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Robert Gould Shaw

Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863) was an American officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Born into a Boston upper class abolitionist family, he accepted command of the first all-black regiment (the 54th Massachusetts) in the Northeast. Supporting the promised equal treatment for his troops, he encouraged the men to refuse their pay until it was equal to that of white troops' wage.

He led his regiment at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner in July 1863. They attacked a beachhead near Charleston, South Carolina, and Shaw was shot and killed while leading his men to the parapet of the Confederate-held fort. Although the regiment was overwhelmed by firing from the defenses and driven back, suffering many casualties, Shaw's leadership and the regiment became legendary. They inspired hundreds of thousands more African Americans to enlist for the Union, helping to turn the tide of the war to its ultimate victory. Shaw's efforts and that of the 54th Massachusetts regiment were dramatized in the 1989 Oscar-winning film Glory.

Early life and education
Shaw was born in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, to abolitionists Francis George and Sarah Blake (Sturgis) Shaw, well-known Unitarian philanthropists and intellectuals. The Shaws had the benefit of a large inheritance left by Shaw's merchant grandfather and namesake Robert Gould Shaw (1775–1853). Shaw had four sisters: Anna, Josephine (Effie), Susanna, and Ellen (Nellie).

When Shaw was five years old, the family moved to a large estate in West Roxbury, adjacent to Brook Farm, which he visited with his father. During his teens he traveled and studied for some years in Europe. In 1847, the family moved to Staten Island, New York, and settled among a community of literati and abolitionists while Shaw attended preparatory school at the Second Division of St. John's College (now Fordham Preparatory School at Fordham University). These studies were at the behest of his uncle Joseph Coolidge Shaw, who had been ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1847. He converted to Catholicism during a trip to Rome, in which he befriended several members of the Oxford Movement, which had begun in the Anglican Church. Robert began his high school-level education at St. John's in 1850, the same year that Joseph Shaw began studying there for entrance into the Jesuits.

In 1851, while Shaw was still at St. John's, his uncle died from tuberculosis. Aged 13, Shaw had a difficult time adjusting to his surroundings and wrote several despondent letters home to his mother. In one of his letters, he claimed to be so homesick that he often cried in front of his classmates. While at St. John's, he studied Latin, Greek, French, and Spanish, and practiced playing the violin, which he had begun as a young boy.

He left St. John's in late 1851 before graduation, as the Shaw family departed for an extended tour of Europe. Shaw entered a boarding school in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, where he stayed for two years. Afterward, his father transferred him to a school with a less strict system of discipline in Hanover, Germany, hoping that it would better suit his restless temperament. While in Hanover, Shaw enjoyed the greater degree of personal freedom at his new school, on one occasion writing home to his mother, "It's almost impossible not to drink a good deal, because there is so much good wine here."

While Shaw was studying in Europe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist friend of his parents, published her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Shaw read the book multiple times and was moved by its plot and anti-slavery attitude. Around the same time, Shaw wrote that his patriotism was bolstered after encountering several instances of anti-Americanism among some Europeans. He expressed interest to his parents in attending West Point or joining the Navy. Because Shaw had a longstanding difficulty with taking orders and obeying authority figures, his parents did not view this ambition seriously.

Shaw returned to the United States in 1856. From 1856 until 1859 he attended Harvard University, joining the Porcellian Club, and the Hasty Pudding Club, but he withdrew before graduating. He had been a member of the class of 1860. Shaw found Harvard no easier to adjust to than any of his previous schools and wrote to his parents about his discontent.

After leaving Harvard in 1859, Shaw returned to Staten Island to work with one of his uncles at the mercantile firm Henry P. Sturgis and Company. He found work life at the company office as disagreeable as some of his other experiences.

American Civil War
With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Shaw volunteered to serve with the 7th New York Militia. On April 19, 1861, Private Shaw marched down Broadway in Lower Manhattan as his unit traveled south to man the defense of Washington, D.C. Lincoln's initial call-up asked volunteers to make a 90-day commitment, and after three months Shaw's new regiment was dissolved. Following this, Shaw joined a newly forming regiment from his home state, the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry.

On May 28, 1861, Shaw was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the regiment's Company H. Over the next year and a half, he fought with his fellow Massachusetts soldiers in the first Battle of Winchester, the Battle of Cedar Mountain, and at the bloody Battle of Antietam. Shaw served both as a line officer in the field and as a staff officer for General George H Gordon. Twice wounded, by the fall of 1862 he was promoted to the rank of captain.

Since the start of the war, abolitionists such as Massachusetts governor John A. Andrew urged enlistment of African Americans as soldiers to fight the Confederacy. This proposal was broadly opposed. Many men believed that African American troops would lack discipline, be difficult to train, and would break and run in battle. The general attitude in the North was that African American troops would prove to be an embarrassment and hindrance to regular army units.

Andrew traveled to Washington, D.C., in early January 1863 to meet with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and repeat his argument for the use of African American troops in the Union army. Stanton was won to his side; on January 26, 1863, Stanton issued an order to Andrew to raise further volunteer regiments to fight for the Union, adding the new recruits "may include persons of African descent, organized into special corps." Andrew immediately set about doing so, and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry began to be formed.

For the unit's officers, Andrew sought a certain type of white gentleman, "young men of military experience, of firm antislavery principles, ambitious, superior to a vulgar contempt for color, and having faith in the capacity of colored men for military service." Most importantly, he wanted men who understood the stakes, that the success or failure of the endeavor would elevate or depress the manner in which the character of African Americans were viewed throughout the world for many years to come. Andrew wrote to many individuals prominent in the abolitionist movement, including Morris Hallowell of Philadelphia and Francis Shaw of Boston.

To command the unit, Andrew already had Shaw's son in mind. Andrew wrote to Francis Shaw about the need to find a leader who would accept the responsibility of the command "with a full sense of its importance, with an earnest determination for its success." Included in Andrew's letter was a commission for Robert Shaw to take command of the new regiment.

Carrying the commission, Francis Shaw traveled to Virginia to speak with his son. Robert Shaw was hesitant to take the post, as he did not believe that authorities would send the unit to the front lines, and he did not want to leave his fellow soldiers. Finally he agreed to take the command. On February 6 he telegraphed his father with his decision. He was 25 years old. The command came with a colonelcy, the rank commensurate with the position of regimental commander.

Andrew had some difficulty finding enough African American volunteers in Massachusetts to form the regiment. Andrew assured recruits that they would receive the standard pay of 13 dollars a month, and that if they were captured, the government of the United States would insist they be treated as any other soldier. The Boston area provided enough recruits to form the regiment's "C" Company. The remainder of the regiment was formed with black recruits from all across the North. Few were former slaves from the South. Two sons of the prominent African-American abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass volunteered to serve with the 54th.

Captain Shaw arrived in Boston on February 15, 1863, and immediately assumed his position. He was a strict disciplinarian, determined to train the men to high standards. On March 25, 1863, Shaw wrote to his father of his fledgling regiment: "Everything goes on prosperously. The intelligence of the men is a great surprise to me. They learn all the details of guard duty and camp service infinitely more readily than most of the Irish that I have had under my command. There is not the least doubt that we will leave the State with as good a regiment as any that has marched."

Shaw was promoted to major on March 31, 1863, and two weeks later on April 17 was made full colonel. On April 30 the regiment drew 950 Enfield rifled muskets and swords for non-commissioned officers (NCOs). By May 11 more troops had arrived in Boston than were required to man the regiment. The 55th Massachusetts was begun with the next round of new recruits.

On May 28 Shaw led the men of the 54th through the streets of Boston to the docks, where the regiment boarded a transport steamer and sailed south. The regiment was to be used in a Union campaign against Charleston, South Carolina, a major port. The 54th arrived at Port Royal Island on June 4, and was placed under the overall command of Major General David Hunter. Initially the regiment was used to provide manual labor at the loading docks, but Colonel Shaw applied for action. Four days later his regiment boarded onto transport and was sent to Hilton Head, South Carolina. From there they moved further south to St. Simons Island, Georgia, which served as their base of operations.

On June 11, 1863, the 54th was sent with the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers (who were also of African-American descent) for a raid against the town of Darien, Georgia. Overall command of the force was with the senior officer, colonel James Montgomery of the 2nd South Carolina. Upon reaching the town, Montgomery set his troops to looting it. Shaw was outraged by this behavior by Union troops.

He ordered his troops to limit their seizures to those items that would be useful for the camp, and committed only one company to the task. After the town had been emptied of all valuables and livestock, Montgomery told Shaw, "I shall burn this town." To Shaw the burning of the town appeared to serve no military purpose, and he knew it would create a great hardship to its residents. In a letter to his family he recalled, "I told him I did not want to take the responsibility of it, and he was only too happy to take all of it on his own shoulders." Montgomery had the town burned to the ground.

After the regiment's return to camp, Shaw wrote to X Corps Assistant Adjutant General Lieutenant-Colonel Charles G. Halpine, seeking clarification of what was required of him. He asked if Montgomery was acting under orders from General Hunter, stating in part "I am perfectly willing to burn any place which resists, or gives some reason for such a proceeding; but it seems to me barbarous to turn women and children adrift in that way; and if I am only assisting Colonel Montgomery in a private enterprise of his own, it is very distasteful to me." It is not clear if Shaw ever received an answer from Halpine, but Montgomery was in fact carrying out a policy supported by Hunter.

Second Battle of Fort Wagner

Colonel Shaw and the 54th Regiment were placed under the command of General Quincy Adams Gillmore and sent to Charleston, South Carolina to take part in the second attempt to take Charleston. To do so, they would have to capture Fort Wagner, which defended the southern approach to the harbor. A significant Confederate garrison had been stationed there. The fort was well armed with an assortment of heavy guns. The overall strength of the defenders was underestimated by the Union command. The Union effort was supported by two other brigades, but the approach was narrow and only one regiment could attack at a time. At the battle on July 18, 1863, the 54th approached the fort in the late afternoon and then waited out of range for a night assault. After a heavy bombardment from the sea the 54th charged forward to take the Confederate batteries. Shaw led his men into battle, shouting "Forward, Fifty-Fourth, forward!" The 54th crossed the moat and scaled the muddy hill of the outer wall. With the cessation of the naval bombardment the largely intact Confederate garrison left their bomb-proofs and resumed their positions on the walls. In the face of heavy fire the 54th hesitated. Shaw mounted a parapet and urged his men forward, but was shot through the chest three times. By witness testimony of the unit's Color Sergeant, his death occurred early in the battle, and he fell on the outside of the fort. Some Confederate reports claim his body was hit as many as seven times. The fighting continued until 10 p.m. when the Union forces withdrew, having suffered heavy losses. Among the fatalities were Gen. George Crockett Strong, mortally wounded; Col. Haldimand S. Putnam shot and killed instantly; and Col. John Lyman Chatfield, mortally wounded. Shaw's 54th Regiment suffered the heaviest losses.

Two sons of Frederick Douglass, Lewis and Charles Douglass, were with the 54th regiment at the time of the attack. Lewis was wounded shortly after Shaw fell, and retreated with the rest when the force withdrew. Another casualty was Captain Garth Wilkinson James, younger brother of philosopher William James and novelist Henry James. “Wilkie” had volunteered to serve in the 54th and was wounded in the assault on Fort Wagner.

Following the battle, commanding Confederate General Johnson Hagood returned the bodies of the other Union officers who had died, but left Shaw's where it was, for burial in a mass grave with the black soldiers. Hagood told a captured Union surgeon that "Had he [Shaw] been in command of white troops ..." he would have returned Shaw's body, as was customary for officers, instead of burying it with the fallen black soldiers. Although the gesture was intended as an insult by Hagood, Shaw's friends and family believed it was an honor for him to be buried with his soldiers. Efforts had been made to recover Shaw's body (which had been stripped and robbed prior to burial). His father publicly proclaimed that he was proud to know that his son had been buried with his troops, befitting his role as a soldier and a crusader for emancipation.

In a letter to the regimental surgeon, Lincoln Stone, Frank Shaw wrote: "We would not have his body removed from where it lies surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers. ... We can imagine no holier place than that in which he lies, among his brave and devoted followers, nor wish for him better company. – what a body-guard he has!"

After the war, the Union Army disinterred and reburied all the remains—including, presumably, those of Col. Shaw—at the Beaufort National Cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina. Their gravestones were marked as "unknown."

Shaw's sword had been stolen from the first gravesite but was recovered in 1865 and returned to his parents. It disappeared after being passed down within the family. In June 2017, it was discovered in a family attic of Mary Minturn Wood and brother Robert Shaw Wood, descendants of Shaw's sister Susanna. They donated it to the Massachusetts Historical Society. (See .)

Personal life
Shaw met Anna Kneeland Haggerty in New York at an opera party given in 1861 by his sister Susanna before the war began. The two became engaged just after Christmas in 1862. Despite misgivings by both sets of parents because of the war, they were married May 2, 1863, less than a month before Shaw's regiment moved out. The ceremony was in New York City. The pair spent a brief honeymoon at the Haggertys' home of Vent Fort, in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Two and half years older than Shaw, "Annie" Shaw was widowed at the age of 28. She spent many years after the war living abroad in Europe, returning in later years when her health failed. The Haggerty property had been sold to George and Sarah Morgan, who built a large mansion there. They also kept the Haggerty home, and allowed Anna to live there when she returned from Europe. She spent the last two years of her life living at her former family house, and died in 1907, never having remarried. She is buried at the cemetery of Church-on-the Hill in Lenox.

Memorials
"There they march, warm-blooded champions of a better day for man. There on horseback among them, in his very habit as he lived, sits the blue-eyed child of fortune, upon whose happy youth every divinity had smiled." The Robert Gould Shaw School, West Roxbury, Massachusetts, a Boston Public School, opened in 1936 but is now closed.
 * A cenotaph at the Mount Auburn Cemetery
 * In 1864, American sculptor Edmonia Lewis created a bust of Shaw.
 * The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial was unveiled on May 31, 1897, at its site on the Boston Common. The large sculptural monument by Augustus Saint-Gaudens has a frieze of Shaw on horseback, accompanied by members of the 54th Regiment, as they marched through Boston to depart for the war. It was featured in the ending credits of the film Glory (1989).
 * A patinated plaster cast of a slightly different design for the Shaw Memorial is now on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which also holds some drawings and plaster mock-ups of the sculpture.
 * A monument to Shaw's memory was erected by his family in the plot at Moravian Cemetery in Staten Island, New York. An annual commemoration is held there on his birthday.
 * Although Shaw did not graduate from Harvard College, his name is listed on the tablets of honor in the university's Memorial Transept.
 * Fordham University likewise celebrates Shaw as an alumnus by honoring him in the University Hall of Honor, and separately in the Fordham University Military Hall of Fame.

Legacy and honors

 * Augustus Saint-Gaudens was commissioned to create the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, erected on the Boston Common in May 1897. He created a large sculptural frieze of Shaw leading the troops of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, with the individuality of each man's face and figure expressed.
 * The neighborhood of Shaw, Washington, D.C., which developed from encampments of freedmen, was named for him.
 * G.A.R. Post #146, established on December 4, 1871, was named The R. G. Shaw Post in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was one of the first all African-American Grand Army of the Republic posts, made up of comrades from the 54th Massachusetts. The Shaw Post dissolved in 1881.
 * In 2017, the sword that Shaw was carrying at his death was discovered in the attic of a family home in Hamilton, Massachusetts. The owners, siblings Robert Shaw Wood and Mary Minturn Wood, donated it to the Massachusetts Historical Society. It went on public display on July 18 that year, the anniversary of Shaw's death.
 * Shaw wrote more than 200 letters to his family and friends during the Civil War. These are held in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Digital facsimiles of this collection are publicly available. His mother edited an early selection of his letters, and worked to preserve a positive image of him as a martyr to the abolitionist cause.

The first scholarly collection of the letters, Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (1992), was edited by Russell Duncan. The book includes most of Shaw's letters and Duncan's brief biography of the officer, described as the best of those then current about him. Reid Mitchell notes Duncan "returns the historic Shaw" to readers, complete with his bias against the Irish and African Americans, both typical of his time. He wrote more frequently about his fellow officers than either the white or black soldiers who served with him, but expressed pride in the 54th.

 * There is an ongoing effort to recognize Shaw's valorous actions at Fort Wagner with the Medal of Honor, which was not awarded at the time due to racial discrimination. The Fordham University Department of Military Science is actively supporting this venture.

Representation in other media

 * African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem, "Robert Gould Shaw," includes the lines: "Since thou and those who with thee died for right/Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!"
 * African-American poet Benjamin Griffith Brawley wrote a memorial poem entitled "My Hero" in praise of Shaw.
 * Shaw, the 54th regiment, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens's memorial are one of the subjects of Charles Ives's composition for orchestra, Three Places in New England.
 * New England poet Robert Lowell referred to both Shaw and the Shaw Memorial in the poem "For the Union Dead", which Lowell published in his 1964 collection of the same name.
 * The film Glory (1989), directed by Edward Zwick, is about Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, and their battles. Written by Kevin Jarre, it stars Matthew Broderick as Shaw, and Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, and Morgan Freeman as soldiers of the regiment.
 * Colm Toibin's novel The Master (2004), principally about writer Henry James, recounts the participation of his younger brother Wilkie James as an officer in the 54th Regiment.

title: Robert Gould Shaw


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User talk:Florin Cosma

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title: User talk:Florin Cosma


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Flying Cloud (clipper)

Flying Cloud was a clipper ship that set the world's sailing record for the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco, 89 days 8 hours. The ship held this record for over 130 years, from 1854 to 1989.

Flying Cloud was the most famous of the clippers built by Donald McKay. She was known for her extremely close race with Hornet in 1853; for having a woman navigator, Eleanor Creesy, wife of Josiah Perkins Creesy who skippered Flying Cloud on two record-setting voyages from New York to San Francisco; and for sailing in the Australia and timber trades.

Construction
Flying Cloud was built in East Boston, Massachusetts, and intended for Enoch Train of Boston, who paid $50,000 for her construction. While still under construction, she was purchased by Grinnell, Minturn & Co., of New York, for $90,000, which represented a huge profit for Train & Co.

A reporter for the Boston Daily Atlas of 25 April 1851 (~$ in ) wrote, "If great length [235 ft.], sharpness of ends, with proportionate breadth [41 ft.] and depth, conduce to speed, the Flying Cloud must be uncommonly swift, for in all these she is great. Her length on the keel is 208 feet, on deck 225, and over all, from the knightheads to the taffrail, 235— extreme breadth of beam 41 feet, depth of hold 21½, including 7 feet 8 inches height of between-decks, sea-rise at half-floor 20 inches, rounding of sides 6 inches, and sheer about 3 feet." Flying Cloud is often called an extreme clipper, as are many of Donald McKay's ships, even though her deadrise was only 30 inches.

Record voyage to San Francisco during Gold Rush

Within six weeks of her 1851 launch Flying Cloud sailed from New York, rounded Cape Horn and made San Francisco in 89 days, 21 hours under the command of Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy. In July, during the trip, she ran 284, 374 and 334 nautical miles, a total of 992 nautical miles over the three consecutive days. In 1854 she beat her own fastest by 13 hours, setting a record that stood until 1989 when a contemporary 60 ft racing sloop, Thursday's Child, completed the passage in 80 days, 20 hours.

In the early days of the California Gold Rush, it took more than 200 days for a ship to travel from New York to San Francisco, a voyage of more than 16,000 miles, but clipper ships quickly cut that time in half. Surprise had set a record of 91 days, 21 hours on 19 March 1851, but Flying Cloud caused a sensation later that year, cutting a week off the record, and beating the three month barrier. Three years later, in 1854, she sailed the passage faster yet, setting a record that lasted for 135 years.

Flying Cloud vs. Andrew Jackson
In newspaper accounts of the day, the clipper Andrew Jackson was acclaimed as holding the record passage to San Francisco. After careful scrutiny of the logbooks, Cutler concludes that a case can be made for either Flying Cloud or Andrew Jackson holding the record.

Andrew Jackson holds the record for fastest passage pilot-to-pilot, arriving at the San Francisco pilot grounds in 89 days and 4 hours. Because Andrew Jackson spent all night between the Farallon Islands and the Golden Gate awaiting a harbor pilot, some will consider this figure as the appropriate indicator of fastest sailing performance around Cape Horn.

However, Flying Cloud holds the record time for a completed voyage from New York to San Francisco, 89 days 8 hours anchor-to-anchor.

Woman navigator
Flying Cloud's achievement was remarkable under any terms. But, writes David W. Shaw, it was all the more unusual because her navigator was a woman, Eleanor Creesy, who had been studying oceanic currents, weather phenomena, and astronomy since her girlhood in Marblehead, Massachusetts. She was one of the first navigators to exploit the insights of Matthew Fontaine Maury, most notably the course recommended in his Sailing Directions. With her husband, ship captain Josiah Perkins Creesy, she logged many thousands of miles on the ocean, traveling around the world carrying passengers and goods. In the wake of their record-setting transit from New York to California, Eleanor and Josiah became instant celebrities. But their fame was short-lived and their story quickly forgotten. Josiah died in 1871 and Eleanor lived far from the sea until her death in 1900.

Race with clipper Hornet in 1853
Hornet had a two-day head start on Flying Cloud in their famous 1853 race. She left New York for San Francisco, 26 April 1853, with Flying Cloud departing two days later.

After the roughly 15,000-mile voyage around Cape Horn, both ships arrived in San Francisco harbor 106 days later at almost the same time, with Hornet sailing in just 45 minutes ahead of the Flying Cloud.

British clipper to Australia and New Zealand, New Brunswick timber trade
In 1862, Flying Cloud was sold to the Black Ball Line, Liverpool, sailing under British colors without change of name, and was soon traveling between the mother country and Australia and New Zealand. Her latter years were spent in the log trade between Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.

Loss of the ship
On 19 June 1874, Flying Cloud went ashore on the Beacon Island bar, Saint John, New Brunswick, and was condemned and sold. The following June she was burned for the scrap metal value of her copper and iron fastenings.

Ballad
A well-known ballad about a ship named Flying Cloud tells the story of an Irishman who was pressed into sailing on the ship on a slaving voyage from Baltimore via Bermuda to West Africa, which led to another voyage as a pirate ship that resulted in the execution of the crew at Newgate. However, these events are nothing to do with the actual history of the clipper ship.

title: Flying Cloud (clipper)


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International language

International language may refer to:

 * Esperanto, whose original name was international language
 * Unua Libro or Dr. Esperanto's International Language, the first book detailing Esperanto
 * International auxiliary language, a language meant for communication between people who do not share a common native language
 * International English, a concept of the English language as a global means of communication
 * International Sign
 * Lingua franca, any language widely used beyond the population of its native speakers
 * Love
 * Mathematics
 * Music
 * Universal language, a hypothetical historical or mythical language said to be spoken and understood by all of the world's population
 * World language, a language spoken internationally

Other uses

 * International Language (album), a 1993 album by Cabaret Voltaire

title: International language


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Auxiliary language

An auxiliary language is one not the primary or native language of a community. It may refer to:

 * Interlanguage, an idiolect that has been developed by a learner of a second language
 * International auxiliary language, a planned language constructed for international communication, such as Esperanto or International Sign
 * Minority language, a secondary language that has official recognition
 * Sacred language, also called liturgical language or initiation language, used in religious services

title: Auxiliary language


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Talk:Inflection

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 9 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Shahnawaz01. Peer reviewers: LingClassmate.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The overworked Romance morpheme
A single morpheme usually carries information about person, number, tense, aspect and mood, and the verb paradigm may be quite complex.

It is not clear what this means. I tried it out on the first morpheme that came to mind: French parle. It didn't carry sufficient information about person. First or third? Do you mean that each and every verb morpheme carries all that information? Of course not, that is absurd. What then do you mean and if you cannot say what you mean why are you inflicting this gobbledeygook on us? Where is your reference for this? I was willing to accept the programmer-pseudo-linguisticese for Basque because a reference was included, and, I said to myself, if the gentle reader wants to know what it means he or she as the case may be can study the article and read Wikipedia on Basque, which would or should explain it. Basque speakers don't go around talking about two levels of recursion in their agglutination. I could see how language programmers might see it that way although you could argue their view is unbalanced (or they are unbalanced, whatever). But, this Romance material has no ref and makes no sense from anyone's point of view, so out with it.Dave (talk) 02:17, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

 * That was talking about inflectional morphemes whereas "parle" is a root. — 88.238.45.159 (talk) 20:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Introduction to long?
Why "may" the introduction "be too long" and what or how should it be trimmed? Hyacinth (talk) 09:43, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

 * The introduction doesn't clarify, to me, what inflection is, and is too verbose. It also uses the term in the definition too frequently. Cheers! (Eidlyn (talk) 22:13, 6 June 2011 (UTC))

Why Is Old Irish not mentioned at all?
Old Irish is an extremely highly inflected ancient Indo-European language, yet the article not only lacks a section on it (or any of the other Celtic languages for that matter), but doesn't even mention it or any of its modern, living decedents (Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Manx), all of which are inflected (albeit to a lesser degree than Old Irish). This is a serious gap in the Indo-European side of the picture described here. Could someone remedy this? I don't have the expertise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.117 (talk) 19:10, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Gato/gata
I see this has been discussed before (up the page), but I'm still inclined to share the doubts expressed there. Is gato/gata really inflectional rather than derivational? Are they really the same lexeme? Isn't it like "waiter/waitress" or "drake/duck"? Victor Yus (talk) 14:33, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

 * I wouldn't be surprised to learn there is controversy about this – there's controversy surrounding many things in linguistics, and derivation vs. inflection is often subtle – but gender agreement, at least, is usually treated as inflection. Cnilep (talk) 03:21, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I made this the image I added to the page 27 September, but now I'm not confident whether it's better. What say you? Cnilep (talk) 07:50, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Inflection of Hakka?
The article claims that in Hakka, the possessive adjectives are formed by inflection (unlike in Mandarin where they are formed by adding the particle 的 after the personal pronoun). However, I'm unable to find any source to back this up, and the official Taiwanese Hakka dictionary on "个" states that this character is equivalent to Mandarin "的". Furthermore, I asked a Hakka who came from Longchuan about how he says "a big car", "a yellow car", "big", "yellow", "car", "my", "your", "his", "I", "you", "he" and in all cases the preposition "个" is employed for genitive and no audible inflection was observed. If however the inflection does exist as a tone sandhi, which I am likely unable to tell, or I totally misunderstand this sentence, then please help adding a citation and clarify the statement. SchwarzKatze (talk) 14:55, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Surely the Taiwanese dictionary on Hakka would use 個 for 个? They are the trad and simplified forms of the counter word "ge" yes? They would both use 的 for the possesive particle "de" or as it is pronounced in Hakka "da"

That being said I agree there is nothing to back up the existance of inflection in Hakka. I'm waiting to hear back from some linguists I know in Taiwan to double check on this, but I did a quick search myself and found nothing to back this up. I would suggest removing the section until a reference can be found. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.169.196.207 (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

 * Hakka does have other forms, but only for some possessive pronouns.
 * {| class="wikitable"

! Person/Number ! Subject/Object ! Possessive
 * first singular
 * 𠊎
 * 𠊎个 or 吾 or 吾个
 * second singular
 * 你 (1) (2) (3) (4)
 * 你个 or 若 or 若个
 * third singular
 * 佢
 * 佢个 or 厥 or 厥个
 * }Justinrleung (talk) 01:19, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * 佢
 * 佢个 or 厥 or 厥个
 * }Justinrleung (talk) 01:19, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Inflection vs. derivation
The second paragraph in this section is a long list, was this meant to be a chart or table of some kind? It would also be helpful if the eight English inflectional suffixes were listed, but these may be better listed in the Examples in English section, rather than the Inflection vs. derivation section. Sschuler (talk) 01:21, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

 * I noticed the same list and fixed the formatting Danielklein (talk) 23:28, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Old English weak nouns
Is the Old English word "ēage" really "ēage" in the singular accusative? This looks like a mistake because "nama" becomes "naman" and "tunge" becomes "tungan". If the weak neuter form is different from the weak masculine and feminine forms, would someone add a brief explanation, otherwise if it's a mistake just fix it? Danielklein (talk) 23:37, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Introduction
I think this article has a lot of necessary information, but also some that may deter readers wanting to lear about Inflection because of its length. The intro seems to go on some areas of morphemes that could be simplified to bring more clarity. It would seem helpful to consider pulling some of those long sentences In the intro, and replace them with citations for those who want a more detailed version. This can make it easier to hit all of the topics that are in the article throughout the intro. Bayjanae (talk) 00:18, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Dà chù.png unreadable on dark background
The image near the top of the article blends into dark backgrounds. In my case, the Wikipedia Android app using dark mode. I assume this is because the PNG has a transparent background.

I'm not sure if there's a wider WikiProject or something similar that addresses these issues, but I personally don't see any issue with adding a white background to the PNG. I assume that the light mode in official Wikipedia "platforms" (web, mobile apps, others?) uses pure white as a background, so they shouldn't notice a difference.

I'm not familiar with Commons, but I imagine that this would have to be uploaded as a separate file unless it was done by the original uploader? I mean, the image is released under CC0 but I don't know what the Commons policies are regarding modifications. The file is used on a handful of other Wikipedias, but I imagine they would benefit the same from this modification to the image. Firvqipo (talk) 09:12, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Inflection


text:
Arthralgia

Arthralgia literally means 'joint pain'. Specifically, arthralgia is a symptom of injury, infection, illness (in particular arthritis), or an allergic reaction to medication.

According to MeSH, the term arthralgia should only be used when the condition is non-inflammatory, and the term arthritis should be used when the condition is inflammatory.

Causes
The causes of arthralgia are varied and range, from a joints perspective, from degenerative and destructive processes such as osteoarthritis and sports injuries to inflammation of tissues surrounding the joints, such as bursitis. These might be triggered by other things, such as infections or vaccinations.

Diagnosis
Diagnosis involves interviewing the patient and performing physical exams. When attempting to establish the cause of the arthralgia, the emphasis is on the interview. The patient is asked questions intended to narrow the number of potential causes. Given the varied nature of these possible causes, some questions may seem irrelevant. For example, the patient may be asked about dry mouth, light sensitivity, rashes or a history of seizures. Answering yes or no to any of these questions limits the number of possible causes and guides the physician toward the appropriate exams and lab tests.

Treatment
Treatment depends on a specific underlying cause. The underlying cause will be treated first and foremost. The treatments may include joint replacement surgery for severely damaged joints, immunosuppressants for immune system dysfunction, antibiotics when an infection is the cause, and discontinuing medication when an allergic reaction is the cause. When treating the primary cause, pain management may still play a role in treatment. The extent of its role varies depending on the specific cause of the arthralgia. Pain management may include stretching exercises, over the counter pain medications, prescription pain medication, or other treatments deemed appropriate for the symptoms. Capsaicin, a substance found in chili peppers, may relieve joint pain from arthritis and other conditions. Capsaicin blocks the actions of substance P, which helps transmit pain signals, and capsaicin triggers the release of pain-blocking chemicals in the body known as endorphins. Side effects of capsaicin cream include burning or stinging in the area where it is applied. Another topical option is an arthritis cream containing the ingredient, methyl salicylate (Bengay).

title: Arthralgia


text:
Hamburg State Opera

The Hamburg State Opera (in German: Staatsoper Hamburg) is a German opera company based in Hamburg. Its theatre is near the square of Gänsemarkt. Since 2015, the current Intendant of the company is Georges Delnon, and the current Generalmusikdirektor of the company is Kent Nagano.

History
Opera in Hamburg dates to 2 January 1678 when the Oper am Gänsemarkt was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile. It was not a court theatre but the first public opera house in Germany established by the art-loving citizens of Hamburg, a prosperous member of the Hanseatic League.

The Hamburg Bürgeroper resisted the dominance of the Italianate style and rapidly became the leading musical center of the German Baroque. In 1703, George Friedrich Handel was engaged as violinist and harpsichordist and performances of his operas were not long in appearing. In 1705, Hamburg gave the world première of his opera Nero.

In 1721, Georg Philipp Telemann, a central figure of the German Baroque, joined the Hamburg Opera, and in subsequent years Christoph Willibald Gluck, Johann Adolph Hasse and various Italian companies were among the guests.

To replace the aging wooden structure, the first stone was laid on 18 May 1826 for the Stadt-Theater on the present-day site of the Hamburg State Opera. The new theater, with seating for 2,800 guest, was inaugurated less than a year later with Beethoven's incidental music to Egmont.

In 1873, both the exterior and interior of the structure were renovated in the reigning "Gründerzeit" style of the time, and again in 1891, when electric lighting was introduced.

Under the direction of Bernhard Pollini, the house mounted its first complete Ring Cycle in 1879. In 1883, the year of Wagner's death, a cycle comprising nine of his operas commenced. The musical directors Hans von Bülow (from 1887 to 1890) and Gustav Mahler (from 1891 to 1897) also contributed to the fame of the opera house.

In the beginning of the 20th century, opera was an important part of the theatre's repertoire; among the 321 performances during the 1907–08 season, 282 were performances of opera. The Stadt-Theater performed not only established repertoire but also new works, such as Paul Hindemith's Sancta Susanna, Igor Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale, Ernst Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, and Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa. Ferruccio Busoni's Die Brautwahl (1912) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Die tote Stadt (1920) both had their world premieres in Hamburg. In the 1930s, after Hitler came to power, the opera house was renamed Hamburgische Staatsoper.

On the night of 2 August 1943, both the auditorium and its neighbouring buildings were destroyed during air raids by fire-bombing; a low-flying airplane dropped several petrol and phosphorus containers onto the middle of the roof of the auditorium, causing it to erupt into a conflagration.

The current Staatsoper opened on 15 October 1955 with Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. Hamburg continued to devote itself to new works, such as Hans Werner Henze's The Prince of Homburg (1960), Stravinsky's The Flood (1963), Gian Carlo Menotti's Help, Help, the Globolinks! (1968), and Mauricio Kagel's Staatstheater (1971).

In 1967, under the direction of Joachim Hess (director), the Hamburg State Opera became the first company to broadcasts its operas in color on television, beginning with Die Hochzeit des Figaro (a German translation of Le Nozze di Figaro). Ten of these television productions have been released on DVD by ArtHaus Musik as Cult Opera of the 1970s, as well as separately. All of these were performed in German regardless of the original language (six were written in German, one in French, two in English, and one in Italian).

More recently, Hamburg gave the world premières of Wolfgang Rihm's Die Eroberung von Mexico (1992) and Helmut Lachenmann's Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern (1997), for which it received much international acclaim. The company has won the "Opera House of the Year" award by the German magazine Opernwelt in 1997 and in 2005.

Recent General Music Directors (GMD) have included Ingo Metzmacher and Simone Young. Young was the first female GMD in the company's history, serving from 2005 to 2015. Kent Nagano became GMD as of the 2015–2016 season, with an initial contract of 5 seasons. In October 2017, the company announced the extension of Nagano's Hamburg contract through 2025. Nagano is scheduled to conclude his tenure as GMD at the close of the 2024–2025 season. In February 2023, the company announced the appointment of Omer Meir Wellber as its new GMD, effective with the 2025–2026 season.

The current Intendant of the company is Georges Delnon. Delnon is scheduled to stand down as the company's Intendant in 2025. In December 2022, the company announced the appointment of Tobias Kratzer as its next Intendant, effective in the summer of 2025.

General Music Directors (GMD)

 * Eugen Jochum (1934–1949)
 * Joseph Keilberth (1951–1959)
 * Wolfgang Sawallisch (1961–1973)
 * Horst Stein (1973–1976)
 * Aldo Ceccato (1976–1982)
 * Hans Zender (1984–1988)
 * Gerd Albrecht (1988–1997)
 * Ingo Metzmacher (1997–2005)
 * Simone Young (2005–2015)
 * Kent Nagano (2015–2025)
 * Omer Meir Wellber (2025–   )

title: Hamburg State Opera


text:
Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 partitions of Poland–Lithuania. The state was founded by Lithuanians, who were at the time a polytheistic nation of several united Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija, which by 1440, became the largest European state controlling an area from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.

The grand duchy expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus' and other neighbouring states, including what is now Belarus, Lithuania, most of Ukraine as well as parts of Latvia, Moldova, Poland and Russia. At its greatest extent, in the 15th century, it was the largest state in Europe. It was a multi-ethnic and multiconfessional state, with great diversity in languages, religion, and cultural heritage.

The consolidation of the Lithuanian lands began in the late 13th century. Mindaugas, the first ruler of the grand duchy, was crowned as the Catholic King of Lithuania in 1253. The pagan state was targeted in a religious crusade by the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order, but survived. Its rapid territorial expansion started late in the reign of Gediminas, and continued under the diarchy and co-leadership of his sons, Algirdas and Kęstutis. Algirdas's son Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo in 1386, bringing two major changes in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: conversion to Christianity of Europe's last pagan state, and establishment of a dynastic union between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. This marked the beginning of the rule of other countries by the patrilineal members of the Lithuanian ruling Gediminids dynasty who since the 14th–15th centuries ruled not only Lithuania, but also Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, and Moldavia.

The reign of Vytautas the Great, son of Kęstutis, marked both the greatest territorial expansion of the grand duchy (it became one of the largest countries territorially in Europe) and the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410. It also marked the rise of the Lithuanian nobility. After Vytautas's death, Lithuania's relationship with the Kingdom of Poland greatly deteriorated. Lithuanian noblemen, including the Radvila family, attempted to break the personal union with Poland. However, unsuccessful wars with the Grand Duchy of Moscow forced the union to remain intact.

Eventually, the Union of Lublin of 1569 created a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the Federation, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania maintained its political distinctiveness and had separate ministries, laws, army, and treasury. The federation was terminated by the passing of the Constitution of 3 May 1791, when it was supposed to become a single country, the Commonwealth, under one monarch, one parliament and no Lithuanian autonomy. Shortly afterward, the unitary character of the state was confirmed by adopting the Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations.

However, the newly reformed Commonwealth was invaded by Russia in 1792 and partitioned between neighbouring states. A truncated state (whose principal cities were Kraków, Warsaw and Vilnius) remained that was nominally independent. After the Kościuszko Uprising, the territory was completely partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria in 1795.

Etymology
The name of Lithuania (Litua) was first mentioned in 1009 in Annals of Quedlinburg. Some older etymological theories relate the name to a small river not far from Kernavė, the core area of the early Lithuanian state and a possible first capital of the would-be Grand Duchy of Lithuania, is usually credited as the source of the name. This river's original name is Lietava. As time passed, the suffix -ava could have changed into -uva, as the two are from the same suffix branch. The river flows in the lowlands and easily spills over its banks, therefore the traditional Lithuanian form liet- could be directly translated as lietis (to spill), of the root derived from the Proto-Indo-European leyǝ-. However, the river is very small and some find it improbable that such a small and local object could have lent its name to an entire nation. On the other hand, such a fact is not unprecedented in world history. A credible modern theory of etymology of the name of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuva) is Artūras Dubonis's hypothesis, that Lietuva relates to the word leičiai (plural of leitis, a social group of warriors-knights in the early Grand Duchy of Lithuania). The title of the Grand Duchy was consistently applied to Lithuania from the 14th century onward.

In other languages, the grand duchy is referred to as:
 * Вялікае Княства Літоўскае / Vialikaje Kniastva Litoŭskaje
 * Velika Kneževina Litva
 * Litevské velkoknížectví
 * Großfürstentum Litauen
 * Leedu Suurvürstiriik
 * Litván Nagyfejedelemség
 * Magnus Ducatus Lituaniæ
 * Lieitija or Lietuvas Lielkņaziste
 * Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė
 * Old literary Lithuanian: Didi Kunigystė Lietuvos (didi Kunigiſte Lietuwos )
 * Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie
 * Marele Ducat al Lituaniei
 * Великое княжество Литовское
 * Ruthenian: Велїкое кнꙗзство Лїтовское
 * Litovské veľkokniežatstvo
 * Storfurstendömet Litauen
 * Велике князiвство Литовське

Naming convention of both title of ruler (hospodar) and the state changed as it expanded its territory. Following the decline of the Kingdom of Ruthenia and incorporation of its lands into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Gediminas started to title himself as "King of Lithuanians and many Ruthenians",  while the name of the state became the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia. Similarly the title changed to "King of Lithuanians and Ruthenians, ruler and duke of Semigallia" when Semigallia became part of the state. The 1529 edition of the Statute of Lithuania described the titles of Sigismund I the Old as "King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Samogitia, Mazovia, and other [lands]".

The country was also called the Republic of Lithuania (Respublica Lituana) since at least the mid-16th century, already before the Union of Lublin in 1569.

Establishment of the state
The first mention of the name Lithuania is found in the Annals of Quedlinburg, which describes the missionary expedition of Bruno of Querfurt to Yotvingians. In the 12th century, Slavic chronicles refer to Lithuania as one of the areas attacked by the Rus'. Pagan Lithuanians initially paid tribute to Polotsk, but they soon grew in strength and organized their own small-scale raids. At some point between 1180 and 1183 the situation began to change, and the Lithuanians started to organize sustainable military raids on the Slavic provinces, raiding the Principality of Polotsk as well as Pskov, and even threatening Novgorod. The sudden spark of military raids marked consolidation of the Lithuanian lands in Aukštaitija. The Lithuanians are the only branch within the Baltic group that managed to create a state entity in premodern times.

The Lithuanian Crusade began after the Livonian Order and Teutonic Knights, crusading military orders, were established in Riga and in Prussia in 1202 and 1226 respectively. The Christian orders posed a significant threat to pagan Baltic tribes, and further galvanized the formation of the Lithuanian state. The peace treaty with Galicia–Volhynia of 1219 provides evidence of cooperation between Lithuanians and Samogitians. This treaty lists 21 Lithuanian dukes, including five senior Lithuanian dukes from Aukštaitija (Živinbudas, Daujotas, Vilikaila, Dausprungas and Mindaugas) and several dukes from Žemaitija. Although they had battled in the past, the Lithuanians and the Žemaičiai now faced a common enemy. Likely Živinbudas had the most authority and at least several dukes were from the same families. The formal acknowledgement of common interests and the establishment of a hierarchy among the signatories of the treaty foreshadowed the emergence of the state.

Kingdom of Lithuania
Mindaugas, the duke of southern Lithuania, was among the five senior dukes mentioned in the treaty with Galicia–Volhynia. The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, reports that by the mid-1230s, Mindaugas had acquired supreme power in the whole of Lithuania. In 1236, the Samogitians, led by Vykintas, defeated the Livonian Order in the Battle of Saule. The Order was forced to become a branch of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, making Samogitia, a strip of land that separated Livonia from Prussia, the main target of both orders. The battle provided a break in the wars with the Knights, and Lithuania exploited this situation, arranging attacks on the Ruthenian provinces and annexing Navahrudak and Hrodna.

In 1248, a civil war broke out between Mindaugas and his nephews Tautvilas and Edivydas. The powerful coalition against Mindaugas included Vykintas, the Livonian Order, Daniel of Galicia and Vasilko of Volhynia. Taking advantage of internal conflicts, Mindaugas allied with the Livonian Order. He promised to convert to Christianity and exchange some lands in western Lithuania in return for military assistance against his nephews and the royal crown. In 1251, Mindaugas was baptized and Pope Innocent IV issued a papal bull proclaiming the creation of the Kingdom of Lithuania. After the civil war ended, Mindaugas was crowned as King of Lithuania on 6 July 1253, starting a decade of relative peace. Mindaugas later renounced Christianity and converted back to paganism. Mindaugas tried to expand his influence in Polatsk, a major centre of commerce in the Daugava River basin, and Pinsk. The Teutonic Knights used this period to strengthen their position in parts of Samogitia and Livonia, but they lost the Battle of Skuodas in 1259 and the Battle of Durbe in 1260. This encouraged the conquered Semigallians and Old Prussians to rebel against the Knights.

Encouraged by Treniota, Mindaugas broke the peace with the Order, possibly reverted to pagan beliefs. He hoped to unite all Baltic tribes under the Lithuanian leadership. As military campaigns were not successful, the relationships between Mindaugas and Treniota deteriorated. Treniota, together with Daumantas of Pskov, assassinated Mindaugas and his two sons, Ruklys and Rupeikis, in 1263. The state lapsed into years of internal fighting.

Rise of the Gediminids
From 1263 to 1269, Lithuania had three grand dukes – Treniota, Vaišvilkas, and Švarnas. The state did not disintegrate, however, and Traidenis came to power in 1269. Traidenis strengthened Lithuanian control in Black Ruthenia, fought with the Livonian Order, winning the Battle of Karuse in 1270 and the Battle of Aizkraukle in 1279, and assisted the Yotvingians/Sudovians to defend from the Teutonic Order. For his military assistance, Nameisis recognized Traidenis as his suzerain. There is considerable uncertainty about the identities of the grand dukes of Lithuania between Traidenis' death in 1282 and the assumption of power by Vytenis in 1295. The country's capital was located in Kernavė until 1316 or 1321 where Traidenis and Vytenis mainly resided and led to its prosperity.

During this time, the Orders finalized their conquests. In 1274, the Great Prussian Rebellion ended, and the Teutonic Knights proceeded to conquer other Baltic tribes: the Nadruvians and Skalvians in 1274–1277, and the Yotvingians in 1283; the Livonian Order completed its conquest of Semigalia, the last Baltic ally of Lithuania, in 1291. The Orders could now turn their full attention to Lithuania. The "buffer zone" composed of other Baltic tribes had disappeared, and Grand Duchy of Lithuania was left to battle the Orders on its own.

The Gediminid dynasty ruled the grand duchy for over a century, and Vytenis was the first ruler of the dynasty. During his reign Lithuania was in constant war with the Order, the Kingdom of Poland, and Ruthenia. Vytenis was involved in succession disputes in Poland, supporting Boleslaus II of Masovia, who was married to a Lithuanian duchess, Gaudemunda. In Ruthenia, Vytenis managed to recapture lands lost after the assassination of Mindaugas and to capture the principalities of and Turov. In the struggle against the Order, Vytenis allied with Riga's citizens; securing positions in Riga strengthened trade routes and provided a base for further military campaigns. Around 1307, Polotsk, an important trading centre, was annexed by military force. Vytenis also began constructing a defensive castle network along Nemunas. Gradually this network developed into the main defensive line against the Teutonic Order.

Territorial expansion
The expansion of the state reached its height under Grand Duke Gediminas, also titled by some contemporaneous German sources as Rex de Owsteiten (King of Aukštaitija), who created a strong central government and established an empire that later spread from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea. In 1320, most of the principalities of western Rus' were either vassalized or annexed by Lithuania. In 1321, Gediminas captured Kiev, sending Stanislav, the last Rurikid to rule Kiev, into exile. Gediminas also re-established the permanent capital of the Grand Duchy in Vilnius, presumably moving it from Old Trakai in 1323, which previously served as the country's capital since 1316 or 1321. The state continued to expand its territory under the reign of Grand Duke Algirdas and his brother Kęstutis, who both ruled the state harmonically. During the inaugurations of Lithuanian monarchs until 1569, the Gediminas' Cap was placed on the monarch's heads by the Bishop of Vilnius in Vilnius Cathedral. Lithuania was in a good position to conquer the western and the southern parts of the former Kievan Rus'. While almost every other state around it had been plundered or defeated by the Mongols, the hordes stopped at the modern borders of Belarus, and the core territory of the Grand Duchy was left mostly untouched. The weak control of the Mongols over the areas they had conquered allowed the expansion of Lithuania to accelerate. Rus' principalities were never incorporated directly into the Golden Horde, maintaining vassal relationships with a fair degree of independence. Lithuania annexed some of these areas as vassals through diplomacy, as they exchanged rule by the Mongols or the Grand Prince of Moscow with rule by the Grand Duchy. An example is Novgorod, which was often in the Lithuanian sphere of influence and became an occasional dependency of the Grand Duchy. Lithuanian control resulted from internal frictions within the city, which attempted to escape submission to Moscow. Such relationships could be tenuous, however, as changes in a city's internal politics could disrupt Lithuanian control, as happened on a number of occasions with Novgorod and other East-Slavic cities.

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania managed to hold off Mongol incursions and eventually secured gains. In 1333 and 1339, Lithuanians defeated large Mongol forces attempting to regain Smolensk from the Lithuanian sphere of influence. By about 1355, the State of Moldavia had formed, and the Golden Horde did little to re-vassalize the area. In 1362, regiments of the Grand Duchy army defeated the Golden Horde at the Battle at Blue Waters.

In 1380, a Lithuanian army allied with Russian forces to defeat the Golden Horde in the Battle of Kulikovo, and though the rule of the Mongols did not end, their influence in the region waned thereafter. In 1387, Moldavia became a vassal of Poland and, in a broader sense, of Lithuania. By this time, Lithuania had conquered the territory of the Golden Horde all the way to the Dnieper River. In a crusade against the Golden Horde in 1398 (in an alliance with Tokhtamysh), Lithuania invaded northern Crimea and won a decisive victory. In an attempt to place Tokhtamish on the Golden Horde throne in 1399, Lithuania moved against the Horde but was defeated in the Battle of the Vorskla River, losing the steppe region.

One of the largest European countries, ruled by Gediminids–Jagiellonians
Lithuania was Christianized in 1387, led by Jogaila, who personally translated Christian prayers into the Lithuanian language and his cousin Vytautas the Great who founded many Catholic churches and allocated lands for parishes in Lithuania. The state reached a peak (becoming one of the largest countries territorially in Europe) under Vytautas the Great, who reigned from 1392 to 1430. Vytautas was one of the most famous rulers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, serving as the Grand Duke from 1401 to 1430, and as the Prince of Hrodna (1370–1382) and the Prince of Lutsk (1387–1389). Vytautas was the son of Kęstutis, uncle of Jogaila, who became King of Poland in 1386, and he was the grandfather of Vasili II of Moscow.

In 1410, Vytautas commanded the forces of the Grand Duchy in the Battle of Grunwald. The battle ended in a decisive Polish-Lithuanian victory against the Teutonic Order. The war of Lithuania against military Orders, which lasted for more than 200 years, and was one of the longest wars in the history of Europe, was finally ended. Vytautas backed the economic development of the state and introduced many reforms. Under his rule, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania slowly became more centralized, as the governours loyal to Vytautas replaced local princes with dynastic ties to the throne. The governours were rich landowners who formed the basis for the nobility of the Grand Duchy. During Vytautas' rule, the Radziwiłł and Goštautas families started to gain influence. In 1440, Casimir IV Jagiellon was sent by his older brother Władysław III to Lithuania to rule in his name, however instead a manifestation of the sovereignty of Lithuania occurred when Casimir was elected as the Grand Duke of Lithuania upon his arrival to Vilnius on 29 June 1440 and subsequently titled himself as a "free lord" (pan – dominus), this way breaching the agreements of the Union of Grodno (1432) and terminating the Polish–Lithuanian union; Casimir also became the King of Poland in 1447. Following Casimir's death in 1492, the factual termination of the Polish–Lithuanian union also occurred during the reign of Casimir's sons Alexander Jagiellon and John I Albert who had respectively ruled Lithuania and Poland separately in 1492–1501.

The rapid expansion of the influence of Moscow soon put it into a comparable position to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and after the annexation of Novgorod Republic in 1478, Muscovy was among the preeminent states in northeastern Europe. Between 1492 and 1508, Ivan III further consolidated Muscovy, winning the key Battle of Vedrosha and capturing such ancient lands of Kievan Rus' as Chernihiv and Bryansk.

On 8 September 1514, the allied forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, under the command of Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski, fought the Battle of Orsha against the army of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, under Konyushy Ivan Chelyadnin and Kniaz Mikhail Golitsin. The battle was part of a long series of Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars conducted by Russian rulers striving to gather all the former lands of Kievan Rus' under their rule. According to Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii by Sigismund von Herberstein, the primary source for the information on the battle, the much smaller army of Poland–Lithuania (under 30,000 men) defeated the 80,000 Muscovite soldiers, capturing their camp and commander. The Muscovites lost about 30,000 men, while the losses of the Poland–Lithuania army totalled only 500. While the battle is remembered as one of the greatest Lithuanian victories, Muscovy ultimately prevailed in the war. Under the 1522 peace treaty, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania made large territorial concessions.

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The wars with the Teutonic Order, the loss of land to Moscow, and the continued pressure threatened the survival of the state of Lithuania, so it was forced to ally more closely with Poland, forming a real union with the Kingdom of Poland in the Union of Lublin of 1569. The union was formally called the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, however now commonly known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the period of the Union, many of the territories formerly controlled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were transferred to the Crown of the Polish Kingdom, while the gradual process of Polonization slowly drew Lithuania itself under Polish domination.

Following the death of Grand Duke Sigismund II Augustus in 1572, a joint Polish–Lithuanian monarch was to be elected as in the Union of Lublin it was agreed that the title "Grand Duke of Lithuania" will be received by a jointly elected monarch in the Election sejm on his accession to the throne, thus losing its former institutional significance, however the Union of Lublin guaranteed that the institution and the title "Grand Duke of Lithuania" will be preserved.

In 1573, Henry Valua was elected as the first joint Polish–Lithuanian monarch, however his rule was short and he never personally visited the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, despite being announced as the Grand Duke of Lithuania.

The double election of 1575 was held in the presence of a small number of Lithuanian lords, who additionally supported the Habsburg candidate Emperor Maximilian II, however, the race for the crown was won by Stephen Báthory, crowned on May 1, 1576. The Lithuanian lords, at a convention in Grodno (on 8-20 April 1576), protested this choice, threatening to break the union and giving themselves the right to choose a separate ruler. However, the king managed to rally the Lithuanian delegation by promising to preserve their rights and freedoms. On May 29, 1580, in Vilnius Cathedral, King and Grand Duke Stephen Báthory received from the hand of the bishop of Samogitia Merkelis Giedraitis a blessed sword and hat, given by Pope Gregory XIII through the envoy Paweł Uchański. This was a recognition by the Pope of the ruler's successes in the struggle against the infidels. In Lithuania, this ceremony was treated as the celebration of the elevation of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, during which Lithuania's sovereignty was manifested. Báthory's reign was marked with successful Livonian campaign against tsar Ivan the Terrible's military forces, which resulted in the reintegration of Polotsk to Lithuania and the restoration of control of the Duchy of Livonia.

The rule of Lithuania by the Gediminid–Jagiellonian family representatives resumed through matrilineal line following the death of Báthory (1586) when Sigismund III Vasa (son of Catherine Jagiellon) was elected in 1587. On 28 January 1588, Sigismund III confirmed the Third Statute of Lithuania which stated that the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is a federation of two countries – Poland and Lithuania where both countries have equal rights within it and separated the powers of the ruler, the Seimas, the executive and the courts (this for the first time in European history ensured the rule of law in the state, but Lithuania's citizens, who were subjects to the Statute, were only nobles). During the Polish–Swedish War (1600–1611) Polish and Lithuanian forces achieved victory and restored status quo ante bellum, notably winning the decisive Battle of Kircholm in 1605, while during the Polish–Muscovite War (1605–1618) Polish and Lithuanian armies achieved territorial gains (e.g. restored the control of Smolensk, the capital of the Smolensk Voivodeship, in 1611) and for the first time fully captured Russia's capital Moscow in 1610. Sigismund III's son, Władysław IV Vasa, began ruling Lithuania in 1632 and achieved military success and popularity during the Smolensk War, but he renounced his claims to the Russian throne per the Treaty of Polyanovka in 1634 and failed at reclaiming the Swedish throne.

John II Casimir Vasa's reign was initially marked with disastrous military loses as during the Deluge in the mid-17th century most of the territory of Lithuania was annexed by the Tsardom of Russia and even the Lithuania's capital Vilnius was captured for the first time by a foreign army and ravaged. In 1655, Lithuania unilaterally seceded from Poland, declared the Swedish King Charles X Gustav as the Grand Duke of Lithuania and fell under the protection of the Swedish Empire. However, by 1657 Lithuania was once again a part of the Commonwealth following the Lithuanian revolt against the Swedes. The Lithuania's capital Vilnius was liberated in 1661.

Throughout this Polish–Lithuanian Union period, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania remained a separate state and retained many rights in the federation (including separate name, territory, coat of arms, ministries, ruling system, laws, army, courts, treasury, and seal) until the Constitution of 3 May and Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations were passed in 1791.

Partitions and the Napoleonic period
Following the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, most of the lands of the former Grand Duchy were directly annexed by the Russian Empire, the rest by Prussia. In 1812, just prior to the French invasion of Russia, the former Grand Duchy revolted against the Russians. Soon after his arrival in Vilnius, Napoleon proclaimed the creation of a Commissary Provisional Government of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which, in turn, renewed the Polish-Lithuanian Union. The union was never formalized, however, as only half a year later Napoleon's Grande Armée was pushed out of Russia and forced to retreat further westwards. In December 1812, Vilnius was recaptured by Russian forces, bringing all plans for the recreation of the Grand Duchy to an end. Most of the lands of the former Grand Duchy were re-annexed by Russia. The Augustów Voivodeship (later Augustów Governorate), including the counties of Marijampolė and Kalvarija, was attached to the Kingdom of Poland, a rump state in personal union with Russia.

Administrative division
Administrative structure of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1413–1564).

Christianity and paganism
After the baptism in 1252 and coronation of King Mindaugas in 1253, Lithuania was recognized as a Christian state until 1260, when Mindaugas supported an uprising in Courland and (according to the German order) renounced Christianity. Up until 1387, Lithuanian nobles professed their own religion, which was polytheistic. Ethnic Lithuanians were very dedicated to their faith. The pagan beliefs needed to be deeply entrenched to survive strong pressure from missionaries and foreign powers. Until the 17th century, there were relics of old faith reported by counter-reformation active Jesuit priests, like feeding žaltys with milk or bringing food to graves of ancestors. The lands of modern-day Belarus and Ukraine, as well as local dukes (princes) in these regions, were firmly Orthodox Christian (Greek Catholic after the Union of Brest), though. While pagan beliefs in Lithuania were strong enough to survive centuries of pressure from military orders and missionaries, they did eventually succumb. A separate Eastern Orthodox metropolitan eparchy was created sometime between 1315 and 1317 by the Constantinople Patriarch John XIII. Following the Galicia–Volhynia Wars which divided the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, in 1355 the Halych metropoly was liquidated and its eparchies transferred to the metropoles of Lithuania and Volhynia.

In 1387, Lithuania converted to Catholicism, while most of the Ruthenian lands stayed Orthodox, however, on 22 February 1387, Supreme Duke Jogaila banned Catholics marriages with Orthodox, and demanded those Orthodox who previously married with the Catholics to convert to Catholicism. At one point, though, Pope Alexander VI reprimanded the Grand Duke for keeping non-Catholics as advisers. Consequently, only in 1563 did Grand Duke Sigismund II Augustus issue a privilege that equalized the rights of Orthodox and Catholics in Lithuania and abolished all previous restrictions on Orthodox. There was an effort to polarise Orthodox Christians after the Union of Brest in 1596, by which some Orthodox Christians acknowledged papal authority and Catholic catechism, but preserved their liturgy. The country also became one of the major centres of the Reformation.

In the second half of the 16th century, Calvinism spread in Lithuania, supported by the families of Radziwiłł, Chodkiewicz, Sapieha, Dorohostajski and others. By the 1580s the majority of the senators from Lithuania were Calvinist or Socinian Unitarians (Jan Kiszka).

In 1579, Stephen Báthory, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, founded Vilnius University, one of the oldest universities in Northern Europe. Due to the work of the Jesuits during the Counter-Reformation the university soon developed into one of the most important scientific and cultural centres of the region and the most notable scientific centre of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The work of the Jesuits as well as conversions from among the Lithuanian senatorial families turned the tide and by the 1670s Calvinism lost its former importance though it still retained some influence among the ethnically Lithuanian peasants and some middle nobility.

Islam
Islam in Lithuania, unlike many other northern and western European countries, has a long history starting from 14th century. Small groups of Muslim Lipka Tatars migrated to ethnically Lithuanian lands, mainly under the rule of Grand Duke Vytautas (early 15th century). In Lithuania, unlike many other European societies at the time, there was religious freedom. Lithuanian Tatars were allowed to settle in certain places, such as Trakai and Kaunas. Keturiasdešimt Totorių is one of the oldest Tatar settlements in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After a successful military campaign of the Crimean Peninsula in 1397, Vytautas brought the first Crimean Tatar prisoners of war to Trakai and various places in the Duchy of Trakai, including localities near Vokė river just south of Vilnius. The first mosque in this village was mentioned for the first time in 1558. There were 42 Tatar families in the village in 1630.

Linguistic groups
The majority of inhabitants of Lithuania proper, which included the voivodeships of Vilnius, Trakai and Samogitia, spoke Lithuanian. These areas remained almost wholly Lithuanian-speaking, both colloquially and by ruling nobility. Despite its frequent oral use, Lithuanian did not begin to be used in writing until the 16th century.

Ruthenians, ancestors of modern Belarusians and Ukrainians, living in the eastern and southern lands of the Grand Duchy spoke Ruthenian language. The Ruthenian language had an old writing tradition. The language of the Orthodox Church was Old Church Slavonic, while official documents used the so-called Chancery Ruthenian, close to but not identical to the spoken language, which over time absorbed many Lithuanian and Polish words.

Some Poles (mainly burghers, clergy, merchants, and szlachta) moved to Lithuania, although this migration was small-scale. After the Union of Lublin, this movement significantly increased. Polish was adopted also gradually by the local inhabitants. Already in early 16th century, Polish became the Lithuanian magnates' first language. The following century it was adopted by the Lithuanian nobility in general. The Polish language also penetrated other social strata: the clergy, the townspeople, and even the peasants. Since the 16th century, Polish was used much more often than other languages for writing. Polish finally became the Commonwealth's official chancellery language in 1697.

Other important ethnic groups throughout the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were Jews and Tatars. Jews spoke mainly in the eastern dialect of Yiddish. The Lithuanian Tatars used a language of Kipchak origin that was full of borrowings from Turkish and Arabic. It ceased to be used in the 16th century, and was replaced by Ruthenian and Polish, written in the Arabic alphabet. Brought in 1397 from Crimea, Karaites used a dialect of West Karaite language, while Hebrew was used for religious purposes.

In addition, Livonia, which had been politically connected to the Grand Duchy since the mid-16th century, was inhabited by Latgalians who spoke a dialect of the Latvian language. Inhabiting the towns, mainly in Livonia, the mostly Protestant Germans used a local variety of German called Baltendeutsch. Prussian and Yotvingians refugees, pushed out by the Teutonic Knights, also found their footing in the Grand Duchy. Similarly, Russian Old Believers emigrated to Lithuanian lands in the 17th century.

Languages of administration
The Grand Duchy's linguistic and ethnic situation, as well as the fusion of Lithuanian and Ruthenian elements in its culture, became the trigger for a long-running debate among historians from Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine over whether the state was essentially Lithuanian or Ruthenian-Lithuanian, in which the more advanced Ruthenian culture played a central role.

Before the Lithuanian expansion into the Ruthenian lands, Lithuanian was the only language of public life. However, the conquests, already initiated by Mindaugas in 13th century, began the process of fusing Ruthenian and Lithuanian culture and, in the absence of its own writing tradition, adopting Ruthenian as the language of administration and written communication. From at least the time of Vytautas, but probably much earlier, the language of internal administration was Chancery Ruthenian, a language similar to, but not the same as, the spoken language used by Ruthenians living in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. As for the correspondences with foreign courts the grand ducal chancellery prepared it in the language appropriate to the recipient: Latin for the correspondence with the West, German with the Teutonic Order and Chancery Ruthenian with the East Slavic and Tatar rulers.

The language used at court continued to be Lithuanian until the mid-16th century, the other being Ruthenian; later, both languages began to be replaced by Polish. Ruthenian culture dominated the courts of the Gediminid princes since the 14th century, especially those ruling directly over Ruthenian subjects. Grand Duke Jogaila was most likely bilingual, knowing and speaking Lithuanian and Ruthenian, and was able to communicate in the Samogitian dialect of the Lithuanian language. The Lithuanian language was still strongly present at the Vilnius court of Casimir Jagiellon, who had to learn it when he assumed power in the Grand Duchy in 1444. Casimir's assumption of power in Poland in 1447 marked the end of the existence of a separate court in Vilnius (it later existed only in years 1492-1496 and 1544-1548). Many Lithuanians and Ruthenian nobles joined the court in Kraków, they learned Polish language over time. Casimir was the last Grand Duke to know the Lithuanian language. From 1500, the elite of the Lithuanian state rapidly adopted the Polish language.

The process of moving away from Ruthenian to Polish in administration was soon apparent. The first were the nobles of Podlachia, who adopted Polish laws as early as the 1440s, and repeatedly demanded that official documents be written in Polish, since they no longer knew Ruthenian. The political reforms of 1564–1566 established sejmiks, local land courts, appellate courts modelled on Polish system, through which the Polish language flowed into Lithuania. The first codification of Lithuanian laws, the Statute of Lithuania, was issued in Chancery Ruthenian (1529), but was quickly translated into Latin (1530) and Polish (1532). Court Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Lew Sapieha noted in the preface of the Third Statute of Lithuania (1588) that all state documents to be written exclusively in Ruthenian. Despite this, after the Polish translation of the statute was published in 1614, it was not reissued in Ruthenian ever again. Polish was increasingly used in official documents, especially after the Union of Lublin. Finally, in 1697, the Sejm, as part of the equalization of law between Lithuania and Poland, confirmed that only the Polish language was to be used in administration in Lithuania, although Ruthenian continued to be used on a few official documents until the second half of the 18th century.

After the baptism, the use of Latin, still the main language of learning and writing in Western Europe, also spread in Lithuania as a language of document. Latin was the second language of the grand ducal chancellery in the 14th-16th centuries, although it was used less frequently than Ruthenian in internal administration. This was accompanied by the spread since mid-15th century of the legend of the Roman origin of the Lithuanian nobility (from the Palemon lineage), and the closeness of the Lithuanian language and Latin. This let some intellectuals in the mid-16th century to advocate for replacement of Ruthenian with Latin, as they considered Latin as the native language of Lithuanians.

Despite the appearance of literature in Lithuanian in the 16th century, the language did not gain the status of a chancellery language in the Grand Duchy until the late 18th century. Unlike neighboring Prussia, where the custom of issuing official documents in Lithuanian, especially those addressed to Lithuanian subjects, appeared as early as the 16th century. The Prussian chancellery translated two universals of 1639 and 1641 prepared by the royal chancellery of Władysław IV in Latin forbidding the passage of his subjects from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to Prussia, which was then a Polish fief. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the first document in Lithuanian was a translation from the Polish text of the May 3 Constitution, which was issued in 1791. Subsequently, several documents were published in Lithuanian during the Kościuszko Uprising. Of course, Lithuanian was used in speech, in administrative offices and by government officials when dealing with residents who were unable to communicate in another language. Vilnius city charter of November 18, 1551 declared that summons to court and verdicts had to be announced in Lithuanian, Polish, and Ruthenian. A similar charter was issued in Kaunas in 1540.

Demographics
In 1260, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the land of Lithuania, and ethnic Lithuanians formed the majority (67.5%) of its 400,000 people. With the acquisition of new Ruthenian territories, in 1340 this portion decreased to 30%. By the time of the largest expansion towards Rus' lands, which came at the end of the 13th and during the 14th century, the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was 800 to 930 thousand km2, just 10% to 14% of which was ethnically Lithuanian.

On 6 May 1434, Grand Duke Sigismund Kęstutaitis released his privilege which tied the Orthodox and Catholic Lithuanian nobles rights in order to attract the Slavic nobles of the eastern regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania who supported the former Grand Duke Švitrigaila.

An estimate of the population in the territory of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania together gives a population at 7.5 million for 1493, breaking them down by ethnicity at 3.75 million Ruthenians (ethnic Ukrainians, Belarusians), 3.25 million Poles and 0.5 million Lithuanians. With the Union of Lublin, 1569, Lithuanian Grand Duchy lost large part of lands to the Polish Crown.

According to an analysis of the tax registers in 1572, Lithuania proper had 850,000 residents of which 680,000 were Lithuanians.

In the mid and late 17th century, due to Russian and Swedish invasions, there was much devastation and population loss on throughout the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, including ethnic Lithuanian population in Vilnius surroundings. Besides devastation, the Ruthenian population declined proportionally after the territorial losses to Russian Empire. By 1770 there were about 4.84 million inhabitants in the territory of 320 thousand km2, the biggest part of whom were inhabitants of Ruthenia and about 1.39 million or 29% – of ethnic Lithuania. During the following decades, the population decreased in a result of partitions.

Legacy
Prussian tribes (of Baltic origin) were the subject of Polish expansion, which was largely unsuccessful, so Duke Konrad of Masovia invited the Teutonic Knights to settle near the Prussian area of settlement. The fighting between Prussians and the Teutonic Knights gave the more distant Lithuanian tribes time to unite. Because of strong enemies in the south and north, the newly formed Lithuanian state concentrated most of its military and diplomatic efforts on expansion eastward.

The rest of the former Ruthenian lands were conquered by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Some other lands in Ukraine were vassalized by Lithuania later. The subjugation of Eastern Slavs by two powers created substantial differences between them that persist to this day. While there were certainly substantial regional differences in Kievan Rus', it was the Lithuanian annexation of much of southern and western Ruthenia that led to the permanent division between Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians, and even four Grand Dukes of Lithuania are appeared on the Millennium of Russia monument.

In the 19th century, the romantic references to the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were an inspiration and a substantial part of both the Lithuanian and Belarusian national revival movements and Romanticism in Poland.

Notwithstanding the above, Lithuania was a kingdom under Mindaugas, who was crowned by the authority of Pope Innocent IV in 1253. Vytenis, Gediminas and Vytautas the Great also assumed the title of King, although uncrowned by the Pope. A failed attempt was made in 1918 to revive the Kingdom under a German Prince, Wilhelm Karl, Duke of Urach, who would have reigned as Mindaugas II of Lithuania.

In the first half of the 20th century, the memory of the multiethnic history of the Grand Duchy was revived by the people connected with the Krajowcy movement, such as Ludwik Abramowicz, Konstancja Skirmuntt, Michał Pius Römer, Juozapas Albinas Herbačiauskas, Józef Mackiewicz and Stanisław Mackiewicz. This feeling was expressed in poetry by Czesław Miłosz.

The Act of Independence of Lithuania, signed by the Council of Lithuania on February 16, 1918, proclaimed that "the Council of Lithuania, as the sole representative of the Lithuanian nation, based on the recognized right to national self-determination, and on the Vilnius Conference's resolution of September 18–23, 1917, proclaims the restoration of the independent state of Lithuania, founded on democratic principles, with Vilnius as its capital, and declares the termination of all state ties which formerly bound this State to other nations". In the preamble of the most recent Constitution of Lithuania, adopted during the 1992 Lithuanian constitutional referendum, the continuity of Lithuanian statehood is also stressed.

Pseudoscientific theory of litvinism was developed since the 1990s.

Famous Lithuanian sports clubs BC Žalgiris and FK Žalgiris as well the largest indoor arena in Lithuania are named after the Battle of Grunwald (Žalgirio mūšis).

According to the 10th article of the Law on the State Flag and Other Flags of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos valstybės vėliavos ir kitų vėliavų įstatymas), adopted by the Seimas, the historical Lithuanian state flag (with horseback knight on a red field, which initial design dates back to the reign of Grand Duke Vytautas the Great) must be constantly raised over the most important governmental buildings (e.g. Seimas Palace, Government of Lithuania and its ministries, Lithuanian courts, municipal council buildings) and significant historical buildings (e.g. Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Trakai Island Castle), also in Kernavė and in the site of the Senieji Trakai Castle.

title: Grand Duchy of Lithuania