THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



465 



two is made in the cen- 

 sus. They are, however, 

 separate peoples, though 

 it is not easy even for 

 themselves t o specify 

 wherein the difference 

 lies. Until of late they 

 have thought little of na- 

 tional existence. Circum- 

 stances denied them a 

 large place in history. 

 Almost all are Protes- 

 tants. Luther's Greater 

 Catechism was the first 

 book printed in Lettish, 

 which was not reduced to 

 writing before the six- 

 teenth century. 



THE) LITHUANIANS 



"In the eyes of the eth- 

 nologist, Lithuanian is 

 the most important lan- 

 guage of Europe." It is 

 allied to the western 

 branches of Slavic, re- 

 sembles Latin more than 

 it does Celtic or German, 

 and is most like Sanscrit. 

 Into its grammar and 

 vocabulary ( have filtered 

 some Slavic forms and 

 many Slavic words. 



Scholars, baffled by the 

 mystery of Lithuanian 

 origin and language, have 

 applied to both people 

 and tongue the conve- 

 nient term Balto-Slavic. 

 Dwellers in swamps and 

 forests, their racial char- 

 acter has been little modi- 

 fied. 



In the thirteenth cen- 

 tury they developed an 

 independent State, which 

 finally extended from the 

 Baltic to the Black Sea. 

 They suffered horribly 

 from the merciless 

 Brothers of the Sword 



and the Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic 

 Order, or Teutonic Knights, of St. Mary's 

 Hospital at Jerusalem and the Knights, or 

 Brothers, of the Sword, at first purely philan- 

 thropic, were organized during the Crusades. 

 Afterward installed on the Baltic and become 

 military, they employed fire and sword to 

 Christianize the wild natives and reduce them 

 to servitude. 



The Lithuanians remained pagan until their 

 Duke Jagellon, in 1386, married the beautiful 

 Polish Queen Jadvidja, shortly afterward ac- 

 cepted Christian baptism and ordered his obe- 

 dient subjects to do the same. 



Thenceforward they shared all the vicissi- 

 tudes of the Poles. It was a Lithuanian com- 



Photograph by Erdelyi 



THROUGH HER VEINS FLOWS THE BLOOD OE MANY RACES 

 WHICH HAVE MINGLED AETER INVADING THE BALKANS 



After the barbaric invasions there existed no such thing as an 

 unmixed race. Particularly is it true in the Balkan Peninsula that 

 racial purity is a figment of the imagination (see page 457). 



mander, with an army mainly Lithuanian, who 

 inflicted on the Teutonic Knights the crushing 

 defeat at Tannenberg in 1410. 



Poverty and wretchedness have been for 

 centuries their almost invariable lot. Though 

 an agricultural people, the land is almost wholly 

 held by great Polish and German owners. The 

 Russian land laws, devised in the interest of 

 the peasantry, accomplished no more for them 

 than for the Esths and the Letts. Many 

 Lithuanians have emigrated to the United 

 States, where they show themselves simple, 

 honest, and industrious. With few exceptions, 

 they are Lutheran Protestants. 



Excellent soldiers, they fought valiantly in 

 the Russian ranks during the last war. About 



