Grand Duchy of Lithuania

“ Lithuania, formerly a grand-duchy occupying portions of the valleys of the Dwina, Niemen, Dnieper, and Bug; for centuries connected with Poland; passed to Russia in 1814. The Lithuanians are a distinct race of the Indo-European stock, fair and handsome, with a language of their own, and a literature rich in folk-lore and songs. Of a strong religious temperament, they embraced Christianity late (13th century) , and still retain many pagan superstitions; formerly serfs, they are now a humble peasantry engaged in agriculture, cattle-breeding, and bee-keeping. ”

“ The provinces of the South for a time maintained a certain unity and independence under the name of the Duchy of Halicz or Kief; but these also, through claims of inheritance or feudal right, became eventually merged in the dominions of their neighbours. Poland obtained Black Russia, which has never since returned to its earlier masters. Lithuania acquired Volhynia and Red Russia, and thus extended her wide empire from the Baltic as far as the Red Sea. Then came the union of these powers by the acceptance in 1383 of the Grand Duke Jagellon as King of Poland ”

“ Alexander's election cemented, indeed, once for all, the union between Poland and Lithuania, inasmuch as, on the eve of it (Oct. 3, 1501) the senates of both countries agreed that, in future, the king of Poland should always be grand-duke of Lithuania, but this was the sole benefit which the Republic derived from the reign of Alexander, under whom the Polish government has been well described as a rudderless ship in a stormy sea, with nothing but the grace of God between it and destruction. In Lithuania the increasing pressure of the Muscovite was the chief danger. ”

“ How many years have gone by! See, I have grown old; see, Kniaziewicz too has grizzled hair; but you might still enter the lists against young men. And your switch doubtless blooms as it did long ago; I have heard that recently you birched the Muscovites. But where are your brethren? I should beyond measure like to see those penknives and razors of yours, the last relics of ancient Lithuania.”
“After that victory, General,” said the Judge, “almost all the Dobrzynskis took refuge in the Grand Duchy, and must have entered one or other of the legions.” ”

“ A further step must be taken—the two independent countries must be transformed into a single state. The great obstacle in the way of this, the only true solution of the difficulty, was the opposition of the Lithuanian magnates, who feared to lose the absolute dominance they possessed in the grand-duchy if they were merged in the szlachta of the kingdom. But, at the last moment, the dread of another Muscovite invasion made them more pliable and, at a Polish diet held at Warsaw from November 1563 to June 1564, which the Lithuanians attended, the question of an absolute union was hotly debated. ”

“ Vitold himself, though called Grand Prince, rules Lithuania by appointment of Yagello, and is merely viceroy. His merit, therefore, will fall on the king. And what glory for newly baptized Lithuania, and for Polish power, if their united armies shall carry the Cross to regions in which if the name of the Saviour has ever been mentioned, it was only to be blasphemed, regions in which the foot of a Pole or Lithuanian has never stood up to this time! ”

“ Members of the British mission at Kaunas (Kovo) told me that the Lithuanians are very brave soldiers who have so many enemies, yet nevertheless keep their spirit of patriotism so long and so firmly. It stands to reason then, that the Lithuanians, as a nation, are very brave, considering the numbers of Poles and Lithuanians, you could hardly imagine how the Lithuanians could dare oppose the Poles, and yet you see they attempt to oppose many armies. Lithuania has about one-fifth the population of Poland in Europe and about one-third the population of the Poles in America. ”

“ The Duke of Lithuania is no hot-brained youth to be entangled and destroyed by a woman's smiles. To have a month's happiness, as men phrase it, and then the midnight dagger of a jealous monarch—I seek no such adventures. It is the crown of Poland—yes, the crown—that you must help me to, fair lady."
As he stood reflecting on his ambitious schemes, his rival in the state, Count Laski, minister and chancellor of the king, passed by him on his way to the palace. The duke, assuming a frank and cordial manner, called to him. Laski paused. "What would the Duke of Lithuania?" ”

“ The people had no central government until the latter part of the middle ages. Ryngold, a partly mythical chief of the early part of the 13th century, is thought to have begun a stable government. Ryngold’s son Mindog, a purely historical character, reigned over Lithuania until about 1263. Gedimen (1315–1340) made Lithuania a powerful state by the conquest of Volhynia and Kilo, which had belonged to Russia. In 1386 Jagello, grandson of Gedimen, grand prince of Lithuania, married Hedwig, the daughter of Louis the Great of Poland, and became King of Poland with which he united Lithuania ”

“ If the physical possibility of deliberate and unfettered choice can be established, it is of course for the peoples of Lithuania themselves to decide with which neighbouring political unit they prefer to be more intimately connected. But from the standpoint of political stability in Eastern Europe, which is{117} the consideration of greatest importance to the Allies, it would be more desirable to see Lithuania federated in some way with Russia, while giving certain economic privileges to Poland. ”

“ Money, munitions, and men. The first we have not, as Germany has already impoverished us; the second, we have no means of supplying, because we lack the first. Therefore, Germany can have reference only to men. Men from a self-declared democracy to fight in the ranks of autocracy? Unthinkable. Lithuania would not consent. Are her citizens to be dragooned into the ranks of the Kaiser? This would be an abridgment of the sovereignty which Germany has already recognized, for Chancellor von Hertling's reply stated, "We hereby recognize Lithuania as free and independent." ”

“ Distrust had already secretly begun, and mutual recriminations; the Lithuanians dreaded the vengeance of Russia, not being certain of having permanently got rid of her government; robbery was scandalously common; the weather was bad, and many soldiers were ill. Everywhere throughout the province, corn, cattle, and forage were requisitioned for the army, and a dearth threatened Lithuania as soon as the French entered upon their soil. Half of the carriages, a third of the horse, and a fourth of those in charge of the transports, had already perished on the roads from the Elbe to Wilna. ”

“ And so to see how far Lithuania has come since the Soviet days is a simply a joy. In the fifteen years since this country regained independence, it has become one of the world's great success stories. We in America count Lithuania as one of our closest friends, and we value its partnership in NATO and other important institutions of the West. ”

“ He was surrounded by the princes of the blood, who had warmly embarked in the common cause; he had an immense army at his command, panting for new fields of spoil and glory; he had broken up his domestic enemies in the North, and dismembered or attached the insurgent republics. He had left Lithuania to the rapacious guardianship of the Khan of the Crimea, who was sufficiently formidable to neutralize the incursions of the duchy upon the frontier; and on every side he found an ardent population impatient to expel the invader. ”

“ After repulsing the Bolshevik from the Dvinsk, they had a few weeks' rest and then marched to Kaunas.
At the time I was visiting Lithuania she was surrounded by enemies—on the north and east by the Bolsheviks, on the west by Kolchak and the insurgent Germans, and on the south by the Poles. The most stupendous fact is that at present the Poles are the most dangerous foes of the Lithuanians. The Poles, rejoicing in their own liberation from the yoke of oppression, are altogether unmindful that they are striving to place the Lithuanian nation under worse oppression. ”

“ So long as Russia is in its present condition of chaotic anarchy, it is quite impossible to foretell what that combination will be, but it is unthinkable that such chaos is anything but temporary. Given the defeat of the Central Empires and an end to their unhindered policy of disintegration there, order will eventually be restored and a firm political establishment emerge, to which Lithuania, considerable sections of which are in favour of the Russian solution for their country, will be attached. ”

“ CHAPTER 1 − THE STATE OF LITHUANIA Article 1 The State of Lithuania shall be an independent and democratic republic.
Article 2 The State of Lithuania shall be created by the People. Sovereignty shall be vested in the People.
Article 3 No one may limit or restrict the sovereignty of the People or make claims to the sovereign powers of the People. The People and each citizen shall have the right to oppose anyone who encroaches on the independence, territorial integrity, or constitutional order of the State of Lithuania by force. ”

“ The prince of Moscow knew well that the war with Lithuania—that state which Polish in the west, by its Russian provinces, in the east exercised a dangerous attraction over subjects of Moscow—was a struggle for existence. Lithuania was not only a foreign enemy—it was a domestic enemy, with intercourse and sympathies in the very heart of the Russian state, even in the palace of the czar ”

“ From this city of Wilno, as from the she-wolf of Rome, went forth Kiejstut and Olgierd and his sons,63 as mighty hunters as they were famous knights, in pursuit now of their enemies and now of wild beasts. A hunter's dream disclosed to us the secrets of the future, that Lithuania ever needs iron and wooded lands. ”

“ But the name of Lithuanian provinces was usually given only to the governments of Vilna and Kovno, and, though Nicholas I. prohibited the use of this name, it is still used, even in official documents. In Russia, all the White-Russian population of the former Polish Lithuania are usually considered as Lithuanians, the name of Zhmud being restricted to Lithuanians proper. ”

“ Indeed, but for the unceasing simultaneous struggle with the Teutonic knights, the burden of which was heroically borne by Kiejstut, Russian historians frankly admit that Lithuania, not Muscovy, must have become the dominant power of eastern Europe. ”

“ The union was at first very loose, depending only on the person of the sovereign, but it became constantly closer, until in 1569 the two states agreed to have a common Diet, sitting at Warsaw. Lithuania retained until the last, however, its separate officials, treasury, and army (compare pp. 171 and 310, and note 29) . A constant stream of colonisation flowed east from Poland (called the Crown or the Kingdom) into Lithuania (p. 168) , until the gentry of that country became Polish, while the peasantry remained either Lithuanian or Russian. ”

“ Accordingly the vocabulary of Lithuanian betrays Polish, that of Lettish, German influence. Lettish has also been influenced by the proximity of its neighbours of Finnish race, whom the Letts gradually propelled northwards into the extreme northern corner of the promontory of Kurland, where a portion of them still remains, and into Livonia proper. Lithuanian has also been much influenced by White Russian, the dialect current in those provinces which in the Middle Ages formed the lands of the Lithuanian crown, and later with Lithuania became part of Poland. ”

“ No Russians were seen except a few light horsemen, who galloped up, inquired of the engineers why they were building the bridges, and then rode hastily away. During three days the Grand Army filed over the river and melted away into the sandy wastes. No foe at first contested their march, but neither were they met by the crowds of downtrodden natives whom their fancy pictured as thronging to welcome the liberators. In truth, the peasants of Lithuania had no very close racial affinity to the Poles, whose offshoots were found chiefly among the nobles and the wealthier townsfolk. ”

“ Observance of the anniversary of Lithuania's Declaration of Independence is natural for Americans, who faithfully celebrate our own Independence Day each year. America has long been a beacon of hope to Lithuania, because Americans cherish their self-determination, individual liberty, and independence-the God-given rights the Lithuanian people seek to reclaim in the face of religious and political persecution, forced Russification, and ethnic dilution. It is therefore fitting to show our solidarity with the people of Lithuania. ”

“ Set in the Lithuanian country is Vilna, the station on the one reasonably dry entry from the west into Central Russia, and therefore a trading town with large German, Jewish, and Polish elements illustrating more tragically {77} than any other town the difficulty of creation of states in this eastern boundary zone of Western Europe. The forests of Lithuania are very important for the country's economic future. ”

“ Basques and Bretons are not ethnographically French, nor are the Welsh English, but just as no sane thinker would dream of demanding for any of those a separate independent existence, so no one who has studied the problems of Eastern Europe could wish to create an independent Lithuania. ”

“ In 1241 the Mongols devastated the country, and thereafter colonies of Germans and Jewish refugees settled among the Slav population. The first Diet met in 1331, and Casimir the Great, 1333-1370, raised the country to a high level of prosperity, fostering the commerce of Danzig and Cracow. The dynasty of the Jagellons united Lithuania to Poland, ended two centuries' contest with the Teutonic knights, and yielded to the nobles such privileges as turned the kingdom into an oligarchy and elective monarchy. At the time of the Reformation Poland was the leading power in Eastern Europe. ”