![\"Map](\"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/martes2-300x238.png\")
On\u00a0 one\u00a0 side\u00a0 of the\u00a0 modern\u00a0 Parliament\u00a0 building are\u00a0 the\u00a0 remnants\u00a0 of the\u00a0 1991\u00a0 barricades,\u00a0 now\u00a0 enclosed in glass to protect them.\u00a0 But on the opposite side,\u00a0 we noticed something new on\u00a0 our last\u00a0 trip\u00a0 in July 2013. A timeline of Lithuania\u2019s history has been erected there, graphically displaying the\u00a0 extent of Lithuania\u2019s territory at various points in its\u00a0 thousand\u00a0 years\u00a0 of documented history.<\/p>\n
What\u00a0 most\u00a0 riveted\u00a0 our\u00a0 attention was\u00a0 the\u00a0 display\u00a0 labeled\u00a0 \u201c1392\u00a0 to 1430.\u201d\u00a0 It\u00a0 showed\u00a0 Lithuania,\u00a0 then called the Grand\u00a0 Duchy of Lithuania, sprawled across much of Eastern Europe,\u00a0 encompassing\u00a0 present-day Lithuania as well as parts of Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia and all of Belarus. The Grand Duchy was the largest state in Europe at the time.<\/p>\n
The fact that the Grand Duchy included Belarus interested us the most, since we had planned a three-day excursion there as part of our next trip to\u00a0 Lithuania.\u00a0 We decided to search for Lithuania\u2019s medieval and Renaissance past while in\u00a0 Belarus, visiting castles\u00a0 associated\u00a0 with\u00a0 Lithuania\u2019s grand dukes,\u00a0 the Lithuanian nobility, or both.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a drive of 105 miles from Vilnius\u00a0 to\u00a0 historic\u00a0 Grodno\u00a0 in western Belarus. The roads are good, but delays\u00a0 at\u00a0 the\u00a0 Lithuanian-Belarusian border\u00a0 can\u00a0 stretch\u00a0 into\u00a0 hours.\u00a0 We were not lucky; our Belarusian driver\u00a0 told\u00a0 us\u00a0 the\u00a0 Lithuanians\u00a0 were \u201cmiffed\u201d at the Belarusians\u2014or vice-versa\u2014so\u00a0 our\u00a0 border\u00a0 crossing took almost three hours.<\/p>\n Grodno \/ Hrodna \/ Gardinas<\/p>\n Grodno, which the Belarusians call Hrodna,\u00a0 and\u00a0 the\u00a0 Lithuanians\u00a0 Gardinas, is located on the Neman (Ne\u00admunas)\u00a0 River,\u00a0 just\u00a0 eighteen\u00a0 miles from\u00a0 today\u2019s\u00a0 Lithuanian\u00a0 border. Grodno began as a fortified trading center,\u00a0 possibly\u00a0 as\u00a0 early as\u00a0 the\u00a0 late tenth century. By the middle of the thirteenth century, it had come under the control of Lithuanians, notably Mindaugas (c. 1200-1263), Lithuania\u2019s first and only crowned king, who\u00a0 is\u00a0 credited with\u00a0 founding\u00a0 the Lithuanian\u00a0 state.\u00a0 Vytautas,\u00a0 grand duke at the time of Lithuania\u2019s greatest territorial extent in the early fifteenth century, stayed here while preparing\u00a0 for\u00a0 the\u00a0 Battle\u00a0 of \u017dalgiris\/ Griinwald (1410), which successfully and decisively eliminated the threat to\u00a0 Lithuanian\u00a0 territories\u00a0 from\u00a0 the Teutonic Knights.<\/p>\n Stephen Bathory,\u00a0 Grand Duke of Lithuania as well as King of Poland (and Prince of Transylvania to boot), made Grodno his royal residence in the\u00a0 late\u00a0 sixteenth\u00a0 century.\u00a0 A\u00a0 later grand\u00a0 duke\u00a0 and\u00a0 king,\u00a0 Stanislaw\u00a0 II August, abdicated here in 1795 after the\u00a0 Third\u00a0 Partition\u00a0 of the\u00a0 Polish-Lithuanian\u00a0 Commonwealth,\u00a0 when Russia swallowed up\u00a0 Lithuania.\u00a0 He was the last king and grand duke of the\u00a0 Commonwealth.<\/p>\n What\u2019s left at Grodno are two castles\u00a0 high\u00a0 above\u00a0 the\u00a0 river,\u00a0 linked by an\u00a0 arched\u00a0 stone\u00a0 bridge.\u00a0 The\u00a0 one called Old Grodno\u00a0 Castle was built by\u00a0 Grand\u00a0 Duke\u00a0 Vytautas\u00a0 around 1390-1400. It was rebuilt in Renaissance style by Stephen Bathory almost two hundred years later. The castle\u2019s five\u00a0 Gothic\u00a0 towers\u00a0 are\u00a0 gone,\u00a0 but\u00a0 a good\u00a0 stretch\u00a0 of stone\u00a0 wall,\u00a0 a\u00a0 nowdry\u00a0 moat\u00a0 and\u00a0 a\u00a0 two-story\u00a0 Prince\u2019s Palace are left.\u00a0 The Old\u00a0 Castle suffered greatly during the Russo-Polish War\u00a0 of 1654-1667\u00a0 (also\u00a0 called\u00a0 the Thirteen Years\u2019 War)\u00a0 and the Great Northern War with Sweden in 1700-1721.<\/p>\n After a major fire in 1735, the New Grodno\u00a0 Castle\u00a0 was\u00a0 built just\u00a0 steps away from the Old Castle and joined to it by a stone bridge. This new castle was\u00a0 home\u00a0 to\u00a0 two\u00a0 rulers, August III\u00a0 (1696-1763),\u00a0 who\u00a0 made\u00a0 it\u00a0 his summer residence,\u00a0 and Stanislaw II August\u00a0 (1732-1798),\u00a0 who\u00a0 abdicated here.\u00a0 Because\u00a0 of the\u00a0 devastation of World War Two,\u00a0 little\u00a0 is\u00a0 left\u00a0 of the original eighteenth century palace, but it\u2019s since been reconstructed as a grand neoclassical structure.<\/p>\n Both castles now serve as museums. The\u00a0 Old\u00a0 Castle\u00a0 houses\u00a0 a small\u00a0 archaeology and folk art collection plus very large natural history and history museums.\u00a0 The New Castle disp lays period furnished rooms and art. We were told by a castle administrator of plans to restore the Old Grodno Castle to look the way it did during the Renaissance reign of Stephen Bathory.<\/p>\n Throughout most of the life of the Grand\u00a0 Duchy,\u00a0 Grodno was\u00a0 its\u00a0 second largest and most important city after\u00a0 Vilnius.\u00a0 Grand\u00a0 dukes\u00a0 often resided here, important foreign visitors were\u00a0 received\u00a0 here,\u00a0 and\u00a0 this\u00a0 is where the Seimas (Parliament of the Polish-Lithuanian\u00a0 Commonwealth) often convened.<\/p>\n Lida \/ Lyda<\/p>\n Our\u00a0 next\u00a0 stop\u00a0 was\u00a0 Lida\u00a0 Castle (Lyda or Lydos pilis in Lithuanian), seventy-one miles northeast of Grodno.\u00a0 Lida was\u00a0 one\u00a0 of several\u00a0 castles built in the early fourteenth century by Grand Duke Gediminas, who is also credited with founding the city of Vilnius.\u00a0 He\u00a0 built\u00a0 the\u00a0 castles\u00a0 to defend against the Teutonic Knights, who warred against the Lithuanians in a \u201ccrusade,\u201d ostensibly to convert the pagan Lithuanians to Christianity,\u00a0 but actually to\u00a0 acquire territory for themselves.<\/p>\n An interesting aside: in the fifteenth century, Grand Duke Vytautas gave Lida Castle to Khan Tokhtamysh, his military ally, who was a descendent of Genghis Khan\u2019s eldest grandson. Tokhtamysh\u00a0 had\u00a0 revolted\u00a0 against Timur\u00a0 (or\u00a0 Tamerlane),\u00a0 one\u00a0 of the greatest of the Mongolian conquerors, and needed a safe refuge.<\/p>\n From the outside,\u00a0 the brick-faced castle\u00a0 is\u00a0 imposing\u00a0 and\u00a0 seemingly impregnable, with two tall towers at its northwest and southeast corners. Yet the Teutonic Knights\u00a0 managed to capture it several times during the fourteenth century, as did the Crimean\u00a0 Tatars\u00a0 in\u00a0 1506;\u00a0 the\u00a0 Russians\u00a0 in 1659, during the Russo-Polish War; and the Swedes in the early eighteenth century, during the Great Northern War, when they blew up the castle\u2019s towers.<\/p>\n An entire settlement with barracks, stables\u00a0 and wells\u00a0 once\u00a0 stood\u00a0 inside the large, 264 foot square, courtyard, which is now being restored and will soon house a restaurant and gift shops in the reconstructed buildings. In the meantime, visitors can walk along the wooden\u00a0 walkways\u00a0 high\u00a0 along\u00a0 the castle\u2019s\u00a0 inner wall\u00a0 and\u00a0 climb\u00a0 inside one of its towers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Navahrudak \/\u00a0 Naugardukas<\/p>\n It\u2019s only a twenty-seven mile drive southeast\u00a0 of Lida\u00a0 to\u00a0 Navahrudak, which Lithuanians call Naugardukas. It\u2019s hard to imagine this castle\u2019s historic importance from what\u2019s left. On one\u00a0 of the\u00a0 highest\u00a0 hills\u00a0 in\u00a0 Belarus (1,066\u00a0 feet),\u00a0 high\u00a0 above\u00a0 the city of Navahrudak, stand two ruined towers, all that remains of one of the most important strongholds of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and once the center of its growing empire.<\/p>\n Lithuanian\u00a0 King Mindaugas\u00a0 may have been crowned here in 1253 and possibly\u00a0 buried\u00a0 here\u00a0 or\u00a0 nearby\u00a0 in 1263. After repeated attacks\u00a0 by the Teutonic\u00a0 Knights\u00a0 throughout\u00a0 the fourteenth\u00a0 century\u00a0 (1314,\u00a0 1321, 1341,1390,1394), Grand Duke Vytautas\u00a0 added\u00a0 four\u00a0 stone\u00a0 towers\u00a0 to the\u00a0 castle.\u00a0 Three more were\u00a0 built\u00a0 a century later to strengthen its defenses,\u00a0 but this didn\u2019t stop the sieges of the Crimean Tatars (1505), Russians (1654-1657) and Swedes (1706), not to mention the devastation of twentieth century wars and occupations. The\u00a0 two\u00a0 towers\u00a0 are\u00a0 the\u00a0 sole\u00a0 survivors of750 years of turbulent history.<\/p>\n Mir \/\u00a0 Myras \/ Myrius<\/p>\n Thirty-two\u00a0 miles\u00a0 southeast\u00a0 of the sad, scanty ruins of Navahrudak stands\u00a0 the\u00a0 glorious\u00a0 palace\u00a0 of Mir (Lithuanians\u00a0 call\u00a0 it\u00a0 Myras\u00a0 or\u00a0 My\u00ad rius). The land that Mir Castle stands on\u00a0 once\u00a0 belonged\u00a0 to\u00a0 Grand\u00a0 Duke Vytautas, who gave it to his brother \u017dygimantas K\u0119stutaitis, who himself became grand duke in\u00a0 1432.\u00a0 In the early sixteenth\u00a0 century,\u00a0 Mir\u00a0 passed to Yuri Ilyinich, a local magnate, who built the first castle here,\u00a0 a fortress\u00ad like structure of thick walls,\u00a0 towers, drawbridge\u00a0 and\u00a0 moat.\u00a0 Since\u00a0 his grandson\u00a0 died\u00a0 childless,\u00a0 in\u00a0 1568- 1569 the castle passed into the hands of the famous\u00a0 and prolific Radvila- Radziwitt family.<\/p>\n The Radvilas,\u00a0 a family of Lithuanian origin, rose to prominence and power in the fourteenth century, acquiring land and properties in Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. When they acquired Mir by inheritance,\u00a0 they\u00a0 transformed\u00a0 it\u00a0 from\u00a0 a fortress\u00a0 into\u00a0 a splendid Renaissance palace with\u00a0 an\u00a0 Italian-style\u00a0 garden and an artificial lake. This was to be their\u00a0 family\u00a0 home\u00a0 for\u00a0 almost\u00a0 250 years, through the Russo-Polish War of the mid-seventeenth century,\u00a0 the Great Northern War of the early eighteenth century,\u00a0 the Kosciu\u0161ka (Kosciuszko)\u00a0 Uprising\u00a0 of\u00a0 1794\u00a0 and\u00a0 the Franco-Russian\u00a0 War\u00a0 of\u00a0 the\u00a0 early nineteenth century, until finally abandoned in\u00a0 1813.<\/p>\n In\u00a0 1891,\u00a0 the ruined property was sold to the Svyatopolk-Mirsky family,\u00a0 which\u00a0 owned many of the businesses in the town of Mir. They owned Mir Palace until 1939. Restoration began in\u00a0 1982, and it was added to the\u00a0 prestigious\u00a0 UNESCO\u00a0 World Heritage List in 2000.<\/p>\n Mir\u00a0 is\u00a0 a\u00a0 magnificent\u00a0 palace\u00a0 with five towers overlooking a small quadrangular courtyard; one tower serves as the entry to the palace. The fa\u0119ade is a blend of red brick interspersed with white sandstone, a colorful and beautiful mix. The palace rooms are furnished\u00a0 to\u00a0 represent\u00a0 different\u00a0 periods in the castle\u2019s history: medieval armor, a Gothic-era kitchen, mannequins in sixteenth century dress, Renaissance tapestries and coffered ceilings, and a nineteenth century study. They all blend well to give an idea of how the Radvilas, their predecessors and their successors lived.<\/p>\n Nesvizh\u00a0 \/\u00a0 Nesvy\u017eius<\/p>\n Twenty-one miles southeast of Mir lies another Radvila palace, Nesvizh (Lithuanians call it Nesvy\u017eius),\u00a0 that first\u00a0 belonged\u00a0 to\u00a0 Lithuanian\u00a0 grand dukes. A town called Nesvizh is documented in 1223, but it was only in the sixteenth\u00a0 century that it passed to the Radvilas.\u00a0 In\u00a0 1582, Mikalojus Kristupas\u00a0 Radvila\u00a0 began\u00a0 to\u00a0 build\u00a0 a Renaissance-style palace on top of the preexisting\u00a0 medieval\u00a0 castle.\u00a0 When this\u00a0 palace\u00a0 was\u00a0 damaged\u00a0 in\u00a0 1706, during the Great Northern War, the family\u00a0 rebuilt\u00a0 it\u00a0 in\u00a0 Baroque\u00a0 style, creating a grand complex of several buildings\u00a0 surrounding a large inner courtyard. An English-style park was added in the\u00a0 1880s.<\/p>\n Entry into Nesvizh is made across a\u00a0 stone\u00a0 bridge,\u00a0 over\u00a0 a\u00a0 moat\u00a0 and through\u00a0 an\u00a0 impressive\u00a0 neoclassical gatehouse. From the courtyard with its\u00a0 well,\u00a0 visitors\u00a0 can\u00a0 explore\u00a0 stately rooms\u00a0 full\u00a0 of crystal\u00a0 chandeliers, wood-paneled rooms with walls hung with portraits of generations of Radvilas, heavy Renaissance wooden furniture\u00a0 and\u00a0 the\u00a0 wonderful\u00a0 tall\u00a0 tiled stoves\u00a0 used to warm rooms\u00a0 in wintertime. One room houses a collection of dolls dressed richly in period costume\u00a0 to\u00a0 give\u00a0 visitors\u00a0 an\u00a0 idea\u00a0 of what one wore while living in these elegant spaces.<\/p>\n A short walk from the palace,\u00a0 the Corpus\u00a0 Christi\u00a0 Church\u00a0 houses\u00a0 the coffins of seventy-two Radvilas. Built in\u00a0 the\u00a0 late\u00a0 sixteenth\u00a0 century,\u00a0 this church is considered one of the earliest,\u00a0 if not\u00a0 the\u00a0 earliest,\u00a0 Baroque buildings in Eastern Europe.\u00a0 Nesvizh\u00a0 was\u00a0 added\u00a0 to\u00a0 the\u00a0 UNESCO World Heritage List in 2005.<\/p>\n Before visiting our seventh and last castle in Belarus, we detoured sixtytwo miles to overnight in Minsk, the capital\u00a0 of Belarus.\u00a0 Sometimes\u00a0 described\u00a0 in\u00a0 guidebooks\u00a0 as\u00a0 grim,\u00a0 we found it anything but. As on a previous trip to Minsk six years ago, we enjoyed strolling the main boulevard, Nezavisimosti\u00a0 Avenue,\u00a0 lined\u00a0 with monumental\u00a0 Soviet-era\u00a0 buildings, with\u00a0 plenty of cafes\u00a0 along\u00a0 the\u00a0 way for snacks and people-watching. If you have the time, it\u2019s worthwhile spending\u00a0 at\u00a0 least\u00a0 two\u00a0 or\u00a0 three\u00a0 nights\u00a0 in Minsk.<\/p>\n Krevo \/\u00a0 Krewo \/ Kriavas<\/p>\n On\u00a0 our\u00a0 way\u00a0 back\u00a0 to\u00a0 Vilnius,\u00a0 we stopped\u00a0 at\u00a0 Krevo\u00a0 Castle\u00a0 (forty-two miles northwest of Minsk) located in a\u00a0 village\u00a0 just\u00a0 off the\u00a0 main\u00a0 MinskVilnius road. Lithuanians call it Kriavas. This, like Navahrudak Castle, is a sad\u00a0 ruin\u00a0 of crumbling towers\u00a0 and walls; although there\u2019s much more left than at Navahrudak.<\/p>\n Krevo\u00a0 was\u00a0 a\u00a0 fortified\u00a0 stone\u00a0 castle built in the early fourteenth century by Grand Duke Gediminas and occupied by him and his son Algirdas, one of Gediminas\u2019s seven sons, three of whom became grand dukes.\u00a0 K\u0119stutis, one of the three, was imprisoned\u00a0 and\u00a0 probably\u00a0 murdered\u00a0 in\u00a0 this castle in\u00a0 1382 by orders of his nephew, Jogaila. Grand Duke Vytautas was also imprisoned here by Jogaila,\u00a0 but escaped after he traded places with a maid servant and sneaked out of the castle wearing her clothes.<\/p>\n Krevo\u00a0 Castle is\u00a0 best known as the place where\u00a0 the\u00a0 Union\u00a0 of Krevo\u00a0 or Krewo (Kriavo sutartis) was signed in 1385,\u00a0 establishing\u00a0 a\u00a0 dynastic\u00a0 union between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the\u00a0 Kingdom of Poland.\u00a0 In 1386,\u00a0 Jogaila was\u00a0 baptized\u00a0 in\u00a0 Krakow, married Queen Jadwiga of Poland\u00a0 and was\u00a0 crowned\u00a0 King\u00a0 of Poland as Wiadyslaw II Jagietto. He also retained his\u00a0 title\u00a0 of Grand\u00a0 Duke\u00a0 of Lithuania. Sacked by Crimean Tatars early in the sixteenth century, the castle slowly crumbled over the next four centuries\u00a0 until World War One put it on the front between Russian and German\u00a0 forces,\u00a0 reducing\u00a0 it\u00a0 to\u00a0 the ruins you see today.<\/p>\n It was here in Krevo, standing in a vast trapezoidal space now overgrown with waist-high grass and surrounded by dilapidated castle walls, that we ended\u00a0 our\u00a0 too-brief three-day foray into Lithuania\u2019s days of glory. A lone horse standing outside a broken-down barn\u00a0 beside\u00a0 the\u00a0 ruins\u00a0 followed\u00a0 our movements with curiosity as we stumbled over grass-covered hillocks inside Krevo\u00a0 Castle\u2019s\u00a0 courtyard\u00a0 trying\u00a0 to imagine how it once looked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On each of our trips to Vilnius, my husband Paul and I make it a point to leave Old Town, where we always base ourselves and spend most of our time, to stroll along Gediminas Prospect in New Town. It\u2019s a one-mile walk along a route lined with cafes and shops,\u00a0 made longer by our …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[78,162],"class_list":["post-3453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-history-before-1900","tag-lith-heritage","tag-skurdenis-j"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/martes4-300x150.png\")
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the Czech Republic, he\u2019s from<\/em>
Kuwait)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"Entrance](\"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/martes9-300x205.png\")
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