In the first year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1253 AD), Kublai Khan was ordered by Möngke to lead the general Wuliang Hetai to divide into three routes and fight to Dali City, and the Dali Kingdom, which respected Buddhism, declared its demise. This year, also the loneliest year of the Southern Song Dynasty, looked to the southeast, the endless Pacific Ocean, and the northwest direction, the boundless Mongol Empire.
When the Mongol Iron Hooves rushed all the way to the west, the Lithuanian Grand Duke Mingaugas, who was far away in Europe, converted to Catholicism and established the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, with the capital of Cornavi.
Today, Lithuania is only a baltic coast with an area of only more than 60,000 square kilometers, about the equivalent of the mainland's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. But who would have thought that when the country's territory was active, it encompassed most of today's Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and even not far east of Moscow, the capital of Russia, was lithuania's border.
So what has happened to Lithuania, which has a glorious history over the centuries, that has made it smaller and smaller?
Lithuania is located at the junction of the Eastern And Central European Plains, with flat terrain and no high mountains. Endless lakes, swamps and forests are the most common landscapes in Lithuania. Around 4000 BC, early humans migrated to the forest swamps of present-day Lithuania to hunt for a living.
The ancestors of the Lithuanians were the ancient People of Europe, the Baltics. Beginning in the 4th century AD, the Slavs and Germans continued to migrate to the east and west where the Baltics lived.
By the 10th century, the Baltics were gradually divided into Lithuanians, Latvians, and Ancient Prussians. Gradually, a pattern was formed in which the Slavs lived to the east of the Baltics, and the Germans lived to the west of the Baltics.
In the eleventh century, the leaders of the various peoples of Europe began to accept the teachings of Christianity for their own needs. The Middle East Slavs were influenced by the Byzantine Empire and accepted the Orthodox Church, while the Poland and other West Slavs were influenced by the Holy Roman Empire and became Catholics.
Between these two great peoples and denominations, the Baltic peoples in the 12th century took advantage of the division of the Germans, Slavs, etc., began to expand abroad, and in the course of fighting the Germanic Livonian Knights, the Lithuanians came into contact with Catholic civilization. In 1253, Mindaugas established the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, known as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus' and Samogicia.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was established at the time of the invasion of the Mongol army to the west. Most of the Rus 's (East Slavic) region was occupied by the Mongols. Lithuania took advantage of the situation and encroached on part of the territory of the Rus, who were not ruled by the Mongols, the predecessor of today's Belarusian nation.
In 1323, Lithuania moved its capital to today's capital, to Vilnius. Since then, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania has been based in Vilnius and has continued to wage wars against the plains of Eastern Europe. Not only did it occupy large areas of Rus' territory, but it also seized the Ukrainian plains from the Mongols, extending Lithuanian territory from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
By the end of the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had reached an area of 1 million square kilometers, making it one of the largest countries in Europe at that time. From a small and humble country to a large country, Vilnius is a witness to the glory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
While Lithuania was expanding wildly, it also faced a formidable rival, the Teutonic Knights of Germany. After capturing West Prussia, the Order blocked Poland's coastline to the Baltic Sea in order to jointly deal with the teutonic Knights' threat. In 1385 AD, King Jogaila of Lithuania and queen of Poland established the "Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" through political marriage.
The two countries jointly recognized a common king, but both countries retained their political institutions and the right to form armies.
In 1410, the Lithuanian-Polish army defeated the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Greenwald and regained its own victory. Fifty-six years later, Poland recaptured the Baltic coast occupied by the Teutonic Knights, and finally drove the Teutonic Knights' Iron Cross out of the Baltic seashore. The alliance covered an area of 1.2 million square kilometers and became the hegemon of Central and Eastern Europe.
However, the victory on the battlefield did not give Lithuania a chance to develop, and as the economic center tilted toward the Polish region, Poland's influence far exceeded that of Lithuania. For more than two centuries, Lithuania became a vassal of Poland for more than two centuries.
By 1480, the Muscovite Principality, led by Ivan III, had defeated the Mongol army and gained independence. Faced with the covetous Grand Duchy of Moscow, Lithuania felt threatened like never before. And war broke out between the two countries over Ancient Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia) on the Baltic coast.
Lithuania was defeated by Moscow's offensive, and had to sign the Treaty of Lublin with the Polish nobility in 1569, formally abolishing the federal structure between the two countries and merging them into the same country, thwarting Moscow's offensive and ushering in the golden age. In this merger, Poland and Lithuania seemed to be politically equal, but in fact Polish dominated.
For Lithuania, the days of subordination to Poland were fraught with misery. Over time, a large number of Polish nobles occupied land in Lithuania, stole high positions, and excluded Lithuanians, and later even Vilnius was stripped of its status as capital, causing lithuania to fall into a prolonged recession.
Even more frightening was the "Thunder Emperor" Ivan IV, who completed the turn of the Muscovite Principality towards Tsarist Russia. Moreover, Prussia and Austria became continental powers by strengthening their centralization. Then, although the area is large, but the Polish-Lithuanian Federation, which has long been full of contradictions within the country, has become a target of their covetousness.
Between 1772 and 1795, Slavic Russia, together with Germanic Prussia and Austria, divided the Boli Commonwealth three times, and most of the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was occupied by the Russian Empire. Since then, Poland and Lithuania have disappeared from the map of Europe.
More than a hundred years later, the February And October Revolutions broke out in Russia. In order to gain a respite from the newly formed Soviet power, Soviet Russia abandoned Lithuania and Poland. After the end of World War I, Poland and Lithuania declared their independence.
After independence, Lithuania and Poland, because of their position between Germany and the Soviet Union, became the object of great power contention and sacrifice, especially in World War II, which was occupied back and forth by Germany and the Soviet Union. After World War II, Lithuania was once again forced to become a Republic of the Soviet Union.
Lithuania, as a "patriarchal", was also the first republic to demand independence during the collapse of the Soviet Union. After independence, Lithuania had only more than 60,000 square kilometers of territory left, compared with more than 1 million square kilometers in its heyday, and became one of the three Baltic states.