Europe’s Forgotten Crusade in the Baltic? (Part I)
Everybody knows about the crusades. Jerusalem, Akkon, Antioch, we all know these cities but not so many people know that there were also crusades in Europe. A crusader state, the Livonian Order was founded in territories that nowadays belong mostly to Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia and the city of Riga was created in 1201. The goal was to convert these "pagans" to Christianity. But instead of peacefully converting them a series of military campaigns started: Against the Estonians, Lithuanians, the Republic of Novgorod and others followed. A decisive moment was the Battle on Lake Peipus, also called Battle on the Ice.
#europe #baltic #livonia #russia #history #ghostcountries
CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
01:25 Livonia and the Arrival of Meinhard
03:15 Northern Crusades and the Founding of Riga
04:32 Livonian Brothers of the Sword
05:42 Bispohrics of Livonia
06:13 Estonian Pirates and Other Troubles Up North
07:07 Internal Divisions and External Pressures
07:51 Lithuanian Crusade and the Battle of Saule
09:06 Merger with the Teutonic Order
09:57 Outro
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Intro Animation / Character Design: Emily Clearwater (iamprettyawesome.co.nz)
Background Music: “The Pyre” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Пікірлер: 74
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Note: Estonians and the surrounding region was not infact baltic but uralic whilst below many regions where lithuania and latvia stand now lived actual baltic people
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Oh, you're definitely right; I tried being careful with my wording because of that when talking about a mostly Balto-Slavic population, but that doesn't include Estonians, which fall under a Finnic-Uralic grouping.
@teamehpchannel9614
2 ай бұрын
latvia is the only truthful baltic nation, whereas lithuania is just a variated, changeable version of latvians. the original baltic culture has its origins from there
@Arkhalis404
2 ай бұрын
@@teamehpchannel9614 ehh? You do realize Lithuanian is the more conservative of the two in fact one of the most conservative languages. Its more similar to the languages of old
@Arkhalis404
2 ай бұрын
@@teamehpchannel9614 plus the Indo-Europeans arrived in Lithuania first so that doesn't even make sense?
It always amazes me that you can transform a complex topic into an interesting short video. That’s quite a talent. 👏
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Thank you so much Tina; it can be difficult balancing what we want to cover and making it a tolerable length 😅, but I think multi-part episodes help us dance around that a bit.
This period honestly interest me so much, especially the idea of how the Baltics were the last pagan region in Europe
Wow! Great video. I really knew little about the Livonian order Looking forward to part 2
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Oh, thank you so much! 🙏 Yeah, I’ll admit most of my knowledge about the Northern Crusades related to the Teutonic Order; so, this was very interesting to look into and there’s still more to Livonia’s story.
Very interesting and informative. Nice graphics. Much better than other programs I’ve seen.
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Oh, thank you so much; we're also going to be making some changes to our map design in future videos too! So, let us know what you think when that happens. 😉
Another fantastic video. There’s so much I’ve never came across before watching this video. 💪🏻
@kirbyward2001
Жыл бұрын
Agreed
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Thanks man; yeah, a lot of it was new to both of us too! I mean, I knew a decent amount about the Teutonic Order - was a go-to faction for me in Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms 😅 - but no so much about the Livonian Order before doing research on this episode.
Great vid! I hope you continue making videos!
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Thanks man; we have no plans on stopping!
Good job!
Underrated Channel Interesting content 👌
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Thank you so much; there’s plenty more content on the way!
Great Video!
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Thanks Jiayi! 🙌
Fascinating history!🇱🇻
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Thanks Matt!
Great video ghost countries!
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Thanks Lucas!
Wow man you are insanely underrated, thank god I got recommended the Russian African colony video.
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Oh, thank you so much 🙌; glad the algorithm brought you to our channel!
Me "I have like 2 youtubers in like two Minutes Premiering with over 100,000 Subscribers, eh I'm going to watch Ghost Countries
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Priorities! 😉
@Artur_M.
Жыл бұрын
Same. :)
LOUDER! You're too quiet!
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Hey Rafał, thanks for pointing this out; listening now, I think we had some issues with the volume levels after exporting...so, not wanting to repeat that 😅, I'm going to make sure it's louder in part II.
I just have to say we are still VERY PAGAN!!!!!! I brought a bolt of cloth that was grown, processed, spun and woven in Lithuania to my sons latvian school; so they could "make good use of it". Omg, so many people, (including the pastor cuz the school is run by a latvian church) started praises the pagan gods and make jokes about sacrificing a German in thanks to the gift. We were forced to convert and hide in the swamps where we sang our forbidden songs. First by the Christians then by to soviets. But we still have what is left of out roots!!!!
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
That's really interesting; honestly, the comeback of paganism (neo-paganism?) in parts of Europe during the 21st century is a story unto itself! I didn't have a chance to go into it that much in-video, but I was digging into how some are currently trying to reconstruct the religious rituals of the Lithuanians before their Christianization via the Romuva religion.
@josephwarra5043
10 ай бұрын
The "Baltics" have been repeatedly overrun, oppressed, de-populated and still it lives, you could also make the argument that while the "missionaries" were "christianizing" the region, the Old Faith was "paganizing" the new. Today, the two faiths seem to co-exist, mostly peacefully and in a kind of harmony. Old holidays sometimes receive new names and old gods become "saints" in the new religion. The New Faith builds churches in sacred forests and next to and under holy trees. Ancient recipes are utilized for new holidays and offerings are made to "new" saints and holy persons. Perhaps, after so much misunderstanding and bloodshed, a new understanding can evolve to serve the people and protect the land, let's make it so. Amen.
Nothing forgotten about it
there's a fantasy RTS game not yet released that featured the crusade in the Baltic, i think its name is Godsworn .
Cool the eastern european Crusades!
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Thanks man 😄 and this will be a two-parter, but there's definitely a lot more surrounding the Northern Crusades we could explore too! Maybe the Wendish Crusade against the Polabian Slavs, like someone else pointed out, or the Swedish Crusades against the Karelians?
@theculturedjinni
Жыл бұрын
@@GhostCountries Especially the Karelian crusade as that one was actually pretty important in the creation of Sweden as a kingdom (previously Sweden had just been an area of several smaller kingdoms and tribes)
Ah good days, good days
Any relation to Livonia, MI?
@kirbyward2001
Жыл бұрын
Hmmmmm
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Actually, I looked into this a bit and Livonia, MI, is named after Livonia, NY! Exactly why that town got the name I don't know...couldn't find much online, unfortunately.
I just found out the actual name for Livonia is Terra Mariana " Land of Mary "
To be honest there were like 5 diferent Theoderic's present in Livonia at the time.
livonians mainly live in modern day latvia. most of modern day estonia was well, estonian
@theangryvideogamenerd6115
Жыл бұрын
also those estonian pirates were also in ösel aka modern day saaremaa
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Honestly, I think looking into the history of piracy in the Baltic would make for a pretty interesting episode. When I was in Estonia, I actually now remember hearing about the Pillage of Sigtuna and how the raiders may have come from Saaremaa - although, I know there’s other theories.
Actually, there were no living Slavic people; there were only the Baltic people (ancestors of the Latvians and Lithuanians) and Finnic people (Livonians and Estonians).
The "Baltic" crusade was also in eastern germany.
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
True; it definitely was a broad series of campaigns that covered a very large region and, like you pointed out, that included the 1147 Wendish Crusade against the Polabian Slavs (or "Wends").
@nova-nigermapping5535
Жыл бұрын
@@GhostCountries dübră Dan! yes, that js correct! I can actually speak polåbsťĕ aswell.
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Oh, wow; that's really cool! How many speakers would you guess there are today?
@nova-nigermapping5535
Жыл бұрын
@@GhostCountries 3-4 i think.
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
@@nova-nigermapping5535 Just wow; it's really neat you can speak it.
Just in time for EU4 1.34!
@manuelblasino8999
Жыл бұрын
EU4 best game ever. This area is pretty untouched in terms of missions or anything. Definitely needs some more!
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
YES!!! 🙌
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
Definitely agree with you there.
When I think of the crusades I think of the Ethiopian adal war
@GhostCountries
Жыл бұрын
I actually did a bit of research on the Adal war for a YT Short on Flags of the Tigray War, but honestly, I would love to explore the conflict more in-depth on the channel!
At that time slavs didint live in baltic region, slavs originate from centreal asia and started ariving in europe over a 1000 years ago and have allways tried to push westwards
Lithuanians started the beef appereantly lol
the most peaceful Belarusian (Polacak, the GDL) border . Moscow has never fought them , except in form of propaganda
Balto - Slavic population?:D Baltic people never lived with slavic its a crap. Until around 19 century, then some slavic people were put there as colonists
@edgarabramz
11 ай бұрын
How would you explain the 16th century Lithuanian-Polish commonwealth?
There is no such thing as Balto-Slavic population or people. There is no evidence whatsoever, that any Slavic people have lived in any larger scales in those lands, which later became Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, because there are no more archeologically proven Slavic graves in the Medieval period in Baltics, as only some random merchants. More even, a concept "Balto-Slavic" is just a theory, which dates not earlier as from the end of the 18th century or mostly the 19th century, and concerns ONLY the linguistic aspect. Because they were and still are very different from Slavs, their language as well. Only time when you can really speak about the Balts FORCEFULLY mixed with Slavs is the soviet period and the russification. So please, get your facts straight to not loose your credibility in the first minutes.
Lithuanian crusade en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_Crusade
Teutonic Order:am I a joke to you?