State Day in Lithuania
Description:
On the square near the presidential palace there is a solemn ceremony of raising the national flag, in the Vilnius Cathedral - a solemn mass, and in the evening an official reception in honor of the holiday.
The day of the coronation of Prince Mindaugas is now given special importance as the first self-determination of Lithuania integration into the Western world. However, few of the Lithuanians celebrating today remember that in the 13th century, when the prince was crowned, Europe was not up to democracy - there began a gloomy period of the Inquisition. According to the estimates of historians, at the stakes and in the torture dungeons then were killed from 30 to 300 thousand people. Already in our time, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, John Paul II, publicly repented for the times of violence, religious wars and bonfires of the Inquisition.
The Grand Duke of Lithuania Mindaugas (Mindovg) (around the end of the 1230s - 1263) united under his rule the Lithuanian land (Aukstaitia, Zhemaitia, etc.) and subordinated the Russian cities of Novgorodok, Slonim, Volkovysk. In 1244 he undertook a campaign against the Livonian Order in the land of Curonians and Zemgals. The order united with Lithuanian feudal lords hostile to Mindovg and defeated it. Mindovg made a compromise agreement with the order (1250), accepted Catholicism (1251) and was crowned on behalf of the Pope, but he was preparing for a new battle with the order, concluded a treaty (about 1253) with the Galician prince Daniel and gave his daughter for his son Shvarna, resumed and strengthened ties with Vladimir-Suzdal Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky.
In 1260, the Lithuanian army at Lake Durbe defeated the combined army of the Livonian and Teutonic Orders and their allies. Mindowg renounced Catholicism. He was killed as a result of a conspiracy of feudal nobility.
Lit.: Pashuto V.T., Formation of the Lithuanian State, M., 1959.