CHAPTER Y. 



UPPER DVINA AND NIEMEN BASINS. 



Lithuania (Litva), Grodno, Vitebsk. 



IKE that of Poland, the name of Lithuania is an historical expression, 

 which has constantly shifted with the vicissitudes of treaties, con- 

 quests, and partitions, and which must by no means be confounded 

 with the " Land of the Lithuanians." The term Litva comprises 

 ethnologically but a very small portion of West Russia in the 

 Dvina and Niémen basins, whereas Lithuania has been applied historically to a 

 far more extensive region, whose rulers at one time aspired to become masters of all 

 the Slav lowlands between the Baltic and Euxine. The Lithuanian princes, thus 

 governing populations mostly of Russian stock, claimed also to be regarded as 

 Russian sovereigns. 



Before its union with Poland the Lithuanian state reached across the continent 

 from sea to sea, and in the fifteenth centurj^ the name was apjjlied to all the land 

 between the Dvina and the Euxine, and between the Western Bug and the Oka. 

 For the Muscovite Russians, the Minsk, Kiev, and Smolensk Slavs were at that 

 time politically Lithuanians. But in the sixteenth century, after the final union 

 with Poland, the expression " Principality of Lithuania " was restricted to the 

 true Lithuania and to White Russia. Even still the custom prevails in Poland 

 and Russia of calling Lithuanians the White Russians cf the old political 

 Lithuania, distinguishing the Lithuanians proper by the term " Jmiides." After 

 the dismemberment of Poland the provinces of Grodno and Yilna were still called 

 Lithuania, and although its official use was proscribed in 1840, it has continued 

 current to our times, being now somewhat vaguely applied to the three governments 

 of Kovno, Vilna, and Grodno. The last named, formerly peopled by the Yatvaghes, 

 presumably of Lithuanian stock, no longer belongs ethnographically to the 

 Lithuanian domain, being now chiefly peopled by White and Little Russians. 

 With better right the government of Yitebsk might be included in this domain, 

 since from 1,500 to 2,000 Letts dwell in its western districts. Still even here the 

 majority of the population are White Russians. 



