The Role of Southern Ruthenia in the Political Plans of the Grand Duke Vytautas

Lidia Korczak
Dr.Hab., Profesor,
Instytut Historii Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego (Polska, Kraków),
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.15407/ul2013.02.039

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Abstract

In article the problem of a role and a place of the Southern rus’ (Ukraine) in political program of the grand duke of lithuani Vitautas is examined. The political situation of the lands of southern Ruthenia was disastrous in the High Middle Ages. The territories around the old state and cultural centre, which was Kiev, were not only dispersed due to the Mongols’ invasion but what’s more, they were to be under the yoke of nomadic people for a long time. Kiev remained the symbol of old, great Ruthenia although it had lost the position of the cultural and power centre. For that reason, the ousting of the Golden Horde and taking control over Kiev was one of the goals of the political plan of Grand Dukes of Lithuania which Algirdas formulated in the mid 14th c. The predominance that Lithuania gained over southern Ruthenia (the Kiev land and Podolia) during the reign of Vytautas is reported in the sources quite inconsistently. There is a lot of information about the struggle between Lithuania, Poland and Hungary in Podolia, whereas the history of the Kiev land in the second half of the 14th c. is not reported at all. Additionally, the administrative status of the Kiev land, especially during the reign of Vytautas, instigates many discussions. In Kiev, likewise in Smolensk at more or less the same time, there were Grand Duke’s governors instead of regional feudal dukes. There are some reasons why the Olshanski princes should not be treated as Kievan regional dukes. Vytautas’s action plan for Podolia and the Kiev land was closely connected with the one for northern Ruthenia. Not having secured the reign of Lithuania in the south, Vytautas could not have been operating so actively and safely in the north since the 1390-ies.

 

Keywords

Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Southern Rus’, Vitovt, political program.

 

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