Vytautas
Vytautas the Great ( Lithuanian Lietuvos didysis kunigaikštis Vytautas , German Vitold or Witold , Polish Witold , Belarusian Вітаўт Witaŭt , Russian Витовт Witowt ; * 1354 or 1355 ; † October 27, 1430 ) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1392 and together with his cousin created Jogaila , later King Władysław II Jagiełło , the Polish-Lithuanian Union .
family
Vytautas was born as the son of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Kęstutis (1297-1382) and his second wife Birutė († 1382) in Senieji Trakai .
He was married twice. His first wife was Ona (1370-1418), their daughter was Sofia (1371-1453). His second wife was Julijona Alšėniškė , daughter of Jonas Alšėniškis .
Rise to power
After the death of Grand Duke Algirdas († 1377), his son Jogaila succeeded him on the throne, but he did not want to maintain the long-standing dyarchy that had existed between his father and his brother, the Duke of Trakai Kęstutis . So at the beginning of the 1380s a civil war broke out between uncle and nephew, in which Vytautas was also involved as the son of Kęstutis and nephew of the last grand duke.
Negotiations between Jogaila and the Teutonic Order served Kęstutis in 1381 as an occasion to expel the rightful Grand Duke from Vilnius and to have himself recognized as Grand Duke. However, the coup failed in 1382 when Kęstutis and Vytautas were captured during negotiations by Jogaila; the former died in prison (he may have been murdered), Vytautas escaped from there disguised as a woman and fled to Prussia to the Teutonic Order, the hereditary enemy of the Lithuanians (see Lithuanian Wars of the Teutonic Order ). In 1383 he accepted the Catholic faith , was baptized in the name of Wigand and, with the support of the knights of the order, marched against Jogaila.
He had secured this support in the Konigsberg Treaty in 1384 with the promise to cede Lower Lithuania to the order, with which it could have connected its territories in East Prussia and Livonia . But already in the same year Vytautas turned against his allies; in the struggle for a balance of power in the region, the two rivals came closer together. Vytautas approved Jogaila's efforts to marry the Polish Queen Jadwiga († 1399), which were crowned with success: Jogaila married on March 4, 1387 under the name Władysław II.
Vytautas, who had been baptized Orthodox the year before and was given the name Alexander on that occasion, now became Catholic again. He held high positions in the new state, but took advantage of the relocation of Jogaila's power to Poland to strengthen his power in the area of the almost orphaned Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Between 1389 and 1391, he headed a group of Polish nobles who joined the Lithuanian Rule - one of Jogaila's brothers was installed here - were dissatisfied and supported him, among other things, in the attempt to take Vilnius. Despite his failures, which even the support of the Teutonic Order could not prevent, his following increased, and in order to avoid further attacks, Jogaila began to negotiate with his cousin. In the Ostrower Treaty , signed on Gut Ostrowo near Lida , he set up Vytautas with the title of Grand Duke as his governor in Lithuania in 1392.
Foreign policy
Vytautas had a fairly successful stabilization and expansion policy. Between 1392 and 1396, he replaced the other Gediminid princes in the Russian lands with nobles who were devoted to him and who he appointed as governors. In 1391 his daughter Sofia married the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily I and later became the guardian of his son Vasily II. In 1408 he made another agreement with the Grand Duke that secured his sphere of influence in north-eastern Russia.
Several times he had to defend himself against attacks by the Teutonic Order (1392-1394), he was able to join Smolensk to Lithuania in 1392 and in several campaigns against the Tatars (1396-1399) expand his sphere of power to the Black Sea . Although he was defeated by the leader of the Golden Horde , Edigü , in the Battle of the Worskla in 1399 , he was still able to influence the Horde through the sons of Khan Toktamisch and force Edigü to make peace in 1418. This increased his reputation there, so that in 1424, Ulug Mehmed , another Tatar in the dispute over the succession to the throne in the Horde, sought refuge with him.
In addition, Vytautas had already prevailed against claims to power by Polish nobles in 1398 and had been proclaimed King of Lithuania by Lithuanian nobles, but after the defeat at the Worskla he had to recognize the supremacy of Jogaila again.
From 1409, Vytautas and Jogaila began a joint campaign against the Teutonic Order, which first culminated in the Battle of Tannenberg in 1410 . The order lost its aura of invincibility, but was able to hold out for some time and negotiate acceptable peace conditions, which were recorded in the Peace of Thorne (1411).
When in the Treaty of Horodło (1413) both Jogaila and Vytautas finally accepted the advantages of a Polish-Lithuanian union and normal relations between Lithuania and Poland were established, Vytautas retained the rank of Grand Duke with Lithuanian statehood. The Grand Dukes of Lithuania and the Kings of Poland should henceforth be elected with the consent of both union partners. The Lithuanian nobility was accepted into the Polish nobility and sent their sons to Poland for training. As a result, Lithuania has been heavily influenced by Polish culture over the centuries.
As a result, the Hungarian and German King Sigismund of Luxembourg in particular tried to split the union. In protest against a decision by Sigismund, in which the latter had awarded Lower Lithuania to the Teutonic Order, Vytautas accepted the Crown of Bohemia offered to him by the Hussites in 1421 . He only renounced this when Sigismund revoked his resolution in 1423, which relaxed relations with the empire.
With campaigns in 1426 and 1427, Vytautas strengthened his hegemony in Pskov and Novgorod and gradually became the most influential ruler in Eastern Europe.
Domestic politics
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Vytautas was also very active domestically. During his reign he supported the Catholics, to whom he bestowed class privileges. From 1415 he also tried to establish a union between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. He set up his own law firm for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and thus made a significant contribution to spreading the written culture in the country and opening up to the Catholic culture of Western Europe. In 1390 he also wrote a work on the Teutonic Order, which later formed the basis for the Chronicles of Lithuania.
In 1388/1389 Vytautas issued a number of privileges to the Jewish communities in Brest, Grodno, Troki and other Lithuanian cities. The Grand Duke brought several hundred Karaean families from the Crimea . The members of this Jewish movement were considered courageous border fighters, good craftsmen and eloquent diplomats. In 1388 he guaranteed them a legal status (freedom of religion, professional independence, right to individual jurisdiction) in Troki by means of a letter of protection - referred to therein as Judaei Trocenses. This was expanded between the 15th and 17th centuries. The provisions of all these privileges, which are largely based on the Kalisch statute , regulated the coexistence between the Jewish minority and the Lithuanian population and are the oldest written source on Jewish life in Lithuania that is still preserved today.
The rapid development of Lithuania made it possible for Vytautas to organize the great European congress of princes in Lutsk in 1429 . The Roman-German King Sigismund suggested that Vytautas be crowned King of Lithuania, a proposal that Jogaila agreed to. However, the Polish nobles did not let the messenger with the crown pass while Vytautas died in Vilnius while awaiting the crown.
Since Vytautas left no sons, the Lithuanian grand prince fell first to Švitrigaila (~ 1370-1452), another son of Algirdas, later under the influence of Jogailas in 1432 to his other brother Sigismund Kęstutaitis , who was murdered in 1440.
literature
- Z. Kiaupa: Witowt. In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages. Volume 9: Werla to Cypress. Attachment. Register. (CD-Rom edition). Metzler, Stuttgart et al., ISBN 3-476-01819-9 , pp. 267-269.
- Stanislovas Lazutka, Edvardas Gudavicius: Privilegija evrejam Vutautasa Velikogo 1388 goda. (Привилегия евреям Витаутаса Великого 1388 года), Privilege to Jews granted by Vytautas the Great in 1388. Evreĭskiĭ universitet v Moskve, Moscow et al. 1993, ISBN 965-421-004-5 .
- Giedrė Mickūnaitė: Making a Great Ruler. Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania. CEU Press, Budapest et al. 2006, ISBN 963-7326-58-8 .
- Jarosław Nikodem: Witold. Wielki książę litewski (1354 or 1355 - 27 października 1430). Avalon, Kraków 2013. ISBN 978-83-7730-051-0 .
- Karl Heinl : Prince Witold of Lithuania in his relationship to the Teutonic Order in Prussia during the time of his struggle for Lithuanian inheritance: 1382-1401, (= historical studies , booklet 165 DNB ), E. Ebering, Berlin 1925, DNB 570693268 , OCLC 72094584 (Philosophical dissertation University of Berlin 1925, 200 pages).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ to 1401 under the nominal supremacy of Jogaila
- ↑ cf. History of the Jews in Poland # 966–1385
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Skirgaila |
Grand Duke of Lithuania 1392–1430 |
Švitrigaila |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vytautas |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Witold |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Grand Duke of Lithuania |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1354 or 1355 |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 27, 1430 |