscow felt the strength in itself to go on a decisive offensive. Two wars take place - 1487-1494 and 1500-1503, Lithuania loses almost a third of its territory and recognizes Ivan III as the title of "sovereign of all Russia." Further - more: Vyazma, Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky lands (actually, Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky, as well as Bryansk, Starodub and Gomel) depart to Moscow. In 1514, Vasily III returned Smolensk, which for 100 years became the main fortress and “gateway” on the western border of Russia (then it was again taken by Western opponents).
Only by the third war of 1512-1522 did the Lithuanians gather fresh troops from the western regions of their state, and the forces of the opponents turned out to be equal. Moreover, the population of the eastern Lithuanian lands by that time had thoroughly cooled down to the idea of joining Moscow. Still, the gulf between public views and the rights of citizens of the Moscow and Lithuanian states was already very deep.
One of the halls of the Gediminas Tower in Vilnius
Not Muscovites, but Russians
In those cases when highly developed territories were part of Lithuania, the Grand Dukes retained their autonomy, guided by the principle: "We do not destroy the old, we do not introduce new things." So, loyal rulers from the Rurik tree (princes Drutsky, Vorotynsky, Odoevsky) for a long time retained their possessions completely. Such lands received letters-"privileges". Their inhabitants could, for example, demand a change of governor, and the sovereign undertook not to take certain actions against them: not to “join” the rights of the Orthodox Church, not to resettle local boyars, not to distribute fiefs to people from other places, not to “sue” those accepted by local courts solutions. Until the 16th century, the Slavic lands of the Grand Duchy were governed by legal norms dating back to the Russkaya Pravda, the oldest set of laws given by Yaroslav the Wise.
 Lithuanian knight. End of the 14th century |
In the northeastern part of Russia, that is, in the one that, in the end, was preserved on the map under this name, the process of “gathering lands” was longer and more difficult, but the degree of unification of the once independent principalities under the heavy hand of the Kremlin rulers was immeasurably higher. In the turbulent 16th century, “free autocracy” (the term of Ivan the Terrible) was strengthened in Moscow, the remnants of Novgorod and Pskov liberties, their own “destinies” of aristocratic families and semi-independent border principalities disappeared. All more or less noble subjects carried life-long service to the sovereign, and their attempts to defend their rights were regarded as treason. Lithuania in the XIV-XVI centuries was, rather, a federation of lands and principalities under the rule of the great princes - the descendants of Gediminas. The relationship between power and subjects was also different - the example of the social structure and state orders of Poland affected. “Aliens” for the Polish nobility, the Jagiellons, needed her support and were forced to grant more and more privileges, extending them to Lithuanian subjects as well. In addition, the descendants of Jagiello led an active foreign policy, and for this, too, it was necessary to pay for the chivalry going on campaigns.
Liberty with propination
But not only by the good will of the Grand Dukes did such a significant rise of the gentry - the Polish and Lithuanian nobility - take place. It's also about the global market. The Netherlands, England, northern Germany, entering the phase of industrial revolutions in the 16th century, needed more and more raw materials and agricultural products, which were supplied by Eastern Europe and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And with the influx of American gold and silver into Europe, the “price revolution” made the sale of grain, livestock and flax even more profitable (the purchasing power of Western customers has increased dramatically). Livonian knights, Polish and Lithuanian gentry began to turn their estates into farmsteads, oriented specifically to the production of export products. The growing income from such trade formed the basis of the power of the "tycoons" and the wealthy gentry.
The first were the princes - Rurikovichi and Gediminovichi, the largest landowners of Lithuanian and Russian origin (Radziwills, Sapiehas, Ostrozhskys, Volovichi), who had the opportunity to bring hundreds of their own servants to war and occupied the most prominent posts. In the XV century, their circle expanded due to the "simple" "boyars-gentry" who were obliged to bear military service prince. The Lithuanian statute (code of laws) of 1588 secured their broad rights accumulated over 150 years. The granted lands were declared the eternal private property of the owners, who could now freely enter the service of more noble pans, go abroad. They were forbidden to be arrested without a court decision (and the local zemstvo courts were elected by the gentry at their meetings - “sejmiks”). The owner also had the right to "propinate" - only he himself could produce beer and vodka and sell it to the peasants.
Naturally, corvee flourished in farmsteads, and with it other serf orders. The statute recognized the right of the peasants to only one possession - movable property necessary to fulfill the duties of the owner. However, the “free man”, who settled on the land of the feudal lord and lived in a new place for 10 years, could still leave, paying off a significant amount. However, the law adopted by the national diet in 1573 gave the pans the right to punish their subjects at their discretion - up to and including the death penalty. The sovereign now generally lost the right to intervene in the relationship of the estate owners and their "living property", and in Muscovite Russia, on the contrary, the state increasingly limited the judicial rights of the landlords.
 |
The state structure of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was also strikingly different from Moscow. There was no central administration apparatus similar to the Great Russian system of orders - with their numerous clerks and clerks. Zemsky podskarby (head of the state treasury - “wealth”) in Lithuania kept and spent money, but did not collect taxes. Hetmans (troop commanders) - led the gentry militia when it gathered, but the standing army of the Grand Duke in the 16th century consisted of only five thousand hired soldiers. The only permanent body was the Grand Duke's Chancellery, which conducted diplomatic correspondence and kept the archive - "Lithuanian Metrics".
In the year when the Genoese Christopher Columbus set off on his first voyage to the distant "Indian" shores, in the glorious 1492, the sovereign of Lithuania, Alexander Kazimirovich Jagiellon, finally and voluntarily embarked on the path of a "parliamentary monarchy": now he coordinated his actions with a council of pans , which consisted of three dozen bishops, governors and governors of the regions. In the absence of the prince, the Rada generally completely ruled the country, controlled land grants, expenses, and foreign policy.
Lithuanian cities were also very different from Great Russian ones. There were few of them, and they were reluctant to settle: for greater “urbanization”, the princes had to invite foreigners - Germans and Jews, who again received special privileges. But for foreigners, this was not enough. Feeling the strength of their position, they confidently sought concessions from the authorities after concessions: in the XIV-XV centuries, Vilna, Kovno, Brest, Polotsk, Lvov, Minsk, Kyiv, Vladimir-Volynsky and other cities received their own self-government - the so-called "Magdeburg law". Now the townspeople elected "radtsev" - advisers who were in charge of municipal revenues and expenditures, and two burmisters - a Catholic and an Orthodox, who judged the townspeople together with the grand duke's governor - "voit". And when handicraft workshops appeared in the cities from the 15th century, their rights were enshrined in special charters.
The origins of parliamentarism: the general Sejm
But let us return to the origins of the parliamentarism of the Lithuanian state - after all, it was its main distinguishing feature. The circumstances of the emergence of the supreme legislative body of the principality - the Valny Diet are interesting. In 1507, for the first time, he collected for the Jagiellons an emergency tax for military needs - “silver land”, and since then it has been like this: every year or two the need for a subsidy was repeated, which means that the gentry had to be collected. Gradually, other important issues also fell into the competence of the “panov-rada” (that is, the Seim) - for example, at the Vilna Seim of 1514, they decided, contrary to the princely opinion, to continue the war with Moscow, and in 1566 the deputies decided: without their approval, do not change any single law.
Unlike the representative bodies of other European countries, only the nobility always sat in the Sejm. Its members, the so-called "ambassadors", were elected by povets (judicial-administrative districts) by local "sejmiks", received from their voters - the gentry "full mots" and defended their orders. In general, almost our Duma - but only noble. By the way, it is worth comparing: in Russia there also existed at that time an irregular deliberative body - the Zemsky Sobor. However, it did not have rights even closely comparable to those enjoyed by the Lithuanian parliament (it had, in fact, only deliberative ones!), and from the 17th century it began to convene less and less, in order to take place for the last time in 1653. And no one “noticed” this - now no one even aspired to sit in the Cathedral: the Moscow service people who made it up, for the most part, lived off small estates and “sovereign salaries”, and they were not interested in thinking about the affairs of the state. It would be more reliable for them to secure the peasants on their lands ...
“Do Lithuanians speak Polish?..” (Adam Mickiewicz)
Both the Lithuanian and the Moscow political elite, grouped around their "parliaments", created, as usual, myths about their own past. In the Lithuanian chronicles there is a fantastic story about Prince Palemon, who, with five hundred gentry, fled from the tyranny of Nero to the shores of the Baltic and conquered the principalities of the Kievan state (try to compare the chronological layers!). But Russia did not lag behind either: in the writings of Ivan the Terrible, the origin of the Rurikovich was from the Roman emperor Octavian Augustus. But the Moscow “Tale of the Princes of Vladimir” calls Gedimina a completely princely groom who married the widow of his master and illegally seized power over Western Russia.
But the differences were not only in mutual accusations of "ignorance". A new series of Russian-Lithuanian wars at the beginning of the 16th century inspired Lithuanian sources to oppose their own, domestic, orders to the “cruel tyranny” of the Moscow princes. In neighboring Russia, in turn, after the disasters of the Time of Troubles, the Lithuanian (and Polish) people were looked upon exclusively as enemies, even "demons", in comparison with which even the German "Luthor" looks pretty.
So, war again. In general, Lithuania had to fight a lot: in the second half of the 15th century, the combat power of the Teutonic Order was finally broken, but a new terrible threat arose on the southern borders of the state - the Ottoman Empire and its vassal, the Crimean Khan. And, of course, the many times already mentioned confrontation with Moscow. During the famous Livonian War (1558-1583), Ivan the Terrible at first briefly captured a significant part of Lithuanian possessions, but already in 1564, Hetman Nikolai Radziwill defeated the 30,000-strong army of Peter Shuisky on the Ula River. True, the attempt to go on the offensive on the Moscow possessions failed: the Kyiv governor Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky and the headman of Chernobyl Philon Kmita attacked Chernigov, but their attack was repulsed. The struggle dragged on: there were not enough troops or money.
Lithuania had to reluctantly go for a complete, real and final unification with Poland. In 1569, on June 28, in Lublin, representatives of the gentry of the Crown of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania proclaimed the creation of a single Commonwealth (Rzecz Pospolita - literal translation Latin res publica - "common cause") with a single senate and diet; the monetary and tax systems also merged. Vilna, however, retained some autonomy: its own right, treasury, hetmans and the official "Russian" language.
Here, “by the way”, in 1572 the last Jagiellon, Sigismund II Augustus, also died; so that, logically, they decided to choose the common king of the two countries at the same Diet. The Commonwealth for centuries turned into a unique non-hereditary monarchy.
Res publica in Moscow
As part of the gentry "republic" (XVI-XVIII centuries), Lithuania at first had nothing to complain about. On the contrary, it experienced the highest economic and cultural upsurge, once again became a great force in Eastern Europe. In a troubled time for Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian army of Sigismund III besieged Smolensk, and in July 1610 defeated the army of Vasily Shuisky, after which this unfortunate king was overthrown from the throne and tonsured a monk. The boyars did not find any other way out, except to conclude an agreement with Sigismund in August and invite his son, Prince Vladislav, to the Moscow throne. Under the treaty, Russia and the Commonwealth entered into eternal peace and alliance, and the prince pledged to “not establish” Catholic churches, “do not change the old customs and ranks ... do not change” (including serfdom, of course), foreigners “in governors and in order people not to be". He did not have the right to execute, deprive of "honor" and take away property without the advice of the boyars "and all thoughtful people." All new laws were to be adopted "with the thought of the boyars and all the lands." On behalf of the new tsar "Vladislav Zhigimontovich", Polish and Lithuanian companies occupied Moscow. The whole story ended for the Polish-Lithuanian applicant, as you know, with nothing. The whirlwind of the ongoing Russian unrest swept away his claims to the throne of Eastern Russia, and soon the successful Romanovs, with their triumph, marked a further and very tough opposition to the political influence of the West (while gradually succumbing to its cultural influence).
But what if Vladislav's case "burned out"? Well, some historians believe that the agreement between the two Slavic powers at the beginning of the 17th century could have become the beginning of the appeasement of Russia. In any case, it meant a step towards the rule of law, offering an effective alternative to autocracy. However, even if the invitation of a foreign prince to the throne of Moscow could actually take place, to what extent did the principles outlined in the agreement correspond to the ideas of the Russian people about a just social order? Moscow nobles and peasants, it seems, preferred a formidable sovereign standing above all "ranks" - a guarantee against the arbitrariness of "strong people". In addition, the stubborn Catholic Sigismund categorically refused to let the prince go to Moscow, and even more so to allow him to convert to Orthodoxy.
The Short Bloom of the Speech
Having lost Moscow, the Commonwealth, however, captured a very solid “retreat”, again regaining the Chernigov-Seversky lands (they managed to recapture them in the so-called Smolensk War of 1632-1634 already from Tsar Mikhail Romanov).
As for the rest, now the country has undoubtedly become the main granary of Europe. The grain was floated down the Vistula to Gdansk, and from there along the Baltic Sea through the Øresund to France, Holland, and England. Huge herds of cattle from present Belarus and Ukraine - to Germany and Italy. The army did not lag behind the economy: the best heavy cavalry in Europe at that time, the famous "winged" hussars, shone on the battlefields.But the bloom was short-lived. Such a reduction in export duties on grain, so beneficial to landowners, simultaneously opened up access to foreign goods to the detriment of their own producers. The policy of inviting immigrants to the cities, partly destructive for the overall national perspective, continued - Germans, Jews, Poles, Armenians, who now made up the majority of residents of Ukrainian and Belarusian cities, especially large ones (for example, Lvov). The offensive of the Catholic Church led to the displacement of the Orthodox philistines from city institutions and courts; the cities became "foreign" territory for the peasants. As a result, the two main components of the state disastrously separated and alienated from each other.
On the other hand, although the "republican" system, of course, opened up wide opportunities for political and economic growth, although broad self-government protected the rights of the gentry from both the king and the peasants, although it could already be said that a kind of legal state was created in Poland , in all this there was already a destructive beginning. First of all, the gentry themselves undermined the foundations of their own prosperity. These are the only "full-fledged citizens" of their fatherland, these proud people only considered themselves "political people". Peasants and philistines, as has already been said, they despised and humiliated. But with such an attitude, the latter could hardly be ignited with a desire to defend the master's "liberties" - neither in internal troubles, nor from external enemies.
Union of Brest - not a union, but a split
After the Union of Lublin, the Polish gentry rushed in a powerful stream to the rich and then sparsely populated lands of Ukraine. There, like mushrooms, latifundia grew - Zamoisky, Zholkievsky, Kalinovsky, Konetspolsky, Pototsky, Vyshnevetsky. With their appearance, former religious tolerance became a thing of the past: the Catholic clergy followed the magnates, and in 1596 the famous Union of Brest was born - the union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches on the territory of the Commonwealth. The basis of the union was the recognition by the Orthodox of Catholic dogmas and the supreme authority of the pope, while the Orthodox Church preserved the rites and worship in Slavic languages.
The union, as expected, did not resolve religious contradictions: the clashes between those who remained faithful to Orthodoxy and the Uniates were fierce (for example, during the Vitebsk rebellion of 1623, the Uniate bishop Iosafat Kuntsevich was killed). The authorities closed Orthodox churches, and priests who refused to join the union were expelled from parishes. Such national-religious oppression eventually led to the uprising of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the actual falling away of Ukraine from the Rech. But on the other hand, the privileges of the gentry, the brilliance of its education and culture attracted Orthodox nobles: in the 16th-17th centuries, the Ukrainian and Belarusian nobility often renounced the faith of their fathers and converted to Catholicism, along with the new faith, adopting a new language and culture. In the 17th century, the Russian language and the Cyrillic alphabet went out of use in official writing, and at the beginning of the New Age, when nation-states were being formed in Europe, the Ukrainian and Belarusian national elites were polonized.
Freeman or bondage?
... And the inevitable happened: in the 17th century, the "golden liberty" of the gentry turned into a paralysis of state power. The famous principle of liberum veto - the requirement for unanimity in the adoption of laws in the Sejm - led to the fact that literally none of the "constitutions" (decrees) of the congress could come into force. Anyone who was bribed by some foreign diplomat or simply tipsy "ambassador" could disrupt the meeting. For example, in 1652, a certain Vladislav Sitsinsky demanded that the Sejm be closed, and it meekly dispersed! Later, 53 meetings of the Supreme Assembly (about 40%!) of the Commonwealth ended in this way ingloriously.
But in reality, in the economy and big politics, the total equality of the "gentlemen-brothers" simply led to the omnipotence of those who had money and influence - the magnates-"royal" who bought themselves the highest government posts, but were not controlled by the king. The possessions of such families as the already mentioned Lithuanian Radziwills, with dozens of cities and hundreds of villages, were comparable in size to modern European states, such as Belgium. The Rabbits maintained private armies that outnumbered the crown troops in terms of numbers and equipment. And at the other extreme there was a mass of that very proud, but poor nobility - “A gentry on a fence (a tiny piece of land. - Ed.) Is equal to a governor!” - which, with its arrogance, has long inspired the hatred of the lower classes, and from the "patrons" it was simply forced to endure anything. The only privilege of such a gentry could be only a ridiculous requirement that the owner-tycoon flog him only on a Persian carpet. This requirement - either as a sign of respect for the ancient freedoms, or as a mockery of them - was observed.
In any case, the pan's liberty has turned into a parody of itself. Everyone seemed to be convinced that the basis of democracy and freedom is the complete impotence of the state. Nobody wanted to strengthen the king. In the middle of the 17th century, his army numbered no more than 20 thousand soldiers, and the fleet created by Vladislav IV had to be sold due to lack of funds in the treasury. The united Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland could not "digest" the vast lands that merged into a common political space. Most of the neighboring states have long turned into centralized monarchies, and the gentry republic with its anarchist freemen without an effective central government, financial system and regular army turned out to be uncompetitive. All this, like a slow-acting poison, poisoned the Commonwealth.
 Hussar. 17th century |
In 1654, the last big war between Russia and Lithuania-Poland began. At first, the Russian regiments and Cossacks of Bogdan Khmelnitsky seized the initiative, conquering almost all of Belarus, and on July 31, 1655, Vilna solemnly entered the capital of Lithuania. Russian army led by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The patriarch blessed the sovereign to be called the "Grand Duke of Lithuania", but the Commonwealth managed to gather strength and go on the offensive. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, after the death of Khmelnitsky, a struggle broke out between supporters and opponents of Moscow, a civil war broke out - "Ruin", when two or three hetmans with different political views acted simultaneously. In 1660, the Russian armies were defeated at Polonka and Chudnov: the best forces of the Moscow cavalry were killed, and the commander-in-chief V.V. Sheremetev was completely captured. The Muscovites had to leave the newly conquered Byelorussia. The local gentry and philistines did not want to remain subjects of the Moscow tsar - the abyss between the Kremlin and Lithuanian orders was already too deep.
The difficult confrontation ended with the Andrusovo truce of 1667, according to which Left-bank Ukraine went to Moscow, while the right bank of the Dnieper (with the exception of Kyiv) remained with Poland until the end of the 18th century.
Thus, a protracted conflict ended in a draw: during the 16th-17th centuries, the two neighboring powers fought for a total of more than 60 years. In 1686, mutual exhaustion and the Turkish threat forced them to sign "Perpetual Peace". And a little earlier, in 1668, after the abdication of King Jan-Kazimir, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was even considered as a real contender for the throne of the Commonwealth. In Russia at that time, Polish clothes came into fashion at the court, translations from Polish were made, the Belarusian poet Simeon Polotsky became the teacher of the heir ...
Last August
In the 18th century, Poland-Lithuania still stretched from the Baltic to the Carpathians and from the Dnieper to the interfluve of the Vistula and Oder, numbering about 12 million people. But the weakened gentry "republic" no longer played any important role in international politics. It became a "visiting tavern" - a supply base and theater of operations for the new great powers - in the Northern War of 1700-1721 - Russia and Sweden, in the war for the "Polish inheritance" of 1733-1734 - between Russia and France, and then in Seven Years' War (1756-1763) - between Russia and Prussia. The magnate groups themselves also contributed to this, orienting themselves in the election of the king to foreign contenders.
However, the rejection by the Polish elite of everything connected with Moscow grew. "Muscovites" aroused more hatred than even "Swabians", they were perceived as "louds and rednecks." And suffered from this "unequal dispute" of the Slavs, according to Pushkin, Belarusians and Litvins. Choosing between Warsaw and Moscow, the natives of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in any case chose a foreign land and lost their homeland.
The result is well known: the Polish-Lithuanian state could not withstand the onslaught of the "three black eagles" - Prussia, Austria and Russia, and became a victim of three partitions - 1772, 1793 and 1795. The Commonwealth disappeared from the political map of Europe until 1918. After the abdication of the throne, the last king of the Commonwealth and the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Stanislav August Poniatowski, remained to live in Grodno, in fact, under house arrest. A year later, Empress Catherine II, whose favorite he had once been, died. Paul I invited the ex-king to Petersburg.
Stanislav was settled in the Marble Palace, the future Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Prince Adam Czartorysky, in the winter of 1797/98, saw him more than once in the mornings, when he, unkempt, in a dressing gown, wrote his memoirs. Here the last Grand Duke of Lithuania died on February 12, 1798. Pavel gave him a magnificent funeral, placing the coffin with the embalmed body in the church of St. Catherine. There, the emperor personally said goodbye to the deceased and put a copy of the crown of the Polish kings on his head.
However, the monarch deprived of the throne was not lucky even after his death. The coffin stood in the basement of the church for almost a century and a half, until they decided to demolish the building. Then the Soviet government offered Poland to "take away their king." In July 1938, the coffin with the remains of Stanislav Poniatowski was secretly transported from Leningrad to Poland. The exile found no place either in Krakow, where the heroes of Polish history lay, or in Warsaw. He was placed in the Church of the Holy Trinity in the Belarusian village of Volchin - where the last Polish king was born. After the war, the remains disappeared from the crypt, and their fate has haunted researchers for more than half a century.
The Moscow "autocracy", which gave rise to powerful bureaucratic structures and a huge army, turned out to be stronger than the anarchist freemen of the gentry. However, the cumbersome Russian state with its enslaved estates was not able to keep up with the European pace of economic and social development. Painful reforms were required, which Russia was never able to complete at the beginning of the 20th century. And the new little Lithuania now has to speak for itself in the 21st century.
Igor Kurukin, Doctor of Historical Sciences
In ancient times, Lithuanian tribes occupied the northern lands almost to the present Tambov. But then they merged with the Finno-Ugric and Slavic populations. Lithuanian tribes survived only in the Baltic states and Belarus. The central part of this range was occupied by the Lithuanian tribe or Lithuanians, Zhmud lived to the west, Prussians lived even further to the west. In the east of modern Belarusian lands, the Yatvags lived, and the golyad tribe was located in the Kolomna region.
From these disparate tribes, the Lithuanian prince Mindovg created a single principality. After his assassination by conspirators in 1263, the Lithuanian princes fought for power until the beginning of the 14th century. The winner in these internecine wars was Prince Gediminas (ruled 1316-1341). It was to him that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th century owed its successful policy of conquest.
The very first conquest was Black Russia. This is an area near the city of Grodno - the westernmost part of Russia. Then Gediminas subjugated Minsk, Polotsk, Vitebsk. After that, the Lithuanians penetrated into Galicia and Volhynia. But Gediminas failed to conquer Galicia. It was occupied by the Poles, and the Lithuanians settled only in eastern Volhynia and began to prepare for a campaign against Kyiv.
Black Russia on the map
At the time described, Kyiv had already lost its greatness, but Stanislav, who reigned in the city, decided to defend himself and the townspeople to the end. In 1321, he entered into battle with the army of Gediminas, but was defeated. And the victorious Lithuanians laid siege to Kyiv. The people of Kiev were forced to submit to the great Lithuanian prince on the basis of vassalage. That is, all property was left to the people of Kiev, but the Kyiv prince fell into complete submission to the winners.
After the capture of Kyiv, the Lithuanian army continued its military expansion. As a result, Russian cities up to Kursk and Chernigov were conquered. So, under Gediminas and his son Olgerd, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania arose in the 14th century. It continued its policy of conquest after the death of Gediminas, when his sons Olgerd and Keistut entered the political arena.
The brothers divided spheres of influence. Keistut settled in Zhmudi and resisted the Germans, while Olgerd pursued an aggressive policy in the Russian lands. It should be noted that Olgerd and his nephew Vitovt formally accepted Orthodoxy. Lithuanian princes married Russian princesses and united around themselves the Rurikovichs from the Turov-Pinsk land. That is, they gradually included the Russian lands in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Olgerd managed to subjugate a vast territory to the Black Sea and the Don. In 1363, the Lithuanians defeated the Tatars at the Blue Waters (Sinyukha River) and captured the western part of the steppe between the Dnieper and the mouth of the Danube. Thus, they went to the Black Sea. But Lithuania continued to be sandwiched between Orthodox Russia and Catholic Europe. The Lithuanians waged active wars with the Teutonic and Livonian Orders, and therefore Poland could become their ally.
Poland at that time was in a state of deepest crisis. She was periodically tormented by both anti-papist German orders and the Czechs who captured Krakow and the lands adjacent to it. The latter were hardly driven out by the Polish king Vladislav Loketek from the Piast dynasty. In 1370, this dynasty ceased to exist, and the Frenchman Louis of Anjou became the king of Poland. He gave the crown to his daughter Jadwiga. The Polish magnates strongly advised that she should be legally married to the Lithuanian prince Jagaila, the son of Olgerd. Thus, the Poles wanted to unite Poland with Lithuania and stop German expansion.
In 1385, Jagiello married Jadwiga and became the full ruler of Lithuania and Poland in accordance with the Union of Kreva. In 1387, the population of Lithuania officially adopted the Catholic faith. However, not everyone greeted it with enthusiasm. Those Lithuanians who linked themselves with the Russians did not want to accept Catholicism.
This was taken advantage of by the cousin of Jagiello Vitovt. He led the opposition and led the struggle for the throne of the Grand Duke. This man was looking for allies among the Lithuanians, and among the Poles, and among the Russians, and among the crusaders. The opposition was so strong that in 1392 Jagiello concluded the Ostrov agreement with Vytautas. According to him, Vitovt became the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and Jagiello appropriated the title of the Supreme Duke of Lithuania.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the XIV century on the map
Vitovt continued to conquer Russian lands and in 1395 captured Smolensk. Soon he refused to submit to Jagiello and, thanks to an alliance with the Tatars, annexed a large territory of the Wild Field to Lithuania. So the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the XIV century significantly expanded its borders. However, in 1399 military happiness turned away from Vitovt. He lost Smolensk and part of other lands. In 1401, Lithuania was so weakened that it again entered into an alliance with Poland - the Union of Vilna-Radom.
After that, Vitovt again gained serious political weight. In 1406, an official border was established between Moscow Rus and Lithuania. The Principality of Lithuania waged a successful struggle against the Teutonic Order. In 1410, the Battle of Grunwald took place, in which the crusader knights suffered a crushing defeat. AT last years During his reign, Vytautas sought to separate Lithuania from Poland again and for this purpose decided to be crowned. But this idea ended in failure.
Thus, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the XIV century became a strong state militarily and politically. It united, noticeably expanded its borders and acquired high international prestige. An important historical event was the adoption of Catholicism. This step brought Lithuania closer to Europe, but moved it away from Russia. It played a big political role in later centuries.
Alexey Starikov
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania is an Eastern European state that existed from the first half of the 13th century to 1795 on the territory of modern Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Poland (Podlasie), Latvia (1561-1569) and Estonia (1561-1569).
Since 1385, it was in a personal union with Poland, known as the Union of Krevo, and since 1569, in the Diet Union of Lublin. In the XIV-XVI centuries, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a rival of Moscow Russia in the struggle for dominance in Eastern Europe.
Here is an excerpt from Igor Kurukin's article "Great Lithuania or "alternative" Russia?", published in the magazine "Around the World" in N1 for 2007:
Chronology of the main events of history (before the formation of the Commonwealth):
IX-XII centuries - the development of feudal relations and the formation of estates on the territory of Lithuania, the formation of the state
Beginning of the XIII century - increased aggression of the German crusaders
1236 - Lithuanians defeat the Knights of the Sword at Siauliai
1260 - Lithuanian victory over the Teutons at Durba
1263 - unification of the main Lithuanian lands under the rule of Mindaugas
XIV century - a significant expansion of the territory of the principality due to new lands
1316-1341 - reign of Gediminas
1362 - Olgerd defeats the Tatars in the battle of Blue Waters (the left tributary of the Southern Bug) and occupies Podolia and Kyiv
1345-1377 years - the reign of Olgerd
1345-1382 years - the reign of Keistut
1385 - Grand Duke Jagiello
(1377-1392) concludes the Union of Krevo with Poland
1387 - the adoption of Catholicism by Lithuania
1392 - as a result of internecine struggle, Vitovt becomes the Grand Duke in Lithuania, who opposed the policy of Jagiello 1410 - the combined Lithuanian-Russian and Polish troops utterly defeat the knights of the Teutonic Order in the Battle of Grunwald
1413 - Union of Horodello, according to which the rights of the Polish gentry apply to Lithuanian Catholic nobles
1447 - the first Privilei - a code of laws. Together with Sudebnik
1468, he became the first experience of codifying law in the principality
1492 - "Privacy of the Grand Duke Alexander." First charter of gentry liberties
The end of the XV century - the formation of the general gentry Sejm. The growth of the rights and privileges of the lords
1529, 1566, 1588 - the release of three editions of the Lithuanian statute - "charter and praise", zemstvo and regional "priviley", securing the rights of the gentry
1487-1537 - intermittent wars with Russia against the background of the strengthening of the principality of Moscow. Lithuania lost Smolensk, captured by Vitovt in 1404. According to the truce of 1503, Russia regained 70 volosts and 19 cities, including Chernigov, Bryansk, Novgorod-Seversky and other Russian lands
1558-1583 - Russia's war with the Livonian Order, as well as with Sweden, Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for the Baltic states and access to the Baltic Sea, in which Lithuania was accompanied by failures
1569 - the signing of the Union of Lublin and the unification of Lithuania into one state with Poland - the Commonwealth
Map of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania showing territorial changes in different historical periods:
---
In the middle of the 13th century, Prince Mindovg (Mindaugas) united chaotic tribal unions with an iron fist. Moreover, in an effort to overcome the Teutons, he either accepted the royal crown from the Pope (Mindovg remained in history the first and only Lithuanian king), then turned to the east and sought support against the crusaders from Alexander Nevsky. As a result, the country did not recognize the Tatar yoke and quickly expanded its territory at the expense of the weakened Western Russian principalities (the lands of present-day Belarus).
A century later, Gedimin and Olgerd already had a power that absorbed Polotsk, Vitebsk, Minsk, Grodno, Brest, Turov, Volyn, Bryansk and Chernigov. In 1358, the Olgerd ambassadors even declared to the Germans: "All Russia must belong to Lithuania." In support of these words and ahead of the Muscovites, the Lithuanian prince opposed the "most" Golden Horde: in 1362 he defeated the Tatars at Blue Waters and secured ancient Kyiv for almost 200 years for Lithuania.
By no coincidence, at the same time, the Moscow princes, the descendants of Ivan Kalita, gradually began to “collect” the lands. Thus, by the middle of the 14th century, two centers had developed that claimed to unite the ancient Russian “heritage”: Moscow and Vilna, founded in 1323. The conflict could not be avoided, especially since the main tactical rivals of Moscow, the princes of Tver, were in alliance with Lithuania, and the Novgorod boyars also strove “at the arm” of the West.
Then, in 1368-1372, Olgerd, in alliance with Tver, made three campaigns against Moscow, but the forces of the rivals turned out to be approximately equal, and the matter ended with an agreement that divided the "spheres of influence". Well, since they failed to destroy each other, they had to get closer: some of the children of the pagan Olgerd converted to Orthodoxy. It was then that Dmitry offered the undecided Jagiello a dynastic union, which was not destined to take place. And not only did it not become according to the word of the prince: it became - on the contrary. As you know, Dmitry could not resist Tokhtamysh, and in 1382 the Tatars allowed Moscow "to flow and plunder." She again became a tributary of the Horde. The union with the failed father-in-law ceased to attract the Lithuanian sovereign, but rapprochement with Poland gave him not only a chance for a royal crown, but also real help in the fight against the main enemy - the Teutonic Order.
And Jagiello nevertheless married - but not to the Moscow princess, but to the Polish queen Jadwiga. Baptized according to the Catholic rite. He became the Polish king under the Christian name Vladislav. Instead of an alliance with the eastern brothers, the Kreva union of 1385 with the western brothers happened. Since that time, Lithuanian history has been firmly intertwined with Polish: the descendants of Jagiello (Jagellon) reigned in both powers for three centuries - from the 14th to the 16th. But still, they were two different states, each retaining its own political system, system of law, currency and army. As for Vladislav-Jagiello, he spent most of his reign in new possessions. The old ones were ruled by his cousin Vitovt and ruled brightly. In a natural alliance with the Poles, he defeated the Germans at Grunwald (1410), annexed the Smolensk land (1404) and the Russian principalities in the upper reaches of the Oka. A powerful Lithuanian could even put his henchmen on the throne of the Horde. Pskov and Novgorod paid him a huge “payoff”, and the Moscow prince Vasily I Dmitrievich, as if turning his father’s plans inside out, married Vitovt’s daughter and began to call his father-in-law “father”, that is, in the system of the then feudal ideas, he recognized himself as his vassal. At the pinnacle of greatness and glory, Vitovt lacked only the royal crown, which he announced at the Congress of Monarchs of Central and Eastern Europe in 1429 in Lutsk in the presence of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Sigismund I, the Polish King Jagiello, the princes of Tver and Ryazan, the Moldavian ruler, Embassies of Denmark, Byzantium and the Pope. In the autumn of 1430, Prince Vasily II of Moscow, Metropolitan Photius, princes of Tver, Ryazan, Odoev and Mazovia, the Moldavian ruler, the Livonian master, and ambassadors of the Byzantine emperor gathered for the coronation in Vilna. But the Poles refused to let the embassy pass, which was carrying royal regalia from Rome to Vitovt (in the Lithuanian “Chronicle of Bykhovets” it is even said that the crown was taken from the ambassadors and cut into pieces). As a result, Vytautas was forced to postpone the coronation, and in October of the same year he suddenly fell ill and died. It is possible that the Lithuanian Grand Duke was poisoned, because a few days before his death he felt great and even went hunting. Under Vitovt, the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and its eastern border passed under Vyazma and Kaluga ...
In those cases when highly developed territories were part of Lithuania, the Grand Dukes retained their autonomy, guided by the principle: "We do not destroy the old, we do not introduce new things." So, loyal rulers from the Rurik tree (princes Drutsky, Vorotynsky, Odoevsky) for a long time retained their possessions completely. Such lands received letters-"privileges". Their inhabitants could, for example, demand a change of governor, and the sovereign undertook not to take certain actions against them: not to “join” the rights of the Orthodox Church, not to resettle local boyars, not to distribute fiefs to people from other places, not to “sue” those accepted by local courts solutions. Until the 16th century, the Slavic lands of the Grand Duchy were governed by legal norms dating back to the Russkaya Pravda, the oldest set of laws given by Yaroslav the Wise.
The multi-ethnic composition of the state was then reflected even in its name - "The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia", and Russian was considered the official language of the principality ... but - not the Moscow language (rather, Old Belarusian or Old Ukrainian - there was no big difference between them until the beginning of the 17th century ). It drafted laws and acts of the State Chancellery. Sources of the 15th-16th centuries testify: the Eastern Slavs within the borders of Poland and Lithuania considered themselves the “Russian” people, “Russians” or “Rusyns”, while, we repeat, they did not identify themselves with the “Muscovites”.
In the northeastern part of Russia, that is, in the one that, in the end, was preserved on the map under this name, the process of “gathering lands” was longer and more difficult, but the degree of unification of the once independent principalities under the heavy hand of the Kremlin rulers was immeasurably higher. In the turbulent 16th century, “free autocracy” (the term of Ivan the Terrible) was strengthened in Moscow, the remnants of Novgorod and Pskov liberties, their own “destinies” of aristocratic families and semi-independent border principalities disappeared. All more or less noble subjects carried life-long service to the sovereign, and their attempts to defend their rights were regarded as treason. Lithuania in the XIV-XVI centuries was, rather, a federation of lands and principalities under the rule of the great princes - the descendants of Gediminas. The relationship between power and subjects was also different - the example of the social structure and state orders of Poland affected. “Aliens” for the Polish nobility, the Jagiellons, needed her support and were forced to grant more and more privileges, extending them to Lithuanian subjects as well. In addition, the descendants of Jagiello led an active foreign policy, and for this, too, it was necessary to pay for the chivalry going on campaigns.
After the Union of Lublin, according to which in 1569 Poland and Lithuania were united into one state - the Salted Rech, the Polish gentry rushed in a powerful stream to the rich and then sparsely populated lands of Ukraine. There, latifundia grew like mushrooms - Zamoisky, Zholkievsky, Kalinovsky, Konetspolsky, Pototsky, Vyshnevetsky. With their appearance, former religious tolerance became a thing of the past: the Catholic clergy followed the magnates, and in 1596 the famous Brest Union was born - the union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches on the territory of the Commonwealth. The basis of the union was the recognition by the Orthodox of Catholic dogmas and the supreme authority of the pope, while the Orthodox Church preserved the rites and worship in Slavic languages.
The union, as expected, did not resolve religious contradictions: the clashes between those who remained faithful to Orthodoxy and the Uniates were fierce (for example, during the Vitebsk rebellion of 1623, the Uniate bishop Iosafat Kuntsevich was killed). The authorities closed Orthodox churches, and priests who refused to join the union were expelled from parishes. Such national-religious oppression eventually led to the uprising of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the actual falling away of Ukraine from the Rech. But on the other hand, the privileges of the gentry, the brilliance of its education and culture attracted Orthodox nobles: in the 16th-17th centuries, the Ukrainian and Belarusian nobility often renounced the faith of their fathers and converted to Catholicism, along with the new faith, adopting a new language and culture. In the 17th century, the Russian language and the Cyrillic alphabet went out of use in official writing, and at the beginning of the New Age, when nation-states were being formed in Europe, the Ukrainian and Belarusian national elites were polonized.
Freeman or bondage?
... And the inevitable happened: in the 17th century, the "golden liberty" of the gentry turned into a paralysis of state power. The famous principle of liberum veto - the requirement for unanimity in the adoption of laws in the Sejm - led to the fact that literally none of the "constitutions" (decrees) of the congress could enter into force. Anyone who was bribed by some foreign diplomat or simply tipsy "ambassador" could disrupt the meeting. For example, in 1652, a certain Vladislav Sitsinsky demanded that the Sejm be closed, and it meekly dispersed! Later, 53 meetings of the Supreme Assembly (about 40%!) of the Commonwealth ended in this way ingloriously.
But in reality, in the economy and big politics, the total equality of the “gentlemen-brothers” simply led to the omnipotence of those who had money and influence, the magnates-“kidlings”, who bought themselves the highest government posts, but were not controlled by the king. The possessions of such families as the already mentioned Lithuanian Radziwills, with dozens of cities and hundreds of villages, were comparable in size to modern European states, such as Belgium. The Rabbits maintained private armies that outnumbered the crown troops in terms of numbers and equipment. And at the other extreme there was a mass of that very proud, but poor nobility - “A gentry on a fence (a tiny piece of land. - Ed.) Is equal to a governor!” - which, with its arrogance, has long inspired the hatred of the lower classes, and from the "patrons" was simply forced to endure anything. The only privilege of such a gentry could be only a ridiculous requirement that the owner-tycoon flog him only on a Persian carpet. This requirement - either as a sign of respect for the ancient freedoms, or as a mockery of them - was observed.
In any case, the pan's liberty has turned into a parody of itself. Everyone seemed to be convinced that the basis of democracy and freedom is the complete impotence of the state. Nobody wanted to strengthen the king. In the middle of the 17th century, his army numbered no more than 20 thousand soldiers, and the fleet created by Vladislav IV had to be sold due to lack of funds in the treasury. The united Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland could not "digest" the vast lands that merged into a common political space. Most of the neighboring states have long turned into centralized monarchies, and the gentry republic with its anarchist freemen without an effective central government, financial system and regular army turned out to be uncompetitive. All this, like a slow-acting poison, poisoned the Commonwealth.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania - a state in Eastern Europe, existed from the first half of the 13th century to 1795 on the territory of modern Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Poland (Podlasie), Latvia (1561-1569) and Estonia (1561-1569) .
What a misfortune and "such a scar" to all admirers of Kievan Rus, from which the world came - Kyiv itself was part of this very Lithuanian principality.
Look at the map - here is the Moscow (also Grand) Principality the size of Moldova (it is also on the map). Now Lithuania is a small state, and in fact, in those distant times, there was no Lithuania at all. Lithuania and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are not at all the same, although, of course, modern Lithuania is located on the territory that the mentioned principality occupied, but only a small part of it.
In the period from 1250 to 1350, the tribes that inhabited the Baltic territories entered the stage of decomposition of the tribal system. There was no mass unification between the tribes, so the state as such did not exist either. But feudal relations were already in the making. They were born under the influence of the same West - at the end of the XII century, the Germans climbed into the Baltic states with their crosses, swords and a new, Christian faith. The Baltics desperately resisted, which accelerated the emergence of a control center, i.e. the state.
Relations with Russia and other neighbors
Relations with Russia were traditionally peaceful, good neighborly. The Baltic states have been associated with Russia since ancient times. The truth is not entirely clear, but there is evidence that the Baltic tribes paid tribute to Russia since the time of Igor the Old. For what they paid - did not find out. Maybe for the protection of the borders?! In the XI-XII centuries, the entire basin of the Western Dvina, from the sea to the upper reaches, was under the control of the Polotsk princes. Relations were especially close with Novgorod and Polotsk, which probably even participated in the resistance to the expansion of the Western powers into the Baltic states.