See BED OF JUSTICE.
----------LITHUANIA: Start--------
LITHUANIA: A. D. 1235.
Formation of the Grand Duchy.
"From 1224 [when Russia was prostrated by the Mongol conquest]
to 1487 … is a period of obscuration in Russian history,
during which Russia is nothing in the Slavonian world. The
hour of Russia's weakness was that in which the Lithuanians,
formerly a mere chaos of Slavo-Finnish tribes, assumed
organization and strength. Uniting the original Lithuanian
tribes into one government, and extending his sway over those
territories, formerly included in the Russian Empire, which
the Mongolian destruction of the Russian power had left
without a ruler, a native chief, named Ringold, founded (1235)
a new state called the Grand-Duchy of Lithuania. The limits of
this state extended from the Baltic coast, which it touched at
a single point, across the entire continent, almost to the
Black Sea, with Lithuania proper as its northern nucleus, and
the populations along the whole course of the Dnieper as its
subjects. The Lithuanians, thus made formidable by the extent
of their dominion, were at this time still heathens."
_Poland: Her History and Prospects
(Westminster Review, January, 1855),
page 119._
See, also, RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.
LITHUANIA: A. D. 1386. Union with Poland under the Jagellon
kings.
See POLAND: A. D. 1333-1572.
----------LITHUANIA: End--------
LITHUANIANS.
LETTS.
"They and the Slavonians are branches of the same Sarmatian
family; so, of course, their languages, though different, are
allied. But next to the Slavonic what tongues are nearest the
Lithuanic? Not the speech of the Fin, the German, or the Kelt,
though these are the nearest in geography. The Latin is liker
than any of these; but the likest of all is the ancient sacred
language of India—the Sanskrit of the Vedas, Puranas, the
Mahabharata, and the Ramayana. And what tongue is the nearest
to the Sanskrit? Not those of Tibet and Armenia, not even
those of Southern India. Its nearest parallel is the obscure
and almost unlettered languages of Grodno, Wilna, Vitepsk,
Courland, Livonia, and East Prussia. There is a difficult
problem here. … The present distribution of the Lithuanian
populations is second only in importance to that of the
Ugrians. Livonia is the most convenient starting-point. Here
it is spoken at present; though not aboriginal to the
province. The Polish, German, and Russian languages have
encroached on the Lithuanian, the Lithuanian on the Ugrian. It
is the Lett branch of the Lithuanian which is spoken by the
Letts of Livonia (Liefland), but not by the Liefs. The same is
the case in Courland. East Prussia lies beyond the Russian
empire, but it is not unnecessary to state that, as late as
the sixteenth century, a Lithuanian tongue was spoken there.
Vilna, Grodno, and Vitepsk are the proper Lithuanian
provinces. There, the original proper Lithuanic tongue still
survives; uncultivated, and day by day suffering from the
encroachment of the Russian, but, withal, in the eyes of the
ethnologist, the most important language in Europe."
_R. G. Latham,
Ethnology of Europe,
chapter 6._
LITTLE BIG HORN, Battle of the.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1876.