The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a feudal state that existed in the 13th-16th centuries. on the territory of part of modern Lithuania and Belarus. The main occupation of the population was agriculture and cattle breeding. Hunting and crafts played an auxiliary role in the economy. The development of a craft based on iron production, internal and international trade(with Russia, Poland, etc.) contributed to the growth of cities (Vilnius, Trakai, Kaunas, etc.). In the 9th-12th centuries. feudal relations developed on the territory of Lithuania, the estates of feudal lords and dependent people. Separate Lithuanian political associations - lands (Aukstaitia, Samogitia, Deltuva, etc.) - had an unequal level of socio-economic development. The decomposition of primitive communal relations and the emergence of the feudal system led to the formation of a state among the Lithuanians. According to the Galicia-Volyn chronicle, the Russo-Lithuanian treaty of 1219 mentions an alliance of Lithuanian princes headed by the "oldest" princes who owned lands in Aukstaitija. This indicates the existence of a state in Lithuania. The strengthening of the grand ducal power led to the unification of the main Lithuanian lands in V. k. L. under the rule of Mindovg (mid-30s of the 13th century - 1263), who also captured some Belarusian lands(Black Russia). The formation of the V. k. L. was accelerated by the need to unite to fight the aggression of the German crusaders, which intensified from the beginning of the 13th century. Lithuanian troops won major victories over the knights in the battles of Siauliai (1236) and Durba (1260).
In the 14th century, during the reign of Gediminas (1316-1341), Olgerd (1345-77) and Keistut (1345-82), V. k. L. significantly expanded its possessions, annexing all Belarusian, part of Ukrainian and Russian lands (Volyn , Vitebsk, Turov-Pinsk, Kyiv, Pereyaslav, Podolsk, Chernihiv-Seversky lands, etc.). Their inclusion was facilitated by the fact that Russia was weakened by the Mongol-Tatar yoke, as well as the fight against the aggression of German, Swedish and Danish invaders. The inclusion of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian lands with more developed social relations and culture into the V. to. L. contributed to further development socio-economic relations in Lithuania. In the annexed lands, the Lithuanian grand dukes retained significant autonomy and immunity rights for local magnates. This, as well as differences in the level of socio-economic development and the ethnic heterogeneity of individual parts of V. k. L., led to the lack of centralization in state administration. was at the head of the state Grand Duke, with him - a council of representatives of the nobility and the higher clergy. In order to join forces to fight the German offensive knightly orders and strengthening his power, the Grand Duke Jagiello (1377-92) concluded the Union of Krevo with Poland in 1385. However, the union was fraught with the danger of turning Lithuania into a province of Poland in the future. In Lithuania, where until the end of the 14th century. paganism existed, Catholicism began to spread by force. Jagiello's policy was opposed by a part of the Lithuanian and Russian princes, headed by Vitovt, who in 1392, after an internecine struggle, actually became the Grand Duke in Lithuania. The combined Lithuanian-Russian and Polish troops, with the participation of Czech troops in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, utterly defeated the knights of the Teutonic Order and stopped their aggression.
The growth of large feudal landownership and the consolidation of the ruling class in the 14th - 15th centuries. were accompanied by mass enslavement of the peasants, which caused peasant uprisings(for example, in 1418). The main form of exploitation of the peasants was food rent. Simultaneously with the growth of economic dependence, national oppression in the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands also intensified. Crafts and trade developed in the cities. In the 15-16 centuries. the rights and privileges of the Lithuanian lords are growing. According to the Union of Horodel in 1413, the rights of the Polish gentry were extended to the Lithuanian Catholic nobles. At the end of the 15th century a Rada of pans was formed, which actually put the power of the Grand Duke under its control by the privilege of 1447 and by the privilege of the Grand Duke Alexander in 1492. The formation of a general gentry Sejm (at the end of the 15th century), as well as the publication of the Lithuanian Statutes of 1529 and 1566, consolidated and increased the rights of the Lithuanian nobility.
The transition to cash rent at the end of the 15th-16th centuries. was accompanied by an increase in the exploitation of the peasants and an aggravation class struggle: shoots, unrest became more frequent (especially large ones - in 1536-37 in the grand ducal estates). In the middle of the 16th century a reform was carried out on the estates of the Grand Duke, as a result of which the exploitation of the peasants intensified due to the growth of corvee (see Volochnaya Pomera). From the end of the 16th century this system is being introduced in the estates of large landowners-tycoons. Mass enslavement of peasants, development of corvée economy, acquisition by Lithuanian landlords in the second half of the 16th century. the right to duty-free export of grain abroad and the import of goods hindered the development of cities.
The Lithuanian princes, from the moment of the formation of V. k. L., sought to seize Russian lands. However, the strengthening in the 14th century. The Grand Duchy of Moscow and the unification of the Russian lands around it led to the fact that from the 2nd half of the 15th century. as a result of wars with Russia (1500-03, 1507-08, 1512-22, 1534-37) B. k. L. lost Smolensk (captured by Grand Duke Vitovt in 1404), Chernigov, Bryansk, Novgorod-Seversky and other Russians earth. The growth of anti-feudal uprisings in the lands of V. k. L., the aggravation of intra-class contradictions, the desire for expansion into V., as well as the failures in the Livonian War of 1558-83 against Russia led to the unification of V. k. L. with Poland according to the Union of Lublin in 1569. one state - the Commonwealth.
The exposition is divided into four semantic blocks: maps of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are presented, as well as the Commonwealth, Europe and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on world maps. In other words, you can see how the territory of Belarus was perceived within the country, as part of the Polish union state, and how Europe looked at us. The organizers of the exhibition are trying to answer the question whether the cards can help Belarusians find themselves.
"Whether we like it or not, the vast majority of Belarusians grew up on the visual images of the Soviet educational system. Moscow, Kamchatka, the Kuriles and Tashkent suddenly turn out to be something mentally close, and Belarus suddenly turns out to be a part of a phantom reality that no longer exists. The same lost historical reality that looks at us from the canvases of old Belarusian maps", say the organizers.
In their opinion, the Soviet propaganda system imposed a visual image of the "distant and alien West, corrupt and bourgeois." " Let's watch. Look with greed, with anger or joy, but not indifferently. And open before us the whole picture our reality", the organizers say.
What is this reality?
The first geographical map of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in other words, the most old map Belarus, dates back to 1595 and is called succinctly - "Lithuania". Its publisher is the famous Flemish cartographer, the founder of modern cartography - Gerhard Mercator. Judging by it, after the Union of Lublin in 1569, which marked the beginning of the creation of the Commonwealth, Lithuania was still perceived as an independent state, in union with the Kingdom of Poland.
The map also allows you to touch the mystery of the disappeared legendary Sarmatian lake-sea, about which the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote. This huge lake just below Volkovysk on the territory of the modern swampy Polesye, which is also commonly called the Sea of Herodotus, is also present on medieval maps. Back in the 19th century, there was an oral tradition in Polissya that the Black Sea once reached Pinsk and receded only when a certain prince of Kyiv dug up the mountains.
An important role in the self-identification of Belarusians is played by original map ON, created by the hands of not foreign, but domestic cartographers. In 1613, such a map was printed in Amsterdam by the famous publisher Willem Janszoon Blau, commissioned by Nikolai Radziwill, nicknamed the Orphan. It was under him that topographic and hydrographic research on the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, unprecedented in scale, began.
Radziwill map considered one of the best geographical maps of the 17th century in Europe due to its accuracy and artistic performance. It was included in numerous atlases, and was copied for the next 150 years.
Being a great patriot of the Grand Duchy and an opponent of the transfer of the lands of Lithuania to the Kingdom of Poland, Radziwill marked on the map two borders of the Grand Duchy - before the Union of Lublin and after it. In addition, the map reflects key military events with their emotional evaluation Prince Radziwill Sirotka himself. For example, you can learn about the battle of the five thousandth army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under the command of Hetman Nikolai Radziwill (Ryzhy) near the Ulla River, where in 1564 he utterly defeated the thirty thousandth army of Muscovites under the command of Shuisky.
This map is the first cartographic source where the name Ukraine is used, which makes it invaluable for our southern neighbors as well. Later, this map was included in the "Theater of the World, or a new Atlas of maps with a description of all regions, edited by Willem and Johann Blau" and published in Amsterdam. The atlases of the Blau publishing house were considered among the best in Europe and enjoyed tremendous success. The publication is currently stored in British Library in London.
ON in the maps of the Commonwealth
In 1570, the famous Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius compiled and published in Antwerp the world's first atlas, which he called "The Spectacle of the Globe", where maps of all parts of the world known at that time were collected. At number 44 there was also a map of Lithuania - the first as accurate as possible at that time. It reflects all big cities ON, multiple geographical names rivers and lakes, as well as the boundaries, albeit very schematically, of some principalities and lands. Despite many errors in geographical names, their spelling corresponds to the Belarusian pronunciation with a transliteration into Latin.
In a later map created by the French cartographer Nicolas Sanson de Abbeville, the names were also given in their Belarusian pronunciation with a transliteration into Latin. For example, Medniki, Minski Horodzysche, Niemen, Narocz, Retrow, Lubniki. On this map, the border of Lithuania and White Russia lies to the east of the Mstislavl, Chernigov and Vitebsk lands. That is, White Russia refers to the lands located to the east of the current borders of Belarus, seized by the Muscovites from the Litvins at the beginning of the 16th century.
ON in maps Europe
In the Neapolitan "Map of modern Euro[opean] Sarmatia or Hungary, Poland, Russia, Prussia and Wallachia", published in 1507, for the first time in history, the geographical names Polonia and Lithuania are used in the title of maps. In addition, for the first time in the toponymy of Lithuania, the names of the rivers Viliya, Neman, Bug, the cities of Medniki (Myednyky) - the summer residence of Lithuanian princes, Troki (Troky) appear. The original Belarusian Latin spelling of the geographical names Wilno, Grodno, Kofno, Lyda, Brestze is fixed on the map. This map is the heir to the Ptolemaic, ancient tradition, and in the era of late antiquity, the Greeks and Romans called the lands of Eastern Europe Sarmatia, and their inhabitants Sarmatians.
"A map of the sea and a description of the northern lands and their miracles, diligently executed in the year of our Lord 1539 in Venice" created by the Swedish priest Olaf Magnus based on his travel notes and sketches from nature. For example, there is a miniature depicting in detail how bears extracted honey from wild bees in our forests, by which the author emphasized the abundance of these places. The map is an additional argument to believe that Muscovy was called "White Russia" at that time, and "Black Russia" was called the lands of the Pskov region, which partially belonged to the GDL. White Russia is located at the very top of the fragment on the territory of the current Leningrad Region.
Curious to determine the attitude of Europe towards Lithuania can be considered anthropomorphic (allegorical) cards. Such cards came into fashion in the second half of the 16th century and are considered the prototype political maps. One of the first such maps is the "Queen of Europe" (a map of Europe in the form female figure). The placement of countries on the body of a woman was symbolic. For example, Turkey - the enemy of the Holy Roman Empire - did not hit the map at all. Bohemia, the birthplace of the Pope of that period, is placed at the level of the woman's heart.
Specifically for the Belarusians, it is important that Lithuania, in the vision of the author, and hence the Christian rulers, was perceived as an integral part of the body of Europe. This was not honored, for example, by England and "stricken by heresy" Scandinavia. Moreover, in an allegorical sense, Lithuania, like Poland, Livonia, Hungary, are represented by the feet of the continent, on which the whole of Europe stands. The Asian Muscovy, Scythia and Tartaria, which are on the same level with Greece and Bulgaria captured by the Ottoman Empire, occupied the position outside the body at the feet of Europe.
Map "Europe, a new description by Willem Blaeu" 1650 on the sides are engravings that masterfully describe the traditional costumes of the nobility of the European peoples. Among them there is also a fragment of the gentry culture of the Commonwealth. However, the map leaves many mysteries. According to the author, the borders of Lithuania reached the Black Sea, which was not true. It is hard to imagine that such an experienced and authoritative cartographer as Willem Blau made a mistake by "returning" the lost southern lands to the GDL. Moreover, years earlier, he published the Radziwill map and, like no other European cartographer, owned the very accurate information along the political borders of the Grand Duchy. The author was well aware of the claims of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to these lands in the person of his largest magnates, and in particular, Nikolai Radziwill. The "mistake" he made may indicate that the author shared the views on the historical justice of the rulers of Lithuania. It can also be a thank you to the customer of the card with the hope of a possible cooperation in the future.
ON on vintage maps of the world
The most valuable and largest historical artifact of medieval cartography that has survived to this day is Ebstorf world map- refers presumably to 1290. It contains perhaps the first cartographic image of such toponyms as Polotsk (Plosceke), Smolensk (Smalentike), Neman (Memela), Livonia (Livonie), Riga (Riga). Although the author made a mistake: Polotsk and Smolensk ended up on the same river - the Dvina, and Smolensk turned out to be closer to the sea than in reality. Novgorod and Kyiv were also on the same river.
"Planisphere Fra Mauro" 1450 - the crown of medieval cartography. The lands of the Grand Duchy are displayed in sufficient detail on the map: there are the main water transport arteries of the country (Dvina, Neman, Dnieper) and some roads connecting cities and provinces. In the map, ancient toponyms (Sarmatia, Black Russia, Red Russia) are adjacent to modern - Lithuania. In addition, this is the first of the known maps where White Russia was indicated.
Some modern historians, challenging the conclusions of the Imperial geographical society(although without having access to his archives - no one worked with the Polotsk Chronicle after Tatishchev), they consider Gedimina a descendant of the Zhmudins, who "they have long been sitting on the princely thrones of the destinies of the Polotsk principality - it was weakened and princes from the strong Lietuva (Zhmud) were invited / appointed there, so the annexation of the Polotsk lands took place voluntarily and peacefully"
A question immediately arises, to which no answer is given.
How likely is the invitation (peaceful - there was no conquest) to the princely throne in christian center Aboriginal pagan leaders
[
“The Samogites wear bad clothes and, moreover, in the vast majority of cases they are ashy in color. They spend their life in low and, moreover, very long huts; in the middle they keep a fire, at which the father of the family sits and sees the cattle and all his household utensils. It is customary to keep cattle, without any partition, under the same roof under which they themselves live. More noble people also use buffalo horns as goblets. ... They blow up the earth not with iron, but with wood ... When they are going to plow, they usually carry with them a lot of logs with which they dig the earth"
S. Herberstein, "Notes on Muscovy", XVI century, about contemporary Zhmudins. (In the XIII century it was even sadder)]
And what guided the inhabitants, preferring them to people from neighboring (Volyn, Kyiv, Smolensk, Novgorod, Mazovia) principalities, who
- represent a powerful public entity
- closer in culture
- closer in language
- dynastically related
- live in cities, know writing and the likeness of laws
And this despite the fact that at that time in Polotsk there was "freedom of Polotsk or Venice"- objectionable rulers were quite often simply expelled.
