Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės teritorijos sienos „prie Juodosios jūros“ XV–XVI a.
Territorial Borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by the Black Sea

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the GDL) “by the Black Sea” with Tartar Orders, Moldova and the Ottoman Empire in the 15th–16th centuries. The delineation of the borders of the GDL was conditioned by climatic-geographical conditions which influenced social and political processes. The relationship between nomadic inhabitants and the steppe territory was not “regular”; consequently, an elusive concept of territorial dependence on the political centre of the GDL was being formed. Tartar khans very often behaved as “independent“ rulers; as a result, different understanding of the borders of the GDL was developed. In the 15th – the first half of the 16th centuries the GDL had borderlines, as conceived by the ruling elite, with Tartar Orders, Moldova and by the end of the 15th century there appeared the first territorial contacts with Osmans after they occupied Moldova cities Kilija and Belgorod near the Black Sea. Part of the borders of the GDL went along the Dnieper river and its bed as well as along the Black Sea. In the second half of the 15th century the first inventory of the borders of the GDL, known as “the borders of Simonas Olelkaitis”, was compiled. In the 4th decade of the 16th century Osmans strengthened their positions between the Dniester and Dnieper rivers, and in 1540 – 1542 the delimitation process of Osman borders with Poland and the GDL was completed, and the

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