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Europe · High and late Middle Ages
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
1236 – 1795
conventionally 1236 (or 1240s) – 1795. Founding date is contested: Lithuanian statehood is variously dated to the 1230s (Mindaugas's emergence as leader, with 1236 often used, the year of the Battle of Saule), to 1251 (his baptism and the papal bull of Innocent IV proclaiming a Kingdom of Lithuania), or to 1253 (his coronation).
- Existed
- 1236 – 1795
- Shown on the map
- 1220–1449
- Peak area
- 805k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
conventionally 1236 (or 1240s) – 1795. Founding date is contested: Lithuanian statehood is variously dated to the 1230s (Mindaugas's emergence as leader, with 1236 often used, the year of the Battle of Saule), to 1251 (his baptism and the papal bull of Innocent IV proclaiming a Kingdom of Lithuania), or to 1253 (his coronation). Mindaugas was crowned the only King of Lithuania on 6 July 1253 by the Bishop of Chełmno — though the exact date rests on Edvardas Gudavičius's 1989 hypothesis and is celebrated as Statehood Day. Mindaugas was assassinated in 1263 by his nephew Treniota and Daumantas of Pskov, and the country reverted to paganism and grand-ducal status. Gediminas (r. c. 1315–1341) founded Vilnius and the Gediminid dynasty and expanded into Rus'. His son Algirdas pushed to the Black Sea (Blue Waters, c. 1362). Lithuania was the last pagan state in Europe, Christianized in 1387 following the Union of Krewo (1385), when Grand Duke Jogaila married Jadwiga of Poland and became King Władysław II Jagiełło. Vytautas the Great (r. 1392–1430) led Lithuania to its zenith, co-commanding the victory at Grunwald/Tannenberg (15 July 1410) over the Teutonic Order. The Union of Lublin (1569) merged Lithuania and Poland into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; the Grand Duchy retained its laws (the Lithuanian Statutes) and army until the Third Partition (1795).
Common questions
- What was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania?
- conventionally 1236 (or 1240s) – 1795. Founding date is contested: Lithuanian statehood is variously dated to the 1230s (Mindaugas's emergence as leader, with 1236 often used, the year of the Battle of Saule), to 1251 (his baptism and the papal bull of Innocent IV proclaiming a Kingdom of Lithuania), or to 1253 (his coronation).
- When did the Grand Duchy of Lithuania exist?
- The Grand Duchy of Lithuania existed 1236 – 1795. On this map it is drawn 1220–1449.
- How large was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania covered about 805,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each territory as the primary basis, with Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia, academic works (John Fine on the Balkans, Halperin and Martin on Muscovy, Rady and Veszprémy on Hungary) and, for a few entries, the medieval Livonian Chronicle of Henry itself. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Grand Duchy of Lithuania en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Lithuania
This entry was last updated .
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
Further reading in Knowledge
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- Religion & Belief · Grand Principality of Moscow Sergius of Radonezh: The Monk Behind Moscow's Rise St Sergius of Radonezh (died 1392), founder of the Trinity monastery near Moscow: what his Life says, his role in politics, and what is later legend.
- Religion & Belief · Grand Principality of Moscow Rublev's Trinity: The Icon Behind the Legend Andrei Rublev's Trinity icon, painted about 1411 or in the 1420s: what it shows, who painted it, and why its handover to the Church in 2023 alarmed experts.
- War & Warriors · Grand Principality of Moscow The Battle of Kulikovo (1380): Dmitry Donskoy, Mamai and the Myth of Liberation The Battle of Kulikovo on 8 September 1380: who fought, how many, what the earliest sources say, and why the victory did not end the Tatar yoke.
- War & Warriors · Teutonic Order The Battle on the Ice (1242): What Really Happened on Lake Peipus The Battle on the Ice of 5 April 1242 in the sources: who fought, how many died, where it happened, and how the drowning knights entered the story.
- Empires & Dynasties · Kievan Rus' Kievan or Kyivan Rus'? The Name, the Spelling and Who Owns the Past Was Kievan Rus' Ukraine or Russia? What the realm called itself, where "Kievan" and "Kyivan" come from, and why historians call Rus' a shared past.
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