Material Resource of Officials of Kyiv and Volhynian Lands in the Middle of the XVI Century

Author(s):  
Petro Kulakovsky ◽  

The article analyzes such an important aspect of the functioning of offices in Ukrainian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as material support. The focus is on positions that have survived the Lithuanian era and continued to be distributed by monarchs after the Union of Lublin in 1569. The central place was occupied by the palatinus (voivode), which, however, existed only in the Kyiv region. The Kyiv voivode had considerable resources at his disposal, which were of territorial origin can be divided into three groups. The first was income from their voivodship in uniform taxes, privilegia, and duties, which burdened various segments of society in Kyiv. The second group was formed at the expense of the Grand Duke for voivode preferences for the collection of tribute from territories that have not traditionally been within the jurisdiction of Kyiv voivode. The source of the third group was the goodwill of the Grand Duke in Vilna. The funds of this group were allocated directly from the states thesaurus. Already the very structure of income of the head of the Kyiv region indicates a permanent lack of resources for providing various functions assigned to it and primarily related to defense and diplomatic missions to the Crimea. Hence the need for periodic and sometimes constant subsidies aimed at the effective implementation of the voivode’s responsibilities. From this point of view, the position of the capitaneus, especially of the Southern Kyiv region, looked a little better. Significant profits were brought to them by tributes from trapers and Cossacks, various duties, including court, business taxes on the territory of old age. Indirect income was also given by labor duties imposed on the local population. The degree of subordination of these elders to the voivode was relatively insignificant. The institute of capitaneus in Volhyn was even more important given the absence in the region such a government as a voivode. Marshal of the Volhynian land, who was a conditional analog of the Kyiv voivode, had only military power in the region, and his income depended on capitaneatus, which went complete with the office of marshal (Lutsk or Volodymyr). The governments of the claviger, praefectus castrorum, and pontonarius functioned in both regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Their power was concentrated in the key castles of both lands – Kyiv, Lutsk, Volodymyr, Kremenets and the jurisdiction of the locksmith concerned the tenuta – settlements within the old age, the income from which should have gone to public needs. The influence of crown law should be explained by the appearance of vexillator and tribunus, whose activities involved little material support. The reform of 1565–1566 marked the beginning of the work of the succamerarium and terrestre judicium, which became the organs of the gentry municipality. Activities of chanceries and presence of officials there included in the terrestris hierarchy – succamerarius, terrestris judex, subjudex, and notarius, provided for the provision of judicial, notarial, and surveying services on a paid basis. In general, the material support of the governments of the Ukrainian lands of the Grand Duchy Lithuanian was not systematic. Often, especially concerning Kyiv voivode, the prince approved the decision on additional funding from the treasury. Reform 1565–1566 did not add organization in this regard. Instead, it was a plus regulation of sources of funding for newly formed governments – succamerarius, terrestris judex, subjudex, and notarius.

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-70
Author(s):  
Elmantas Meilus

This article deals with the situation of the Jews in 1654 at the beginning of the Muscovite invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It is maintained that that was the main reason to the disasters that befell the Jewry of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The extant sources (mainly relating to Vilnius) show that in the occupied western lands of the GDL the attitude of the Russian authorities towards the Jews was more relaxed than in the eastern lands inhabited by the Orthodox. Seeking to win the favour of the population of the occupied territory, the Russians tried the Jews and the Christians by the same laws at least in areas where their jurisdiction was introduced. That could mean that Muscovy had no definite programme concerning the Jews at least in the western part of the GDL, inhabited mainly by the Catholics. Meanwhile, the Jews, despite the hostile attitude of the local population – that was attested by the plea of Vilnius authorities to the tsar to evict the Jews from the city – managed to find a way of coexistence both with the locals and the authorities of the occupiers. The sources show that even after the tsar’s indication to remove the Jews they continued to reside in the city.


Author(s):  
O. Yashchuk

The article is devoted to the problem of representations of supreme authority in the Belarusian-Lithuanian chronicles through a prism of the notices about the gaining and deprivation of the power of the ruler. The author analyzed the first redaction of the Belarusian-Lithuanian chronicles that containing the "Chronicle of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania”, the second redaction that containing the "Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania” and the third redaction ("Bychowiec Chronicle”). The study highlighted several ways of the supreme authority’s legitimation: by right of establishment, by right of inheritance, by right of conquest, by the acceptance of the local population, by the electoral way, by the coup if the organizers of it belonging to the ruling dynasty. It should be noted that the way of justifying the right to power through to underscores of blood ties and prince's enthronement of the son of the previous ruler or less often brother is the main way of gaining the power in the chronicles. The article gives a detailed analysis of features of the chronicle notices about the coronation of the representatives of the Gediminids dynasty. In addition, the notices about the deprivation of the authority usually as a result of the death of the ruler are investigated in the article. Notices of the death of the ruler in contradistinction to notices about the enthronement are mainly the fact statements. In the most complete form, the notes of the death of the ruler include the information about a long successful reign, facts of the ruler death and information about the birth and enthronement of the successor.


1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 23-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pietro U. Dini

Summary Even before the Lublin Union (1569) between Poland and Lithuania there was an important linguistic controversy among Lithuanian Humanists. In the wider context of a general ‘Latinization’ of the culture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the so-called ‘Latinizers’ (Agrippa, Rotundus, Michalo Lituanus) harked back to a classic language such as Latin, the dignitas of which was considered to be undisputed. The Latin language could compete with other languages of culture used inside the Grand Duchy, primarily with Ruski. According to the Latinizers the identity of Latin and Lithuanian was the principal evidence to support the derivation of the Lithuanians as a people from the Romans. Promoting Latin was equivalent to promoting vulgar Lithuanian from the point of view of the Latinizers. In this paper I discuss the textual aspects of the debate about the literae (Latin vs. Muscovite or Ruthenian) exposed in the works of Michalo Lituanus (Tractatus de moribus Tartarorwn, Lithuanorum et Moschorum, 1615[1550]) and Augustinus Rotundus (Preface to the second Lithuanian Statute, 1576). Possible implications of the dispute for the question of the Ruthenian language are investigated, too.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Magdalena Lewicka

Abstract The literature of the Tatars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania constitutes the most important and richest part of their cultural heritage, as well as a lasting trace of Tatar settlements in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The literature that flourished during the spiritual revival of the Renaissance and Reformation somewhere in the seemingly God-forsaken, remote Eastern Borderlands has not been forgotten; on the contrary, it has been recognised as a unique phenomenon of great spiritual, literary and cultural value. This phenomenon manifests itself in the extraordinary combination of the Oriental Islamic culture and Christian culture, two components that appear to be mutually exclusive but are in fact in perfect harmony with each other, both in the life of society and in the literary works of Polish-Lithuanian Tatars. The paper is dedicated to literary manuscripts of the Tatars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, including their genesis at the background of the Tatar settlement in the territory of the Republic of Poland, characteristic features and typology of the manuscripts on the basis of the criteria of form and content. Furthermore, the author discusses the research areas, beginning with the description of the state of research on Tatar manuscripts from the point of view, through the characteristics of the current research on this matter, as well as reporting the institutions running and coordinating the interdisciplinary and international activities within the scope of the research, editing and popularization of the issues connected with the kitabistics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-29
Author(s):  
Marina Chistiakova

The article is devoted to two previously unknown excerpts from the Nomoсanon (Kormchaya), found in the late 16th century Synaxarion (or Prologue) from the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv, Rk 252. This manuscript contains readings from September to December and represents a specific version of the expanded edition of the Prologue, characteristic of the writing tradition of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The sermons, included in this copy for 17 and 25 November, are borrowed from the Nomoсanon of Fourteen Titles without commentaries, namely from the initial part of the Collection of Apostolic Rules. A comparative analysis of the articles has demonstrated that the compiler selected some successive fragments from the oldest Slavonic version of the Kormchaya and also made some omissions. The first sermon is focused on the ordination of bishops and the rules of conduct of all ranks of the clergy. The second article forbids the ordination of priests for a fee and under the auspices of the Duke. It also specifies that the bishops’ meetings should be held twice a year. A textological analysis has shown that the synaxarian sermon of 17 November had been somewhat shortened. From a linguistic point of view, excerpts from the Nomocanon bear exact correspondence to the source text. Both sermons contain brief passages from other authors and sources (St. Nilus of Sinai, the Book of Psalms, etc.). Because of the similarity in style of the work with the source, it may be assumed that extracts from the Kormchaya were simultaneously included into the Prologue by the same person, probably at a later stage of editing of this version of the Prologue. At the end of the present article, two newly discovered synaxarian articles from the Kormchaya are published.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (127) ◽  
pp. 20-34
Author(s):  
Volodymyr Holovchenko

Unprovoked armed aggression of Russia against Ukraine after victory of the Dignity Revolution in it and annexation of Crimea, kindling and financial and material support of separatist rebellions in the eastern regions of our country actualized analysis of international historical reasons of aggressive behavior of Russia, primarily regarding the former Soviet republics. Therefore, an attempt to look back this problem in the context of the medieval international relations in Central and Eastern Europe and the formation of autocratic ideology Grand Duchy of Moscow, Moscow kingdom and the Russian Empire was made in article. In view of that Rurik dynasty and related to them by women Romanovs had the beginnings from rulers of Kyivan Rus, Moscow grand dukes, kings and Petersburg emperors saw all the lands, that once belonged to it (mainly Ukrainian), as part of their historical heritage. Joining and later incorporation of Ukraine into the Russian Empire, from their point of view, was like returning of lost once patrimony. And the fact that Ukrainian and Belorussian lands formerly were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Rus and Rzeczpospolita, or had their own political autonomy and time to develop a separate cultural, religious and public-political tradition, was seen as distortions caused by ostensibly forced distancing of these countries from the king. Leading Moscow and St. Petersburg intellectuals both conservative and liberal-democratic were able and can to argue about the nature of Russian nationality, but they never had the slightest doubt as to «russkost» of Ukrainian, Belarusian and Baltic lands. This view completely coincides with the official position of the Russian autocracy and is now the basis for the foreign policy strategy of Vladimir Putin.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10/2020(779)) ◽  
pp. 31-43
Author(s):  
Stanisław Dubisz

The union concluded at the Sejm meeting held in Lublin in 1569 established common institutions of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, thus creating the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which survived until 1795. Apart from the ruler elected jointly by the nobility of both countries, it established the common Sejm, foreign and defence policies, and the common coin. The army, treasury, legal systems, administration, and judiciary remained separate. From the philological point of view, the following markers are substantial for characterising the Union of Lublin act: the Polish language of the text and its stylistic affi nity, diversity of the forms of the names of the document signatories, text composition and its offi cial and rhetoric style markers determining its informative and persuasive functions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 107-121
Author(s):  
Lilia Kowkiel ◽  
Arvydas Pacevičius ◽  
Iwona Pietrzkiewicz

Historians and publishers of historical sources have a lot of problems with the texts written in different languages and alphabets, which were created at different times, in the multilingual areas inhabited by many nations following different religions. The historians of book culture have the same problems with texts of inventories and catalogues of books, which are the primary source of knowledge about the content of libraries. At present it’s also important the historical texts to be published in the digital form. This article is a part of the discussion on this very important subject.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Egdūnas Račius

Muslim presence in Lithuania, though already addressed from many angles, has not hitherto been approached from either the perspective of the social contract theories or of the compliance with Muslim jurisprudence. The author argues that through choice of non-Muslim Grand Duchy of Lithuania as their adopted Motherland, Muslim Tatars effectively entered into a unique (yet, from the point of Hanafi fiqh, arguably Islamically valid) social contract with the non-Muslim state and society. The article follows the development of this social contract since its inception in the fourteenth century all the way into the nation-state of Lithuania that emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century and continues until the present. The epitome of the social contract under investigation is the official granting in 1995 to Muslim Tatars of a status of one of the nine traditional faiths in Lithuania with all the ensuing political, legal and social consequences for both the Muslim minority and the state.


2020 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 219-236
Author(s):  
Andrey Yu. Dvornichenko

The abundant Russian historiography of the medieval history of Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Lithuanian-Russian State) has become in the last decades the centre of the discussions and is often subject to groundless criticism. This historiography was not very lucky in the Soviet period of the 20th century either, as it was severely criticized from the Marxist-Leninist position. When discussing Russian historiography the author of this article is consciously committed to the Russian positions. There are no reasons to consider this historiography branch either Byelorussian or Ukrainian one, as that was really Russian historiography, - the phenomenon that formed under the favorable specific conditions of Russian Empire before the beginning of the 20th century. The said phenomenon can be studied in different ways: according to the existing then main trends and schools or according to their affiliation with specific universities of Russian Empire. But according to the author of this article the best way to study the issue is in accordance with the main concepts of history. And then the pre-revolutionary historiography appears as an integral scientific paradigm that turns out to be the most divaricate branch of the Lithuanian studies of the time. It created, in its turn, the most vivid and objective historical picture that can still serve as the basis for the studies of Lithuanian-Russian state.


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