Up until the beginning of the high middle ages in the west, the tribes who will late coalesce into Lithuania show very little military activity. These pagan tribes (the last in Europe), prior to their organization under strong monarchs, were largely kept under control of the German knights. However, once this control is vitiated, Lithuania steps into history.

This first step is taken in the beginning of the 1200s, under a prince named Mindvog. Like Genghis in Mongolia, the first job of a strong ruler is to eliminate local elites who have a vested interest in halting consolidation of tribes into a nation. Secondly, the job of a strong ruler is to play one neighboring power off against another. In this case, Mindvog, threatened by St. Alexander in the east and the German knights in the west, sought the assistance of the pope. In 1252, Mindvog receives the papal crown, thereby granting him legitimacy in the eyes of the European world. However, he quickly reverted to paganism, possibly as a reaction to the increasing threats from the Teutonic knights, and led a campaign against them in which he was victorious. Mindvog disliked the imperious style of the knights, and rejected Christianization in that it was identified with knightly policy. Therefore, the end of the knights was in sight, as they had received defeats had the hands of the newly organized Lithuanians as well as the Novgorodian armies under St. Alexander. In 1263, the creator of the Lithuanian nation was murdered by a rival chieftain.

Mindvog’s legacy was not soon forgotten, and the next leader to begin knitting together a Lithuanian nation was Gedimyn (1315-1340). As Russia was largely drowning under Mongol control, this Lithuanian monarch took advantage of Russia’s weakness, and, since the Mongols had not penetrated into the marshy north, succeeded in taking Belarus, Volhynia and Vladimir. However, what made Gedimyn popular was his presence as an anti-Mongol force. The “Great Russians” had decided that resistance was futile, and cooperation with the Mongol rulers would keep the Asiatics at a distance. This will be detailed in later lectures, but such a stance was unpopular with the lower orders of society. Gedimyn built an extraordinary degree of political capital by refusing any cooperation and continually clashing with Mongol horsemen.

Again, like his predecessor, Gedimyn sought the protection of Pope John XXII for relief against the remnants of the Teutonic knights. Though dying a pagan in 1340, the purpose of Gedimyn’s rule was to create a trading empire in imitation of the Kievan state centuries earlier. One of the main reasons he went to the pope was to pacify the Teutons so as to build trading relationships with the German cities and the Russians in the east, and in this regard he differed from his predecessor.

The expansion continued under Gedimyn’s sucessor Olgerd. The conquest of Novgorod provided this ruler with a base to launch anti-Mongol operations. However, Olgerd found himself in a difficult neighborhood, in that he found himself at war with the Poles, Germans and Mongols at one time or another. Olgerd dies in 1377.

Realizing that Olgerd struggled to maintain a young and growing empire among difficult rivals, his successor Jagellon (1377-1434) sought primarily to create a tightly centralized Lithuanian state. By the end of the 14th century, the struggles of the infant empire were to be found in the cleavage between those who sought a German alliance and those who sought to make some peace with the North Russians. Jagellon had made Russian the official language of the empire, clearly showing an eastern tilt. However, the Polish line came to an end in 1385, and the last female of the Polish royal house, Hedwiga, married Jagellon, who was baptized into the Roman church before his marriage in 1386. He was now king of Poland.

However, this specific move did not make many smaller Lithuanian lords happy. Having moved his capital to Krakow (he had left his brother in charge of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania proper), Jagellon was challenged by Vitovt, who organized a rival, northern kingdom in 1392. Vitovt allied himself with the German knights, and sought to build a major coalition against the Mongols. Ultimately, Vitovt was to defeat his now Polish and Roman Catholic rival by creating a Lithuanian empire on the ruins of the Mongol. Tamerlane had smashed much of Mongol power in the south, and had all but vaporized the Ottomans (giving Byzantium another generation of existence). Such a development provided both Dimitri Donskoy and Vitovt the vacuum they needed to being competing for the fertile lands of modern day Ukraine.

Vitovt was given permission by Pope Boniface to launch a crusade against the Mongols, and the leader of the Grand Duchy quickly signed a papal-backed peace treaty with the Germans. Vitovt organized a huge army, made up of at least 20 princes, to create a Lithuanian empire to the south. The Tartars, outnumbered, stalled for time. Using their speed on horseback, these fast moving troops quickly surrounded the Lithuanians, and crushed this Grand Army at the battle of the Vorskla River in 1398. Quickly, the Mongols retook Kiev and reabsorbed all southern Russia. The Lithuanian dream of a southern trading empire with the Greeks was smashed, and Lithuania was then condemned to live an existence in the north, ever again penetrating south. While the invasion of Tamerlane looked as if Mongol power would be gone forever, the Mongol victory over the Lithuanians breathed new, albeit temporary, life into the Horde.

After this defeat, several local uprisings began against the now weakened Vitovt (who had barely escaped the river with his life). In many respects, the well known Union of Horodlo in 1413 is the result of this insecurity. In order to control the increasingly belligerent German knights (who had long been given papal permission to act as they pleased), the balance of power was shifted with the increasingly close union of Lithuania and Poland, based on geographic necessity, religious unity (at least among the elites, the majority of the peasants in Lithuania were Orthodox and Russian speaking) and military security. In this case, the union also was a means whereby the nobles of Lithuania were provided with the same substantial privileges of the traditional Polish landlords, including freedom from monetary taxation and full jurisdiction over peasants on their lands. The monarchy, particularly after military defeat, was to be dominated by nobles, as certainly was the case after the death of Vitovt in 1430, Jagellion was to die four years later. From the noble point of view, it was the perfect arrangement, but it led to disunity, the tyranny of landlordism and the increasing dominance of Moscow, centralized and unified under one ruler. And it is there we now turn.

Outside of a powerful ruler, how was it that Lithuania became so powerful?

Medieval Lithuania is highly studied, and retains many areas of controversy. As always, we need to look to the money. Lithuania was well situated geographically, and her trade with the Germans and the Europe of the high middle ages is the real economic background to Lithuania’s rise. Support from the pope of Rome was also important. Lithuania cut her military teeth against the knights, and it is the arrogant feudal policy of these men that helped forge a Lithuanian nation, as the Mongols helped forged a Russian one. Therefore, the policy of these rulers, almost without exception, was to fertilize Lithuanian identity as a militarized border of Europe against the Asiatics, who later were transmogrified into Russians. Unfortunately, Lithuania was too divided between its Catholic elites and Orthodox peasants to long survive as a powerful empire. It was soon to be overshadowed by Poland.

I’ve heard some Ukrainians claim that medieval Lithuania is the true successor to Kiev. Any opinions?

This is a minority opinion among Ukrainian nationalists. However one slices it, Ukraine maintains an “anything but Moscow” mentality in this respect. Novgorod, Lithuania, Galich, Pskov, Tver. . . they are all, at one time or another, the “successors of Kiev.” It all goes back to the myth of the “eastern borderlands” with Asia that so motivated Croat, Czech, Prussian, Lithuanian, Austrian, Polish and Ukrainian nationalists throughout history. As far as 19th century Ukrainian historiography is concerned, as talented as Doroshenko might have been, it cant be separated from the political realities of the day; the interest of an independent/autonomous state of Ukraine under Austrian tutelage. In order to give this historical legitimacy, anyone but Moscow needed to become the “successor to Kiev.” This is not to reject the notion of Ukrainian autonomy, however, but it is to show how history can be manipulated by political concerns and, in this case, the Austrian empire, who helped fund this mentality within the empire, especially within it’s Ukrainian schools in Vienna. I really don’t have a well formed opinion on the “successor” issue, as it is likely that the Kievan population went all over the place after the Mongol onslaught. As far as I’m concerned, the “successor to Kiev” is the place where Orthodoxy was protected and defended, and that was Vladimir/Moscow. But, having said that, I certainly do not mean to de-emphasize the contributions of Roman and Daniel in Galich, or any other Orthodox Slavic entity during the middle ages.