The Principality of Lithuania was initially Lithuanian-Russian in composition with a predominance of Russians and could become a powerful Orthodox state. It is unknown what would have happened to the Principality of Moscow if the Lithuanian princes had not turned to the West, towards Poland.

Zhemgola, Zhmud, Prussians and others

Lithuanian tribes, close to the Slavs, judging by both language studies and analysis of beliefs, lived quite calmly and carelessly on the Baltic coast between the Western Dvina and the Vistula. They were divided into tribes: on the right bank of the Dvina lived the Letgola tribe, on the left - the Zhemgola, on the peninsula between the mouth of the Neman and the Gulf of Riga - the Korsi, between the mouths of the Neman and the Vistula - the Prussians, in the Neman basin - the Zhmud in the upper reaches, and Lithuania itself - on average, plus the most dense of the listed Yotvingians on Narva. Cities in these territories did not exist until the 13th century, when the city of Voruta among the Lithuanians and Tveremet among Zhmudi were first noted in the chronicle, and historians tend to attribute the formation of the beginnings of the state to the 14th century.

German knights

Young and aggressive Europeans, mainly Germans, as well as Swedes and Danes, naturally could not help but begin colonizing the eastern Baltic Sea. So the Swedes took the lands of the Finns, the Danes built Revel in Estland, and the Germans went to the Lithuanians. At first they only traded and preached. The Lithuanians did not refuse to be baptized, but then they plunged into the Dvina and “washed away” the baptism from themselves, sending it back to the Germans by water. The Pope then sent the crusaders there, led by Bishop Albert, the first bishop of Livonia, who in 1200 founded Riga, the Order of the Swordsmen, fortunately there were plenty of knights in those days, and conquered and colonized the surrounding lands. Thirty years later, another order, the Teutonic Order, was located nearby, in the possessions of the Polish prince Konrad of Mazovia, which was driven out of Palestine by the Muslims. They were called upon to defend Poland from the Prussians, who constantly robbed the Poles. The knights conquered all Prussian lands in fifty years and a state was founded there in fief subordination from the Emperor of Germany.

The first reliable reign

But the Lithuanians did not submit to the Germans. They began to unite in large groups and build alliances, in particular, with the Polotsk princes. Considering that the Russian western lands were weak at that time, the passionate Lithuanians, who were called into service by one or the other prince, acquired primitive management skills, and began to seize first the Polotsk land, then the lands of Novgorod, Smolensk, and Kyiv. The first reliable reign was that of Mindaugas, the son of Romgold, who created a principality of Russians and Lithuanians. However, it was impossible to turn around too much, since in the South there was a strong Galician principality led by Daniel, and on the other side the Livonian Order was not asleep. Mindovg ceded the occupied Russian lands to Daniil's son Roman, but formally retained power over them and consolidated this matter by marrying his daughter to Daniil's son Shvarna. The Livonian Order recognized Mindaugas when he was baptized. As a sign of gratitude, he handed over to the Germans letters of approval for Lithuanian lands, which he did not own.

Founder of the dynasty

After the death of Mindaugas, as one would expect, various civil strife began in the principality, which lasted half a century, until in 1316 the princely throne was occupied by Gedimin, the founder of the Gedimin dynasty. Over the previous years, Daniil and other Russian princes had great influence in Lithuania and transferred a lot there in terms of urban planning, cultural and military. Gediminas was married to a Russian and, in general, pursued a Lithuanian-Russian policy, understanding that this was necessary for the construction of the state. But he subjugated Polotsk, Kyiv, and partly Volyn. He himself sat in Vilna, and two-thirds of his state were Russian lands. The sons of Gediminas Olgerd and Keistut turned out to be friendly guys - one sat in Vilna, and was engaged in north-eastern Russia, and Keistut lived in Troki, and acted against the Germans.

Jagiello - apostate

Befitting the sound of his name, Prince Jagiello turned out to be the unworthy son of Olgerd; he agreed with the Germans to destroy his uncle Keistut. That Jagiello won, but did not kill his nephew, and in vain, because at the first opportunity Jagiello strangled his uncle, but his son Vytautas was able to hide with the Teutonic knights, however, he later returned and settled on small lands. The Poles began to approach Jagiello with a proposal to marry him to Queen Jadwiga. She was recognized as queen after the death of the Hungarian King Louis, who ruled according to the dynastic principle in Poland. The lords argued and fought for a long time about who Jadwiga should take as a husband, and Jagiello was very suitable: the disputes over Volyn and Galich would stop, Poland would strengthen itself against the Germans who captured the Polish seaside, and would drive the Hungarians out of Galich and Lvov. Jagiello, baptized into Orthodoxy, was very happy at the offer, was baptized into Catholicism and baptized Lithuania. In 1386, the marriage was concluded and Jagiello received the name Vladislav. He destroyed pagan temples, etc., helped remove the Hungarians and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Teutonic Order at Grunwald. But, as Russian historian Sergei Platonov notes, the union “introduced the seeds of internal hostility and decay into Lithuania,” since the preconditions were created for the oppression of Orthodox Russians.

Vytautas - collector of lands

The son of the murdered Keistut, Vytautas, as soon as Jagiello left for Poland, with the help of appanage princes, began to rule in Poland (1392), and with such support that he achieved complete personal independence from King Vladislav, the former Jagiello. Under Vytautas, Lithuania expanded from the Baltic to the Black Sea and advanced deeply to the East at the expense of the Smolensk Principality. Vasily I was married to Vytautas's only daughter Sophia, and the left tributary of the Oka Utra was designated as the border between Moscow and Lithuanian lands. Some historians believe that this powerful eastern policy, which could lead to the creation of a huge Lithuanian-Russian state, was promoted by the Orthodox princes of Lithuania, but was sharply opposed by the Poles and the new Polized Lithuanian nobility, which received all the privileges of the gentry and lords. Vytautas even began to apply for a royal title to the Emperor of Germany in order to become independent from Poland, but died (1430) in the midst of this process.

Full union

For more than 100 years, the union was largely formal. This, as in the case of Vytautas, could have the most dire consequences for Poland, so it was decided to always elect one person as both prince and king. Thus, the union conceived in 1386 was implemented only at the beginning of the 16th century. Polish influence in Lithuania began to grow after this. Previously, local princes could rule in their lands without Catholic and Polish dictates, now the Grand Duke subjugated them, the Roman faith became suppressive and oppressive towards the Orthodox. Many converted to Catholicism, others tried to fight, moved to Moscow, which, thanks to this situation, was able to squeeze Lithuania. In the internal politics of the principality, the Polish order was finally established, first of all, the gentry with its enormous rights in relation to the king and peasants. This process naturally ended in 1569 with the Union of Lublin and the formation of another state - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

“1st [walker]: And what is this, my brother?
2nd: And this is Lithuanian ruin. Battle - see? How ours fought with Lithuania.
1st: What is this - Lithuania?
2nd: So it is Lithuania.
1st: And they say, my brother, it fell on us from the sky.
2nd: I don’t know how to tell you. From the sky, from the sky."

This quote from Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm,” written in 1859, perfectly characterizes the image of Russia’s western neighbors that has developed in the minds of its inhabitants. Lithuania is both the Baltic people, and the territory of their residence, and, in a broad sense, the state they created and its inhabitants. Despite the centuries-long proximity of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to Russian lands, and then to Russia, we will not find its detailed image either in the mass consciousness, or in school textbooks, or in scientific works. Moreover, this situation is typical not only for the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, when the silence about the Grand Duchy or the creation of its negative image was due to political circumstances, but also for our days, when previous restrictions have been lifted, the volume of scientific knowledge is constantly increasing due to the development national historiographies and improvement of research techniques, and communication problems are successfully overcome. Russian science and public consciousness are characterized by certain images. Negative - that is, Lithuania as an invader of Russian lands who seeks to “spoil” them by converting to Catholicism, and at the same time a weak and unviable state, torn apart by internal contradictions and doomed to an alliance with Poland until complete dissolution in it. Or a positive image - “another Rus'”, which has chosen the “democratic” path, in contrast to Russia. But in any case, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania appears on the pages of textbooks, journalism, even scientific literature sporadically, from time to time, like a god from the machine of ancient river tragedies. What kind of state was this?

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania is often seen as an alternative path for the development of Rus'. In many ways, this is so, because these were lands, on the one hand, quite close culturally, inhabited by the Eastern Slavs - even though the historical fates of the Eastern Slavs of the future Russia, Great Russia and the population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, whose descendants later became Ukrainians and Belarusians, and even then they diverged quite significantly.

On the other hand, this is a fundamentally different model of social relationships, a different political culture. And this created a certain situation of choice. This is very clearly visible from the events of the era of the Moscow-Lithuanian wars, especially the 16th century, when defectors from the Moscow state, from Russia, were sent precisely to the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania or the Polish Crown, which was in a union with it.

Now we still need to figure out where the Grand Duchy of Lithuania came from as a powerful neighbor, a rival of Russia and at the same time a source of various influences.

Contacts between Rus' and Lithuania took place back in the 11th century, when Yaroslav the Wise made campaigns in the Baltic states. By the way, at the same time the city of Yuryev was founded, named after the patron saint of this prince - the later Dorpat, now Tartu in Estonia. Then the matter was limited to the irregular collection of tribute. By this time, the prerequisites for the formation of the Lithuanian state may have already existed. And the proximity to rich, but weakened Russia, divided into many principalities, helped to realize them.

If at first the Lithuanians took part in the civil strife of the Russian princes, then later, in the second half of the 12th - early 13th centuries, they moved on to their own predatory campaigns against Rus'; they can be compared with the famous campaigns of the Vikings or the Russian campaigns against Byzantium. Lithuanians are often called “vikin-gami sushi”.

This contributed to the accumulation of wealth, property stratification, which was followed by social, and the gradual formation of the power of one prince, who would later be called the Grand Duke in Russian sources.

Back in 1219, a group of 21 Lithuanian princes concluded an agreement with the Volyn princes. And after two decades, one of them, Mindovg, began to rule alone. In 1238, the author of “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land” recalled with nostalgia those times when “Lithuania did not emerge from the swamp into the light.” And by the way, here he quite accurately described the area of ​​​​settlement of the Lithuanians: these are really marshy lands.

The scope of the Lithuanian campaigns is clearly evidenced by a passage in the work of the Franciscan John of Plano Carpini, or Giovanni del Piano Carpini, who in the 40s of the 13th century went to the Mongol Khan Guyuk in Karakorum. Here is what he writes about traveling through the lands of Southern Rus': “... we were constantly traveling in mortal danger because of the Lithuanians, who often and secretly, as far as they could, raided the land of Russia and especially in those places through which we traveled. the women were passing by; and since most of the people of Russia were killed by the Tatars or taken captive, they therefore could not offer them strong resistance...” Around the same time, in the first half or mid-13th century, Mindaugas found themselves under the rule of Lithuania Russian lands with cities such as Novgorodok (modern Novogrudok), Slonim and Volko-vysk.

The Baltic peoples and in particular the Lithuanians remained the last pagans of Europe. And already during the reign of Mindaugas, in the first half of the 13th century, this problem became obvious. Mindaugas made a Western choice: in order to fight with his relatives for autocracy in Lithuania and at the same time resist Rus', he was baptized in the Catholic rite in 1251. Two years later he was crowned - thus becoming the first and remains the only king of Lithuania. But in the early 1260s, apparently, he returned to paganism for political reasons and expelled or killed Christians. Thus, Lithuania remained pagan. Paganism left a fairly deep mark on Lithuania, so that the next attempt at Christianization, already more successful, was made only at the end of the 14th century. In 1263, the first Lithuanian king was killed by conspirators.

So, Mindovg died, but the Lithuanian state that arose under him did not disappear, but survived. And moreover, it continued to develop and continued to expand its limits. According to scientists, around the turn of the 13th-14th centuries, a new dynasty was established, which, after one of its representatives who reigned in the first half of the 14th century, Prince Gedimin, received the name Gediminovich. And under the first princes of this dynasty, under the same Gediminas in particular, the lands of modern Belarus - Polotsk, Vitebsk, Mensk (that is, in modern terms, Minsk) became part of the Lithuanian state. Apparently, Kyiv also fell into the orbit of Lithuanian influence to one degree or another, already by 1331. Well, in 1340, the dynasty of Galician-Volyn princes was cut short in the female line, this marked the beginning of many decades of struggle between Lithuania, Poland and Hungary for the Galician-Volyn inheritance.

The acquisitions were continued by the sons of Gediminas; first of all, Olgerd and his brother Keistut acted in Rus'. And these acquisitions were concentrated mainly in the Chernigov-Seversk and Smolensk lands.

How did Russian lands fall under the rule of Lithuanian princes? This is a pressing question, since one often has to deal with diametrically opposed points of view, but it is not very clear how this happened. Some insist on the aggressive nature of the annexation, others on the voluntary and bloodless one.

Both seem to be serious simplifications. It’s worth starting with the fact that the sources that have survived to this day simply did not convey to us the details of the entry of many Russian lands into the Lithuanian state; one can only state that this or that part of Rus' at one time or another submitted to the authority of the Lithuanian prince. The military campaigns of the Lithuanians did not stop and acted as a means, if not of direct conquest, then at least of putting pressure on Russian lands. For example, according to later sources, Vitebsk was obtained by Olgerd thanks to his marriage to the daughter of the last local prince around 1320. But in previous decades, Lithuanian troops passed through this region several times.

A very interesting document has been preserved - a complaint from the residents of Riga, the Riga authorities, to the Vitebsk prince of the late 13th century. It mentions an entire military camp of Lithuanians near Vitebsk, from which they went to the capital city of the principality to sell captive slaves. What kind of voluntary accession can we talk about if we see a whole military camp of armed people, whose detachments are operating on the territory of the principality?

There were, of course, direct conquests. Perhaps the most striking example, described in detail in the sources, is Smolensk, which was conquered and annexed to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for more than a century as a result of several campaigns of the late XIV - early XV centuries.

Here we can return to the question that was already touched upon at the beginning of the lecture: what was the alternative of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in relation to Muscovite Rus' as the center of the unification of Russian lands? This is very clearly seen in the example of the social system of those Russian lands that became part of the Grand Duchy.

Local boyars and townspeople (even in conquered Smolensk) and the Orthodox Church retained their influence and their property. It is known that veche meetings were still convened in Polotsk and Smolensk. In many large centers, princely tables were preserved. Even if Gediminovich sat down to reign, in most cases such princes accepted Orthodoxy and became in many ways one of their own, close to the local society.

The Lithuanian princes entered into agreements with some of the annexed lands, which later formed the basis of regional privileges (the oldest of them were Polotsk and Vitebsk). But, on the other hand, already at a fairly early stage in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Western influence manifested itself. Since it was such a large, border, contact zone between the Russian lands on the one hand and Latin Catholic Europe, this could not help but have an effect. And if we also remember that throughout the 14th century, the Lithuanian princes were constantly faced with a choice and repeatedly thought about and negotiated about baptism - according to the Western rite or the Eastern rite, then it becomes clear that these influences, this uniqueness should have made itself felt back in the 14th century.

In the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in a difficult foreign policy situation, because its history was far from being limited to expansion into Russian lands and relations with neighboring Russian lands and the Horde. A huge problem for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the first decade of its existence was the war with the Teutonic, or German, order, which settled in Prussia and Livonia, that is, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, and was called upon to bring Christianity Western rite to pagans and “infidels,” including “schismatics,” that is, schismatics, apostates—that’s how the Orthodox were called.

For more than a century, the troops of the order almost every year made one or several devastating campaigns against Lithuania in order to undermine its strength. And of course, the fact that a significant part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania consisted of Russian lands played into their hands. The crusading knights could always claim the connivance of the Lithuanian princes with these same schismatics. Moreover, some princes Gediminovich themselves converted to Orthodoxy.

This was a problem. It was necessary to decide, to choose the vector of foreign policy development. And this choice - perhaps they didn’t think about it then - determined the fate of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for many years, decades and centuries to come.

Lithuania was destined to be baptized - but by what rite? Western or Eastern? This question has been raised, one might say, since the time of Mindaugas, and in the 14th century attempts at negotiations were made several times. We know most about the negotiations of the Lithuanian princes with Western political forces - with emperors, popes, Polish, Mazovian rulers about baptism into Catholicism. But there was one moment when it seemed that the prospect of Orthodox baptism in Lithuania was quite realistic. This is the end of the 14th century, when after the death of Olgerd there was an internecine struggle in Lithuania and Grand Duke Jagiello tried to conclude an alliance with Dmitry Donskoy. There is a mention of the project of marriage between Jagiello and the daughter of Dmitry Donskoy. But they abandoned it soon enough. Because, on the one hand, the Grand Duke of Lithuania would find himself on the sidelines, and on the other, he received a much more lucrative offer - the hand of the Polish princess Jadwiga, which made him the Polish king.

Here it must be said that this moment, the end of the 14th century, is important in one more respect: very often you can hear that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was an alternative to Moscow in the matter of unifying or gathering Russian lands, that the Russian lands could well have united around Vilna. But the question arises: when could this happen? And the failed marriage of Jagiello and the daughter of Dmitry Donskoy seems to be the most successful moment when such a union could occur.

The period of the end of the 14th and the first third - the first half of the 15th century became an important, turning point in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This affected both his relationships with his neighbors and his internal life.

By the end of the 14th century, Vytautas, a cousin of Jogaila, became the Grand Duke of Lithuania, who was baptized, became the Polish king Vladislav II and retained the title of Supreme Prince of Lithuania. But real power in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania still belonged to Vytautas. Under him, many important changes took place - both in the foreign policy relations of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and in its internal life.

Vytautas managed to annex Smolensk, and for more than a century it came under the rule of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Thanks to Polish help, he managed to defeat the Teutonic Order (the famous Battle of Grunwald in 1410). Thanks to this, it was ultimately possible to secure the lands disputed with the order - Samogitia, Zhemoyt - to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. These are the next attempts at expansion to the east: Vytautas is fighting with Vasily I of Moscow, although Vasily I was his son-in-law and was married to his daughter Sophia; subsequently he made campaigns against Pskov and Novgorod in the 20s of the 15th century. But no less important are the social changes that took place in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And they led in the direction of increasing Westernization of this state and its society.

Perhaps the most important innovation of Vytautas was that he began to distribute land for service to his subjects. This innovation subsequently played a cruel joke on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, because its inhabitants were no longer interested in distant, costly military campaigns - they were interested in the economic development of their possessions.

In the middle and second half of the 15th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland were ruled by the same person, Casimir Jagiellon, or Casimir IV, the Polish king. He was forced to spend time between the two states, so he could not devote much time to Lithuanian affairs. He was more involved in Western politics, wars in Prussia, in the Czech Republic - and it was precisely this time that became the turning point that subsequently allowed the Moscow Grand Dukes to launch a very active attack on the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. But the Grand Dukes of Lithuania were not ready for this at the end of the 15th and first half of the 16th centuries.

The Lithuanian princes began to grant privileges not only to the Lithuanian boyars, but also to the top of the Orthodox part of society. And gradually the entire boyars began to be called lords in the Polish-Czech manner, and subsequently all the nobility received the name gentry. This, of course, was a great innovation in social terms. This is not just a change of name, it is also a different self-awareness than that of the service people of, say, North-Eastern Rus'. After all, the gentry participated in governing the state, albeit nominally at first. And subsequently she actually participated in the elections of the ruler, which fundamentally distinguished the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from Muscovite Rus'. And this was largely the reason why people like Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky fled from Russia to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And, of course, not only him, but also many others. Still, there were quite a lot of Moscow emigrants in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania throughout the 16th century.

One cannot fail to note such a moment as the transformation of the Old Russian language, which also experienced more and more Western influences on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the neighboring Kingdom of Poland. It was enriched with words and constructions from Polish, Czech, German, Lithuanian, Latin, even Hungarian, and so a language was gradually formed, which scientists call differently: “Western Russian”, “Old Belarusian”, “Old Ukrainian”, “ Russian" (with one "s"), "Ruthenian". It can be called differently in different scientific traditions, this is acceptable, but the fact is that over time it became the basis of the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. And the process of their demarcation and the formation of the Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples intensified especially after the Union of Lublin in 1569, when the southern voivodeships of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - that is, the territory of modern Ukraine, which had previously been part of it - passed to the Polish crown.

Of course, the historical destinies of Western Rus' cannot but be influenced by the fact that it was under the rule of rulers of other faiths - first pagans, and then Catholics. At first, the Orthodox Church retained its influence on the Russian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. But already in the 14th century, the Lithuanian princes - in fact, like the Galician-Volyn Rurikovichs, and later the Polish king Casimir the Great - tried to create a separate metropolis under the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople, which would not be in any way connected with the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

After the conclusion of the Polish-Lithuanian union at the end of the 14th century, Catholicism found itself in a privileged position: the Catholic clergy and laity were not endowed with exclusive rights, and Catholic rulers made attempts to convert “schismatics” to Catholicism with the help of preaching, to re-baptize them forcefully or enter into a church union with Rome. But these attempts were not crowned with much success for a long time. The largest such attempt was associated with the conclusion of the Union of Florence. It was concluded, one might say, at the highest level between Constantinople, which was interested in Western assistance against the Ottoman onslaught, and Rome in 1439. At the same time, the Orthodox recognized the supremacy of the Pope and the dogma of the Catholic Church, but retained traditional rituals. In Moscow, this union was rejected, and Metropolitan Isidore was forced to leave the possessions of the Moscow princes (but he managed to maintain church authority over the Orthodox part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland).

It should be noted that at the same time, the Orthodox of the Grand Duchy had little interest in the spiritual traditions of Western Christianity and its dogmatic differences from the “Greek faith.” Even several years after the conclusion of the Union of Florence, the Orthodox Kiev prince Alexander (Olelko) Vladimirovich, a man of extraordinary influence and extraordinary connections, asked the Patriarch of Constantinople: on what conditions was the union concluded? Here it is worth recalling that Kyiv remained under the rule of Lithuanian princes in the first third of the 15th century. With all the destruction during the Mongol invasion, with all the Tatar raids at the beginning of this century, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vitovt wrote that Kyiv is the head of the Russian lands. This was largely explained by the fact that in Kyiv, at least nominally, there was a metropolitan see.

But gradually the fates of Lithuanian Orthodoxy and Orthodoxy in the rest of Rus' diverge. Because, despite Lithuanian Rus' being under the rule of the Moscow Metropolitan Jonah for some time, already in the middle of the 15th century it returned under the rule of the Patriarchs of Constantinople. This meant a split in the metropolis. Subsequently, in the life of the Orthodox part of society, the Orthodox Church in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish Crown, phenomena were observed that led to quite turbulent events at the end of the 16th and 17th centuries. It can be said that the Orthodox Church of these lands was experiencing a real crisis, since secular persons often became bishops, not at all concerned about the interests of the church, and sometimes mired in sins. Secular rulers played a big role in this, who thus rewarded those faithful to them - by granting them episcopal sees. In response, the laity united into brotherhoods, such as Vilna or Lvov, and directly appealed to Constantinople. This, of course, caused the bishops to fear that they would lose their influence.

In 1596, the Union of Brest was concluded between the Orthodox hierarchy of the Polish-Lithuanian state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Roman Curia. It meant the withdrawal of some local Orthodox Christians into direct subordination to the Roman Catholic Church - despite the fact that the main ritual differences from Catholicism were preserved and dogmatic differences were only partially smoothed out. For some time, the Orthodox hierarchy in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in the Polish Crown ceased to exist altogether. All Orthodox bishops turned out to be Uniates. It was only in 1620 that a separate hierarchy was restored. And a few years later it was recognized by the state authorities.

In the middle - second half of the 17th century, the Kiev Orthodox Metropolis defended the original image of local Orthodoxy, but as a result of the fact that Kyiv was under the rule of Moscow, it became subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate. By this time, in Corona and Lithuania, the participation of non-Catholics (called dissidents) in political life was again limited, the possibility of Orthodox Christians obtaining higher positions was reduced to zero, and Orthodoxy was in a very peculiar position, since, on the one hand, it was increasingly was identified with Russia and its religious and political culture, but at the same time, in Russia itself, even the Orthodox immigrants from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as they were called - “Belarusians”, were treated with obvious distrust by the clergy. It was prescribed to carefully find out how they received baptism, and to baptize them again through triple immersion in the font, if they had previously been baptized into Orthodoxy through pouring (that is, like Catholics). This would seem to be an external sign, but what attention was given to it during contacts of fellow believers on opposite sides of the Moscow-Lithuanian border.

The given example with the requirement to rebaptize even already baptized Orthodox Christians from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth very well shows how the relations developed between the Moscow State, or the Russian State, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and subsequently the Polish-Lithuanian State, which can be discussed since 1569 , both at the state level, and at the level of social and cultural contacts.

The eastern lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth served as a contact zone, and in the field of school education, distribution of books and information, it was the Polish-Lithuanian borderland, which is often called by the Polish word “kresy”, which means “outskirts”, which served as a transshipment area a point between Muscovite Russia and Europe. Models of higher education, and above all theological scholarship, were developed jointly by the Orthodox of Moscow and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Cyrillic printing originated in Krakow: it was there in 1491 that the Oktoich, or Osmoglasnik, was published in the printing house of the German printer Schweipolt Fiol. Of course, in no case should we forget about the activities of Francis Skaryna, who began printing liturgical books 500 years ago.

According to the English traveler Giles Fletcher, in Moscow at the end of the 16th century they remembered that the first printing house was brought to Russia from Poland. Even if this is an exaggeration, Moscow printers Ivan Fedorov and Peter Msti-slavets, who published the first dated Moscow book “The Apostle” in 1564, soon found themselves in exile precisely in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of Poland, where they continued their activities. Here it is appropriate to recall, of course, the Ostrog Bible.

The Jesuit colleges served as a model for the first theological schools of the Rusyns and Muscovites. In the 1560s, the Jesuit Order expanded its activities first in Corona and then in Lithuania. The Jesuits, one after another, opened several schools to educate “schismatics,” hoping to gradually convert the Russian population to Catholicism. It should be added here that the educational activities of the Jesuits, of course, were also connected with the Catholic reform, when the Catholic Church tried, through education, to restore the positions lost as a result of the Reformation.

And so the Jesuits, one after another, opened several schools for teaching schisms, that is, Orthodox Christians, hoping to gradually convert them to Catholicism. But their activity coincided with the flowering of the theological creativity of the Orthodox themselves, who enthusiastically accepted the educational concept of the Catholics and managed to create their own schools. Among them are the Ostrog Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy and the Mogila Academy, on the model of which the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy arose in Moscow at the end of the 17th century.

The Ostroh printing house in 1580-1581 published the first complete printed Bible, the Ostroh Bible, which until the time of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna and later the Bible Society was adopted as the basis in Russia. Focused on Latin and Greek examples, the “Grammar” of Lavrenty Zizaniy, and later Melety Smotritsky, served as the prototype and source of the “Grammar”, printed in Moscow in 1648, from which Mikhailo Lomonosov studied.

Intellectual exchange brought new ideas to Moscow. Even in the first half of the 16th century, Sebastian Munster’s “Cosmography” became famous in Moscow. In the royal archives of Ivan the Terrible, Marcin Bielski’s “Chronicle of the Whole World” was kept, which described in detail the discovery of America. In the middle of the 17th century, Jan Blau’s “Great Atlas, or Cosmography” was delivered to Russia. Where, in addition to geographical knowledge, the foundations of the heliocentric teachings of Nicolaus Copernicus were outlined.

Moscow practically did not have its own secular press either in the 16th or 17th centuries - almost all books published by Moscow printing houses were of a church-teaching nature, and books borrowed from the Russian lands of the Polish-Lithuanian state aroused suspicion and were repeatedly destroyed due to censorship. considerations.

Of course, cultural life was influenced by the political life of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish Crown, which united into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and their relationship with the Moscow state. But these relations remained far from simple, and, despite certain attempts at rapprochement, it can still be said that the states not only competed, but most of the time were openly hostile.

At that time, Lithuanian-Moscow relations had already worsened under Ivan III at the end of the 15th century. Ivan III had a fairly good idea of ​​the situation in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, its weaknesses, and already in 1478 (the year of the final annexation of Novgorod to the Moscow state) Ivan III publicly declared his claims to Polotsk, Vitebsk and Smolensk , that is, the cities of Lithuanian Rus.

Subsequently, he took advantage of the fact that the eastern lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were relatively weakly integrated into its composition; here the power of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania was weakest and relied on agreements with local princes. A whole series of Moscow-Lithuanian wars begins, which took place at the end of the 15th and first half of the 16th centuries.

Under these conditions, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was forced to increasingly seek help from Poland. For the time being, they were united only by the personality of the monarch - the same person occupied the throne of both Lithuania and Poland. But gradually the question of not just a personal or dynastic union, but a real union, which also implies the unification of state institutions, came onto the agenda. After long difficult negotiations, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania concluded such a real union in Lublin - the Lublin Union of 1569. This is how the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth arose. This word comes from the Polish version of the word "republic", that is, "common cause", res publica.

For this, the Grand Duchy paid a high price, since the Podlaskie, Kiev and Volyn voivodeships - huge territories - became part of the Polish Crown. Some government bodies were also liquidated. But at the same time, it should be noted that the Grand Duchy was far from losing its statehood and, of course, could not suddenly lose the features of its social system.

Soon the Jagiellon dynasty, descendants of Vladislav Jagiello, came to an end. Its last representative, the Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund Augustus, died in 1572. The question arose about who would be the new ruler. A series of kinglessness followed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (that is, periods when certain candidates for the throne were considered), while part of the Lithuanian gentry supported the candidacies of Ivan the Terrible and his son Feodor, hoping that this would normalize relations with Russia. It must be said that such projects have been put forward before. For example, back in the early 16th century, Vasily III, the same one who annexed Smolensk, having just ascended the throne, proposed his candidacy after the death of the next Polish-Lithuanian ruler, Alexander Jagiellon. But neither then nor in the second half of the 16th century were these projects implemented. The historical paths of Russia and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - now the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - diverged more and more. Of course, this had a special impact in the political sphere. Ultimately, the candidacy of the Transylvanian prince Stefan Batory, or Istvan Batory, won, who managed to turn the tide of the war with Russia, the Livonian War, in his favor - so that it almost ended in disaster for the Russian Tsar , since he managed to recapture Polotsk from Ivan the Terrible and organize a campaign against Pskov.

After this, relatively peaceful mutual relations were established for some time, since the Lithuanian nobility saw priority in the fight with Sweden for Livonia, and these relations worsened only at the beginning of the 17th century, during the Time of Troubles. Especially after the adventure of the first Dmitry the Pretender, which was supported by the magnates of the Kingdom of Poland - Adam and Konstantin Vishnevetsky and Jerzy, or Yuri, Mniszek.

In 1610, crown hetman Stanislav Zolkiewski even concluded an agreement with the boyars, according to which Vladislav Vaza (the future Vladislav IV), the son of the then reigning Sigismund Vasa, was proclaimed Tsar of Moscow. Interestingly, for some time coins were even minted with the name of “Russian Tsar Vladislav Zhigimontovich.” But this project was never actually implemented; Sigismund Vasa decided that Smolensk was more important and that it should be limited to this. And as a result, the Polish-Lithuanian garrison, settled in the Moscow Kremlin, became hostage to this situation. He found himself besieged, in a very difficult situation: there was simply not enough food. Very vivid and terrible evidence of this has been preserved. Ultimately, in November 1612, this garrison surrendered the Kremlin to the Second Militia; and soon Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov became king. And after some time, Vladislav IV renounced his claims to the Moscow throne.

One might say that the pendulum swung in the opposite direction in the middle of the 17th century, when the Zaporozhye Cossacks recognized the power of the Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The war between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth began, and a very significant part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, including its capital Vilna, came under the rule of the Russian Tsar for several years. The wars with Russia and Sweden in the mid-17th century and the accompanying plague epidemic brought ruin and huge human losses to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which by the end of the next century greatly facilitated the establishment of Russian domination in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Over the course of several centuries that have passed since the beginning of the rise of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, on the one hand, and the Moscow Principality, and subsequently the Russian state, on the other hand, they remained fairly close neighbors, maintained various contacts - and at the level states, dynasties, and at the societal level. But with all this, Western influence in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: the baptism of Lithuania according to the Latin rite, union with Poland, the reception of Western social orders - all this increasingly alienated the two parts of Rus' from each other. Of course, this was also facilitated by the formation of the Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples on lands subordinate to the power of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania and the Kings of Poland.

That is, mutual distrust and mutual interest, population migrations in both directions and cultural borrowings with noticeable differences in the social, political, economic system, hopes for the help of the last Orthodox ruler and loyalty to their own rulers of other faiths - all these features must be kept in mind when we talk about another Rus'.

The territorial borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were established in the second half of the 14th century. They stretched from the Baltic to the Black Seas from north to south, from the Brest region to the Smolensk region from west to east.

The creation of the state was started by the Lithuanian prince Mindaugas. Chronicle Lithuania was located on modern eastern Lithuanian and northwestern Belarusian lands. In the second half of the 40s. XIII century Mindovg became a prince in Novogrudok, where he accepted the Orthodox faith in 1246. In the late 40s - early 50s. XIII century he conquers Lithuania for himself, uniting it with Novogrudok, enters into an alliance with the Livonian Order, converts to Catholicism for diplomatic reasons and is crowned in Novogrudok. With this act, the Catholic world recognized the competence and independence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and put it on an equal footing with other European countries.

In 1264, Voishalk (1264 - 1267) became the Grand Duke, who conquered and annexed the Baltic lands of Nalshany and Devoltva to his possessions, and also united the Novogrudok, Pinsk, Polotsk and Vitebsk lands.

The basis of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania became the neighboring Baltic and East Slavic lands, because the population of both lands was interested in political unification. Feudal principalities-powers that existed on the territory of Belarus back in the 10th – 12th centuries. brought their experience of statehood, economics and culture to the new state, turning it into a Grand Duchy.

6. Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the XIV – XV centuries.

In the first half of the 14th century. The boundaries of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded and strengthened Gediminas(1316–1341). Gediminas in 1323 founded the new capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - Vilna. The power of Gediminas extended to almost all Belarusian lands.

Son of Gediminas Olgerd sought to include in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania all Russian lands that were part of Kievan Rus. A significant part of today's Smolensk, Bryansk, Kaluga, Tula, Oryol, Moscow and Tver regions became subject to him.

In the XIV century. There was a further military-political strengthening of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Grand Dukes began to be titled not only Lithuanian, but also Russian. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania became Slavic not only in terms of the official, state language, which was Old Belarusian, but also in terms of the predominance of the Slavic population.

But at the end of the 14th century. a new stage in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania began. The situation changed after the death of Olgerd and the beginning of the reign of his son Jagiello(1377 – 1392). The dynastic struggle between Jagiello, his brother Vytautas and uncle Keistut, the aggressive policy of the Order, the aggravation of relations with the Moscow principality, and the intrigues of Rome against Orthodoxy pushed Jagiello to an alliance with Poland. In 1385 it was signed Union of Krevo– Jogaila converted to Catholicism, took the name Vladislav, married Queen Jadwiga and was declared the Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania.

7. State and political system of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

In the initial period, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania consisted of appanage principalities, as well as regions in federal relations with the central government (Polotsk, Vitebsk, Smolensk, Samogit lands), and the territories of Lithuania proper with part of the Belarusian lands. The Kiev, Volyn and Podolsk lands had a special autonomous status. They were ruled by princes - governors. In the 15th century Vytautas created a new political and administrative system. The Grand Duchy included six voivodeships: Vilna, Troka, Kiev, Polotsk, Vitebsk, Smolensk and (from the 16th century) two elders - Zhemoytsk and Volyn.

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a monarchy headed by the Grand Duke. The prince was elected by the nobility from representatives of the princely dynasty. Under the Grand Duke, the panyrada acted as an advisory body. A narrow circle of people from the members of the rada closest to the prince constituted the front, or secret rada.

At the beginning of the 15th century. (1401) a new body of state power began to operate - the Val (general) Sejm. From the middle of the 16th century. The Val Sejm consisted of the State Council - the Senate and of the povet ambassadors - deputies who made up the Ambassadorial Hut.

However, the biggest methodological error is the idea that somewhere in the West there was a super-civilized Lithuania with an advanced statehood, ruled by a progressive king - a purebred Lithuanian Mindovg. The Balts did not have any principality as a feudal state, not even the Prussians, as the most numerous tribe. At the time of the formation of the Lithuanian principalities, all the Balts had a tribal system with a strong influence of pagan priests, and their small number was explained by the fact that they had not yet really mastered agriculture. The Russian boyars chose Mindovg not for his literacy, but for the strength that stood behind him in the form of his squad and his influence among the leaders of the Baltic tribes.

Lithuania's civilization and industrialization are a product of the USSR, which it is happily losing today in the United Europe. Lithuania is gradually returning to the position it had before joining Russia. Considering themselves Germans through kinship with the Prussians, as Lithuanian nationalists declare, is obviously a unique type of patriotism, since all Prussians were completely assimilated by German colonists who moved to the indigenous lands of the Balts, captured by the Order states. Unfortunately, the Lithuanian ancestors did not know about the passionate desire of their descendants to merge with the Germans, and therefore they fought for hundreds of years against the Teutonic and Livonian orders, which came to the lands of the Baltic peoples in a crusade.

Apparently, in the Middle Ages, the Eastern Slavs did not single out the Balts as an alien tribe, especially since the lands of the Balts had long been located deep in the territory of the Eastern Slavs. Some of the Balts participated in the formation of the Polish and Belarusian nations, but thanks to the formation of the Principality of Lithuania, the Balts had a chance to subsequently create Lithuania and Latvia as national states.

You just have to be aware that national feelings are a VALUE that the “national” elite instills in the people in order to maintain their dominant position. For the elite itself, nationality is an empty phrase (a striking example is Ukraine), however, if you instill it as a value in citizens, you can acquire ownership of an entire people united by this value. Paying tribute to national feelings, one should not be mistaken about their origin.

For those readers who are looking for an answer to the question - How was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania formed?, I advise you to look at the map, which clearly shows that occurs in the northwestern part of the Russian land (so called - Black Rus', according to the coloristic designation of the cardinal directions among the Slavs - black = north), which at the time of the formation of VKL was UNSUBJECTIVE Mongol-Tatar Empire. Independence (1) from the Russian princes and (2) from the Mongol yoke - was main condition appearance .

Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Rus'

However, a consequence of MOSCOW CENTRISM is the fact that story Galician and Lithuanian Rus' fall out of the orthodox Russian history of Russia as the history of exclusively Muscovite Rus', and then - this one-sidedness doesn't allow understand those that matured precisely in these “shards” of Kievan Rus, alien to the idea of ​​​​unifying Russian lands under the rule of Moscow.

Today a frenzied war is being waged against the present and Russia, where the fact that Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia was a Russian-speaking state to hide the more important fact that Rus Lithuanian was a Russian state , the main population of which were Kyiv Rusyns. In the minds of Russians and Europeans, Batu’s invasion is did not lead to the division of Rus' into separate parts. Western Rus', Southwestern Rus' And North-Eastern Rus' always remained a country of Russians, only much later the political struggle of the power elites of these parts of Rus' diverged history Lithuanian Rus', Galician Rus' And Vladimir-Suzdal Rus' (Muscovy) according to the main criterion - who will reassemble united Rus' .

But the idea of ​​the state among people in ancient times fully corresponded - as a community of people, to a nationality that was of no interest to anyone on some territory - under the government, for the individualization of which everyone was primarily interested in the nationality, at least the primary one. Nationality became the name of the state for the reason that could be individualized, which in those days were entirely captured by force, inhabited by many different tribes and, more often, unrelated nationalities. In conditions of impossibility of determining the ethnic composition of the people of a certain state, it was nominally assigned the nationality of his elite.

If we consider “nationality” by belonging to a tribe, then population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was very diverse in national composition, however, Slavic-speaking people have always prevailed numerically, preserving their dialect as a Western dialect of the Old Russian language of Kievan Rus. If the modern Russian language developed under the enormous influence of the church language of Cyril and Methodius, which was actually literary in Northern Rus', then the modern Belarusian language developed from the Western Russian dialect under the influence of Polish.

Principality of Lithuania and Russia

The Balts have always constituted a small part of the population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, even at the birth of the Lithuanian state, a separate Lithuanian tribe, apparently - there was no (in fact, see below about the origin of the name Lithuania). The territory of the birthplace of the Lithuanian state was inhabited by well-known Baltic-speaking tribes - the Aukštaites, Samogitians, Yatvingians, Curonians, Latgalians, villages, Semigallians who fled in the 13th century from forced Christianization, Prussians (Bortei or Zuks, Skalovs, Letuvinniki), among whom there is no Lithuania. Today one can only guess where it came from word Lithuania(like Rus'), but we can say for sure that the union of the Baltic tribes, formed on the territory bordering Russia, gave the collective name to the state - Lithuania, the official language of which, due to multinationality, became the Old Russian language, in which, by analogy with the word Rusin- and the ancient Russian word was formed Litvin- litvin - in the sense subject Principality of Lithuania. Later it was unity based on citizenship of one state pushed the national self-awareness of related Baltic-speaking tribes to feel unity into one Lithuanian nation.

This is confirmed by the appearance of the first mentions of Lithuania as an adjective Lituae in Latin to name the border of some previously unknown state with Russia. Then the term appeared in Europe lithuanians to designate citizens of a state that appeared on the political arena, the core of whose elite, judging by the place of origin, became aukstaity, in the sense of some UNION of the Baltic tribes close to the Prussians. As we know, all the other Prussians were colonized by the Teutonic Order, so much so that they simply disappeared, not even leaving us a language.

History of Lithuania Wikipedia contains the article Lithuania (tribes), which actually only proves that no tribe with a name Lithuania did not have, but simply several different tribes of the Balts, from different ethnic groups, on the lands adjacent to Black Russia, formed a territorial union, which received the external name Lithuania. This Union of Lithuania fought with its neighbors - the alliance of the Balts of Yatvingia, Aukstaiti and Samogitia, although the tribes of these same nationalities were part of Union of Lithuania. Members of the Lithuania union had the name Litvina, which directly comes from the word Lithuania, but from what word the word was formed Lithuanians I don't quite understand. The term Lithuania in the sense union of Lithuanian Baltic tribes- is quite legitimate, and the existence of a separate Lithuanian tribe not recorded.

Actually, the full name is Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Russia and Zhemoytskoe- reflected the multinational composition not of the population of the Principality of Lithuania, which was much more diverse, but the specific composition of its elite. The names of the main nationalities are sewn into the name of the state - Principality of Lithuania- for the reason that (1) the union of the Baltic tribes called Lithuania gave the first princes, (2) Principality of Lithuania and Russia not so much due to the numerical predominance of the Rusyns, since the territory of the Principality of Lithuania was formed precisely at the expense of the Russian lands of the weakened Kievan Rus, but due to the presence of Russian boyars, on whom the Novogrudok Principality rested, and in addition (3) - Principality of Zhemoytsk(Zhomoit, Zhemait, Zhamait, Zhmud - various transcriptions of the name of the second union of the Baltic tribes, known in Rus' as Zhmud - were introduced by a new dynasty of princes Gediminovich, originating from the Zhemait tribes.

The first mention of Lithuania in the European Quedlinburg Annals refers to 1009 year when describing the death of a certain missionary Bruno of Querfurt, who was killed “on the border of Rus' and Lithuania,” which itself is referred to as Lituae, that is Litua in the form of the indirect case (in the sense - Lithuanian- for the name of the border).

Perhaps the terms Lituae And lithuanians in Europe became widespread from the crusaders of the Teutonic Order, who seized the lands of the Prussians, which for the neighboring related Baltic tribes became factor for the formation own state. The Russian chronicle mentions the Litvins at almost the same time, but in connection with the campaigns of Prince Yaroslav the Wise in 1040 against the Yatvingians. It seems to me that the reason for the punitive campaign of the powerful Kiev prince was the predatory raids of the squads of the emerging Lithuanian state, as a union of tribes on the outskirts of Rus', since the Baltic lands themselves were unlikely to be of particular economic interest to Rus'. It was during Yaroslav's campaign that the Novgrud fortress was laid as an outpost, which later turned into the Russian city of Novogrudok, which became the first capital of the Principality of Lithuania.

Actually, Lithuanian tribes lived surrounded by Eastern Slavs from the Krivichi tribe, to whom they paid tribute, so the Western Russian dialect of the Krivichi was understandable to the Balts. To designate balts from Lithuanian union of tribes in Rus' coined the term Litvin , Litvin- by analogy with the Russian self-name - Rusin, Rusyn, and in Europe they coined the term - lithuanians to designate subjects of the Lithuanian proto-state.

For us it is no longer so important where it came from. word Lithuania- most likely that this was the self-name of the tribe that once ruled in the union of the Baltic tribes and was able to promote from its ranks the first rulers - elite, which gave its own self-name Litvin to all subjects. Later - from the word Litvin ethnonym originated Lithuanians, when the population of the main indigenous lands () needed to somehow separate themselves from their neighbors.

I do not insist on authenticity, and for Russian history the issue of the emergence of a state among the Balts is relevant only in the plane of the emergence of Lithuanian Rus', which became a competitor to the Muscovite kingdom, ripening within Vladimir-Suzdal Rus'.

In this article, the reader will need an idea of ​​the empire as a state entity, the whole essence of which is the unlimited expansion of borders. This "spring" sewn into Principality of Lithuania allowed him from the unknown tiny city-state of Novogrudok to turn into the most powerful state in Eastern Europe.

Next article Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia from Wikipedia, which still had to be edited a little. It is possible to understand the history of the Lithuanian-Russian state only by presenting a clear periodization, since at different stages we are dealing with a completely different state, which changes not only the size of its territory, but the political vector of development. Initially Principality of Lithuania arises and acts as a typical principality of Kievan Rus, participating in the civil strife of Russian princes, which continues despite the Tatar-Mongol yoke.

However, soon two global forces - the European empire (the papal throne and the German emperors) on the one hand and the khans (elite) of the Golden Horde begin to “pull apart” the Russian principalities left without a center on opposite sides of the “barricade”, both on the issue of choice of faith and political orientation. Moreover, a feature of those times is the literal, undisguised coincidence of the “interests of states” with the personal interests of their rulers, in full accordance with the theory of elites.

Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia

History of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania is an Eastern European state that existed from the mid-13th century to 1795 on the territory of modern Belarus and Lithuania, as well as parts of Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Moldova.

Periodization of the history of the Principality of Lithuania

1. On from 1240 to 1385 - as an independent Russian principality fighting against Southwestern (Galician) Rus' and Northeastern (Vladimir-Suzdal) Rus' for the collection of Kyiv lands for yourself. The death of Alexander Nevsky and the feud that broke out between his heirs allowed the Lithuanian principality to seize the middle lands of Kievan Rus, and later annex almost the entire territory of the Galician-Volyn principality. becoming the most powerful state in Eastern Europe.

2. Since 1385, after the conclusion of a personal union with the Kingdom of Poland, the Principality of Lithuania has been part of the union state, where the main role belongs to the Polish gentry. The reason was the weakening of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the wars against Muscovy, which openly announced the collection of Russian lands.

Since 1385 it was in a personal union with the Kingdom of Poland, and since 1569 - in the Sejm Union of Lublin as part of the confederal state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the XIV-XVI centuries - rival of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the struggle for dominance in Russian lands. It was abolished by the Constitution on May 3, 1791. It finally ceased to exist after the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795. By 1815, the entire territory of the former principality became part of the Russian Empire.

Rus' and Lithuania

In Russian chronicles, the first dated mention of Lithuania dates back to 1040, when the campaign of Yaroslav the Wise took place against the Yatvingians and the construction of the Novogrudok fortress began - i.e. a Russian outpost was founded against the Litvins - New town, whose name was later transformed into Novogrudok.

Since the last quarter of the 12th century, many principalities bordering Lithuania (Gorodenskoye, Izyaslavskoye, Drutskoye, Gorodetskoye, Logoiskoye, Strezhevskoye, Lukomskoye, Bryachislavskoye) left the field of view of ancient Russian chroniclers. According to the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” Prince Izyaslav Vasilkovich died in a battle with Lithuania (previously 1185). In 1190, Rurik Rostislavich organized a campaign against Lithuania in support of his wife’s relatives, came to Pinsk, but due to the melting of the snow, the further campaign had to be canceled. Since 1198, the Polotsk land has become a springboard for the expansion of Lithuania to the north and northeast. Lithuanian invasions begin directly into the Novgorod-Pskov (1183, 1200, 1210, 1214, 1217, 1224, 1225, 1229, 1234), Volyn (1196, 1210), Smolensk (1204, 1225, 1239, 1248) and Chernigov (1 220) lands with which chronicle Lithuania did not have common borders. The Novgorod first chronicle, dated 1203, mentions the battle of the Chernigov Olgovichi with Lithuania. In 1207, Vladimir Rurikovich of Smolensk went to Lithuania, and in 1216 Mstislav Davydovich of Smolensk defeated the Litvins, who were plundering the outskirts of Polotsk.

Article Grand Duchy of Lithuania Wikipedia I had to correct it because during the period before no formations of the Principality of Lithuania Lithuanians didn't exist, but were Litvins ka is the collective name of the Balts, who carried out raids deep into the Russian principalities.

History of the Principality of Lithuania

If you follow the chronicles, then at the beginning of the second millennium, Baltic tribes often raided the nearest Russian principalities, which allowed Russian chroniclers to correlate the robbers with the territory already known in Rus', for which the generalized name was assigned Lithuania. However, the Balts themselves have not yet been united into a single union, since we know at least about TWO unions - a separate union of Samogitian tribes, and the one that interests us - the Lithuanian union based on the Aukshaits, which, after the Yatvingians entered it, received a common name Lithuania. In those ancient times, when no one asked the nationality of the robbers, all gangs of robbers from the Varangian Sea in Rus' were called the same and without distinction - Litvins from Lithuania. Lithuania, running out of its forests onto the border villages of Pskov, caused destruction.

Actually, already THAT Lithuanian tribes pursued only purely predatory goals, tells us that the state organization of Lithuania was loose - the meaning of allied relations was reduced to the creation of a single detachment of armed men to carry out robberies of neighbors, who clearly already had a higher level of government in the form of principalities, headed by princes from the same family. Rurikovich, which united them into one confederation of principalities, called Rus'.

Chronicles tell us that the Russian princes, in order to pacify the Litvins, themselves carried out punitive raids on lands of the Balts, erecting defensive fortresses on the borders with the lands of the Balts, one of which was Novogrudok, which turned into the center of a small newly formed Russian principality. However, against the backdrop of expansion by the Crusaders and especially after the defeat of Rus' from the Mongol-Tatars, the policy of the elites of this border Russian principality began to change towards the neighboring alliances of Lithuanian tribes. Armed squads from the Balts, who have already gained experience in warfare, begin to invite the Russian border city for defense, which in chronicle form is expressed as an “invitation to reign” of their leaders (which had already happened before Mindovg).

It should be noted that - history of the Lithuanian state, most likely, it would never have started, because the Balts were already pushed out from all sides by the Order of the Crusaders - the Teutonic and Livonian, and, well, what to hide - Rus' itself, if in a small Russian principality, the boyars (read correctly - the elite) would not dare to invite the Lithuanian leader Mindaugas and his retinue to reign. This is how TWO problems were solved at once - (1) armed guards appeared and (2) RAIDS from Lithuania stopped, since they themselves Litvins began to defend Novogrudok.

Novogrudok was able to break the inflexible rule about the possibility of reigning exclusively by members of the Rurikovich family due to the circumstances of the weakening of Rus', when the clan of Rurikovich princes, which owned Russia, was brutally reduced as a result of defeats in battles with the Mongol-Tatars. Actually, both in relation to the crusaders, clad in armor along with their horses, and in relation to the unusual deceptive tactics of the Tatar cavalry, Rus' was faced with an unfamiliar technology of warfare. Moreover, the almost unarmed Tatars on small horses turned out to be even more invulnerable than the German knights clad in iron.

The third condition for the success of the first Lithuanian prince was the almost immediate support from the Pope and the European Empire, which, with the assistance of Poland, was carrying out the colonization of the Baltic lands. Granting Mindaugus the title of king was an advance to attract Lithuania to the side of Catholic Europe. Although the heirs of Mindaugas were no longer crowned kings, according to all the rules they received the title of grand dukes, even according to the concepts accepted in the empire of the Eastern Slavs. The royal title was never required by the Lithuanian princes, since the Principality of Lithuania was Russian, and Rus' had its own tradition of glorifying rulers, in which only the title “Grand Duke” was supreme.

What are the reasons for the formation of the Principality of Lithuania

Reasons for the formation of the Principality of Lithuania- in changing the policy of the Russian elite of the Russian city of Novogrudok in relation to the leaders of the unions of neighboring Lithuanian tribes from hostile - to the creation of a single state association - Russian Lithuanian state- in the form of the Novgrudian principality, in which - in principle, “Russian” in its location - the invited Litvin began to rule Mindovg, How first Lithuanian prince.

I think no one really thought about what to call the new one back then. Russian-Lithuanian state- it naturally turned out that the adjective Lithuanian put before the word principality, especially since the Ministry of Education and Science had no choice but to accept the Western Russian language as the state language - simply, formation of the Lithuanian-Russian state began in the Russian city of Novogrudok. Any Balt language was of no interest to anyone, since the language of communication between Rusyns and Litvins had probably long been the Rusyn language.

Now, after answering the question - what are the reasons for the formation of the principality of Lithuania, I want to give an idea of ​​the states themselves during the era of feudalism. In Russian orthodox history they put forward in first place as something extraordinary - features of Kievan Rus as a confederation of almost independent principalities, which allows some anti-Russian historians to argue that the state itself - Kievan Rus - in reality did not exist. Actually, they appeal to today’s idea of ​​the structure of the state as centralized, the creation of which in Rus' only Ivan the Terrible will be able to complete.

Firstly, Kyiv Rus is just a term for a period in the history of Rus' called Kyiv or pre-Mongolian- from before the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars, when Kyiv was the political center and capital of the ancient Russian state. At that time, feudal fragmentation, which was carried around like a sack, was not a unique feature of the ancient Russian state - in Europe, all states were separate feuds as a certain territory that the feudal lord COULD PERSONALLY BYPASS to collect taxes. Since, simply for physical reasons, the feudal lord could not control a large territory, the European principalities were small in size. States in Europe were like nesting dolls - small fiefs formed a larger feud of the lord, larger in relation to the fiefs of the vassals, since it overlapped them. Even larger were the fiefs of lords, princes or dukes, who together constituted the fief of the king or grand duke, whose fief was considered a state.

Secondly, the principle according to which only members of the Rukovich family could reign in the Russian principalities was also not unique, although it was carried out unquestioningly hundreds of years after the bloody lesson taught by the Prophetic Oleg to the Kiev “impostors” - from simple warriors who took the place of the Kyiv princes and sentenced to death only for lack of kinship with Rurik. After all, the entire history of the European empire shows us the struggle of princes to install themselves or their descendants in the vacant place of the monarch.

Features of the Lithuanian state were typical of territorial empires, which undoubtedly was Principality of Lithuania 13th-15th century, since it was formed by the leader of the pagan Balts, who became a prince in a Christian Orthodox principality, inhabited by Rusyns, but outside the principality already called Litvins. The main feature of the Lithuanian state thing is great state of Lithuania became a “melting pot” in which two current nations were formed - Lithuanians and Belarusians, as descendants of those Litvinians and Russians who were united by the Great Russian-Lithuanian state, which became one of the three parts of Rus' during the period of the Mongol yoke called.

To understand the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, some periodization should be carried out, since Principality of Lithuania in the 13th century is "Great" only in the dreams of his princes, while Grand Duchy of Lithuania 15th century- the largest state in Europe by territory (except for the Golden Horde or, perhaps, North-Eastern Rus', which did not have any fixed borders in the East).

Grand Duchy of Lithuania 13th century

The consolidation of the Principality of Lithuania took place against the background of the gradual advance of the crusaders of the Order of the Sword in Livonia and the Teutonic Order in Prussia, waging a crusade to convert the pagan Prussians to Christianity, who stubbornly continued to adhere to their ancient pagan beliefs. Unfortunately, the details of the existence of statehood among the Baltic tribes themselves remained outside the attention of chroniclers, since the Teutonic Order did not keep records of events among the conquered Baltic tribes, and Russian chroniclers, since the campaign of Yaroslav the Wise, have been losing interest in the peoples of this region of Kievan Rus, since the main The enemies are the crusaders of the Teutonic and Livonian orders, the fight against which is the prerogative of the princes of the Novgorod land and the Pskov principality. The rest of Rus' focused all its attention on the infighting between the brother princes and the first attack of the Mongol-Tatars, which destroyed the flower of the Russian army.

Princes of the Principality of Lithuania

I hope the reader understands that History is a description of the activities of the elite of society, who make decisions and often answer with their lives for the correctness of their choice. Everything is in full accordance with the theory of elites - representatives of the people living in different parts of the state are not only unable to assess the event (which is important when writing history), but do not even know about it if it did not affect them personally. Knowing and assessing is the function of the elite, which, in order to make life easier for its descendants, just so that they remain in power for as long as possible, begins to write history as instructions based on accumulated experience. Chronicles were written by literate people in ancient times at the request of the authorities; today, versions of history are offered by the intelligentsia - and the elite chooses the option that is beneficial to them in today's conditions.

Therefore, there is no objective or “in general” history - each is written from some point in space and time - know, from a certain angle, which is necessarily present and determines the assessment of events, and the role of elite representatives in them. The first Lithuanian princes, not burdened with obligations to any numerous parties of the elite or officials, acted based on their purely personal interests, disposing of the state as personal property.

The world is diverse, so we are interested in the character, personal qualities and even the appearance of the princes of Lithuania, which definitely influenced the course of history. The logic of development goes by itself, and the mistakes or tactical successes of the princes are a retreat or adherence to the strategy of this logic, which sometimes changes the goals of the logic itself.

The first Lithuanian princes

First Lithuanian prince first mentioned in the agreement of 1219 between the Galicia-Volyn principality and the “princes” of Lithuania, Diavoltva and Samogitians ( Lithuania- in the sense of the name of the union of Lithuanian tribes). The contract appears in Russian Prince Mindovg, How fourth leader on the list of Baltic leaders, which immediately raises the question of the reasons why the future first prince of Lithuania By 1240, he took a leading position among the other Lithuanian prince leaders.

We must understand that the Lithuanian princes mentioned in the chronicle were still leaders of tribal unions, since concept of prince assumes that he has a personal castle - a fortress or in Old Russian detinets, around which a city grows. Since we do not know about Lithuanian cities, the Lithuanian leaders have not yet distinguished themselves enough from among their fellow tribesmen to have a fortified personal dwelling with a warehouse for storing the collected tribute. However, the further history of the approval of Mindaugas as the first among the five leaders mentioned in the chronicle confirms the fact that among the Balts there are already families or clans that have seized power or have hereditary advantages to occupy the place of leader. Perhaps someone else, thanks to his personal courage or wisdom, could still take the place of leader, but the history of the rise of Mindaugas shows that the men of his clan already realize the value of supporting each other in order to find the entire clan in a privileged position among the rest of the tribe. The chronicle mentions Mindaugas fourth, and soon after his reign, his brothers and nephews are listed, who occupy key positions of power among the Baltic tribes. The remaining leaders from the chronicle list of leaders disappear from the historical scene, apparently pushed aside by a close-knit group of men from the Mindaugas clan.

Actually, the above paragraph is the beginning of a separate article - as an insert into this article, which has already become too long. The first Lithuanian princes They also acted as leaders of the Baltic squads, since it was important for them to receive support among their fellow tribesmen and, accordingly, members of their own family, who occupied key positions in the alliances of the Baltic tribes. Obviously, the resource of the Russian Principality of Novogrudok was immediately used to strengthen the positions of Mindaugas’s relatives in the power structures of the alliances of Lithuanian captivity.

On the other hand, an invitation to the principality had only the force of an agreement between the hired leader of a military squad, and the practice of invitation itself had ancient traditions, when the squad was expelled. Therefore, the first prince of Lithuania should be considered as a successful adventurer, who, like Rurik, managed to realize the opportunity and gain a foothold in the place of the prince, without relying on any party or family ties among the Russian boyars. Most likely, the first Lithuanian prince was a member of the dynasty of Polotsk princes through the female line, as the chronicle hints at. The Principality of Polotsk itself lost its importance, but a century earlier it was in second place among the Russian principalities, the lot of the first heirs to the throne of the Kyiv Grand Dukes.

I single out Mindovg both as a person and as the leader of the Baltic tribes, who became the first prince for the Balts themselves, who became citizens of the state he created on the Russian lands of Black Rus' and the adjacent lands of the Balts themselves.

Board of Mindovg

So, let us once again recall the geopolitical situation in the Baltic region, when the Russian principalities, weakened by defeat from the Tatar-Mongols, leave the border lands outside their sphere of attention, where, in violation of the rule, it became possible to invite princes not from the Rurik dynasty. According to one hypothesis, the boyars of the Russian city of Novogrudok and Lithuanian prince Mindovg Negotiations about an invitation to reign begin closer to 1240, when Mindaugas is nominated for the role of the main leader among the leaders of the Baltic tribes. The main danger for Novogrudok came from Prince Daniil of Galitsky, since the Galician-Volyn principality, in its expansionist desire to dominate all of Rus', which itself was the most southwestern principality, “reached” even to the northern outskirts of Rus'. The eastern direction for the expansion of the Galician principality was blocked by the Tatars, in the western direction the Galician prince sought friendship with Hungary, only the northern direction remained.

The first Lithuanian prince successfully used the opposition of the Pskov principality, and most importantly - Alexander Nevsky, who reigned in Novgorod, with Daniil of Galicia, but in the end Lithuania fell under the influence of the Galician-Volyn principality, which became the main fighter against the crusaders invited by the Polish king to Prussian lands. Novgorod and Pskov would simply annex the Novogrudok principality, and an alliance with the strong Galician principality would provide the Lithuanian principality with the possibility of independence from the Russian principalities and assistance in the fight against the crusaders. In addition, the distance from the Golden Horde allowed the Principality of Lithuania not to pay tribute and accumulate resources, and even ensured its safety from sudden attacks by the Tatars. All history of the Principality of Lithuania- this is its expansion at the expense of the weakening Galician-Volyn principality, which did not have such a favorable geopolitical position.

Considering the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the aspect of its formation as Lithuanian Rus, we must remember that immediately after the invasion of the Tatars, Kievan Rus disintegrated into TWO parts - the unauthorized Galician-Volyn principality and the northeastern confederation of Russian principalities. Galician Rus' came into contact with the European empire, from which it began to seek protection in the confrontation with the Golden Horde, and North-Eastern Rus', with the help of Alexander Nevsky, entered into a close alliance with the Golden Horde. Moreover, assistance from the Western European Empire required Galician Rus' to profoundly change its cultural and religious foundations, while the Tatars did not seek to change anything in the states they captured, in which their original way of life was preserved. As history has shown, CHOICE OF Alexander Nevsky turned out to be more effective for the self-preservation of Rus'. The core for the revival of Rus' was preserved precisely in the northern principalities, among which Moscow became the main collector of Russian lands.

The most likely reason for inviting Mindaugas to reign in Russian Novogrudok was his hypothetical membership in the Russian dynasty of Polotsk princes (see the biography of Mindaugas), since at that time kinship with princes and dynastic marriages were decisive for occupying the princely throne. A pagan taking the place of prince in an Orthodox city was not something unusual, since no one paid attention to it. The baptism of Mindaugas according to the Orthodox rite is not recorded, but most likely it was with his family, since his son Voishelk makes a pilgrimage to Athos and becomes a monk, but the baptism of Mindaugas according to the Catholic rite in 1251 is a recorded fact that clearly served the political purposes of weakening the pressure on the part of the order's Catholic states.

History of the Lithuanian state begins with the wars that Prince Mindovg organizes to transform his tiny Principality of Novogrudok into the Principality of Lithuania, for which he first eliminates rivals among the leaders of the Baltic tribes, forcing his nephew Tovtivil (Mindovk’s protégé in the Principality of Polotsk) together with the rest of the leaders to make a campaign against the Smolensk lands, promising the captured lands for their management. Having learned about the failure of the campaign, Mindovg seized the lands of the prince-leaders and tried to organize their murder. Most likely, the leaders from the failed Smolensk campaign returned not to their own, but to other Balt tribes.

Lithuanian king

To weaken the coalition of his enemies, which included the Livonian Order, Prince Mindovg uses a trick - he “gives” the Livonian Order the lands of the Baltic tribes that disobey him in exchange, first for baptism according to the Catholic rite, and then in 1253 coronation of Mindaugas on behalf of Pope Innocent IV. Having donated part of the Samogitian and Yatvingian lands to the Livonian Order, Mindovg strengthens its power over all of Black Russia (the word “Black” goes back to the ancient designation of the cardinal direction - Server - y, for which reason the name Bela Rus will initially designate North-Eastern Rus', and Red Rus'- southern Galich lands of Rus').

We must understand the political position of Western (Black) Rus', which became the historical center of the Principality of Mindaugas, as a northwestern wedge of Russian lands, on which the interests of the Catholic German orders and Veliky Novgorod opposed them, led by Alexander Nevsky, the Kingdom of Poland and Daniil of Galitsky, converged, and , for the latter Mindovg turned out to be a natural ally. For Galicia-Volyn Principality of Lithuania as independent it was of interest for contrasting with rivals, which in no way canceled Daniil’s claims to reign under the right of the Rurikovichs, therefore, as we know, Mindovg was forced to transfer rule in Novogrudok to Daniil’s son Roman, which, together with Mindovg’s rebaptism into Catholicism, leads him to confrontation with his own son Voishelk, who headed the Orthodox party.

Voishelk’s biography confirms the thesis that the Lithuanian princes already in the second generation became Russian princes, since son of Mindaugas demonstrates exceptional loyalty to Orthodoxy. In addition, Voishelk goes against his pagan father, who was baptized several times for political purposes and returned to paganism before his death, and returns to reign only for the sake of becoming a truly Russian Principality of Lithuania, since he himself recognizes the right of the Rurikovichs to reign and voluntarily transfers the rule to Shvarn, his son Daniil Galitsky. Since Voyshelk, the Principality of Lithuania has firmly entered the “circle” of Russian principalities with the rights of an appanage principality.

Actually, it is difficult to show the borders of the Lithuanian-Russian state under Mindovga and Voishelka on the map - I depicted an area that captured the Russian lands and the lands of the Balts. For me, it is more important to show that literally after a few years of his reign (in 1254), Mindovg recognized his Russian principality as part of the empire of the Galician prince Daniil, planting Roman Danilovich, the son of Daniil, in Novogrudok, the former capital of the principality. In fact, this was the recognition of the laws of Rus' on reigning, according to which only a member of the Rurikovich dynasty could reign. In fact, a strange situation arises when King Mindovg, having transferred the capital to Rurikovich, himself is in an unknown residence - most likely precisely because of the unknown - on the territory of the Lithuanian tribes. Dual power will continue under the son of Mindovg - Voishelka, who will kill Roman Danilovich, but then voluntarily give the Principality of Lithuania to another son of Daniel - Shvarn Danilovich, in turn recognizing the unconditional rights of the Rurikovichs to reign in any Russian principality.

The first Lithuanian princes could not fight against the rules of Galician Rus, which was not only the hegemon in the region, but also almost the only natural ally of the Lithuanian princes. Most likely, the Novogrudok principality would have simply been annexed by its Russian neighbors, but as an outpost of the Galicia-Volyn principality in the northwestern corner of Rus', it was preserved as a state entity. The patronage of Galician Rus had to be paid for by the transfer of power to the sons of Daniil of Galicia, but they also contributed to the expansion of the territory and strengthening of the principality as not an appanage, but a Grand Duchy.

Another thing is that the Galician-Volyn principality itself, for which the Principality of Lithuania became an inheritance, is beginning to fall apart for several reasons at once, which, in the context of the weakening influence of the Galician princes, allows a new generation of Lithuanian impostors from the Zhmud leaders to seize power in the Principality of Lithuania and create a new dynasty of Lithuanian princes - Gediminovichi.

The murder of Schwarn as a legitimate Russian prince from the Rurik dynasty pitted the Principality of Lithuania against the rest of Rus'. After several political assassinations of the new princes, apparently self-promoted by their military squad, princely power was finally consolidated under Gediminas, as the prince of the Lithuanian principality, independent of the Galician grand dukes.

As I already said, activities of the Lithuanian princes covered in a separate article - but note that with Gediminas the expansion of the Lithuanian principalities begins by annexing primarily the southern Russian lands. After the death of the main (from our point of view) political figures - Alexander Nevsky and Daniil Galitsky, their states were fragmented into inheritances of heirs, who did not particularly show themselves, except for Daniil Alexandrovich, who with his peace-loving policy brought the seedy appanage Moscow principality into the first rank of the most influential principalities.

The entry of Lithuania into the political system of Catholic Europe for a couple of decades allowed Mindovg to strengthen his power among the Baltic tribes, and create an alliance with the Galician-Volyn principality by transferring the reign in Novogrudok to the son of the Galician prince Roman Danilovich (Novogrudok prince 1254-1258). The union was not overshadowed by the joint campaign against Poland and Lithuania of the Horde and Galicians, organized under pressure from the khans of the Golden Horde, who did not forgive Mindaugas for accepting the title of king from the Pope. Daniil Galitsky himself avoided the campaign, transferring command to his brother, Prince of Volyn Vasilko Romanovich, which did not save his son Roman Danilovich from being captured by Voishelka, the son of Mindovg, who led the Russian party in Novrogrudok. Roman Danilovich was killed in 1258, which coincides with Mindaugas’s renunciation of Christianity (it is not clear whether it was only Catholicism) and the return to open struggle against the Catholic Orders. After supporting several Prussian uprisings, the Lithuanians, under the leadership of Midovg, win the Battle of Durbe, which became the stage of the annexation of Samogitia to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, in 1263, Mindovg, along with his younger sons, was killed as a result of a conspiracy organized by the Polotsk prince Tovtivil and Mindovg’s nephews - Troinat and Dovmont, which ended with Troinat (1263-1264) taking the place of the Grand Duke, who soon killed the head of the conspirators Tovtivil.

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 upon a time fought with Moscow, and then disappeared 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 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth):
9th-12th centuries- development of feudal relations and formation of estates on the territory of Lithuania, formation of the state
Early 13th century- increased aggression of the German crusaders
1236- Lithuanians defeat the Knights of the Sword at Siauliai
1260- victory of the Lithuanians over the Teutons at Durbe
1263- unification of the main Lithuanian lands under the rule of Mindaugas
XIV century- 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- reign of Olgerd
1345-1382- 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 of Lithuania, who opposed the policies of Jogaila 1410 - united Lithuanian-Russian and Polish troops completely defeat the knights of the Teutonic Order in the Battle of Grunwald
1413- Union of Gorodel, according to which the rights of the Polish gentry extended to Lithuanian Catholic nobles
1447- the first Privilege - a set of laws. Together with Sudebnik
1468 it became the first experience of codification of law in the principality
1492- “Privilege Grand Duke Alexander.” The first charter of the nobility's liberties
Late 15th century- formation of the general gentry Sejm. Growth of rights and privileges of lords
1529, 1566, 1588 - the publication of three editions of the Lithuanian statute - “charter and praise”, zemstvo and regional “privileges”, which secured the rights of the gentry
1487-1537- wars with Russia that took place intermittently against the backdrop of the strengthening of the Principality of Moscow. Lithuania lost Smolensk, captured by Vytautas in 1404. According to the truce of 1503, Rus' 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 suffered failures
1569- signing of the Union of Lublin and the unification of Lithuania into one state with Poland - Rzeczpospolita

A century later, Gediminas and Olgerd already had a power that included Polotsk, Vitebsk, Minsk, Grodno, Brest, Turov, Volyn, Bryansk and Chernigov. In 1358, Olgerd’s ambassadors even declared to the Germans: “All of Rus' should belong to Lithuania.” To reinforce these words and ahead of the Muscovites, the Lithuanian prince opposed the Golden Horde “itself”: in 1362 he defeated the Tatars at Blue Waters and assigned ancient Kyiv to Lithuania for almost 200 years.

By no coincidence, at the same time, the Moscow princes, the descendants of Ivan Kalita, began to “collect” lands little by little. Thus, by the middle of the 14th century, two centers had emerged 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 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 in an agreement dividing 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 here that Dmitry proposed to the still undecided Jagiello a dynastic union, which was not destined to take place. And not only did it not happen according to the prince’s word: it became the other way around. As you know, Dmitry was unable to resist Tokhtamysh, and in 1382 the Tatars allowed Moscow “to be poured out and plundered.” She again became a Horde tributary. The alliance with his 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 his main enemy - the Teutonic Order.

And Jagiello still married - but not to the Moscow princess, but to the Polish queen Jadwiga. He was baptized according to the Catholic rite. Became the Polish king under the Christian name Vladislav. Instead of an alliance with the eastern brothers, the Krevo Union of 1385 happened with the western ones. Since that time, Lithuanian history has been firmly intertwined with Polish: the descendants of Jagiello (Jagiellon) reigned in both powers for three centuries - from the 14th to the 16th. But still, these were two different states, each retaining its own political system, legal system, currency and army. As for Vladislav-Jagiello, he spent most of his reign in his new possessions. His cousin Vitovt ruled the old ones 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. The powerful Lithuanian could even place his proteges on the Horde throne. A huge “ransom” was paid to him by Pskov and Novgorod, 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 peak of greatness and glory, Vytautas lacked only a royal crown, which he declared at the congress of monarchs of Central and Eastern Europe in 1429 in Lutsk in the presence of the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund I, the Polish king Jagiello, the Tver and Ryazan princes, the Moldavian ruler, embassies of Denmark, Byzantium and the Pope. In the autumn of 1430, Prince Vasily II of Moscow, Metropolitan Photius, the princes of Tver, Ryazan, Odoev and Mazovia, the Moldavian ruler, the Livonian master, and the ambassadors of the Byzantine emperor gathered for the coronation in Vilna. But the Poles refused to let through the embassy, ​​which was bringing Vytautas royal regalia from Rome (the Lithuanian “Chronicle of Bykhovets” even says 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, since 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? Excitement in Lithuania? (Alexander Pushkin)

The daredevil Vitovt had no sons - after a protracted strife, Jagiello's son Casimir ascended to power in 1440, taking the thrones of Lithuania and Poland. He and his immediate descendants worked intensively in Central Europe, and not without success: sometimes the crowns of the Czech Republic 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 abhors a vacuum - the task was successfully “intercepted” by the Moscow great-grandson of Vitovt - Grand Duke Ivan III: already in 1478 he laid claim to the ancient Russian lands - Polotsk and Vitebsk. The church also helped Ivan - after all, the residence of the all-Russian metropolitan was Moscow, which means that Lithuanian adherents of Orthodoxy were also spiritually governed from there. However, the Lithuanian princes more than once (in 1317, 1357, 1415) tried to install “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 to launch 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 “Sovereign of All Rus'”. Further - more: Vyazma, Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky lands (actually, Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky, as well as Bryansk, Starodub and Gomel) go to Moscow. In 1514, Vasily III returned Smolensk, which for 100 years became the main fortress and “gate” on the western border of Russia (then it was again taken away 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, by that time the population of the eastern Lithuanian lands had completely cooled down to the idea of ​​joining Moscow. Still, the gap between public views and the rights of subjects of the Moscow and Lithuanian states was already very deep.

One of the halls of the Vilnius Gediminas Tower

Not Muscovites, but Russians

In cases where Lithuania included highly developed territories, the grand dukes maintained their autonomy, guided by the principle: “We do not destroy the old, we do not introduce new things.” Thus, the loyal rulers from the Rurikovich tree (princes Drutsky, Vorotynsky, Odoevsky) retained their possessions completely for a long time. Such lands received “privilege” certificates. Their residents could, for example, demand a change of governor, and the sovereign would undertake not to take certain actions in relation to them: not to “enter” into 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 decisions. Until the 16th century, on the Slavic lands of the Grand Duchy, legal norms were in force that went back to the “Russian Truth” - the oldest set of laws given by Yaroslav the Wise.

Lithuanian knight. Late 14th century

In the northeastern part of Rus', that is, in that which, in the end, was preserved on the map under this name, the process of “gathering lands” took 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, the “free autocracy” (the term of Ivan the Terrible) strengthened in Moscow, the remnants of Novgorod and Pskov liberties, the own “destinies” of aristocratic families and semi-independent border principalities disappeared. All more or less noble subjects performed lifelong service to the sovereign, and attempts by them 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 - this was reflected in the model of the social structure and government order of Poland. “Strangers” to the Polish nobility, the Jagiellons needed its support and were forced to grant more and more privileges, extending them to Lithuanian subjects. In addition, the descendants of Jagiello pursued an active foreign policy, and for this they also had to pay the knights who went on campaigns.

Taking liberties with propination

But it was not only due to the goodwill of the great princes that such a significant rise in the gentry - the Polish and Lithuanian nobility - occurred. It’s also about the “world market”. Entering the phase of industrial revolutions in the 16th century, the Netherlands, England, and northern Germany required 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 clients increased sharply). Livonian knights, Polish and Lithuanian gentry began to transform their estates into farms, aimed specifically at the production of export products. The growing income from such trade formed the basis of the power of the “magnates” and the wealthy gentry.

The first were the princes - the Rurikovichs and Gediminovichs, the largest landowners of Lithuanian and Russian origin (Radziwills, Sapiehas, Ostrozhskys, Volovichi), who had the opportunity to take hundreds of their own servants to war and occupied the most prominent posts. In the 15th century, their circle expanded to include “simple” “noble boyars” who were obliged to perform military service for the prince. The Lithuanian Statute (code of laws) of 1588 consolidated 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 lords and go abroad. It was forbidden to arrest them without a court decision (and the gentry themselves elected local zemstvo courts at their “sejmiks” meetings). The owner also had the right of “propination” - only he himself could produce beer and vodka and sell it to the peasants.

Naturally, corvée flourished in the farms, and along with it other serfdom systems. The statute recognized the right of peasants to only one possession - movable property necessary to fulfill duties to the owner. However, a “free man” who settled on the land of a feudal lord and lived in a new place for 10 years could still leave by paying off a significant sum. However, the law adopted by the national Sejm in 1573 gave the lords the right to punish their subjects at their discretion - up to and including the death penalty. The sovereign now generally lost the right to interfere in the relationship between patrimonial owners and their “living property,” and in Muscovite Rus', on the contrary, the state increasingly limited the judicial rights of landowners.

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 its numerous clerks and clerks. The zemsky podskarbiy (the head of the state treasury - “skarbom”) in Lithuania kept and spent money, but did not collect taxes. Hetmans (troop commanders) led the gentry's militia when it was assembled, but the Grand Duke's standing army numbered only five thousand mercenary soldiers in the 16th century. The only permanent body was the Grand Ducal Chancellery, which conducted diplomatic correspondence and kept the archive - the “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 Lithuanian sovereign Alexander Kazimirovich Jagiellon finally and voluntarily embarked on the path of a “parliamentary monarchy”: now he coordinated his actions with a number of lords , consisting of three dozen bishops, governors and governors of the regions. In the absence of the prince, the Rada generally completely ruled the country, controlling land grants, expenses and foreign policy.

Lithuanian cities were also very different from Great Russian ones. There were few of them, and they settled reluctantly: for greater “urbanization,” the princes had to invite foreigners - Germans and Jews, who again received special privileges. But this was not enough for foreigners. Feeling the strength of their position, they confidently sought concession after concession from the authorities: in the 14th-15th centuries, Vilno, Kovno, Brest, Polotsk, Lvov, Minsk, Kiev, Vladimir-Volynsky and other cities received their own self-government - the so-called “Magdeburg law”. Now the townspeople elected “radtsy”-councillors, who were in charge of municipal revenues and expenses, and two mayors - a Catholic and an Orthodox one, who judged the townspeople together with the grand-ducal governor, the “voight”. And when craft workshops appeared in cities in the 15th century, their rights were enshrined in special charters.

The origins of parliamentarism: the Val Diet

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 Sejm - are interesting. In 1507, he first collected for the Jagiellons an emergency tax for military needs - “serebschizna”, and since then it has been like this: every year or two the need for a subsidy was repeated, which means the gentry had to collect. Gradually, other important issues fell into the competence of the “lords’ council” (that is, the Sejm) - for example, at the Vilna Sejm in 1514 they decided, contrary to the princely opinion, to continue the war with Moscow, and in 1566 the deputies decided: not to change anything without their approval 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 “zero power” from their voters - the gentry - and defended their orders. In general, almost our Duma - but only a noble one. By the way, it is worth comparing: in Russia at that time there also existed an irregularly meeting advisory body - the Zemsky Sobor. It, however, did not have rights even closely comparable to those possessed by the Lithuanian parliament (it had, in fact, only advisory!), and from the 17th century it began to be convened less and less, to be held for the last time in 1653. And no one “noticed” this - now no one even wanted to sit in the Council: the Moscow service people who made up it, for the most part, lived off small estates and the “sovereign’s salary”, 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 Moscow political elites, 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 nobles fled from the tyranny of Nero to the shores of the Baltic and conquered the principalities of the Kyiv state (try to compare the chronological layers!). But Rus' did not lag behind: in the writings of Ivan the Terrible, the origin of the Rurikovichs was traced back to the Roman emperor Octavian Augustus. But the Moscow “Tale of the Princes of Vladimir” calls Gedimina a princely groom who married his master’s widow 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 contrast their own, domestic, orders with 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 at exclusively as enemies, even “demons”, in comparison with which even the German “Luthor” looks cute.

So, wars again. Lithuania generally 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 initially 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 Ule River. True, the attempt to go on the offensive against Moscow's possessions failed: the Kiev governor, Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky, and the Chernobyl headman, 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 full, 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 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzecz Pospolita - a literal translation of the Latin res publica - “common cause”) with a single Senate and Sejm; The monetary and tax systems were also unified. Vilno, however, retained some autonomy: its rights, treasury, hetmans and the official “Russian” language.

Here, “by the way,” the last Jagiellon, Sigismund II Augustus, died in 1572; so, logically, they decided to choose the common king of the two countries at the same Diet. For centuries, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 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 growth and again became a great power in Eastern Europe. In times of troubles 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 found no other way out than to conclude an agreement with Sigismund in August and invite his son, Prince Vladislav, to the Moscow throne. According to the agreement, Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth concluded an eternal peace and alliance, and the prince pledged not to erect Catholic churches, “not to change the previous customs and ranks” (including serfdom, of course), and foreigners “in the governors and among the officials 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 Duma people.” All new laws were to be adopted “by the Duma of the boyars and all the lands.” On behalf of the new Tsar “Vladislav Zhigimontovich”, Polish and Lithuanian companies occupied Moscow. As we know, this whole story ended in nothing for the Polish-Lithuanian contender. The whirlwind of the ongoing Russian unrest swept away his claims to the throne of Eastern Rus', and soon the successful Romanovs, with their triumph, completely marked a further and very tough opposition to the political influence of the West (while gradually succumbing more and more to its cultural influence).

What if Vladislav’s affair had “burnt out”?.. Well, some historians believe that the agreement between the two Slavic powers already at the beginning of the 17th century could have become the beginning of the pacification of Rus'. 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 Moscow throne could actually take place, to what extent did the principles outlined in the agreement correspond to the ideas of the Russian people about a fair social order? Moscow nobles and men seemed to prefer 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, much less allow his conversion to Orthodoxy.

The short-lived heyday of Speech

Having lost Moscow, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, however, seized very substantial “compensation”, again regaining the Chernigov-Seversky lands (they were recaptured in the so-called Smolensk War of 1632-1634 already from Tsar Mikhail Romanov).

But the flowering was short-lived. The reduction of 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 - Germans, Jews, Poles, Armenians, who now made up the majority of residents of Ukrainian and Belarusian cities, especially large ones (for example, Lviv), which was partly destructive for the overall national perspective, continued. The offensive of the Catholic Church led to the displacement of Orthodox burghers from city institutions and courts; cities became “foreign” territory for peasants. As a result, the two main components of the state were disastrously demarcated and alienated from each other.

On the other hand, although the “republican” system certainly 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 rule of law state was created in Poland , in all this there was already a destructive beginning hidden. First of all, the nobles themselves undermined the foundations of their own prosperity. These were the only “full-fledged citizens” of their fatherland, these proud people considered themselves alone as a “political people.” As has already been said, they despised and humiliated peasants and townspeople. But with such an attitude, the latter could hardly be eager to defend the master’s “liberties” - neither in internal troubles, nor from external enemies.

The Union of Brest-Litovsk is not an alliance, but a schism

After the Union of Lublin, the Polish gentry poured into the rich and sparsely populated lands of Ukraine in a powerful stream. There, the latifundia grew like mushrooms - Zamoyski, Zolkiewski, Kalinovski, Koniecpolski, Potocki, Wisniewiecki. 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 - a union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The basis of the union was the recognition by the Orthodox of Catholic dogmas and the supreme power of the pope, while the Orthodox Church preserved rituals and services in Slavic languages.

The Union, as one would expect, did not resolve religious contradictions: clashes between those who remained faithful to Orthodoxy and the Uniates were fierce (for example, during the Vitebsk revolt of 1623, the Uniate bishop Josaphat Kuntsevich was killed). The authorities closed Orthodox churches, and priests who refused to join the union were expelled from parishes. Such national-religious oppression ultimately led to the uprising of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the actual fall of Ukraine from Rech. But on the other hand, the privileges of the gentry, the brilliance of their 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 fell out of use in official writing, and at the beginning of the New Age, when the formation of national states was underway in Europe, the Ukrainian and Belarusian national elites became Polonized.

Freedom or bondage?

...And the inevitable happened: in the 17th century, the “golden liberty” of the gentry turned into paralysis of state power. The famous principle of liberum veto - the requirement of unanimity when passing laws in the Sejm - led to the fact that literally none of the “constitutions” (decisions) of the congress could come into force. Anyone bribed by some foreign diplomat or simply a tipsy “ambassador” could disrupt the meeting. For example, in 1652, a certain Vladislav Sitsinsky demanded that the Sejm be closed, and it resignedly dispersed! Later, 53 meetings of the supreme assembly (about 40%!) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ended ingloriously in a similar manner.

But in fact, in economics and big politics, the total equality of the “brother lords” simply led to the omnipotence of those who had money and influence - the “royalty” tycoons who bought themselves the highest government positions, but were not under the control of 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 “krolevats” maintained private armies that were superior in number and equipment to the crown troops. And at the other pole there was a mass of that same proud, but poor nobility - “A nobleman on a fence (a tiny piece of land - Ed.) is equal to a governor!” - which, with its arrogance, had long instilled in itself the hatred of the lower classes, and was simply forced to endure anything from its “patrons.” The only privilege of such a nobleman could remain only the ridiculous demand that his owner-magnate flog him only on a Persian carpet. This requirement - either as a sign of respect for ancient freedoms, or as a mockery of them - was observed.

In any case, the master's liberty has turned into a parody of itself. Everyone seemed to be convinced that the basis of democracy and freedom was the complete impotence of the state. Nobody wanted the king to become stronger. 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 were unable to “digest” the vast lands that merged into a common political space. Most neighboring states had long ago turned into centralized monarchies, and the gentry republic with its anarchic freemen without an effective central government, a financial system and a regular army turned out to be uncompetitive. All this, like a slow-acting poison, poisoned the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Hussar. 17th century

In 1654, the last great 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, the Russian army led by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich solemnly entered the capital of Lithuania, Vilna. The Patriarch blessed the sovereign to be called the “Grand Duke of Lithuania,” but the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth managed to gather forces and go on the offensive. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, after the death of Khmelnytsky, a struggle between supporters and opponents of Moscow broke out, a civil war raged - “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 triumphantly conquered Belarus. The local gentry and townspeople did not want to remain subjects of the Moscow Tsar - the gap between the Kremlin and Lithuanian orders had already run too deep.

The difficult confrontation ended with the Truce of Andrusovo in 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, the 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 the "Perpetual Peace". And a little earlier, in 1668, after the abdication of King Jan Casimir, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was even considered a real contender for the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In Russia at this time, Polish clothing came into fashion at court, translations were made from Polish, the Belarusian poet Simeon of Polotsk became the heir’s teacher...

Last August

In the 18th century, Poland-Lithuania still stretched from the Baltic to the Carpathians and from the Dnieper to the Vistula-Oder interfluve, with a population of about 12 million. But the weakened gentry “republic” no longer played any important role in international politics. It became a “traveling inn” - a supply base and theater of military operations for the new great powers - in the Northern War of 1700-1721 - Russia and Sweden, in the War of the "Polish Succession" of 1733-1734 - between Russia and France, and then in The Seven Years' War (1756-1763) - between Russia and Prussia. This was also facilitated by the magnate groups themselves, who focused on foreign candidates during the election of the king.

However, the Polish elite's rejection of everything connected with Moscow grew. “Muscovites” aroused hatred greater than even the “Swabians”; they were perceived as “boors and cattle.” And according to Pushkin, Belarusians and Litvinians suffered from this “unequal dispute” of the Slavs. Choosing between Warsaw and Moscow, 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 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth disappeared from the political map of Europe until 1918. After abdicating the throne, the last king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Stanislav August Poniatowski, remained to live in Grodno virtually under house arrest. A year later, Empress Catherine II, whose favorite he had once been, died. Paul I invited the ex-king to St. Petersburg.

Stanislav was settled in the Marble Palace; the future Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Prince Adam Czartoryski, saw him more than once in the mornings in the winter of 1797/98, when he, unkempt, in a dressing gown, wrote his memoirs. Here the last Grand Duke of Lithuania died on February 12, 1798. Paul gave him a magnificent funeral, placing the coffin with his embalmed body in the Church of St. Catherine. There, the emperor personally said goodbye to the deceased and placed a copy of the crown of the Polish kings on his head.

However, the dethroned monarch was unlucky 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 invited Poland to “take back its king.” In July 1938, the coffin with the remains of Stanislav Poniatowski was secretly transported from Leningrad to Poland. There was no place for the exile 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 birth to powerful bureaucratic structures and a huge army, turned out to be stronger than the anarchic gentry freemen. However, the cumbersome Russian state with its enslaved classes 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 will now have to speak for itself in the 21st century.

Igor Kurukin, Doctor of Historical Sciences