Gediminas Grand Duke Of Lithuania

• Preferred Name: Gediminas Grand Duke Of Lithuania^{[1] [2] [3]}
  
• Alternate Name: Gediminas Prince Of Lithuania
  
• Gender: M
  
• http://familysearch.org/v1/TitleOfNobility: Großfürst von LitauenAb 1316 Bis 1341 in Vilnius, Vilniaus Apskritis, Lithuania at LATI: N4.685 LONG: E5.281 with note: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gediminas
  
• Death: ABT 1341 in Taurage County, Lithuania at LATI: N5.3333 LONG: E2.5
  
• Religion: Paganism with note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gediminas
  
• FSID: GFBT-D29
  
• Birth: 1275 in Vilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania at LATI: N4.685 LONG: E5.281
  
• Burial: in Veliuona, Lithuania at LATI: N5.0819 LONG: E3.2708
  
• Notes:

  === Life Sketch ===
  Gediminas (c. 1275 – December 1341) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1315 or 1316[1][2] until his death. He is credited with founding this political entity and expanding its territory which, at the time of his death, spanned the area ranging from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.[3][4] Also seen as one of the most significant individuals in early Lithuanian history, he was responsible for both building Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and establishing a dynasty that can be traced to other European monarchies such as Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. As part of his legacy, he gained a reputation for being a champion of paganism, who successfully diverted attempts to Christianize his country by skillful negotiations with the Pope and other Christian rulers.
  
  Origin
  
  Gediminas was born in about 1275.[5] Because written sources of the era are scarce, Gediminas' ancestry, early life, and assumption of the title of Grand Duke in ca. 1316 are obscure and continue to be the subject of scholarly debate. Various theories have claimed that Gediminas was either his predecessor Grand Duke Vytenis' son, his brother, his cousin, or his hostler.[6] For several centuries only two versions of his origins circulated. Chronicles — written long after Gediminas' death by the Teutonic Knights, a long-standing enemy of Lithuania — claimed that Gediminas was a hostler to Vytenis;[7] according to these chronicles, Gediminas killed his master and assumed the throne. Another version introduced in the Lithuanian Chronicles, which also appeared long after Gediminas' death, proclaimed that Gediminas was Vytenis' son. However, the two men were almost the same age, making this relationship unlikely.
  
  Recent research indicates that Gediminias' ancestor may have been Skalmantas. In 1974 historian Jerzy Ochmański noted that Zadonshchina, a poem from the end of the 14th century, contains a line in which two sons of Algirdas name their ancestors: "We are two brothers – sons of Algirdas, and grandsons of Gediminas, and great-grandsons of Skalmantas." This discovery led to the belief that Skalmantas was the long-sought ancestor of the Gediminids. Ochmański posited that the poem skipped the generation represented by Butvydas, and jumped back to the unknown ancestor. Baranauskas disagrees, believing Skalmantas was Butvydas' brother rather than his father, and that Vytenis and Gediminas were therefore cousins.[7]
  
  Gediminas became the Grand Duke in 1316 at the age of 40 and ruled for 25 years.[8]
  
  Choice of religion
  
  He inherited a vast domain, comprising not only Lithuania proper, but also Samogitia, Navahradak, Podlasie, Polotsk and Minsk.[9] However, these possessions were all environed by the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order, which had long been the enemies of the state.[1] Gediminas allied himself with the Tatars against the Teutonic order in 1319.[10]
  
  The systematic raiding of Lithuania by the knights under the pretext of converting it had long since united all the Lithuanian tribes, but Gediminas aimed at establishing a dynasty which should make Lithuania not merely secure but powerful, and for this purpose he entered into direct diplomatic negotiations with the Holy See as well. At the end of 1322, he sent letters to Pope John XXII soliciting his protection against the persecution of the knights,[11] informing him of the privileges already granted to the Dominicans and Franciscans in Lithuania for the preaching of God's Word.[12] Gediminas also asked that legates should be dispatched to him in order to be baptized.[13] This action was supported by the Archbishop of Riga, Frederic Lobestat.[14] Following these events, peace between the Duchy and the Livonian order was eventually conducted on 2 October 1323.[15]
  
  On receiving a favourable reply from the Holy See, Gediminas issued circular letters, dated 25 January 1325, to the principal Hansa towns, offering a free access into his domains to men of every order and profession from nobles and knights to tillers of the soil.[11][16] The immigrants were to choose their own settlements and be governed by their own laws. Priests and monks were also invited to come and build churches at Vilnius and Navahradak. In October 1323, representatives of the archbishop of Riga, the bishop of Dorpat, the king of Denmark, the Dominican and Franciscan orders, and the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order assembled at Vilnius, when Gediminas confirmed his promises and undertook to be baptised as soon as the papal legates arrived. A compact was then signed at Vilnius, in the name of the whole Christian World, between Gediminas and the delegates, confirming the promised privileges.[17]
  
  Thus his raid upon Dobrzyń, the latest acquisition of the knights on Polish soil, speedily gave them a ready weapon against him. The Prussian bishops, who were devoted to the knights, questioned the authority of Gediminas letters and denounced him as an enemy of the faith at a synod in Elbing; his Orthodox subjects reproached him with leaning towards the Latin heresy, while the pagan Lithuanians accused him of abandoning the ancient gods. Gediminas disentangled himself from his difficulties by repudiating his former promises; by refusing to receive the papal legates who arrived at Riga in September 1323, and by dismissing the Franciscans from his territories. These apparently retrogressive measures simply amounted to a statesmanlike recognition of the fact that the pagan element was still the strongest force in Lithuania, and could not yet be dispensed with in the coming struggle for nationality.
  
  At the same time Gediminas privately informed the papal legates at Riga through his ambassadors that his difficult position compelled him to postpone his steadfast resolve of being baptised, and the legates showed their confidence in him by forbidding the neighbouring states to war against Lithuania for the next four years, besides ratifying the treaty made between Gediminas and the archbishop of Riga. Nevertheless, disregarding the censures of the church, the Order resumed the war with Gediminas by murdering one of his delegates sent to welcome the Grand Master for his arrival to Riga in 1325.[14][18] He had in the meantime improved his position by an alliance with Wladislaus Lokietek,[19] king of Poland, and had his daughter Aldona baptized for the sake of betrothing her to Władysław's son Casimir III.[20]
  
  An alternative view of these events was proposed by a British historian, Stephen Christopher Rowell, where he believes that Gediminas never intended to become a Christian himself, since that would have offended the staunchly pagan inhabitants of Žemaitija and Aukštaitija. Both the pagans of Aukštaitija and the Orthodox Rus' threatened Gediminas with death if he decided to convert, where a similar scenario also happened to Mindaugas, which he desperately wanted to avoid.[21]
  
  His strategy was to gain the support of the Pope and other Catholic powers in his conflict with the Teutonic Order by granting a favourable status to Catholics living within his realm and feigning a personal interest in the Christian religion. While he allowed Catholic clergy to enter his realm for the purpose of ministering to his Catholic subjects and to temporary residents, he savagely punished any attempt to convert pagan Lithuanians or to insult their native religion. Thus in about 1339-40 he executed two Franciscan friars from Bohemia, Ulrich and Martin, who had gone beyond the authority granted them and had publicly preached against the Lithuanian religion. Gediminas ordered them to renounce Christianity, and had them killed when they refused. Five more friars were executed in 1369 for the same offence.
  
  Despite Gediminas' chief goal to save Lithuania from destruction at the hands of the Germans, he still died as a pagan reigning over semi-pagan lands. Also, he was equally bound to his pagan kinsmen in Samogitia, to his Orthodox subjects in Belarus, and to his Catholic allies in Masovia.[17] Therefore, it is still unclear whether the letters sent to the Pope were an actual request for conversion or simply a diplomatic maneuver.[22]
  
  Incorporation of Slavic lands
  
  While on his guard against his northern foes, Gediminas from 1316 to 1340 was aggrandizing himself at the expense of the numerous Slavonic principalities in the south and east,[4][23] whose incessant conflicts with each other wrought the ruin of them all. Here Gediminas triumphal progress was irresistible; but the various stages of it are impossible to follow, the sources of its history being few and conflicting, and the date of every salient event exceedingly doubtful. One of his most important territorial accretions, the principality of Halych-Volynia, was obtained by the marriage of his son Lubart with the daughter of the Galician prince.
  
  From about 23 km (14 mi) south west of Kiev, Gediminas resoundingly defeated Stanislav of Kiev and his allies in the Battle on the Irpin River. He then besieged and conquered Kiev sending Stanislav, the last descendant of the Rurik Dynasty to ever rule Kiev, into exile first in Bryansk and then in Ryazan. Theodor, brother of Gediminas, and Algimantas, son of Mindaugas from the Olshanski family, were installed in Kiev. After these conquests, Lithuania stretched as far as to the Black Sea.[24]
  
  While exploiting Slavic weakness in the wake of the Mongol invasion, Gediminas wisely avoided war with the Golden Horde, a great regional power at the time, while expanding Lithuania's border towards the Black Sea. He also secured an alliance with the nascent Grand Duchy of Moscow by marrying his daughter, Anastasia, to the grand duke Simeon. But he was strong enough to counterpoise the influence of Muscovy in northern Russia, and assisted the republic of Pskov, which acknowledged his overlordship, to break away from Great Novgorod.
  
  === ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ ===
  Сын литовского князя Бутивида. Князь Литовский с 1316. Нанес ряд поражений немецким рыцарям. В союзе с Тверью выступал против объединительной политики Москвы. Продолжал захват западно-русских земель, начатый литовцами в XIII веке. Выдавая дочерей замуж (Марию за Дмитрия Михайловича Тверского 1320, Августу-Анастасию за Симеона I Московского 1332), старался распространить свое влияние на княжества зятьев.
  
  NAME: LKDL-MCC
  LCR7-WMK LZXJ-4W8
  
  === I'm alive and this bloodline is still going. ===
  Just thought this might help if someone is trying to find someone in this bloodline in the current time.

1. Algirdas Gediminid, b. MAY 1296 in Vilnius, Vilniaus, Lithuania     d. 24 MAY 1377 in Vilnius, Vilniaus, Lithuania
2. Karijotas Mykolas Gediminis, b. ABT 1303 in of,Vilna,,Lithuanian     d. 1347

1. Title: Legacy NFS Source: Vainus Prince Of Lithuania & Polotsk -
   Author: Ancestral File (TM), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, June 1998 (c), data as of 5 JAN 1998
   Page: Migrated from user-supplied source citation: urn:familysearch:source:2737222797
   
2. Title: Gediminas - Grand Duke of Lithuania, "Find A Grave Index"
   Author: "Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVGH-D1HW : 16 December 2020), Gediminas - Grand Duke of Lithuania, ; Burial, , ; citing record ID 119799562, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.
   Publication: Name: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVGH-D1HW;
   Page: Father was Grand Duke of Lithuania, and information on death matches.
   
3. Title: Интернет-ресурс: Родословие Гедеминовичей
   Author: Интернет-ресурс: Родословие Гедеминовичей.
   Note: [PFT:AQ] [S:Titl] Интернет-ресурс: Родословие Гедеминовичей [/PFT]