Lithuania courtyard

Yard Lithuania began to appear during the wars of the late XV - early XVI century, when a significant number of Lithuanian gentry was captured during the first Russian-Lithuanian wars or voluntarily sided with the Moscow state . Many prisoners were captured in the Battle of Bucket of 1500 , most of them were forcibly held by the Moscow government after the war ended. As a rule, they were not trusted with service on the western borders of the Moscow state, and they were used in military operations in the south and east. So, the Lithuanian "fire archers" distinguished themselves in 1505 during the defense of Nizhny Novgorod from the Tatars . After the annexation of Smolensk , Bryansk and Chernihiv-Seversky lands to the Moscow state, most of the local boyars took Moscow citizenship . As a result of the rebellion of Mikhail Glinsky in 1508, many of his supporters left for Moscow , including the Princes Drutsky and Kozlovsky , the nobleman Yakub Ivashintsov and others.

For all of them and their descendants, the term “Lithuanian courtyard” was fixed (the epithet “courtyard” was sometimes omitted). It is especially common in the so-called “Yard Notebook” of the 1550s, which notes the presence of Lithuanian yard in Yaroslavl , Rostov , Romanov , Murom , Mozhaysk , Serpukhov , Kostroma and other cities . In the 1520s, the influential boyar M. Yu. Zakharyin-Yuriev led the Lithuanian courtyard . The “Lithuania courtyard” enjoyed the greatest influence during the regency of Elena Glinsky ( 1533 - 1538 ), but after reaching the age of majority, Ivan IV was largely subjected to political repression and as a special layer ceased to exist.

• Ales Bela . Lithuanian homeland // Entsiklapedia gіstoryі Belarusі.

• The Thousand Book of 1550 and the Yard Notebook of the 50s XVI century / Prep. A.A. Zimin. M. - L., 1950.
• Zimin A.A. Russia on the threshold of the New Time. M., 1972.