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Algirdas (known as Olgierd in Slavic languages), b. ca. 1296, d. May, 1377, is widely regarded as the greatest ruler of medieval Lithuania. Probably the last pagan sovereign of Europe, he created a vast empire stretching from the Baltics to the Black Sea and reaching within 50 miles from Moscow.
Background
Algirdas was one of the seven sons of the famous grand duke Gedyminas among whom on his death in 1341 he divided his domains, leaving the youngest, Jaunutis, in possession of the capital, Vilnius, with a nominal priority. With the aid of his brother Kestutis, Algirdas in 1345 drove out the incapable Jaunutis and declared himself grand duke. The two and thirty years of his reign (1345-1377) were devoted to the development and extension of Lithuania, and he lived to make it one of the greatest states in Europe.
Two factors contributed to produce this result, the extraordinary political sagacity of Algirdas and the life-long devotion of his brother Kestutis. They divided their dominions so neatly, that Algirdas appears only in East Slavic sources, whereas the Western chronicles are aware of his brother only. The Teutonic knights in the north and the Tatar hordes in the south were equally bent on the subjection of Lithuania, while Algirdas' eastern and western neighbors, Muscovy and Poland, were far mere frequently hostile competitors than serviceable allies.
Expansion of Lithuania
Nevertheless, Olgierd not only succeeded in holding his own, but acquired influence and territory at the expense of 1:0 to Muscovy and the Tatars, and extended the borders of Lithuania to the shores of the Black Sea. The principal efforts of this eminent empire-maker were directed to securing those of the Slavonic lands which had formed part of the ancient Kievan Rus. He procured the election of his son Andrew as prince of Pskov, and a powerful minority of the citizens of the republic of Novgorod held the balance in his favor against the Muscovite influence, but his ascendancy in both these commercial centres was at the best precarious.
On the other hand he acquired permanently the important principalities of Smolensk and Bryansk in western Russia. His relations with the grand dukes of Muscovy were friendly on the whole, and twice he married Orthodox Russian princesses; but this did not prevent him from besieging Moscow in 1368 and again in 1372, both times unsuccessfully.
Algirdas' most memorable feat was his great victory over the Tatars at the Blue Waters of the Bug in 1362, which practically broke up the great Kipchak horde and compelled the khan to migrate still farther south and establish his headquarters for the future in the Crimea. Indeed, but for the unceasing simultaneous struggle with the Teutonic knights, the burden of which was heroically borne by Kestutis, Russian historians frankly admit that Lithuania, not Muscovy, must have become the dominant power of Eastern Europe. Olgierd died in 1377, accepting both Christianity and the tonsure shortly before his death.
Assessment
Unlike his descendants, Algirdas wisely vacillated between Muscovy and Poland, spoke the Ruthenian language, and was more inclined to follow the majority of his Orthodox subjects rather than to alienate them by promoting Roman Catholicism. His son Jagiello, however, ascended the Polish throne, and was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Poland for nearly 200 years.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
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