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Gabrielius Landsbergis-Žemkalnis
Gabrielius Landsbergis-Žemkalnis (; 1852–1916) was a Lithuanian playwright and activists of the early Lithuanian amateur theater. Born to an old noble family, Landsbergis attended Šiauliai Gymnasium where his friend Petras Vileišis encouraged him to speak Lithuanian and support the Lithuanian National Revival. After finishing a telegraph school in Riga in 1871, he worked at the telegraph offices in Moscow and Crimea. He returned to Lithuania in 1884 and joined the Lithuanian cultural life. He contributed articles to the illegal Lithuanian periodicals ''Varpas'' and ''Ūkininkas'' and his house was a gathering place of many Lithuanian intellectuals. Due to these activities, he was forced to leave Lithuania in 1894 but continued to maintain contacts with Lithuanian activists. He was arrested and imprisoned for ten weeks in 1900 and sentenced to two years of exile in Smolensk in 1902. He returned in 1904 and became administrator of ''Vilniaus žinios'', the first legal Lithua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China. It also held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867. Covering an area of approximately , it remains the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British Empire and the Mongol Empire; it ruled over a population of 125.6 million people per the 1897 Russian census, which was the only census carried out during the entire imperial period. Owing to its geographic extent across three continents at its peak, it featured great ethnic, linguistic, religious, and economic diversity. From the 10th–17th centuries, the land ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daina Society
Daina Society (''daina'' means ''song'' in Lithuanian; lt, „Dainos“ draugija) was a Lithuanian cultural organization promoting Lithuanian folk traditions and songs. It was established as an illegal cultural society by the composer Juozas Naujalis and officially registered with the Tsarist authorities in 1905. Active from 1899 to 1944 in Kaunas, the society organized various events, concerts, amateur theater performances. In 1924, it initiated the first Lithuanian Song Festival. History Before World War I During the Lithuanian National Revival, Lithuanians were becoming more active. Prussian Lithuanians organized the Birutė Society in 1885 and smaller Lithuanian cultural societies were organized in Riga and Saint Petersburg, but such societies were illegal in Lithuania due to the strict Russification policies and the Lithuanian press ban. The Daina Society was organized by composer Juozas Naujalis in Kaunas in 1899. As an illegal organization, it often used a cover of a church ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jelgava
Jelgava (; german: Mitau, ; see also other names) is a state city in central Latvia about southwest of Riga with 55,972 inhabitants (2019). It is the largest town in the region of Zemgale (Semigalia). Jelgava was the capital of the united Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (1578–1795) and the administrative center of the Courland Governorate (1795–1918). Jelgava is situated on a fertile plain rising only above mean sea level on the right bank of the river Lielupe. At high water the plain and sometimes the town as well can be flooded. It is a railway center and is also host to Jelgava Air Base. Its importance as a railway centre can be seen by the fact that it lies at the junction of over 6 railway lines connecting Riga to Lithuania, eastern and western Latvia, and Lithuania to the Baltic sea. Name Until 1917, the city was officially referred to as Mitau. The name Jelgava is believed to be derived from the Livonian word ''jālgab'', meaning "town on the river." The ori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uprising Of 1863
The January Uprising ( pl, powstanie styczniowe; lt, 1863 metų sukilimas; ua, Січневе повстання; russian: Польское восстание; ) was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at the restoration of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last insurgents were captured by the Russian forces in 1864. It was the longest-lasting insurgency in partitioned Poland. The conflict engaged all levels of society and arguably had profound repercussions on contemporary international relations and ultimately provoked a social and ideological paradigm shift in national events that went on to have a decisive influence on the subsequent development of Polish society. A confluence of factors rendered the uprising inevitable in early 1863. The Polish nobility and urban bourgeois circles longed for the semi-autonomous status they had enjoyed in Congress Poland before the previous insurg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pumpėnai
Pumpėnai is a small town in Panevėžys County, in northeastern Lithuania. According to the 2011 census, the town has a population of 855 people. History The first church in Pumpėnai was built around 1638. The town established itself due to the settlement of monks from the Order of Carmelites in 17th century. The monastery was built by Povilas and Jurgis Zavadskis and Juozapas Šyšla in 1655. The monastery was built from wood and burned down in 1770 and then was rebuilt. In 1792 Pumpėnai got Magdeburg rights. On 15 July 1941, Jews of the town were kept imprisoned in a ghetto. On August 26, 1941, an execution squad murdered the Jews in a mass execution. Soviet occupants in 1946–1953 deported about 500 people from the Pumpėnai area. After the Soviet occupation in the surroundings of Pumpėnai Lithuanian partisans of Algimantas military district Algimantas military district (also Algimantas partisan military district) is a military district of Lithuanian partisans which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duchy Of Berg
Berg was a state—originally a county, later a duchy—in the Rhineland of Germany. Its capital was Düsseldorf. It existed as a distinct political entity from the early 12th to the 19th centuries. The name of the county lives on in the modern geographic term Bergisches Land, often misunderstood as ''bergiges Land'' (hilly country). History Ascent The Counts of Berg emerged in 1101 as a junior line of the dynasty of the Ezzonen, which traced its roots back to the 9th-century Kingdom of Lotharingia, and in the 11th century became the most powerful dynasty in the region of the lower Rhine. In 1160, the territory split into two portions, one of them later becoming the County of the Mark, which returned to the possession of the family line in the 16th century. The most powerful of the early rulers of Berg, Engelbert II of Berg died in an assassination on November 7, 1225. In 1280 the counts moved their court from Schloss Burg on the Wupper river to the town of Düsseldorf. Coun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Werden Abbey
Werden Abbey (german: Kloster Werden) was a Benedictine monastery in Essen-Werden (Germany), situated on the Ruhr. The foundation of the abbey Near Essen Saint Ludger founded a monastery in 799 and became its first abbot. The little church which Saint Ludger built here in honor of Saint Stephen was completed in 804 and dedicated by Saint Ludger himself, who had meanwhile become Bishop of Münster. Upon the death of Ludger on 26 March 809, the abbacy of Werden passed by inheritance first to his younger brother Hildigrim I (809–827), then successively to four of his nephews: Gerfried (827–839), Thiadgrim (ruled less than a year), Altfried (839–848), Hildigrim II (849–887). Under Hildigrim I, also Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne, the new monastery of Helmstedt in the Diocese of Halberstadt was founded from Werden. It was ruled over by a provost, and remained a dependency of Werden till its secularization in 1803. Werden was a wealthy abbey with possessions in Westphalia, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministerialis
The ''ministeriales'' (singular: ''ministerialis'') were a class of people raised up from serfdom and placed in positions of power and responsibility in the High Middle Ages in the Holy Roman Empire. The word and its German translations, ''Ministeriale(n)'' and ''Dienstmann'', came to describe those unfree nobles who made up a large majority of what could be described as the German knighthood during that time. What began as an irregular arrangement of workers with a wide variety of duties and restrictions rose in status and wealth to become the power brokers of an empire. The ''ministeriales'' were not legally free people, but held social rank. Legally, their liege lord determined whom they could or could not marry, and they were not able to transfer their lords' properties to heirs or spouses. They were, however, considered members of the nobility since that was a social designation, not a legal one. ''Ministeriales'' were trained knights, held military responsibilities and surr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landsberg Family
The Landsberg family is a noble family originating from the Westphalia region in Germany, whose members settled in Courland and later in Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Lithuania and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Poland. The earliest mention of the family dates back to the 11th century, they trace their roots to a ministerialis who lived in 1055 at the Werden Abbey. Their last name comes the in the Duchy of Berg, which was still in the hands of the German representatives of the family in the 20th century. Two members of the family, Wilhelm von Landsberg and Johann von Landsberg, arrived in Courland in the 16th century, where they received the fief estate of . Wilhelm's male descendants lived in Courland until 1820.Johann von Landsberg's descendant, Eduard Eberhard (Ewarni) Landsberg (1625-1652) settled in Lithuania where he acquired the estates in the Vilnius Voivodeship, Vilnius voivodeship. Johann had one son Georg, who in turn had two sons Rafał (born 1715) and Bogusław (born 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birutė (opera)
''Birutė'' is a two-act opera composed by Mikas Petrauskas based on the play by Gabrielius Landsbergis-Žemkalnis. It was first performed on 6 November 1906 in Vilnius and became the first Lithuanian national opera. The plot is based on the medieval legend about the love between Birutė and Grand Duke of Lithuania Kęstutis recorded in the Lithuanian Chronicles. The opera was written for the amateur Lithuanian performers and thus is mostly valued for its historical significance. Plot The opera is set during the 14th-century Lithuanian Crusade. Winrich von Kniprode, komtur of the Teutonic Order, wishes to marry Birutė, daughter of the ruler of Palanga. In Act I, von Kniprode sends his envoys to persuade Birutė's father to agree to the marriage. If persuasion and gifts fail, they are prepared to take her by force. Birutė weeps and asks her father to kill her instead. However, '' krivių krivaitis'' (chief pagan priest) Lizdeika decrees that it is the will of the gods for Birut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birutė
Birutė (died 1382) was the second wife of Kęstutis, Grand Duke of Lithuania, and mother of Vytautas the Great. There is very little known about Birutė's life, but after her death a strong cult developed among Lithuanians, especially in Samogitia. Life Marriage She was probably born near Palanga to a Lithuanian, Samogitian or Curonian magnate family. The story of her marriage to Kęstutis became a romantic legend in Lithuania. Chronicles mention that Birutė was a priestess ( lt, vaidilutė) and served the Pagan gods by guarding the sacred fire. When Kęstutis heard of her beauty, he visited the shire and asked her to marry him. She refused because she had promised the gods to guard her virginity until her death. Kęstutis then took her by force to Trakai and threw a big wedding. She and Kęstutis had three sons and three daughters. Vytautas, their first son, was born around 1350. This suggests that the marriage took place in 1349 or a bit earlier. Historian S.C. Rowell sug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tadas Blinda
Tadas Blinda (1846–1877) was a Lithuanian outlaw and folk hero. Biography He was born in the village of Kinčiuliai, Kovno Governorate, in the region of Samogitia, and inherited his father's 40 hectares at the age of 20. He then married, had three daughters, and became the village elder. There are several versions of the turning point in his life that led to his later career. One story has it that he participated in the 1863 uprising, and was sentenced to exile in Siberia. Another has it that his landlord, Duke Ogiński, ordered him to flog some serfs, became angry when Blinda refused, and then struck him with a whip. Blinda responded with a counterattack. After Blinda had chosen to live outside the law, he gathered a band of followers in the dense forests near Byvainė. According to his admirers, he was a latter-day Robin Hood – he stole from the rich and gave to the poor. His detractors argued that he stole from the poor as well. Other stories have him disguising himself ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
