History
Ruthenian duchies of Polatsk, Turau and Pinsk, Drutsk and others have been incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Ruthenian gentry became the largest part of the common Lithuanian nobility.
At the same time, the Baltic nobility of Lithuania Propria actively adopted Ruthenian culture, language and traditions. The Lithuanian higher nobility largely embraced Slavic customs and Orthodox Christianity.Much of the upper class of the Grand Duchy called themselves Lithuanians (Litviny), yet spoke the Ruthenian language (also referred to as Old Belarusian language) In the effect of the processes, Lithuanian higher nobility became largely Ruthenian, while the lesser nobility in the ethnic Baltic lands of what is now Republic of Lithuania continued to use native spoken Lithuanian language. The adapted Old Church Slavonic and later the Ruthenian language, acquired a status of a main chancery language in the local matters and relations with other Orthodox principalities as lingua franca, and Latin was used in relations with the Western Europe.
Read more about this topic: Belarusian Nobility
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)