No. I Historical View of Lithuania
If, notwithstanding the many good works recently published upon Poland, the history of that country is still but imperfectly known to the rest of the world; it may be said that the history of Lithuania is almost absolutely unknown to the people of the West. It is generally thought that it has always composed an integral part of the Russian empire, and that it was only occasionally that it has held relations with ancient Poland;—a false impression, and one which the public journals have but too frequently assisted in propagating. The truth is, that for five hundred years, Lithuania has voluntarily associated herself with the destinies of ancient Poland, and it is only with shame and reluctance that she has borne the Russian yoke. But that which is of great importance at present to consider, is, the ancient sympathy which has constantly united the two people. There is a common spirit of nationality, which, notwithstanding the studiously contrived disintegration of their territory, has always animated the Lithuanians and the Poles;—a most important fact, for it is on this fraternity of feeling and community of opinion between the ancient Polish provinces, that the salvation of modern Poland essentially depends. We will endeavor, by presenting to the reader the following extracts from the work of Leonard Chodzko, to throw some light upon the political history of this interesting portion of the Slavian race.
‘For a long time a distinct power, and governed by its Grand Dukes, united for the first time with Poland in the year 1386, and making, in 1569, an integral part of the republic of Poland, Lithuania, from that epoch, to that of 1795, formed, in the political state, the third province of Poland; being composed of the palatinates of Wilno, of Troki, the duchies of Starostia, and Samogitia, of Nowogrodek, of Brzsclitewski, of Minsk, of Polock, of Witepsk, Mscislaw and of Smolensk. The Grand Duchy was bounded on the north by Courland, Semigallia, Polish Livonia, and the province of Great Nowogorod; on the east by Moscovy; on the south by the Ukraine, Volhynia, and the country of Chelme; on the west, by the Baltic Sea, the duchy of Prussia, and the palatinates of Podlasia and Lublin. Its arms were a cavalier at full speed, with a sabre raised over his head. This cavalier of Lithuania, joined with the white eagle of Poland, figured inseparably upon the arms of the republic, upon the national standards, the public edifices and the coins, up to the moment when foreign force and domestic treason struck a liberticide blow at that union which ages has consecrated. In 1812, for a moment, those fraternal arms were united; but separated again, they once more floated upon every banner after the memorable date of the 29th of November. According to ancient traditions, towards the year 900, there landed on the coast of Samogitia, between Memel, Polonga, and Libau, a colony of Italians who introduced into that country a certain degree of civilization, and from thence came that multitude of Latin words which are to be remarked in the Lithuanian language. From these Italian families, arose several sovereign dynasties, which governed Lithuania and Samogitia. Of this origin were, without doubt, the Gerules or Herules, who formerly governed Lithuania. This people is the same which in the fifth century invaded Italy, with Odacre, and returning on their steps, spread themselves upon the shores of the Baltic, which embrace, at the present day, Oriental Prussia, Lithuania, Samogitia, and Courland.
‘The Lithuanians, though subjugated first by the Russians, did not fail to make their strength soon felt by their invaders. In the 13th century, when the Tartars ravaged on one side the Russian States, the Lithuanians on the other side took possession of Grodno, Brzesc, and Drohyczyn, and did not stop till they reached the banks of the Prypec and the town of Mozyr. In the north their victorious arms were pushed as far as the Dwina, and the city of Polock. In the year 1220, the Russians, under Mscislaw-Romanowicz, declared war upon Lithuania, but they were beaten near the river Tasiolda, and the Lithuanians augmented their possessions by the occupation of Pinsk and Turow. Ringold was the first who took the title of Grand Duke of Lithuania, in 1235. Mindowe or Mendog, having promised the Pope to embrace the Christian religion, was crowned king of Lithuania in 1252, at Nowogrodek; but this did not continue long, for Mindowe, finding himself deceived, returned to Paganism, and died in 1263. From 1280 to 1315, the dukes Latuwer and Witènes reigned over this country; but the greatest power of Lithuania dates from the fourteenth century, when Gédymin seized the reins of government. Impatient to crush the Russian power, which had distressed Lithuania, this prince defeated the enemy in 1320, upon the river Pirna, made himself master of Volhynia, of Küovie, of Sewerie, of Czerniechovia, and extended his boundaries as far as Putiwel upon the Diésna. In 1340, when Gédymin perished upon the field of battle by the hands of the Teutonic knights, the Tartaro-Russian power commenced ravaging Polodia, but Olgerd, successor of Gédymin, came to the succor of his nephews, Koryatowicz, who were in possession of that province, defeated the Czars of the Tartars in a pitched battle, and extended the territory of Lithuania as far as the banks of the Don and the Black Sea. To form an idea of the extent of the Lithuanian provinces, it is sufficient to point out here the partition between the sons of Gédymin: Monwid possessed Kiernow and Slonim; Narymond—Pinsk, Mozyr, and a part of Volhynia: Olgerd—Krewo, the ancient capital of the duchy, and all the country as far as the Berezina; Kieystat—Samogitia, Troki, and Podlachia: Koryat—Nowogrodek and Wolkowysk: Lubar—Wlodgimierz, with the rest of Volhynia: Jawnat—Wilno, Osmiana, Wilkomierz, Braslaw. The last succeeded first to his father, but after his death it was Olgerd who took the reins of government.
‘Olgerd was the most powerful of the sovereigns of Lithuania. The republic of Pskow, in 1346, and that of Nowogorod, in 1349, acknowledged him for their master. In 1363, the Tartars of Pérékop (Krimea,) became his vassals. On the east, embracing the cause of the duke of Twer, he came three times, in 1368, 1370, 1373, to break his lance against the ramparts of the city of Moscow; of that city where at a later day the great generals of Poland and of Lithuania, and at last, in 1812, the Gallo-Polono-Lithuanian lances were crossed in front of the superb Kremlin! Kiegstut powerfully seconded his brother in his conquests. It was under such auspices that Olgerd, descending to the tomb, left his brilliant inheritance to Jagellon, one of his thirteen sons. Jagellon, who ascended the grand-ducal throne in 1381, ceded it to his cousin Witold, in 1386, when he went to place upon his head the crown of the Piasts, to unite his hand to that of Hedwige, and to cement forever the glorious junction of Lithuania and Poland. In 1389, he gave the government of the duchy of Sévérie-Nowogorodien and the republic of Nowogorod-the-Great to his two brothers; while on the other side, his cousin Witold, being attacked in his new conquests by the Tartars, beat them, chased a part of them beyond the Don, and transported those who fell into his hands into the different countries of Lithuania, where, instead of reducing them to slavery, he gave them possessions, with the liberty of freely exercising their religious rights. It was the descendants of those Tartars who showed themselves such worthy children of their adopted country, at the epoch of the war of independence, in 1794, and in the campaign of 1812. In this manner Witold acquired the possession, not only of the Russian territories, delivered from the yoke of the Tartars by his grandfather and his uncle, but those which were held by the other small Trans-Borysthenian Czars. Turning then his victorious army to the north, he forced the northern republics, whose fidelity he suspected, to humble themselves before him, and recognize his unqualified supremacy. In fine, Poland and Lithuania arrived, at that epoch, to such a degree of power, that the dukes of Mazovia and Russia, the Czars of Moscow, Basile, that of Twer Borys, that of Riezan, Olegh, the little Czars of Pérékop and Volga, the Teutonic masters, the Prussians and Livonians, in fine, the emperor of Germany, Sigismond himself, accompanied by his wife, and several princes, Erik, king of Denmark and Sweden, as well as the ambassadors of the emperor of the East, Paleogogus, presented themselves to Wladislas-Jagellon at Luck, in Volhynia, and held there a general congress in 1428, in which they deliberated upon the war against the Ottomans; and at which the emperor of Germany attempted in vain, by means of intrigues, to throw some seeds of dissension between Jagellon and Witold. Witold died in 1430. Kasimir le Jagellon, successor of Wladislay, was reigning still with eclat; when the moment approached, at which from one side the Ottomans began to take possession of the Tauride, while a new Muscovite power, subjugating the Russians from the north and east, were soon to contract the frontiers of Lithuania.
‘All this, however, could have no effect upon the union of the two nations, which daily acquired new strength; for, subsequently to the first union of 1386, a Diet, in 1413, held in the bourg of Horoldo, having declared the Lithuanians to be on an equal footing with the Poles in regard to taxes and laws, many Lithuanian families allied themselves with Polish families; in fine, the arms of the two nations were united. It was then determined that the Lithuanians should receive their grand duke from the hands of the king of Poland, and that, when the latter should die without children or descendants worthy to succeed him, the Poles should elect their new king conjointly with the Lithuanians. The alliance concluded in 1413, was renewed in 1499; and it was added, explicitly, that the Lithuanians should not elect their grand duke without the concurrence of the Poles, nor the Poles their king, without that of the Lithuanians. In 1561, the knights militant submitted themselves, and the part of Livonia which remained with them, to the domination of the king of Poland, as grand duke of Lithuania; the new duke of Courland became also his feudatory. In fine, in 1569, under Sigismond-Augustus, the Poles and Lithuanians held a Diet at Lublin, in which the grand duchy was limited to the kingdom of Poland, so that they thereafter formed but one body, subject to one prince, who was conjointly elected by the two nations, under the double title of king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania. It was agreed, also, that the Diet should be always held at Warsaw, that the two people should have the same senate, the same chamber of deputies; that their coins should be of the same designation; that, in fine, their alliances, their auxiliary troops, and every thing, should be in common. The campaigns of Moskow under Sigismond III, Wladislaz IV, and Etienne Batory, amply proved that the Lithuanians were worthy of calling the Poles brethren; for they were found ready for every sacrifice, when the general good of the country was in question. In the laws of 1673, 1677, and 1685, it was ruled that each third Diet should be held in Lithuania at Grodno; the Diets of convocation, and of election and coronation were excepted, however, from this rule. In 1697, the Polish and Lithuanian laws received an equal force and authority.
‘At the epoch of the regeneration of Poland, the Lithuanians gave the most convincing proofs of their devotedness to the Polish cause, in the last years of the existence of Poland. In effect, when they became satisfied that, for the common interest, and to give more consistency to the new form of government which it was proposed to establish, at the Diet of 1788, it was necessary to strengthen still more the relations between Lithuania and the crown; that is to say, between Little and Great Poland, so as to form out of the three provinces a single powerful state, and to obliterate totally all the distinctions which had before existed between the Poles and the Lithuanians, they made a voluntary sacrifice of the privileges which they had held with great pertinacity, and renounced, without hesitation, that of having a separate army and treasury, consenting to unite themselves under a single administration with the two other provinces.
‘The whole world was witness to the heroism which the Lithuanians displayed in the glorious confederation of Bar, from 1768 to 1772; in the campaigns of 1792 and 1794, against foreign rapacity, when Kosciuszko, a Lithuanian by birth, covered with imperishable laurels the chains of Poland. The Lithuanians fell, but they fell with the whole of Poland, and were buried in the common ruin. How nobly have not the Lithuanians been seen to figure among the brave Polish patriots, who sought in France, in Italy, and in Turkey, some chances of restoration for a country which had been the victim of foreign ambition! And how many of them have not been found under the banners of Dombrowski, in Italy, and under those of Kniaziewiez, upon the Danube? Have we not seen, in the years 1806 and 1809, twelve thousand Lithuanians, united with their brethren, the Volhynians, the Podolians, and the Ukranians, hastening to range themselves under the banners of the army of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw? In 1812, their joy was extreme, when they thought that their political existence was, at last, about to be renewed. Then was seen the cavalier of Lithuania, united with the white eagle, decorating the flags planted on the walls of Wilno. But the disastrous retreat of the French army struck a mortal blow to the destinies of those countries. The kingdom of Poland was proclaimed in 1815; the Diets of Warsaw, of 1818, 1820, and 1825, preserved silence respecting the lot of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A look full of hope from all Lithuania was turned once more towards Warsaw, upon the 24th of May, 1829, the day of coronation of Nicholas the 1st, but the reunion of Lithuania was not even made a question of.’
[Tableau de la Pologne, ancienne et moderne, par Malte Brun, edition refondue et augmentee par Leonard Chodzko. Paris, 1831. pp. 288-295. Tom. I.]