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as the grand prince of Lithuania. It stopped
the process of Lithuania incorporation as the
part of the Polish kingdom.
1392– 1430 Vytautas carried out the centralization policy
by eliminating Kyiv, Podillya, Novhorod-
Siversk and Volhynia princedoms and passing
the rule to his own deputies.
1399 The crushing defeat of Lithuanian troops by
Mongolo-Tatars on the Vorskla river. The
Vytautas’s army was actually destroyed.
Many voivodes, boyars were killed and as the
chronicle states “…74 distinguished
princes…fell». That defeat prevented
Lithuanians from moving towards the Black
Sea.
1401 The treaty of Vilna, according to which
Vytautas became the perpetual ruler of
Lithuania, but recognized the vassalage on
Poland. After Vytautas’s death the lands of
Lithuanian principality were to be passed
under the authority of the Polish king.
1410 The Battle of Grunwald. The Polish –
Lithuanian (including Rus detachments) army
crushed the order of the Teutonic Knights of
crusaders.
1413 The Union of Horodlo gave back the status
of a separate political body with its own
Grand prince to Lithuania. It is worth
mentioning that the state separate position of
Lithuania was to be preserved after
Vytautas’s death by election of a new Grand
prince. Lithuanian lords of Catholic faith
secured their property rights, but they had to

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