Personally, I love multiple nations vying for colonies, so nice job!
Also Lithuania is now terrifying in the same way the Russian Empire was terrifying.
The Silver Knight, a Lithuania Timeline
- Thread starter Augenis
- Start date
Personally, I love multiple nations vying for colonies, so nice job!
Also Lithuania is now terrifying in the same way the Russian Empire was terrifying.
I'm not Lithuanian or anything, but I've always found the country's history interesting so every now and then I stop by r/lithuania to see what's going on over there.
I stumbled upon the TL, but the title pretty much immediately drew me in because Lithuania doesn't get nearly enough attention on this site: so much opportunity and awesomeness, and I really hope you continue this!Well. We're pretty much at 20 pages now, which is... big.
Back when I was writing my first post in this thread, I never thought that I'd get this far. I totally wished for it to happen, though.
So, as far as I can tell, anyway, we have a little bit of a community here. I see a dozen regular faces reading, commenting and giving likes on almost every update. So let's talk a little! How did you find this TL?
Did you just stumble upon it in the Before 1900 subforum, or did you find it linked somewhere? I'm interested in hearing your stories.
Chapter 36: East and West
Part 36: East and West (1630-1645)
The fresh Empire of Lithuania was a nation of many ethnicities and of many faiths, and this variety only increased after Albertas Jogaila I's conquests. The Lithuanians, Ruthenians and Russians, among others, were joined by Crimean Tatars, Poles in Galicia, Baltic Germans, Letts (Latvians) and Estonians. The majority faith remained Orthodox, but the Catholic and Muslim minorities became sizable enough to warrant special treatment. One of the first things on Emperor Albertas's agenda was the eradication of the Concordate of Brest. Now that he was officially the successor to the Roman Empire, the ruler of the Third Rome, he had no need for deals with Catholics, especially since he wanted as much personal control over the Lithuanian Orthodox Church as possible. In 1631, in the same city where the Concordate was created - Brest - the Emperor and the Metropolitan of the Lithuanian church signed an official end of the experiment of unification between East and West churches. While Catholic influence remained in the Lithuanian Orthodox faith, it was no longer tied to the Papacy and began to tread it's own path.
This "restoration of Orthodox supremacy" was not taken positively by the Catholic majority areas in the Empire - in Livonia, Galicia and Prussia, for example - but Albertas Jogaila I assured that the rights of religious minorities to express their faith will not be threatened. The Statute of Lithuania, which included numerous articles on the freedom of religion in the Lithuanian state, was honored by the new administration, and the Emperor followed a simple policy - as long as you pay taxes to the state and don't try anything funny, you are free to worship God in whichever way you please. Only the Volanites, deeply entrenched in Russia, were discriminated, but even that discrimination was fading as the Lithuanians realized that subduing the Russians and converting them back to the true faith will not be as easy as they thought.
The Lithuanians and most importantly Emperor Albertas were now looking much farther east, however. After the Peace of Amsterdam, the redrawn borders of Europe were expected to stay set, and any expansion further to the west would have been met with large resistance - the East, however, with it's untamed plains, riches and a path to China, looked ripe for taking. Lithuania's eastern borders were next to Trans-Russia, the Russian refugee state situated along the Volga River, and the numerous Mordvin, Mari and Chuvash pseudo-statelets in the Upper Volga. Out of these, Moksha was turning out to be the strongest faction, having already united most of the Mordvin people and slowly expanding to enemy territory. This chaos in the Upper Volga was not only threatening to local Lithuanian governors, but also presented itself as an opportunity for the imperial court to begin Lithuania's eastern expansion. The years 1634-1637 were marked by the Upper Volga Campaign, a systematic conquest of most of the Upper Volga by the forces of the Voivodeships of Nizhny Novgorod and Ryazan. Despite the massive logistical and resistance problems for the Lithuanian troops, it didn't take long before the Volga Finns eventually surrendered.
This, however, put Lithuania on a path of war with the Volgaks, who were naturally threatened by the Empire's new Eastern path and it's conquest of the Upper Volga. Albertas Jogaila I had his gripes with this "Russia", too. From his point of view, the Volgaks are still citizens of his Empire, just that they were rebellious and decided to flee instead of serve to their homeland, and for that they must be brought back under Lithuania's fold. While the Volga Russians were fearful of a possible Lithuanian attack, the Empire itself saw them as just a minor obstacle in their path. What can a bunch of refugees do? Do they even have enough men to stand against the might of the Lithuanian army? Do they even have guns, or do they fight with spears and bows just like the Tatars? It will be a cakewalk!
In 1639, the Lithuanians began large incursions into the Volga steppe, and sent an envoy with an ultimatum to the Trans-Russian Zemsky Sobor, demanding the Volgaks to surrender to the Imperial Crown. The Russians returned only the chopped off ears of the diplomats. Both sides knew that this was a declaration of war - and so the Lithuanian-Russian War began. Because of the vastness of the Eurasian steppe and the great distance between Volgan Russia and the core of the Lithuanian nation, the scale of the conflict was miniscule compared to, say, the Twenty Years' War. Nevertheless, the Empire mustered 18 000 or so men for the conflict, most of them being standing Voivodeship soldiers from Nizhny Novgorod and Ryazan, as well as levied vassal Crimean Tatar troops. The first shots of the conflict were fired near the Sura River, where the Lithuanians besieged and captured numerous frontier Russian settlements and crossed the river, which used to serve as a part of the border between Trans-Russia and Lithuania. The Lithuanians also attacked from the north, from their captured Mordvin territories, pushing along the Volga river itself.
For the Volgaks, this was an emergency like never seen before, and the Zemsky Sobor ordered to rally all men and women of the nation for their struggle to retain their freedom. The situation looked grim. Volgan Russia only had a population of about 800 thousand people, which was just a drop in the ocean compared to Lithuania's monstrous 18 million. They had outdated weaponry, and even they had heard of Albertas Jogaila I's achievements in the West as an amazing military leader - though he wasn't leading the invasion force here. But what they had was determination. The Russian spirit! Russkaya dusha! And, just as importantly, they knew the land. Many of the Lithuanian soldiers had hardly ever seen a steppe before, while the Volgaks had tons of experience in flatland and steppe warfare and tactics. Defending against enemies all around us was a part of their life, and this experience turned the country into a nation of veterans.
They were, in a sense, the Russian equivalent of the Cossack hosts around the Black Sea, albeit sedentary rather than nomadic.
Throughout 1639, Lithuanian troops advanced slowly from the north, aiming for Vostovsk, the capital of Trans-Russia, located in a large bend of the Volga River, colloquially known as the Eastern Bend. Despite the terrain being a flat plain, perfect for movement, the Lithuanians neither moved fast or encountered the local armies on their way. Instead, they were repeatedly harassed by small mounted hosts of enemy raiders, sapping their strength bit by bit. The Volgak leadership was well aware of the strength of the Imperial armies, and that attacking them head-on would be a massacre, thus they used the Lithuanian weapon against them and employed effective hit-and-run tactics. The organization of such raids was simple - a small host of about 50 or so men, led by a local who knew the land of the battle, would approach and ambush the slow-moving armies, release a few shots of fire and retreat to the countryside before the opponent could muster a full counterattack. The Volgaks would employ shortcuts and other tricks to get the Lithuanians away from their tail, of course. It was such an effective, yet familiar tactic that the leader of the Lithuanian forces in the conflict, Jonas Radvila, remarked: "It's hard for me to tell whether we're invading Russia or accidentally attacking our own country".
An another problem the Lithuanians faced was the lack of supply. It was impossible to make any sort of supply line back to the homeland due to the massive distance, and the enemy territory was so sparsely populated that the soldiers could barely find anything to eat, even after raiding the nearest villages to the ground. Supply shortages were rampant across the Lithuanian troops, and the hit-and-run tactics employed by the Russians dealt heavy constant attrition to their ranks. In addition, since the majority of the troops were Russians themselves, they were not all that willing to fight their countrymen.
But despite all these faults, in 1640, the Lithuanians finally reached Vostovsk. Situated on a hill range and surrounded by the Volga on three sides, and heavily fortified in preparation, the city seemed almost impossible to take, but Jonas Radvila ordered his troops to attack anyway. The Defense of Vostovsk began. The Lithuanians crossed the Volga and stormed into the city, where 5000 Russian soldiers and over 17 000 civilian inhabitants took arms to repel the superior foe. Cannons roaring and pounding the wooden city, the posad was set on fire to draw out hiding defenders, and the Lithuanian armies drew closer and closer to the city's Kremlin. An advance regiment of 500 men managed to break through the Russian lines and reach the fortress itself, where the representatives of the Zemsky Sobor had barricaded themselves, but the troops found themselves unable to seize the recently renovated Kremlin, rebuilt with stone merely two years ago, and thus were surrounded and slaughtered. Despite the initially successful Lithuanian push into Vostovsk, they ran out of steam very quick - most of their cannons eventually broke down from the heat, the others were taken out by flanking Russian raiders, while the infantry in the city found itself unable to break the Russian lines despite their superior weaponry, and soon enough, the Lithuanians began to rout. Hundreds were fleeing across the Volga, but most of them were caught and killed, and only a tenth of the invading Lithuanian army managed to escape in the end.
Volgak raider cavalry, a modern drawing
The Russian-Lithuanian War was the central event in the developing national identity of the Volgan Russian people, and it has been their inspiration for years to come. No longer were they just bands of former refugees seeking shelter in the steppe, they were now a proud country with the strength to stand up and roar against the Empire, the mightiest nation of Eastern Europe! It was around this time that mainland Russians and Volga Russians began to split and form separate nations, the former focused on their dreams of independence from the Empire of Lithuania, and the other centered on their subjugation of the steppe and victorious defense of their new homeland. Even the languages of the two nations started to slowly split off - the heavy Tatar influence on the Volgak culture was seeping into their language as well.
While for Lithuania, this was a humiliating, but overall not all that impactful defeat. After all, it's not like they lost half of their country or something. The last years of Albertas's rule were uneventful, and Lithuania could only follow what was happening outside of it's borders. The first Swedish colony in the Vespucias, Gustavia, was founded in Saint Brendan's Land, established as a whaling base, and the King of Sweden soon claimed the entire island as his nation's territory. The tensions between the Dutch and Portuguese were nearing a breaking point, drawing the world closer to it's first ever colonial war, while a number of skirmishes in Ottoman Persia resulted in the beginning of a war between the Ottoman Empire and the Mughals, both of these nations claiming the buffer state of Baluchistan in between them.
Albertas Jogaila I died in 1645, less than 50 years old, to tuberculosis. To Lithuanians, his reign is the beginning of the Lithuanian age of glory. His tactical and strategic prowess and sharp mind in battle allowed the fledgling nation to defeat opponents it previously never had the hope of overcoming, and sometimes all at once, and all these victories eventually culminated in the creation of the Empire of Lithuania. Much like the man behind his second name, the Emperor is remembered fondly as a symbol of Lithuanian strength, great power and patriotism. As the infamous Augustinas Stankevičius would later remark in the first half of the 20th century, "Jogaila turned Lithuania into a power, but Albertas Jogaila shaped it into a world power".
Of course, it's not like Lithuania was perfect in any regard. Unlike in most of Europe, where feudalism was abandoned and forgotten, serfdom and exploitation of the peasantry only grew stronger in this "empire of the east", and who knows how badly could it damage the nation in the long term? Lithuania was still a nation of villages and forests, it's cities were small, the bourgeois class practically non-existant, and the development of capitalism extremely slow. And I'm not even talking about the dozens of nationalities trapped in the empire... Still, for now, this nation could enjoy it's time of glory and great power status. It'll need it.
Albertas's son, Jonas I, was the heir to the throne, and ascended to it soon after his father's death. Long live the Emperor.
---
The reason for my short absence is that I was planning out the next, so-to say, story arc for this TL. Kind of. Also, I'm working on a Lithuanian translation of the first half of the timeline to present as a school project, so that's taking up some of my time as well.
Lithuania REALLY needs to sort out steppe logistics it seems. And that feudalism thing. that too.
Special Chapter: Baroque in Lithuania
Quick special chapter to not kill this timeline yet.
Special Chapter
Baroque in Lithuania
Possibly originating it's name from the Portuguese word "barroco", meaning "imperfect pearl" (though this origin has been disputed), and originating from Italy, the Baroque was a movement in arts and culture that replaced the Renaissance by the end of the 16th century. Much like it's predecessor, Baroque was heavily influenced by ancient Greek and Roman art, though also adding the features of the Medieval Era and the Renaissance itself to the mix. Although associated by many with pompastic and often exaggerated motion, simple to understand, yet often overdesigned, the Baroque actually holds a deep history within it's motifs and thought.
The end of the 16th century marked the collapse of Renaissance thought. The discovery of Vespucia, the Heliocentric system - pioneered by the Italian scientist Alberto Cogliatti, who later fought in a long battle with the Church over his discoveries - and then further advances in astronomy and navigation moved the borders of the Universe far back. To the Baroque man, it had become clear that it is impossible for a mortal human to comprehend the vastness of the Universe, not to mention try to control it and shape of like the Humanists wanted. In addition, the view on religion had also changed. The Reformation, pioneered by the Renaissance, threw Europe into a string of bloody wars and inhumane tragedies, and the view of God as a vengeful, cruel overlord was reflected in the arts and literature of the time. The phrase "memento mori" ("remember, you'll die"), brought to popularity from the Antiquity, can easily describe the mentality of the Baroque era.
Drama, tension and an exaggerated appeal to the senses to create grandeur are the primary qualities of Baroque art.
Pyotr Krashevsky, "Naturemorte", 1622
This art movement reached Lithuania around the same time as the rest of Europe - right after the end of the Twenty Years' War, brought to the nation by Lithuanian students in Western universities, especially architecture. The grandeur of Baroque architecture was supported and appreciated by both the Kings of Lithuania and the Lithuanian nobility, which saw it as a way to show off their wealth and power, and thus Baroque architecture quickly established a hold in the Kingdom. One of the most famous architectural wonders of Lithuanian Baroque is the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Sobor in Vilnius, funded by Martynas Augustas Pacas and finished in 1658. It is considered to be one of the most beautiful churches in Eastern Europe, and was placed among the "Seven Wonders of the Modern Era" by a public poll in 1986.
Exterior and interior of the Sobor
All was quiet on the literature front, however. Lithuania did not produce great poets or writers during the Baroque, certainly not on the same rank as the Visegradian Matthias Casimir Sarbiewski, even nicknamed the "Sarmatian Horace", nor the French Francois Excellier-Flammant, whose groundbreaking novel "Sir Roland" paints a satirical take on the Medieval knight novel genre. Lithuania did have local authors, however. The most well-known one is Emerikas Senkevičius, the son of a minor noble, who broke through his path to fame writing panegyrical poems to Albertas Jogaila I during the years 1624-1627. Out of them, the most well known is "Albertomachia", about the King's campaign against Sweden in the later stages of the conflict.
A peculiar work from the Lithuanian Baroque is Martynas Augustas Pacas's "Journey to the South", published in the year 1609. As a young and fiercely religious man, this soon-to-be great magnate went on a long journey to the Middle East to visit the many Christian holy sites scattered across the region - first Constantinople, then Palestine, where he reached Jerusalem itself - and kept a diary during the whole trip. The diary turned out to be so interesting and peculiar to his people, most of whom had never even seen the Middle East, that Pacas agreed to release it as a Latin book, which, due to it's quick spread across Europe, was one of the first Lithuanian "best-sellers", in a way. Among the many readers of the book was Prince Albertas Jogaila, who, after becoming King, reportedly kept the book along with him through all of his campaigns and even cited some of it's passages to his camp during the war with the Ottomans.
To Lithuanian art historians, the Baroque is like an intermediary between the first Lithuanian works in the Renaissance and the incoming light of the Enlightenment and beyond, but it is still remembered as an era of achievements.
---
So, I've finished a portion of my Lithuanian translation, I'm thinking of continuing the timeline itself soon. There's a lot of things I've planned out, going as far as the 18th and 19th centuries, and I'm sure it will be exciting.
While we're in this "hibernation period", let's discuss! What are some of your predictions for this timeline? Anything you think or hope will happen sometime down the line? Or maybe you read me like a mirror and can already tell my plans?
Special Chapter
Baroque in Lithuania
The end of the 16th century marked the collapse of Renaissance thought. The discovery of Vespucia, the Heliocentric system - pioneered by the Italian scientist Alberto Cogliatti, who later fought in a long battle with the Church over his discoveries - and then further advances in astronomy and navigation moved the borders of the Universe far back. To the Baroque man, it had become clear that it is impossible for a mortal human to comprehend the vastness of the Universe, not to mention try to control it and shape of like the Humanists wanted. In addition, the view on religion had also changed. The Reformation, pioneered by the Renaissance, threw Europe into a string of bloody wars and inhumane tragedies, and the view of God as a vengeful, cruel overlord was reflected in the arts and literature of the time. The phrase "memento mori" ("remember, you'll die"), brought to popularity from the Antiquity, can easily describe the mentality of the Baroque era.
Drama, tension and an exaggerated appeal to the senses to create grandeur are the primary qualities of Baroque art.
Pyotr Krashevsky, "Naturemorte", 1622
Exterior and interior of the Sobor
A peculiar work from the Lithuanian Baroque is Martynas Augustas Pacas's "Journey to the South", published in the year 1609. As a young and fiercely religious man, this soon-to-be great magnate went on a long journey to the Middle East to visit the many Christian holy sites scattered across the region - first Constantinople, then Palestine, where he reached Jerusalem itself - and kept a diary during the whole trip. The diary turned out to be so interesting and peculiar to his people, most of whom had never even seen the Middle East, that Pacas agreed to release it as a Latin book, which, due to it's quick spread across Europe, was one of the first Lithuanian "best-sellers", in a way. Among the many readers of the book was Prince Albertas Jogaila, who, after becoming King, reportedly kept the book along with him through all of his campaigns and even cited some of it's passages to his camp during the war with the Ottomans.
To Lithuanian art historians, the Baroque is like an intermediary between the first Lithuanian works in the Renaissance and the incoming light of the Enlightenment and beyond, but it is still remembered as an era of achievements.
---
So, I've finished a portion of my Lithuanian translation, I'm thinking of continuing the timeline itself soon. There's a lot of things I've planned out, going as far as the 18th and 19th centuries, and I'm sure it will be exciting.
While we're in this "hibernation period", let's discuss! What are some of your predictions for this timeline? Anything you think or hope will happen sometime down the line? Or maybe you read me like a mirror and can already tell my plans?
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You mention campaigns against the Ottomans, and a popularity for stories to the south. I think that with the Cossacks/Russians blocking the way East Lithuania will push into the Balkans far earlier then Russia did IOTL.While we're in this "hibernation period", let's discuss! What are some of your predictions for this timeline? Anything you think or hope will happen sometime down the line? Or maybe you read me like a mirror and can already tell my plans?
Well since the Spanish aren't trying to conquer and digest the Aztec Empire like OTL, I can see them focusing their resources on expanding New Spain to the pacific coast a century earlier than OTL. Which could dissuade any attempts by the Lithuathian to actually getting in on the colonization game in the future if they reach OTL Alaska.
Prediction; If they do get into colonizing Siberia, and then Alaska, the Lithuanians will treat the natives at least marginially better ITTL than the Russians did IOTL. Then again, that's not very hard to do...
Prediction: If the Lithuanian Empire does end up breaking up in the future, a lot more successor states will be born from it then if the Russian Empire broke up - partially because there's yet to be any Stalin-esque figures who deport 'troublesome' minorities to break up national identities.
Prediction: If the Lithuanian Empire does end up breaking up in the future, a lot more successor states will be born from it then if the Russian Empire broke up - partially because there's yet to be any Stalin-esque figures who deport 'troublesome' minorities to break up national identities.
I am curious about what will happen to (Eastern) Siberia. The Volga Russians largely block off the Lithuanians, but themselves are far too weak to take the land themselves. Might we get an expansionist China?
I don't think there's any chance of the Russians remaining in Lithuania long term. But they will keep the Ruthenians.
If Lithuanian are English, the Russians are the Irish and the Ruthenians and Balts are the Welsh and Scottish.
If Lithuanian are English, the Russians are the Irish and the Ruthenians and Balts are the Welsh and Scottish.
Vuru
Banned
Some of your excerpts seem to suggest that a big chunk of current Lithuania is now in Russian hands, so Russia probably rebelled successfully and annexed Volga Russia and possibly parts of Belarus/Ukraine, and Lithuania kept at least Latvia and probably expanded to the west and southwest instead
I think there's some heavy hints that Volga Russia and Russia will develop separate identities (much like otl Russia and Belarus).
I expect them to remain two separate countries.