History of Lithuania
The history of Lithuania dates back to settlements founded about 10,000 years ago, but the first written record of the name for the country dates back to 1009 AD. Lithuanians, one of the Baltic peoples, later conquered neighboring lands and established the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 13th century. The Grand Duchy was a successful and lasting warrior state. It remained fiercely independent and was one of the last areas of Europe to adopt Christianity. A formidable power, it became the largest state in Europe in the 15th century spread from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, through the conquest of large groups of East Slavs who resided in Ruthenia.
In 1385, the Grand Duchy formed a dynastic union with Poland through the Union of Krewo. Later, the Union of Lublin created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Second Northern War, the Grand Duchy sought protection under the Swedish Empire through the Union of Kėdainiai in 1655. However, it soon returned to being a part of the Polish–Lithuanian state, which persisted until 1795 when the last of the Partitions of Poland erased both independent Lithuania and Poland from the political map. After the dissolution, Lithuanians lived under the rule of the Russian Empire until the 20th century, although there were several major rebellions, especially in 1830–1831 and 1863.
On 16 February 1918, Lithuania was re-established as a democratic state. It remained independent until the onset of World War II, when it was occupied by the Soviet Union under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Following a brief occupation by Nazi Germany after the Nazis waged war on the Soviet Union, Lithuania was again absorbed into the Soviet Union for nearly 50 years. In 1990–1991, Lithuania restored its sovereignty with the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. Lithuania joined the NATO alliance in 2004 and the European Union as part of its enlargement in 2004.
Before statehood
Early settlement
The first humans arrived on the territory of modern Lithuania in the second half of the 10th millennium BC after the glaciers receded at the end of the last glacial period. They were traveling hunters and did not form stable settlements. According to the historian Marija Gimbutas, these people came from two directions: the Jutland Peninsula and from present-day Poland. They brought two different cultures, as evidenced by the tools they used. The following centuries are characterised by the "Baltic Magdalenian" and the Swiderian culture. In the 8th millennium BC, the climate became much warmer, and forests developed. The inhabitants of what is now Lithuania then traveled less and engaged in local hunting, gathering and fresh-water fishing. This transition is often connected with the cultural transition from Paleolithic to Mesolithic. During the 5th millennium BC, the Neolithic started and different forms of crafts and artistic production started to develop. Hunting, however, stayed the main form of food procurement; agriculture developed only slowly and did not emerge until the 3rd millennium BC. During the Neolithic, first forms of interregional trade began, especially with amber. The dwellings became more sophisticated in order to shelter larger families.Speakers of North-Western Indo-European might have arrived with the Corded Ware culture around 3200/3100 BC.
Baltic tribes
The first Lithuanian people were a branch of an ancient group known as the Balts. The main tribal divisions of the Balts were the West Baltic Old Prussians and Yotvingians, and the East Baltic Lithuanians and Latvians. The Balts spoke forms of the Indo-European languages. Today, the only remaining Baltic nationalities are the Lithuanians and Latvians, but there were more Baltic groups or tribes in the past. Some of these merged into Lithuanians and Latvians, while others no longer existed after they were conquered and assimilated by the State of the Teutonic Order.The Baltic tribes did not maintain close cultural or political contacts with the Roman Empire, but they did maintain trade contacts. Tacitus, in his study Germania, described the Aesti people, inhabitants of the south-eastern Baltic Sea shores who were probably Balts, around the year 97 AD. The Western Balts differentiated and became known to outside chroniclers first. Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD knew of the Galindians and Yotvingians, and early medieval chroniclers mentioned Prussians, Curonians and Semigallians.
Lithuania, located along the lower and middle Neman River basin, comprised mainly the culturally different regions of Samogitia, and further east Aukštaitija, or Lithuania proper. The area was remote and unattractive to outsiders, including traders, which accounts for its separate linguistic, cultural and religious identity and delayed integration into general European patterns and trends.
The Lithuanian language is considered to be very conservative for its close connection to Indo-European roots. It is believed to have differentiated from the Latvian language, the most closely related existing language, around the 7th century. Traditional Lithuanian pagan customs and mythology, with many archaic elements, were long preserved. Rulers' bodies were cremated up until the Christianization of Lithuania: the descriptions of the cremation ceremonies of the grand dukes Algirdas and Kęstutis have survived.
The Lithuanian tribe is thought to have developed more recognizably toward the end of the first millennium. The first known reference to Lithuania as a nation comes from the Annals of the Quedlinburg monastery, dated 9 March 1009. In 1009, the missionary Bruno of Querfurt arrived in Lithuania and baptized the Lithuanian ruler "King Nethimer."
Formation of a Lithuanian state
From the 9th to the 11th centuries, coastal Balts were subjected to raids by the Vikings, and the kings of Denmark collected tribute at times. During the 10–11th centuries, Lithuanian territories were among the lands paying tribute to Kievan Rus', and Yaroslav the Wise was among the Ruthenian rulers who invaded Lithuania. From the mid-12th century, it was the Lithuanians who were invading Ruthenian territories. In 1183, Polotsk and Pskov were ravaged, and even the distant and powerful Novgorod Republic was repeatedly threatened by the excursions from the emerging Lithuanian war machine toward the end of the 12th century.In the 12th century and afterwards, mutual raids involving Lithuanian and Polish forces took place sporadically, but the two countries were separated by the lands of the Yotvingians. The late 12th century brought an eastern expansion of German settlers to the mouth of the Daugava River area. Military confrontations with Lithuanians followed at that time and at the turn of the century, but for the time being the Lithuanians had the upper hand.
From the late 12th century, an organized Lithuanian military force existed; it was used for external raids, plundering and the gathering of slaves. Such military and pecuniary activities fostered social differentiation and triggered a struggle for power in Lithuania. This initiated the formation of early statehood, from which the Grand Duchy of Lithuania developed. In 1231, the Danish Census Book mentions Baltic lands paying tribute to the Danes, including Lithuania.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania (13th century–1569)
13th–14th century Lithuanian state
Mindaugas and his kingdom
From the early 13th century, frequent foreign military excursions became possible due to the increased cooperation and coordination among the Baltic tribes. Forty such expeditions took place between 1201 and 1236 against Ruthenia, Poland, Latvia and Estonia, which were then being conquered by the Livonian Order. Pskov was pillaged and burned in 1213. In 1219, twenty-one Lithuanian chiefs signed a peace treaty with the state of Galicia–Volhynia. This event is widely accepted as the first proof that the Baltic tribes were uniting and consolidating.From the early 13th century, two German crusading military orders, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the Teutonic Knights, became established at the mouth of the Daugava River and in Chełmno Land respectively. Under the pretense of converting the population to Christianity, they proceeded to conquer much of the area that is now Latvia and Estonia, in addition to parts of Lithuania. In response, a number of small Baltic tribal groups united under the rule of Mindaugas. Mindaugas, originally a kunigas or major chief, one of the five senior dukes listed in the treaty of 1219, is referred to as the ruler of all Lithuania as of 1236 in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle.
In 1236 the pope declared a crusade against the Lithuanians. The Samogitians, led by Vykintas, Mindaugas' rival, soundly defeated the Livonian Brothers and their allies in the Battle of Saule in 1236, which forced the Brothers to merge with the Teutonic Knights in 1237. But Lithuania was trapped between the two branches of the Order.
Around 1240, Mindaugas ruled over all of Aukštaitija. Afterwards, he conquered the Black Ruthenia region. Mindaugas was in process of extending his control to other areas, killing rivals or sending relatives and members of rival clans east to Ruthenia so they could conquer and settle there. They did that, but they also rebelled. The Ruthenian duke Daniel of Galicia sensed an occasion to recover Black Ruthenia and in 1249–1250 organized a powerful anti-Mindaugas coalition that included Mindaugas' rivals, Yotvingians, Samogitians and the Livonian Teutonic Knights. Mindaugas, however, took advantage of the divergent interests in the coalition he faced.
In 1250, Mindaugas entered into an agreement with the Teutonic Order; he consented to receive baptism and relinquish his claim over some lands in western Lithuania, for which he was to receive a royal crown in return. Mindaugas was then able to withstand a military assault from the remaining coalition in 1251, and, supported by the Knights, emerge as a victor to confirm his rule over Lithuania.
On 17 July 1251, Pope Innocent IV signed two papal bulls that ordered the Bishop of Chełmno to crown Mindaugas as King of Lithuania, appoint a bishop for Lithuania, and build a cathedral. In 1253, Mindaugas was crowned and a Kingdom of Lithuania was established for the first and only time in Lithuanian history. Mindaugas "granted" parts of Yotvingia and Samogitia that he did not control to the Knights in 1253–1259. A peace with Daniel of Galicia in 1254 was cemented by a marriage deal involving Mindaugas' daughter and Daniel's son Shvarn. Mindaugas' nephew Tautvilas returned to his Duchy of Polotsk and Samogitia separated, soon to be ruled by another nephew, Treniota.
In 1260, the Samogitians, victorious over the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Durbe, agreed to submit themselves to Mindaugas' rule on the condition that he abandons the Christian religion; the king complied by terminating the emergent conversion of his country, renewed anti-Teutonic warfare and expanded further his Ruthenian holdings. It is not clear whether this was accompanied by his personal apostasy. Mindaugas thus established the basic tenets of medieval Lithuanian policy: defense against the German Order expansion from the west and north and conquest of Ruthenia in the south and east.
Mindaugas was the principal founder of the Lithuanian state. He established for a while a Christian kingdom under the pope rather than the Holy Roman Empire, at a time when the remaining pagan peoples of Europe were no longer being converted peacefully, but conquered.