What wars known as the Baltic Crusades involved the Lithuanians using the Žemaitukas prominently?
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Žemaitukas The Žemaitukas (plural: Žemaitukai, literally: "little Samogitian") is a historic horse breed from Lithuania. It may be classified as a pony, due to its relatively short stature (between 131–141 centimeters at the withers). Known from the 6–7th centuries, it was used as a war horse by the Lithuanians during the Northern Crusades and is hailed in Lithuania as part of the state's historic heritage. Its origin is uncertain, but it is related to indigenous forest horse breeds and the Konik, a Polish breed, which were both probably descended from the Tarpan. The breed contributed to the foundation of the Trakehner. Once popular, the breed was brought to the brink of extinction by changing agricultural demands and World War II. As of 2010, the total population is estimated at 400 individuals.
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Northern Crusades The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were religious wars undertaken by Catholic Christian military orders and kingdoms, primarily against the pagan Baltic, Finnic and Western Slavic peoples around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, and to a lesser extent also against Orthodox Christian Slavs (East Slavs). The crusades took place mostly in the 12th and 13th centuries and resulted in the subjugation and forced baptism of indigenous peoples.
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Michael Žygimantaitis Michael Žygimantaitis (Lithuanian: "Mykolas Žygimantaitis" , Polish: "Michał Bolesław Zygmuntowicz" ; before 1406 – shortly before February 10, 1452 in Moscow) was the last male descendant of Kęstutis, Grand Duke of Lithuania. He supported his father Sigismund Kęstutaitis in power struggles with Švitrigaila. In 1435 he led his father's army to victory in the Battle of Pabaiskas. After his father's assassination in 1440, Michael unsuccessfully fought against Casimir IV Jagiellon for the title of the Grand Duke of Lithuania. At first Michael was supported by Samogitia, but in 1441 Casimir issued a privilege confirming Samogitia's semi-autonomous status and thus avoiding a civil war. Until 1447 he was supported by Dukes of Masovia. In 1448 Michael asked help from the Crimean Khanate. With their help he attacked and shortly took control of Kiev, Starodub, Novhorod-Siversky. Soon he was captured and transported to the Grand Duchy of Moscow where he died under unclear circumstances (possibly poisoned). He was buried in Vilnius Cathedral.
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Jonas Žemaitis Jonas Žemaitis (also known under his codename "Vytautas"; March 15, 1909 in Palanga – November 26, 1954 in Moscow) was one of the leaders of the Lithuanian partisans, armed resistance against the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, and acknowledged as the head of state by independent Lithuania.
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Petras Mantigirdaitis Petras Mantigirdaitis (Polish: "Piotr Montygerdowicz" ; died 1459) was an influential noble of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He was Grand Marshal of Lithuania (1434–59).
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Siege of Fellin The Siege of Fellin took place between March 25 and 17 May 1602 during the Polish–Swedish War (1600–1611). Polish and Lithuanian forces led by Grand Crown Hetman Jan Zamoyski besieged the Swedish-held town of Fellin (present day Viljandi in Estonia). The large Polish–Lithuanian army of around 5,000 troops first took the town, while the Swedish defenders, numbering around 800, retreated to the city's castle. After a second frontal attack on the castle, during which the Voivode of Wenden Jerzy Farensbach was killed, the Swedish garrison capitulated, although a group of Finnish soldiers refused to surrender and blew themselves up in the castle's tower. Fellin was later recaptured by the Swedes in the siege of 1608.
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Žemaitis Žemaitis is the masculine form of a Lithuanian family name. The name means "Samogitian" in Lithuanian. Its feminine forms are: Žemaitienė (married woman or widow) and Žemaitytė (unmarried woman).
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Jan Jacek Ogiński Prince Jan Jacek Ogiński (Lithuanian: "Jonas Jackus Oginskis" ) (1619 - 24 February 1684, Krakow) was a nobleman, commander and statesman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He was also known as Jan Samuelewicz Ogiński. He served as hetman of Lithuania from 1683 to 1684, an office also later held by the youngest of Jan's four sons, Grzegorz Antoni Ogiński.
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Jan Karol Chodkiewicz Jan Karol Chodkiewicz ("c". 1560 – 24 September 1621; Belarusian: Ян Караль Хадкевіч, "Jan Karal Chadkievič" , Lithuanian: "Jonas Karolis Chodkevičius" ) was a military commander of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth army who was from 1601 Field Hetman of Lithuania, and from 1605 Grand Hetman of Lithuania, and was one of the most prominent noblemen and military commanders of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth of his era. His coat of arms was Chodkiewicz, as was his family name.
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Second Crusade The Second Crusade (1147–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe as a Catholic ('Latin') holy war against Islam. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crusade (1096–1099) by King Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098. While it was the first Crusader state to be founded, it was also the first to fall.
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Remigijus Žemaitaitis Remigijus Žemaitaitis (born 30 May 1982) is a Lithuanian politician and member of the Seimas.
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Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War The Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War or Great War occurred between 1409 and 1411, pitting the allied Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania against the Teutonic Knights. Inspired by the local Samogitian uprising, the war began by Teutonic invasion of Poland in August 1409. As neither side was ready for a full-scale war, Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia brokered a nine-month truce. After the truce expired in June 1410, the military-religious monks were decisively defeated in the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg), one of the largest battles in medieval Europe. Most of the Teutonic leadership was killed or taken prisoner. While defeated, the Teutonic Knights withstood the siege on their capital in Marienburg (Malbork) and suffered only minimal territorial losses in the Peace of Thorn (1411). Territorial disputes lasted until the Peace of Melno of 1422. However, the Knights never recovered their former power and the financial burden of war reparations caused internal conflicts and economic decline in their lands. The war shifted the balance of power in Eastern Europe and marked the rise of the Polish–Lithuanian union as the dominant power in the region.
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Iron Wolf (character) The Iron Wolf (Lithuanian: "Geležinis Vilkas" ) is a mythical character from a medieval legend of the founding of Vilnius, the capital city of the old Grand Duchy of Lithuania and modern Republic of Lithuania. First found in the Lithuanian Chronicles, the legend shares certain similarities with the Capitoline Wolf and possibly reflected Lithuanian desire to showcase their legendary origins from the Roman Empire (see the Palemonids). The legend became popular during the era of Romantic nationalism. Today Iron Wolf is one of the symbols of Vilnius and is used by sports teams, Lithuanian military, scouting organizations, and others.
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Lithuanian nobility The Lithuanian nobility was historically a legally privileged class in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania consisting of Lithuanians, from the historical regions of Lithuania Proper and Samogitia, and, following Lithuania's eastern expansion, many Ruthenian noble families ("boyars"). Families were primarily granted privileges for their military service to the Grand Duchy. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had one of the largest percentages of nobility in Europe, close to 10% of the population, in some regions, like Samogitia, it was closer to 12%.
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Union of Krewo In a strict sense, the Union of Krewo or Act of Krėva (also Union of Krevo, Act of Kreva) was a set of prenuptial promises made in the Kreva Castle on 14 August 1385 by Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, in exchange for marriage to the underage reigning Queen Jadwiga of Poland. The act was very limited in scope and in the historiography the term "Union of Krewo" often refers not only to the particular document but to the events of 1385–1386 as a whole. After the negotiations in 1385, Jogaila converted to Christianity, married Jadwiga, and was crowned King of Poland in 1386. The union was a decisive moment in the histories of Poland and Lithuania; it marked a beginning of the four centuries of shared history between the two nations. By 1569 the Polish–Lithuanian union grew into a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and lasted until the Third Partition in 1795.
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Bartians The Bartians (also "Barthi", "Barthoni", "Bartens", or "Barti") were an Old Prussian tribe who were among the last pagans of Europe before the Northern Crusades forced their conversion to Christianity. They lived in Bartia (also "Bartenland" or "Barthonia"), a territory that stretched from the middle and lower flow of Łyna river, by the Świna river, and Lake Mamry, up to the Galindian woods. The territory is quite precisely known from description in Chronicon terrae Prussiae, dated 1326.
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Livonian campaign of Stephen Báthory The Livonian campaign of Stephen Báthory (referred to as the Russo-Polish War among Polish historians) took place in the final stage of the Livonian War, between 1577 and 1582. Polish-Lithuanian forces led by Stephen Báthory (Batory), king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, successfully fought against the army of Ivan IV "the Terrible", tsar of Russia, over the Duchy of Livonia and Polotsk. Russian forces were expelled from Livonia before the campaign was concluded by the Truce of Jam Zapolski.
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The Holocaust in Lithuania The Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks), living in "Generalbezirk Litauen" of Reichskommissariat Ostland within the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian SSR. Out of approximately 208,000-210,000 Jews, an estimated 190,000–195,000 were murdered before the end of World War II (wider estimates are sometimes published), most between June and December 1941. More than 95% of Lithuania's Jewish population was massacred over the three-year German occupation — a more complete destruction than befell any other country affected by the Holocaust. Historians attribute this to the massive collaboration in the genocide by the non-Jewish local paramilitaries, though the reasons for this collaboration are still debated. The Holocaust resulted in the largest-ever loss of life in so short a period of time in the history of Lithuania.
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Vaišvilkas Vaišelga or Vaišvilkas (also spelled as "Vojszalak", "Vojšalk", "Vaišalgas",; killed on December 9, 1268) was the Grand Duke of Lithuania (1264–1267). He was son of Mindaugas, the first and only King of Lithuania.
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Crusade of Barbastro The Crusade of Barbastro (also known as the Siege of Barbastro or War of Barbastro) was an international expedition, sanctioned by Pope Alexander II, to take the Spanish city of Barbastro, then part of the Hudid Emirate of Lārida. A large army composed of elements from all over Western Europe took part in the siege and conquest of the city (1064). The nature of the expedition, famously described by Ramón Menéndez Pidal as "a crusade before the crusades", is discussed in historiography, and the crusading element of the campaign is still a moot point.
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Anna Jagiellon Anna Jagiellon (Polish: "Anna Jagiellonka" , Lithuanian: "Ona Jogailaitė" ; 18 October 1523 – 12 November 1596) was Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania in her own right from 1575 to 1586. She was a daughter of Polish King Sigismund I the Old and his Italian wife Bona Sforza. Despite multiple proposals, she remained unmarried until the age of 52. After the death of King Sigismund II Augustus, her brother and the last male member of the Jagiellon dynasty, Anna's hand was sought by pretenders to the Polish–Lithuanian throne to maintain the dynastic tradition. She was elected, along with her then-fiancé Stephen Báthory, as co-ruler in the 1576 royal election of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Their marriage was a formal arrangement and distant. Báthory was preoccupied with the Livonian War, while Anna spent her time in Warsaw on local administrative matters and several construction works. After Báthory's death in December 1586, she had an opportunity to claim the throne for herself (she was co-ruler and not merely a consort), but did not even attempt it. Instead, she promoted her nephew Sigismund III Vasa, establishing House of Vasa on the Polish–Lithuanian throne for the next eighty years (1587–1668).
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Duchy of Livonia The Duchy of Livonia (Polish: "Księstwo Inflanckie" ; Lithuanian: "Livonijos kunigaikštystė" ; Latin: "Ducatus Ultradunensis" ; Estonian: "Üleväina-Liivimaa hertsogkond" ; Latvian: "Pārdaugavas hercogiste" ; also referred to as Polish Livonia or Inflanty) was a territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania—and later the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—that existed from 1561 to 1621. It corresponds to the present-day areas of northern Latvia and southern Estonia.