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Alšėniškiai
The House of Alšėniškiai (, ) was a Lithuanian by origin Ruthenianized and predominantly Eastern Orthodox princely family of Hipocentaur coat of arms. Their patrimony was the Duchy of Alšėnai, which included the castles of Rokantiškės and Alšėnai. History Origin Maciej Stryjkowski relates the origins of this family to Alšis Ramuntavičius () (), coming from the line of Dausprungas. According to the ancient genealogy of Lithuanian princes written by Teodor Narbutt, Alšis was to be the eleventh generation of the Palemonids, and was to give rise to the Alšėniškiai, who ended in the late 16th century. What Stryjkowski or Narbutt wrote is very dubious as the distance of time is too large to prove it documentally. The history of this house, already based on some writings, only begins with Jonas Alšėniškis (), whose father Algimantas (''Ougemundes'') presents the first historically proven generation of the Alšėniškiai. For the first time Alšėniškiai family ...
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Duchy Of Alšėnai
The Duchy of Alšėnai () was a feudal patrimony of the Alšėniškiai in the late 13th and mid-16th centuries. History It was first mentioned in the Bychowiec Chronicle, where , son of (slavicized as ''Holsza'', son of ''Romunt''), according to legend, was the one who "founded a town on the river Korablis; He arose from there, began reigning and called himself the duke of Alšėnai". Maciej Stryjkowski also relates the origins of the Alšėniškiai family to Alšis Romuntavičius (), coming from the line of Dausprungas. The dukes of Alšėnai held high positions in the Lithuanian state for a long time. In 1440 and 1492, meetings were held in Alšėnai to determine the candidates for the Grand Ducal throne. In the middle of the 16th century, the ancestral possession of the Alšėniškiai passed to the Sapiega family. Geography The duchy's center was Alšėnai (now Halshany) and it was the territory between the rivers Vilija and Nemunas. In the 15th century, the duch ...
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Ivan Olshansky
Ivan Olshanski or Olshansky (died in or after 1402) was a member of the Lithuanian princely Alšėniškiai (Holshansky) family. Historians only know his father's name, Algimantas. Ivan was a faithful companion of Vytautas the Great, Grand Duke of Lithuania. They both were married to daughters of Sudimantas of Eišiškės. Ivan's daughter Juliana became the third wife of Vytautas in 1418. His granddaughter Sophia became the fourth wife of King Władysław Jagiełło in 1424. His patrimony consisted of Halshany, Iwye, Hlusk, Porechye and others. Biography Ivan first appears as one of Jogaila's boyars during the truce between Lithuanian princes and the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order in 1379. Then he was present during the signing of a treaty of Dovydiškės in 1380. When Vytautas escaped to the Teutonic Knights in 1382, Ivan followed him and Jogaila confiscated his Principality of Alšėnai. However, as Vytautas and Jogaila reconciled few years later, Ivan gifted Jogai ...
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Uliana Olshanska
Princess Uliana Olshanska ( or , ; d. 1448) was a noblewoman from the Alšėniškiai family and the Grand Duchess of Lithuania as the second wife of Vytautas, Grand Duke of Lithuania. They had no issue. Very little is known about Uliana's life. Her first husband was Ivan of Karachev. German chronicle of Johann von Posilge and Polish historian Jan Długosz asserted that Ivan was murdered so that widowed Uliana could marry Vytautas. Most likely she was an Eastern Orthodox who converted to Catholicism in order to marry Vytautas. After the death of his first wife Anna on 31 July 1418, Vytautas wished to marry Uliana, daughter of one of his closest allies Ivan Olshansky. However, Anna was sister of Agripina, who was wife of Ivan and mother of Uliana. That made Vytautas uncle-in-law of Uliana. Piotr Krakowczyk, Bishop of Vilnius, refused to perform the wedding ceremony due to this relationship and demanded they seek approval from the pope. Jan Kropidło, Bishop of Włocławek, ...
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Paweł Holszański
Paweł Holszański (; – 4 September 1555, Vilnius) was a notable Catholic church official Dmitry Tolstoy: ''Le catholicisme romain en Russie''pp.464-465/ref> and one of the last male scions of the once-mighty Lithuanian Alšėniškiai princely family of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Biography Born to Prince Aleksander Holszański, the Castellan of Vilnius, and Zofia Sudymuntowiczówna, Rita Regina Trimoniene: Polityka jagiellońska a kształtowanie się litewskiego narodu politycznego w końcu XV – I połowie XVI wieku' daughter of Alekna Sudimantaitis. The Alšėniškiai family was a Lithuanian princely family that embraced Orthodoxy and became Ruthenized back in the 14th century. Only Paweł's father Aleksander embraced Catholicism, probably influenced by Franciscans. Paweł Holszański studied in Kraków, his studies were interrupted by his appointment to the Lutsk bishopric. While studying in Kraków, he probably met Mikołaj Hussowczyk, of whom he later became a pa ...
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Sophia Of Halshany
Sophia of Halshany (; ; ; – 21 September 1461 in Kraków), known simply as Sonka, was a princess of Lithuanian Alšėniškiai princely family who was Queen of Poland as the fourth and last wife of Jogaila, King of Poland and Supreme Duke of Lithuania. As the mother to Władysław III and Casimir IV, she was the co-founder of the Jagiellonian dynasty. Early life and marriage to Jogaila Sophia was the niece of Uliana Olshanska, the wife of Vytautas, and a middle daughter of , son of Vytautas' right-hand man Ivan Olshansky, and , daughter of Dmitry of Druck. Historians disagree on the identity of Dmitry: Polish historiography usually provides Jogaila's half-brother Dmitry I Starshiy while Russian historians provide Dimitri Semenovich of Rurikid origin. Her father died when she was young and the family moved to Druck to live with Alexandra's brother Siemion Drucki. Sophia grew up in a Ruthenian environment and was an Eastern Orthodox Christian (her Orthodox name is Sop ...
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Palemonids
The Palemonids () were a legendary dynasty of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The legend was born in the 15th or 16th century as proof that Lithuanians and the Grand Duchy were of Roman origins. History Jan Długosz (1415–1480) wrote that the Lithuanians were of Roman origin, but did not provide any proof. The legend is first recorded in the second edition of the Lithuanian Chronicles produced in the 1530s. At the time the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was quarrelling with the Kingdom of Poland, rejecting the claims that Poland had civilized the pagan and barbaric Lithuania. The Lithuanian nobility felt a need for the ruling dynasty to show upstanding origins, as the only available chronicles at the time were written by the Teutonic Knights, a long-standing enemy, and depicted Gediminas, ancestor of the Gediminids dynasty, as a hostler of Vytenis. In this new Lithuanian chronicle, Palemon (sometimes identified as Polemon II of Pontus), a relative of Roman emperor Nero, escape ...
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Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of the past millennium, beginning as the capital of an eponymous principality in the 11th-15th centuries, then the Smolensk Voivodeship of Lithuania and Poland, and Smolensk Governorate and Oblast within Russia. It was the main stronghold of the Smolensk Gate, a geostrategically significant pass between the Daugava and Dnieper rivers, and as such was an important point of contention in the struggle for dominance in Eastern Europe, passing at various times between Lithuania, Poland and Russia. In more recent history, it was captured by Napoleon's Franco–Polish forces and Hitler's Germany during their marches towards Moscow, and was the place of the Smolensk air disaster of 2010. It has a population of Etymology The name of the c ...
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Sapieha Family
The House of Sapieha (; ; ; ) is a Polish-Lithuanian noble and magnate family of Ruthenian origin,Энцыклапедыя ВКЛ. Т.2, арт. "Сапегі" descending from the medieval boyars of Smolensk and Polotsk. Vernadsky, George. ''A History of Russia''. New Haven. Connecticut: Yale University Press. 1961online/ref> The family acquired great influence and wealth in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the 16th century. History The first confirmed records of the Sapieha family date back to the 15th century, when Semen Sopiha () was mentioned as a writer (scribe) of the then King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Casimir IV Jagiellon () for the period of 1441–49. Semen had two sons, and . Possibly, the family of Semen Sopiha owned the village of Sopieszyno near Gdansk, which they left because of the Teutonic invasion. Sopieszyno is one of the oldest Pomeranian villages. The records have it that already in the 11th-12th centuries it was a knightly ...
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Andrey Kurbsky
Prince Andrey Mikhailovich Kurbsky (1528?–1583) was a Russian political figure, military leader, and political philosopher, known as an intimate friend and then a leading political opponent of the Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible (). He defected to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania around 1564, in the midst of the Livonian War. Kurbsky purported correspondence with tsar Ivan provides a unique source for the history of 16th-century Russia, although the attribution to Kurbsky of these letters and other works has been debated in scholarly circles since 1971. Life Andrey Kurbsky was born in the village of Kurba near Yaroslavl. In a legal document from 9 October 1571, he spelt his own name in Latin letters as ''Andrej Kurpski manu proprija'', while declaring "I am unable to write in Cyrillic." Given that all texts that have been preserved in his name or have been attributed to him have been written in Cyrillic, this has posed problems for proponents of authenticity. On the other hand, th ...
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Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of effective sole rule in 27 BC. The Western Roman Empire, western empire collapsed in 476 AD, but the Byzantine Empire, eastern empire lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. By 100 BC, the city of Rome had expanded its rule from the Italian peninsula to most of the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and beyond. However, it was severely destabilised by List of Roman civil wars and revolts, civil wars and political conflicts, which culminated in the Wars of Augustus, victory of Octavian over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the subsequent conquest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. In 27 BC, the Roman Senate granted Octavian overarching military power () and the new title of ''Augustus (title), Augustus'' ...
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Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "Canon law of the Eastern Orthodox Church, canonical") Eastern Orthodox Church is Organization of the Eastern Orthodox Church, organised into autocephalous churches independent from each other. In the 21st century, the Organization of the Eastern Orthodox Church#Autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches, number of mainstream autocephalous churches is seventeen; there also exist Organization of the Eastern Orthodox Church#Unrecognised churches, autocephalous churches unrecognized by those mainstream ones. Autocephalous churches choose their own Primate (bishop), primate. Autocephalous churches can have Ecclesiastical jurisdiction, jurisdiction (authority) over other churches, som ...
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