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Voruta

Purported historical capital of Lithuania

Voruta
Summary

Purported historical capital of Lithuania

Voruta may have been the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Lithuania during the reign of king Mindaugas in the 13th century. Voruta is mentioned briefly in a written source only once and its exact location is unknown. Despite all the uncertainties, the concept of Voruta is well-known and popular in Lithuania.

Historiography

Mindaugas, the first and the only crowned Lithuanian king, defended himself in Voruta during an internal war against his nephews Tautvilas and Edivydas and Duke of Samogitia Vykintas in 1251. This information, taken from the Hypatian Chronicle, is the only recorded message about Voruta.

Nevertheless, some historians in 19th and 20th centuries called it "the first capital of Lithuania" and attempted to identify its location. In total there were about fifteen suggested locations of Voruta. Others argue that Voruta was not an actual city, but just a misinterpretation of a word that means capital. In the opinion of Kazimieras Būga, one of the prominent Lithuanian philologists, the word voruta simply means castle.

List of suggested locations

Šeiminyškėliai Hillfort in the east of [[Lithuania]], one of the presumed sites of Voruta
Ruins of [[Navahrudak]] Castle in the west of [[Belarus]], also a possible site of Voruta

These sites were suggested by various historians in various times:

  1. Berzgainiai in Ukmergė district by Petras Tarasenka
  2. Buteikiai in Anykščiai district by Kazimieras Žebrys
  3. Gorodishche near Navahrudak by Teodor Narbutt
  4. Halshany () by
  5. Kernavė by Fryderyk Papée
  6. Karelichy () by Mikola Yermalovich
  7. Liškiava by Jonas Totoraitis
  8. Medininkai by Evaldas Gečiauskas
  9. Ročiškė in Raseiniai district by Ludwik Krzywicki
  10. Šeimyniškėliai in Anykščiai district by Eduards Volters (supported by Tomas Baranauskas)
  11. Ūturiai in Raseiniai district by Wojciech Kętrzyński
  12. Varniany () in Hrodna Voblast, Belarus by Juliusz Latkowski
  13. Vilnius by Romas Batūra
  14. Area of Daugai–Varėna by Henryk Łowmiański
  15. Area of Medvėgalis–Varniai by Antanas Steponaitis

Since publication, some of the theories have been largely discredited.

References

References

  1. "Voruta". [[Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia]].
  2. Gudavičius, Edvardas. (1998). "Mindaugas". Žara.
  3. Zabiela, Gintautas. (1995). "Lietuvos medinės pilys". Diemedis.
  4. (September 2025). "The Myth of Navahrudak {{!}} Orbis Lituaniae". [[Vilnius University]].
  5. "Pawet: Міндоўг. Пачатак вялікага гаспадарства".
  6. Baranauskas, Tomas. (2001). "The Castle of Voruta". Mūsų praeitis.
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

castles-in-lithuania hillforts-in-lithuania former-populated-places-in-eastern-europe
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