Lithuania: Political History and Notable Figures

1377 - 1434 - Jagello (All Facts)

• First Supreme Duke of Lithuania

• He had diplomatically maneuvered to lay the foundations for the union, with the namesake out to save his own position as well as Lithuania’s future

  • He did this having long wanted to enter the sphere of western civilization

• During his reign, he laid down the foundations for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth via marriage to Jadwiga, Queen of Poland

  • Initially a polytheist, he converted to Catholicism and was baptized after marriage

  • The marriage allowed the rivalry between the two kingdoms to end

  • Their unification allowed them to unite against the Teutonic Order, their common enemy

• Under his reign,

  • Lithuanian nobbles proceeded to adopt the manners and traditions of the Polish aristocracy

1434 - 1444 - Wladyslaw III (All Facts)

• 2nd Supreme Duke of Lithuania

1440 - 1492 - Casimir IV (All Facts)

• Grand Duke of Lithuania

1492 - 1506 - Alexander Jagiellon (All Facts)

• Grand Duke of Lithuania

• He issued an Edict of Expulsion against the Jews in Lithuania, forcing them to leave or be baptized

1506 - 1529 / 1548 - Sigismund (All Facts)

• Grand Duke of Lithuania

  • He eventually co-ruled with his successor

  • He ruled for more than 40 years

  • He was Catholic and kept Lithuania a Catholic state in the midst of the Protestant Reformation

  • He was considered blessed with a strong character and considerable political perception

• During his reign,

  • He established serfdom in Poland

  • He implemented a series of financial reforms

  • He enforced strong measures against Lutherans, anxious to unite his realm of Poland to the Catholic Church in Rome

    • He introduced death at the stake for anyone who imported heretical books

    • He ordered all his subjects attending heretical universities abroad to return home

    • He brought in a similar penalty to burning at the stake for subjects who disobeyed his order to return home from heretical universities

    • These edicts of his, however, were widely ignored

• He attended the First Congress of Vienna, where he

  • forged an alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian and King Vladislaus II of Bohemia and King of Hungary

• He and his Polish-Lithuanian forces were defeated by Vasily III and his Muscovite forces in the Fourth Muscovite-Lithuanian War / Ten Years’ War

  • He was forced to sign an armistice treaty with Vasily III, forced to settle with Vasily III after Vasily III had made a defensive alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, creating papal concern about the conflict and having brought pressure from the Catholic Church on the namesake to settle

  • At one point during this war, however, he and his forces defeated Vasily III and his Russian forces

• He imposed his rule on Wallachia

• He stamped his authority on East Prussia

• Under his reign,

  • Poland was at its peak

  • Poland had been (profoundly) influenced by the Italian Renaissance

  • Nicolas Copernicus proposed the “Heliocentric Theory” of the Universe

• He died in Cracow, in which he was buried in his namesake monument / tomb at Wawel Cathedral

1534 - Mikhail Glinsky (All Facts)

• He led a revolt of Lithuanian rebels against Duke Sigismund of Lithuania

• He and his Lithuanian forces helped Vasily III of Moscow take take Smolensk during the Muscovite-Lithuanian War / Ten Year’s War

1529 / 1548 - 1572 - Sigismund II Augustus (All Facts)

• Grand Duke of Lithuania and Final Grand Duke of Lithuania from the House of Jagiellon

  • He initially co-ruled with his predecessor

• During his reign,

  • The Union of Lublin was established

    • His lands thus stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Dniester River

• He died with no heir

1569 - 1795 - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (All Facts)

• State which stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Dniester River

• State established via the Union of Lublin, during the reign of Sigismund II Augustus

• State which was officially Catholic but which was (initially) tolerant of Orthodox and Protestant Christians as well as Jews

• State in which the King had to work through the Polish parliament despite his many various powers and prerogatives

1573 - 1575 - Henry / Henry III of France (All Facts)

• Grand Duke of Lithuania

  • He was from the House of Anjou

  • He was the brother of King Charles IX of France

  • His election was secured by Catherine de Medici (his mother)

    • She by dint of propaganda and persuasion succeeded in building up a pro-French party among the Polish nobles

  • He became the first “elected” king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

  • He was elected by some 40K Polish nobles and gentry, who assembled for the election on the Warsaw plain

  • He was considered devious, egotistical, and effeminate

  • His election by the Polish nobles and coronation was precipitated by the death of his predecessor, who had no heir

• During his reign,

  • He had to face a hostile nobility which wanted to keep effective power

  • The powers of the Polish-Lithuanian crown were being drastically reduced, as Poland-Lithuania was going to be governed by its Senate, rather than the crown head on

• He eventually lost interest in Polish power as a result of the aforementioned developments

1576 - 1586 - Stephen Bathory, of Transylvania (All Facts)

• Grand Duke of Lithuania

  • He was initially the Prince of Transylvania

  • His rule was supported by the Ottoman Empire

  • He was “elected” Grand Duke of Lithuania

  • He ruled for ten years

  • He had a forceful personality and was an experienced soldier

• He created a big Christian empire in eastern Europe which prevented Tsar Ivan IV and Russia from overtaking those territories

  • However, the Poles did not support the almost limitless personal ambitions he had

• He had the same problem as his predecessors, which was failing to banish from his mind the thought of his native country (Transylvania) which had a fear-reaching effect on both his domestic and foreign policy

• He died suddenly and was succeeded

1587 - 1632 - Sigismund III Vasa (All Facts)

• Grand Duke of Lithuania

  • He was the son of King John III of Sweden

  • He was “elected” by some 15K voters who preferred him to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II

• He and his Polish-Lithuanian forces

  • defeated

    • Tsar Vasily IV and his Russian and Swedish forces in the First Russo-Polish War

      • He had his son Ladislaus IV installed as the succeeding Tsar of Russia

  • were defeated by

    • Gustavus Adolphus and his Swedish forces in the Fourth Polish-Swedish War

    • Gustavus Adolphus and his Swedish forces in the Fifth Polish-Swedish War

• Under his reign,

  • The Confederation of Vilna made it so that various branches of the church in Poland unite against the power of the Roman (Catholic) Church

  • The Truce of Altmark was made (with Sweden)

1632 - 1648 - Ladislaus IV (All Facts)

• Grand Duke of Lithuania

• He and his Polish-Lithuanian forces

  • defeated the Russian forces in the Siege and War of Smolensk

    • Upon his arrival, the town was relieved

    • He obtained support of the Dnieper Cossacks, who had been disillusioned by Russia’s failure to come to their aid previously

    • He offered an armistice to the leader of the Russian forces, which he accepted and permitted the remaining 8K Russian forces to retire

1648 - 1668 - John II Casimir Vasa (All Facts)

• Grand Duke of Lithuania

1615 - 1672 - Władysław Siciński (All Facts)

• He was a deputy of the General Sejm (Polish-Lithuanian Parliament) who exercised his veto power for the first time, voicing his disagreement with the prolongation to Sejm

  • after a vote on increased taxes

  • because he wanted to go home