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Lithuania is a country in Europe.
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Lithuania can also refer to:
Lithuania is a country in Europe.
Lithuania can also refer to:
The history of Lithuania dates back to settlements founded about 10,000 years ago, but the first written record of the name for the country dates back to 1009 AD. Lithuanians, one of the Baltic peoples, later conquered neighboring lands and established the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 13th century. The Grand Duchy was a successful and lasting warrior state. It remained fiercely independent and was one of the last areas of Europe to adopt Christianity. A formidable power, it became the largest state in Europe in the 15th century spread from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, through the conquest of large groups of East Slavs who resided in Ruthenia. In 1385, the Grand Duchy formed a dynastic union with Poland through the Union of Krewo. Later, the Union of Lublin (1569) created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Second Northern War, the Grand Duchy sought protection under the Swedish Empire through the Union of Kėdainiai in 1655. However, it soon returned to being a part of the Polish–Lithuanian state, which persisted until 1795 when the last of the Partitions of Poland erased both independent Lithuania and Poland from the political map. After the dissolution, Lithuanians lived under the rule of the Russian Empire until the 20th century, although there were several major rebellions, especially in 1830–1831 and 1863.
Casimir IV was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1440 and King of Poland from 1447 until his death in 1492. He was one of the most active Polish-Lithuanian rulers; under him, Poland defeated the Teutonic Knights in the Thirteen Years' War and recovered Pomerania.
A grand duchy is a country or territory whose official head of state or ruler is a monarch bearing the title of grand duke or grand duchess.
Brest, formerly Brest-Litovsk and Brest-on-the-Bug, is a city in Belarus at the border with Poland opposite the Polish town of Terespol, where the Bug and Mukhavets rivers meet, making it a border town. It serves as the administrative center of Brest Region and Brest District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2024, it has a population of 344,470.
Poland is a country in Central Europe.
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, or simply Poland–Lithuania, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch in real union, who was both King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. It was one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th- to 17th-century Europe. At its largest territorial extent, in the early 17th century, the Commonwealth covered almost 1,000,000 km2 (400,000 sq mi) and as of 1618 sustained a multi-ethnic population of almost 12 million. Polish and Latin were the two co-official languages, and Roman Catholicism served as the state religion.
The Duchy of Warsaw, also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. It initially comprised the ethnically Polish lands ceded to France by Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit, and was augmented in 1809 with territory ceded by Austria in the Treaty of Schönbrunn. It was the first attempt to re-establish Poland as a sovereign state after the 18th-century partitions and covered the central and southeastern parts of present-day Poland.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 partitions of Poland–Lithuania. The state was founded by Lithuanians, who were at the time a polytheistic nation of several united Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija, which by 1440, became the largest European state controlling an area from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.
The Crown of the Kingdom of Poland was a political and legal idea formed in the 14th century, assuming unity, indivisibility and continuity of the state. According to this concept, the state ceased to be the patrimonial property of the monarch or dynasty, but became a common good of the political community of the kingdom. Such an idea allowed the state to function even in periods of interregnum and led to the formation of a system characteristic of Poland based on the parliamentarism of the nobility and the free election of the ruler. At the same time, the idea of the crown went beyond existing political boundaries; lands lost in the past were considered to belong to it.
The Nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania or Greater Lithuanian szlachta was historically a legally privileged hereditary elite class in the Kingdom of Lithuania, Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth consisting of Lithuanians from Lithuania Proper; Samogitians from Duchy of Samogitia; following Lithuania's eastward expansion into what is now Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, many ethnically Ruthenian noble families (boyars); and, later on, predominantly Baltic German families from the Duchy of Livonia and Inflanty Voivodeship. It traced its origins via Palemonids to Polemon II of Pontus.
The Pact of Vilnius and Radom was a set of three acts passed in Vilnius, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and confirmed by the Crown Council in Radom, Kingdom of Poland in 1401. The union amended the earlier act of the Union of Krewo (1385) and confirmed the Ostrów Agreement (1392). Vytautas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, became fully in charge of the Lithuanian affairs, while Władysław II Jagiełło, King of Poland, reserved the rights of an overlord. After the death of Vytautas, Lithuania was to be ruled by Władysław II Jagiełło or his legal heir. The union is generally seen as strengthening of the Polish–Lithuanian union.
The Kiev Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from 1471 until 1569 and of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland from 1569 until 1793, as part of Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown. On some maps Kiev Voivodeship was also named as the Lower Volhynia.
Subdivisions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth evolved over for centuries of its existence from the signing of the Union of Lublin to the third partition.
Lithuania proper refers to a region that existed within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania where the Lithuanian language was spoken. The primary meaning is identical to the Duchy of Lithuania, a land around which the Grand Duchy of Lithuania evolved. The territory can be traced by Catholic Christian parishes established in pagan Baltic lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania subsequent to the Christianization of Lithuania in 1387. Lithuania proper was always distinguished from the Ruthenian lands since the Lithuanians differed from the Ruthenians in their language and faith. The term in Latin was widely used during the Middle Ages and can be found in numerous historical maps until World War I.
The Kingdom of Lithuania was a sovereign state that existed from the 17 July 1251 until the death of the first crowned king of Lithuania, Mindaugas, on 12 September 1263. Mindaugas was the only Lithuanian monarch crowned king with the assent of the Pope and the head of the first catholic Lithuanian state. The formation of the kingdom is widely regarded as a partially successful attempt at unifying all surrounding Baltic tribes, including the Old Prussians, into a single unified state under a common king.
The Duchy of Lithuania was a state-territorial formation of ethnic Lithuanians that existed from the 13th century to 1413. For most of its existence, it was a constituent part and a nucleus of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Other alternative names of the territorial formation, used in different periods, were Aukštaitija or Land of Lithuania, Duchy of Vilnius, Lithuania proper, or simply Lithuania.
The Union of Lublin was signed on 1 July 1569 in Lublin, Poland, and created a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest countries in Europe at the time. It replaced the personal union of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, as Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was largely abandoned. The Duchy of Livonia, tied to Lithuania in real union since the Union of Grodno (1566), became a Polish–Lithuanian condominium.
The Christianization of Lithuania occurred in 1387, initiated by King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila and his cousin Vytautas the Great. It signified the official adoption of Christianity by Lithuania, the last pagan country in Europe. This event ended one of the most complicated and lengthiest processes of Christianization in European history.
The Mongol invasions of Lithuania was an event where the Mongol armies invaded the territories of the Kingdom of Lithuania and later, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, on several occasions in late 13th and early 14th century. The event is not very well documented. In due course, however, the Lithuanians were able to take control of a number of former Mongol territories, expand their influence in Eastern Europe, and contribute to the liberation of neighbouring peoples.