This is anecdotal, but most of the winged Hussars in this battle was of Lithunian stock.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kircholm

>russians actually think the grand duchy of Lithunia pre commonwealth was a Russian creation

>>1287726
They are not exactly wrong.

Before the personal union Lithuania had more land than Poland all tho I don't think it was as strong

>>1287604
Actually I don't know why Ukraine was polish when the Grand Duchy of Lithuania conquered it from the mongol hordes and their russian vassals before the Commonwealth existed.

>>1287755
Poland had a much better basetax as well as national ideas.

>>1287767
Because Lithuanians lack manpower to keep it, not even mentioning big swamp between Belarus and Ukraine.

>>1287750
Really?
They do seem to talk about it like it was a Russian rather than a Lithuanian achievement.
And I always becomes extremely suspicious whenever a group seem to push for an idea that will completely clean out any other groups' historical achievements from official histology.

>>1287775
ayyy

>>1287802
Russians keep overestimating the centralization of Kievan Rus. It was a really loose federation of tribes with people sitting in Kiev and collecting tribute from them but Russian imperial historiography pushed the meme that Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians themselves were three separate branches of a once united monolithic nation that eventually differentiated. It was mostly done to manufacture claims for the territory and plain old wewuzery.

Mind you, some Belarusians also love going WE WUZ TRUE LITVINZ N SHIET but that's a long and sad story.

>>1287802
>>1289797
Russian (and more often belarusian) claim is based on the fact that only 10% of its inhabitants were ethnic lithuanians, the rest were slavs. Slavic was also widely used as a chancellery language.
The state itself however was created and ruled by ethnic lithuanians until the union with Poland

>>1289797
>>1289855
Truth is that Belarus is more a true successor state than Lithuania. With Belarus going full Commonwhealth and Lithuanians going full mh Polish opressors.
Lithuanians were not much more than a tribal pagans who were skilled at raiding. Heck, they launch slaveraid at Poland in XIV century and even reach HRE. With the Golden Orde decline Rus states were open for he taking. It was cheaper and safer for Ruthenians to surrender to Lithuanians than fight them.
Lithuanians elites(some of them) quickly get Rutenianized an switch to ortodox. Local boyars an princes get quickly coopted as Lithuanian lack ability and organization to rule vast teritories they conquered. Administartion tasks were often in hands of Ruthenians.
After union Polish influence get stronger ut whole Polonizatin process was long, compicated and full of funny moments. Like ortodox nobles switching first to protestantism and their kids switching to catholicism.

All the memeing aside, Belarus is a really sad country.

>Be an integral part of Lithuania
>Lithuanian dukes were still Lithuanian so you don't have any national elites at all
>Not even eventually polonized Ruthenian szlachta and cossacks like in Ukraine
>Develop to be a definite separate nation, with its own territory and language
>Yet have absolutely zero national self-awareness, perhaps even worse than Bosnia, and unlike Ukraine which has always been fighting for self-determination in some way or another
>Short period of national revival in the early 20th century gets rekt by Russkies
>Short period of national revival in the 90s gets rekt by Russkies, retarded commie elites and your own citizens not having any feeling of national belonging
>Belarusian language nearing Gaelic in its usage
>Live off refining cheap Russian oil and slowly waiting for the end
>Official history basically starts with WW2 and ends with WW2
>Unofficial is claiming WE WUZ LITVINZ and trying to find great Belarusian people besides Kalinovski

It's like watching a small constantly sick child dying of cancer.

>>1289855
>claim is based on the fact that only 10% of its inhabitants were ethnic lithuanians, the rest were slavs.
And this number is really a fact? GDL grew and shrunk, it was formed firstly within baltic tribal territories and only later grew bit by bit and the maymay from sea to sea period was really short compared to the rest of its existence. From 1569 till 1795 it was only todays Lithuania and Belarus (give or take) no way it was 10 to 90 percent ratio.

>>1290236
I don't really see why that would make Belarus more of a successor state.
Rather the opposite, as the Lithunians rather remember the days of independence than those in the union.

>>1290284
Only 11% of Belarusians speak Belarusian at home. How is this possible?

>>1290675
Belarus is still a Soviet state and a Russian protectorate for all intents and purposes so all education and government bureucracy is done in Russian. Belarusian nation is also essentially going through what every other Central and Eastern European nation had to endure in 19th century since they have extremely weak feeling of national belonging. It's stereotypes like:

>That language sounds funny
>It's not fit for science
>You can't write anything great using it
>It's a language of uneducated people
>Who cares? Russian culture is better anyway
>It doesn't even exist, it's a dialect

Basically, they got cucked hard.

>>1290854
>Belarus is still a Soviet state

Whoa, it basically is. Huh. I had no idea.