Summary

Kęstutis (Senieji Trakai, between 1297 and 1300 - Krėva, August 15, 1382) was grand duke of Lithuania from 1381, when he ousted his nephew Jogaila, to 1382, when he was in turn deposed by Jogaila.

His father was Gediminas, grand duke from 1316 to 1341 and considered one of the most capable rulers at the helm of medieval Lithuania. During the latter's interlude in power, the Grand Duchy expanded its borders through successful military operations and a combination of well-thought-out marriages.

Before Gediminas died in 1341, he assigned the administration of the various regions of the Grand Duchy to his sons, ceding the duchy of Trakai and that of Samogizia to Kęstutis. Assuming the role of grand duke was not the eldest son of Gediminas, but a middle son, Jaunutis, who proved incapable of governing and containing the aspirations of his brother Algirdas. The latter had a strong synergy with his brother Kęstutis, together with whom he dismissed Jaunutis in 1345. From that time on, Algirdas formed a sort of duumvirate with Kęstutis, assigning him the role of deputy grand duke, confirming his possession of Trakai and Samogitia, and entrusting him with the management of the western borders of the state, while Algirdas concentrated on the eastern borders.

Kęstutis' main enemy throughout his life remained the Crusader coalition, composed of the Teutonic Knights and the Order of Livonia, which intended to conquer Lithuania and convert its inhabitants to Christianity, as they were still pagans. At the same time he clashed several times with Poland over the possession of various disputed regions such as Galicia and Volinia. In order to act undisturbed in these campaigns, in the same way as his brother Algirdas and his father Gediminas even before him he indulged in false or vague promises of conversion and stalling tactics. As the decades passed, the crusaders became increasingly aggressive and also struck very important targets in the Grand Duchy, including the region of Trakai (1374, 1376, and 1377), Kaunas (1362 and 1368), and the capital Vilnius (1365 and 1377).

When Algirdas died in 1377, Kęstutis accepted his brother's decision to appoint his son Jogaila as heir, who confirmed his uncle's position as deputy grand duke. However, soon rifts arose between the two due to Jogaila's decision to make secret cooperation agreements with the Teutonic Knights. Kęstutis took advantage of a moment of internal turmoil in the Grand Duchy in 1381 and dismissed Jogaila by appointing himself grand duke, granting his nephew a couple of fiefs only when the latter swore allegiance to him. Jogaila did not tolerate this situation, in the same way as the Lithuanians, who were very concerned about Kęstutis's decision to wage a full-scale war against the Crusaders that was bleeding the state economy dry. Thus, after creating a coalition that the Order of Livonia also joined, Jogaila took his uncle and the latter's son Vitoldo prisoner in August 1382. Kęstutis died in captivity in Krėva Castle at over eighty years of age, but the civil war that broke out in Lithuania in 1381 continued until 1384 and was carried on by Vitoldo, who unlike his father had managed to escape from the place of imprisonment. Kęstutis's remains were then cremated as part of a lavish pagan ceremony, the last to occur in Lithuania's history, as future rulers, starting with Jogaila and Vitoldo themselves, had converted to Christianity.

The historical interlude in which Algirdas and Kęstutis are widely praised by historiographers, who believe that in that 30-year period the conquests made and the power assumed by the Grand Duchy expanded further. However, even as a result of his brother's death, Kęstutis failed to solve the problem of Lithuania's international isolation, merely continuing to fight the Crusaders by carrying out a design that now appeared anachronistic.

The name "Kęstutis" comes from an ancient form of the name "Kęstas," which is itself the diminutive of Lithuanian names such as "Kęstaras" and "Kęstautas," where Kęs-ti stands for "to cope."

Early years

Kęstutis was born around 1297 and was the fourth (or fifth) son of Gediminas, grand duke of Lithuania since 1316, and his wife Jewna.

Virtually no information is known concerning Kęstutis's early years. His father served as ruler for more than twenty-five years and succeeded in making Lithuania a centralized and territorially vast state, if one takes into account the fact that the Grand Duchy encompassed areas now included within the borders of Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. In 1337, Gediminas led an attack against the Teutonic Knights on Bayerburg Castle, but the battle culminated in a rout, and the Duke of Trakai also died on that occasion. It remains uncertain whether Gediminas assigned the administration of Trakai to Kęstutis already at that juncture, with some scholars even identifying the Battle of Galialaukė in 1338 as the first military operation in which the new duke took part, which again ended in defeat for the Baltics. In the hope of being able to preserve what he had conquered, on his deathbed Gediminas entrusted the administration of the various regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to his many sons, with Kęstutis being granted (or confirmed) the administration of the aforementioned duchy of Trakai and, in addition, the administration of Samogitia.

Having to choose whom to entrust with the role of grand duke, Gediminas, who perished in 1341, assigned the task to Jaunutis, despite the fact that he was not the firstborn. The reasons behind this choice are not entirely clear, but some scholars have theorized that this appointment was probably justified by the fact that he was the first son of the ruler's last wife. It is plausible that Narimantas and Algirdas, the two sons of Gediminas who more than any other could have aspired to the office of grand duke because they were born before Jaunutis, were discarded because their father feared that disagreements might break out between the two. Given the great effort with which Gediminas had managed to make the Grand Duchy a stable and robust power in Eastern Europe, it is safe to assume that he wanted to avert the outbreak of a conflict that could risk wearing down the state. Finally, it has been suggested that this was likely a compromise, since some of Jaunutis's brothers had, like him, chosen to pursue the same decision as his father and remain faithful to paganism (e.g., Algirdas and Kęstutis), while others, disliked as a result of their conversions, had decided to embrace the Orthodox religion (Narimantas, Karijotas, and Liubartas).

When Jaunutis came to power, he preferred to adopt a peaceful policy in foreign affairs, being favored by the moment of crisis being experienced by the Teutonic Knights, bitter enemies of the Grand Duchy, and their Grandmaster Ludolf König. His brothers, on the contrary, were decidedly more warlike: this explains why Algirdas attacked Možajsk in 1341 and then lent succor in 1342 to Pskov when that city went under attack by the Order of Livonia, another religious order of knights active in Eastern Europe and engaged in the Lithuanian crusade. Taking advantage of the weaknesses of the Teutonic and Livonian orders, Algirdas and Kęstutis decided to carry out an extensive campaign that affected various areas of southern Livonia (roughly today's Latvia), pushing as far east as Riga. It is unclear whether Grand Duke Jaunutis had given his tacit consent or whether he was simply unable to materially dissuade his kinsmen from their intent.

The situation changed in 1343 when the Teutonic Order, on the strength of the proclamation of a crusade, convinced several Western European rulers to fight against pagan Lithuania to avenge the incursions they had suffered in previous years. The call to arms turned out to be a "fiasco," however, considering that not only did the crusader attack directed against the city of Veliuona prove to be of little effect, but that the Teutonic rulers had to abandon their offensive campaign when they learned that Algirdas was successfully raiding Livonia once again. Meanwhile, in the south Algirdas again acted without consulting Jaunutis and lent assistance to his brother Liubartas, prince of Volinia and engaged in the Galicia-Volinia wars. Eventually, in the second half of 1344, Lithuania represented de facto by Algirdas and Kęstutis reached an agreement with Poland and the Crusaders, temporarily exiting hostilities. In the east, the continuation of the Lithuanian campaigns was watched with great attention by Vilnius's rival Muscovy. However, it never came to an armed confrontation, as Moscow tried to adopt a useful diplomatic strategy to convince various cities to change sides and disavow the Baltics, as in the case of Bryansk. Emboldened by the fame they were gaining from their victorious campaigns, as well as concerned by the fear that the Crusaders might launch large and fearsome offensives, Algirdas and Kęstutis were persuaded to dismiss their brother Jaunutis in 1345, who by then had quite possibly lost all substantial power. Although it had been claimed in the past that the coup took place on November 22, 1345, British historian Stephen Christopher Rowell believes that this date is incorrect, as it is confused with Jaunutis' baptism that took place in Moscow on September 23, 1345.

Deputy Grand Duke (1345-1377)

Once Jaunutis was deprived of his powers, who was imprisoned but later managed to escape to Moscow, Algirdas assumed the position of the highest authority in the state, while his brother Kęstutis was confirmed as the duke of Trakai and Samogizia and a kind of deputy grand duke status, granting him complete freedom of maneuver. It is possible that the overthrow of Jaunutis was not hindered by any of the other brothers because they recognized and accepted the military superiority and greater ruling capacity of Algirdas and Kęstutis. The two blood relatives gave rise to a kind of duumvirate, a case in truth that had already existed in the history of Lithuania, if one thinks of the dualism between Butigeidis and Butvydas (probable grandfather of Kęstutis) and perhaps that of Vytenis (uncle of Kęstutis) and Gediminas before 1316.

Algirdas decided to concentrate on the issues that kept the Grand Duchy occupied in the east, while he assigned the management of the western area to Kęstutis, who had to deal mostly with the Teutonic Order, the Order of Livonia, Poland, and Hungary. This did not prevent the new grand duke from participating in a Kęstutis raid in 1345 that devastated Sambia and central Livonia, which ended with the capture of 600 prisoners. The following year an expedition by the Lithuanians again struck the Crusaders in Sambia, who were still experiencing hardship. Kęstutis, fervent pagan that he was, carried on the struggles with the Christians steadily and with mixed fortunes.

Meanwhile, Jaunutis had tried in vain to find allies to regain the office of grand duke. Eventually, in 1347, he returned to Vilnius and formally renounced all aspirations for power, thus reconciling with his brothers. As a reward for his appeasement, he was awarded the title of duke of Zaslavl'.

In 1348, Teutonic commander Winrich von Kniprode succeeded in dealing a severe blow to the Lithuanians at the Battle of Strėva, which took place in an open field. In 1352, when Winrich von Kniprode assumed the role of grand master, he understood that it was necessary to curb the Grand Duchy's incursions with judicious actions. One of the fruitful results achieved during his stewardship concerned the enlargement of the buffer zone between the monastic state and Lithuania, an area virtually devoid of urban settlements due to constant raids: the aim pursued was yes to cause depopulation through raids, but more importantly to spot the invaders earlier in case of attack. Aside from the employment of foreign recruits, the greatest success came through weakening his enemies "through thoughtful recourse to diplomacy." Focusing on the alliance that the Poles and Lithuanians had entered into in the 1330s, the Teutonic Grandmaster intervened by maintaining friendly relations with the former, making peace with Lithuania in 1357 and providing support to the Polish dukes hostile to Casimir III of Poland. The Polish king went so far as to accuse Kniprode of providing military support to Kęstutis when the latter sacked Warmian in 1356. At that juncture, there was even a real possibility that the Order would enter into a cooperation agreement with Lithuania, at the latter's urging, in an anti-Cracow key, but Pope Innocent VI blocked the negotiations because he was "scandalized" by the prospect of an alliance between pagans and Christians.

In 1358, Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg initiated peace negotiations with one of the two brothers in exchange for his conversion to Christianity. Doubts remain about the real initiator of the initiative: according to some historians it was Vilnius that initiated it, while for others it was a solicitation by Charles IV. However, the condition for it to proceed turned out to be unsatisfactory. Indeed, the Lithuanian grand duke demanded the complete withdrawal of the Teutonic Order from the Baltic region, a term not acceptable to the emperor because of the support of the knightly group he needed. In addition, it demanded the relocation of the Teutonic Order to today's Ukraine "to protect the Ruthenians from the Tatars." The proposal was considered an outrage and reignited hostilities until, in 1361, Order Marshal Henning Schindekopf and King Louis I of Hungary intercepted and captured Kęstutis. However, the latter managed to escape death by leaving the stronghold of Marienburg, where he had arrived in chains in 1362. To go unnoticed and return to Lithuania, Kęstutis disguised himself as a crusader and traveled through swamps and regions hostile to him in complete anonymity. The Order achieved another major success in April 1361, when an army destroyed Kaunas Castle, located in the heart of the Grand Duchy, and captured Vaidotas, Kęstutis's son and commander in charge of defending the garrison. The strategy adopted by Kęstutis against the Christians pursued a twofold purpose: to break through the enemy network of castles located along the final course of the Nemunas River, while at the same time attempting to preserve a defensive line that would contain aggression that could start from Livonia and Prussia.

Under the Order's marshal Henning Schindekopf a period of mutual devastation began; since at the end of it neither adversary was irreversibly weakened, a truce was reached and captured prisoners were mutually released. Between 1362 and 1370 the crusaders undertook some 20 better-coordinated "punitive expeditions" (52 until 1382) against Lithuania, the main ones of which included an attack on Vilnius in 1365 and a second toward Kaunas in 1368. The raids carried out by the Livonian Order between 1363 and 1367 focused on the northwestern frontier of the Grand Duchy, while the Teutonic Order carried out an offensive that pushed north of Kaunas and as far as the Šventoji River. One of Kęstutis's sons, Butautas, deserted the Lithuanians in 1365 with the hope of ousting Algirdas and led the crusaders toward the capital, setting Kernavė and Maišiagala castles on fire. By that time the counteroffensives of Algirdas and Kęstutis trudged on and made it glaringly obvious that the crusader coalition now appeared invigorated compared to the decades immediately preceding.

Meanwhile, the 1367 signing of a trade agreement with the Order of Livonia that occurred following a Crusader attack on Trakai, located 22 km west of Vilnius, did not stop hostilities, which continued on a smaller scale in the years to come. Some time later, in February 1370, conditions occurred for a major battle to break out. Algirdas and Kęstutis gathered contingents from all over Lithuania, some loyal Rus' feudal lords present in Sambia and Tatars hostile to the monastic state. In contrast, landmarschall von Kniprode summoned units from various locations and immediately directed them to the main army. Busy plundering the environs of Rudau (north of Königsberg), Kęstutis became aware at one point of the approach of a large Crusader force and immediately vanished. Instead, his brother Algirdas moved precipitously to an elevated position, trusting in the opportunity to better defend himself. The ensuing battle of Rudau proved to be among the bloodiest of the crusade and took on the characteristics of a pitched battle. It was not until nightfall, after a full day of fighting, that calm returned and, if one takes into account the tally of casualties (nearly 1,000 Baltics against 26 Knights and 100 or 200 Christians), one can see how clear-cut the Teutonic victory was. Algirdas had no trouble escaping when the situation took a turn for the worst, but he never again directed large armies into Prussia, and the Crusaders lived a peaceful time along the border areas.

The appeal made in 1373 by Pope Gregory XI to Algirdas and Kęstutis to convert fell on deaf ears. This choice isolated Lithuania even further in Europe, whose military power was reduced throughout the 1370s. Moreover, while the knightly orders could regularly rely on the influx of foreign recruits in planning their campaigns, the Lithuanians had to contend with the low number of soldiers at their disposal, as can be deduced from the fact that between 1373 and 1377 Kęstutis, Algirdas and his sons organized fewer than seven expeditions to the Crusader states, none of which had a far-reaching reach. Kęstutis had to worry about defending Trakai, his key urban center, on several occasions in the 1370s (specifically 1374, 1376 and 1377). According to some scholars, in the third quarter of the 14th century he moved his capital from Old Trakai (Senieji Trakai) to New Trakai.

When the Crusaders defeated the Lithuanians at the Battle of Strėva in 1348, Algirdas and Kęstutis felt the need to rely on greater stability in the more marginal regions of the Grand Duchy. To avoid further conflict with the Teutonic Order and focus on the southern borders, Kęstutis chose to adopt a stalling strategy. As early as 1349, floundering about his desire to convert to Catholicism, he entered into negotiations with Pope Clement VI and was promised royal crowns for himself and his sons. Algirdas deliberately remained on the sidelines during these negotiations. Being selected as an intermediary was the Polish king Casimir III, but the latter unpredictably decided to attack Volinia and Brėst in October 1349, ruining Kęstutis's imagined time dilation plan. During the Galicia-Volinia wars, with Poland and Lithuania both having intervened and competing for possession of Volinia, King Louis I of Hungary offered a peace agreement to Kęstutis on August 15, 1351, under which the Lithuanian was to accept Christianity and provide military support to the kingdom of Hungary in exchange for the royal crown. In the Magyar camp, Kęstutis pretended to accept the pact by performing a pagan ritual in order to convince the other side. In reality, Kęstutis had no intention of honoring the agreement and fled three days later with his followers from the Hungarian camp, but Louis did not pursue him and let him leave. Historians consider this episode a "bloodless diplomatic victory" accomplished by Kęstutis.

A long dispute affected the Grand Duchy with reference to Galicia and Volynia. In 1349, Lviv and Galicia came under the control of Casimir III's Poland. In 1350, Algirdas reconquered Volinia, taking it from Poland by placing his brother Liubartas back in command, but the region remained disputed all the same. In 1358, the Lithuanian grand duke trusted that he could preserve peace with Poland by arranging the marriage of his daughter Kenna to a grandson of Casimir III, Casimir IV of Pomerania. The issue could not be said to be settled, however, as a clear division of Polish and Lithuanian spheres of influence over Volynia had not yet been well defined. In 1366, Poland conducted a couple of successful campaigns in Volinia, causing the breakdown of bilateral diplomatic relations. Although Algirdas was well aware of the need to provide support to Liubartas in order to regain what he had lost, in the end he preferred to come to the conclusion of a treaty with the other party, the terms of which were agreed upon by a Baltic delegation, representing the interests of Algirdas, Kęstutis, and Liubartas, and a Polish one, which consisted of Casimir's delegates and the aristocrats of the region who supported him. From that historical moment, Algirdas was no longer involved in the affairs of Volinia, which Kęstutis was exclusively concerned with. The Lithuanians tried to take advantage of the first available opportunity to regain what they had lost and struck the region both in 1367, when King Casimir III died, and then in 1370, managing to regain a fair portion of territory.

By the mid-1370s Lithuania's political clout waned, aided by the loss of some towns that had passed into the orbit of Muscovy and the resumption of hostilities with the Crusaders. More positive proved to be the situation on the southwestern front, when in 1376 Liubartas and Kęstutis decided to resume hostilities on the western front with Poland. In that case the attack penetrated into the heart of the enemy kingdom, succeeding in striking Sandomierz, for example, and ended with the capture of 23,000 prisoners. The Polish counteroffensive of the following year ceased thanks to the signing of a truce, under the terms of which Lithuanian possession over Volinia was, however, preserved at great cost, considering how exhausted the troops were after all these wars and, above all, taking into account the need to spread the few troops available to garrison such an incredibly vast domain even more thinly. These difficulties were taken advantage of by the Magyar King Louis I, who from 1367 administered both Poland and Hungary, which had entered into a personal union. Before 1382, the year of Kęstutis and Louis's death, the latter had succeeded in recapturing every town in which the Lithuanians had resettled in the 1370s.

Although the affairs of the eastern zone were mainly managed by Algirdas, Kęstutis nevertheless participated in various military operations to help his brother when asked. One important battle in which Kęstutis took part was the Battle of the Blue Waters, fought near the Southern Bug in 1362 (or 1363) against the Golden Horde. Because his army was routed, the Tatar khan was forced to migrate further south, with his authority extending into the Crimean Peninsula and a little further north by 1363, having lost control of Podolia and other Rus' principalities. The main enemy that kept Algirdas busy during his grand duchy, however, was Muscovy, with whom Lithuania was trying to compete for supremacy in Eastern Europe. The main military operation involving the two states was the Lithuanian-Moscow War of 1368-1372, which can be summarized in a nutshell as a series of three expeditions carried out by Algirdas in 1368, 1370, and 1372, respectively, including with the presence of Kęstutis, that even worried the city of Moscow. However, the campaigns proved unsuccessful, and Lithuania lost influence a few years after 1372 over cities that had previously been in its orbit, including Tver' and Smolensk. According to Zigmantas Kiaupa and Zenonas Norkus, these campaigns showed that the possibility of quickly infiltrating Moscow's lands, whose defenders were only ill-prepared during the first expedition in 1368, had now historically vanished. The defeats can also be explained by taking into account the fact that Algirdas overestimated the power of the Grand Duchy, which proved incapable of fighting on multiple fronts and repelling both the Teutonic threat to the west and the Russian threat.

Jogaila in power (1377-1381)

In February 1377, the Lithuanians had to withstand a Teutonic Order siege carried out against Vilnius, which ended with the foreign invaders being repelled. This was the last military operation in which Algirdas would participate as grand duke, as a few months later, in May 1377, he died. He was succeeded in power by Jogaila, who was, yes, the eldest son but of Algirdas' second wife, Uliana of Tver', a decision that was all in all accepted by Kęstutis, now in his old age. Kęstutis preserved the same titles and office of deputy grand duke that he had held when Algirdas was alive. From the moment he took office, Jogaila had to worry about repelling the incursions of the Teutonic armies, which continued intensively from 1377 to 1379. Anti-Christian rhetoric was carried on with great vigor by Kęstutis, while Jogaila took a more cautious and measured attitude and even made cooperation agreements with both the Teutonic Order and the Order of Livonia. This new trend ushered in by Algirdas' son, in stark contrast to the policies of his father and uncle Kęstutis, should not be considered for Zigmantas Kiaupa, but rather the fruit of "a generational conflict" and a sign that a new historical season was about to begin for Lithuania a few years from now. For Claudio Carpini, by then the religious aspect revolving around the Lithuanian crusade had lost much of the centrality of the past century. With the Treaty of Dovydiškės, made in great secrecy in 1380 with the knights of the Order, Jogaila sealed in writing his commitment not to support Kęstutis militarily in the event of a crusader attack.

At first Jogaila, like his father, preferred to focus on the eastern affairs of the Grand Duchy, hoping to form a large anti-Moscow coalition. Thus it is explained why he provided support to the Tatars when they besieged Moscow, but it is not clear what reasons prevented him from providing support to the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, a clash considered to have great symbolic value in Russian history. Meanwhile, the Teutonic Knights attacked the lands of the Duchy of Trakai and Samogizia; although they succeeded in defending the two possessions, Kęstutis suffered various losses and complained about the complete absence of support from Jogaila. For his part, the grand duke pointed out that by then his elderly uncle was incapable of managing military operations and was rather concerned with promoting the rise of his cousin and son of Kęstutis Vitoldo, with whom he had a very good relationship. When shortly afterwards he learned of the Treaty of Dovydiškės, of whose signing he was totally unaware, Kęstutis was persuaded to exauthorize his nephew.

Grand Duke of Lithuania (1381-1382)

To manage eastern affairs, Jogaila had delegated as his regent in Vilnius his brother Skirgaila, whom he trusted completely. When the latter left for Polack to suppress an uprising sparked by its inhabitants, Kęstutis decided to take advantage of it and entered the Lithuanian capital with his troops, elevating himself to the role of grand duke. While Jogaila was relegated to Krėva and Vicebsk and had to give up all his titles in exchange for freedom, Kęstutis inaugurated a constant state of warfare to counter his lifelong enemies, the Crusaders, while bleeding Lithuania's treasury and the economy of its inhabitants dry. According to Robert Frost, Kęstutis speculated that his nephew would behave like Jaunutis in 1347, who eventually gave up his aspirations for power for good. Eager to avert the prolongation of the struggles, various Lithuanians urged Jogaila to curb the grand duke's policies, a circumstance that prompted the young man to ally himself with his brothers Skirgaila and Kaributas and openly attack him. In the aftermath of hochmeister von Kniprode's death in 1382, Kęstutis ordered his last raid, through which he reached Tapiau, 40 km east of Königsberg. The conditions for a revenge to take place were ensured by Jogaila himself, to whom the Teutonic Order guaranteed its help in exchange for territorial concessions in Samogitia and for, this reason, attacked Trakai and later pushed on toward the latter. The residents of the Lithuanian capital, stirred up by the merchant Hanul of Riga, allowed Jogaila's armies to sneak into the town. Wanting to avert the risk of a major civil war, talks were initiated between Jogaila and Kęstutis, who was assisted in the operations by his son Vitoldo. However, during the negotiations Kęstutis and Vitoldo were taken prisoners and relegated to Krėva Castle, where Kęstutis died at over eighty years of age in August 1382 and Jogaila returned to power.

It is not known whether the elderly grand duke's death was due to natural causes, because he committed suicide, or because he was killed by an assassin on behalf of his nephew. A lavish pagan funeral was arranged for him, the last in Lithuanian history, and his body was burned along with his horses and weapons in Vilnius. Kęstutis' supporters were persecuted, imprisoned or, in the worst case, killed. Vitoldo managed to escape from Krėva Castle by disguising himself in women's clothing, continuing the Lithuanian civil war that had broken out in 1381 and ended only in 1384.

In 1345, Kęstutis celebrated his marriage to Birutė, a pagan priestess devoted to the worship of the god Perkūnas who was famous for her renowned beauty. However, since the obligation of chastity applied to priestesses, the duke of Trakai decided to kidnap her and then ask for her hand in marriage. The story has fascinated the Lithuanian public imagination in the following centuries, so much so that the story was reinterpreted by portraying Kęstutis as a man in love, tormented by love and who repeatedly courted the priestess until Birutė felt her own desire. However, the number of Kęstutis' consorts remains uncertain. In this regard, historian Stephen Christopher Rowell stated:

The following is a list showing Kęstutis' children:

In terms of character and personal habits, there were profound differences between Kęstutis and Algirdas, with the former leading a less morose life than the latter. Nevertheless, the two brothers ended up complementing each other and were greatly admired in Lithuania. Kęstutis was particularly appreciated for his military genius, his sincerity, his defense of pagan traditions, and his spirit of sacrifice. Abroad, particularly in Western Europe, he was recognized for his humanity and behavior in keeping with chivalric ideals.

The Grand Duchy experienced a great phase of development during the duumvirate of Algirdas and Kęstutis. Two factors are believed to have contributed to the path of ascent, namely the extraordinary political sagacity of Algirdas and the lifelong devotion of his brother Kęstutis. The expansion of Lithuania's borders was a further legacy of the couple, considering that in 1377 the Grand Duchy safely measured at least 640,000 km², an area larger than that of modern Ukraine and Somalia. With reference to demographics, the scholar Algirdas Budreckis estimated an increase in inhabitants from 700,000 in 1341 to 1,400,000 in 1377, the year of Grand Duke Algirdas's death; while in 1341 there were 370,000 Lithuanians (53% of the total population), by the time of Algirdas's death the number had risen to 420,000 (30% of the total population, a percentage decline that is explained by expansions to lands not inhabited by Lithuanians).

Algirdas' demise ended the long period of unchallenged infighting, considering that the Jogaila and Kęstutis clashes jeopardized the stability painstakingly achieved in the years before. The battles were part of a generational struggle that concluded a decidedly intense historical chapter for Lithuania, that of more than 150 years of defending paganism against the Christian world. The strategy of merely continuing to fight the Crusaders as its ancestors had done was now the result of a design that appeared anachronistic. Even the Lithuanian nobility, particularly sensitive on the religious issue, was unwittingly allowing itself to be "infected" by the Western model, absorbing elements such as knightly combat tactics or the adoption of identifying banners and symbols.

Both Vitoldo and Jogaila (who assumed the crown of Poland in 1386 under the name Ladislaus II Jagellon), heirs to the bequest handed over by their respective parents, converted to Catholicism and were key players in the historical events that occurred in Lithuania and Poland between the 14th and 15th centuries.

Inevitably, a large portion of Kęstutis's cultural-historical legacy endures prominently in his homeland. Kęstutis is a popular male name in Lithuania. Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis dedicated a symphonic overture to the grand duke in 1902. Petras Tarasenka, a Lithuanian historian and archaeologist wrote a short story titled Pabėgimas (The Escape) in 1957, describing the frantic stages of Kęstutis's escape from imprisonment by the Teutonic Order in Marienburg Castle. A monument to Kęstutis was erected in Prienai, southern Lithuania, in 1937 and then restored in 1990. The "Grand Duke Kęstutis Motorized Infantry Battalion" of the Lithuanian land military forces takes its cue precisely from the figure of the medieval ruler. One of the military districts in which Lithuanian partisans operated during the 1944 Soviet reoccupation of the Baltic states was named in honor of the noble military district of Kęstutis.

Sources

1. Kęstutis
2. Kęstutis
3. ^ «Narimantas viene indicato come fratellastro di Algirdas e di Kestutis dalla Jüngere Hochmeisterchronik e la rivalità tra i due suggerisce che essi fossero figli di madri diverse. Si tratta tuttavia di una fonte dalla dubbia affidabilità, in quanto molto tarda» e risalente alla fine del XV secolo: Rowell, p. 88.
4. ^ Per Rowell, Norkus e Carpini Algirdas, per Christiansen Kęstutis.
5. ^ Si conoscono pochissime informazioni sulla vita di Kenna. Nelle fonti storiche è menzionata due volte, di cui una come figlia di Algirdas, opinione con cui concorda la maggior parte della storiografia, mentre l'altro riferimento, contenuto nella cronaca di Giovanni di Czarnkow, riferisce che la bambina fosse figlia di Kęstutis: (PL) Jan Tęgowski, Pierwsze pokolenia Giedyminowiczów, Poznań e Breslavia, 1999, pp. 96-97.
6. Генрих Мазовецкий (1368/1370 — 1392/1393) был сыном Земовита III Мазовецкого и младшим братом своего свояка Януша Мазовецкого (ок. 1346 — 1429).
7. ^ a b "Kęstutis | duke of Lithuania". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 25 June 2021.
8. ^ Zinkevičius, Zigmas (2007). Senosios Lietuvos valstybės vardynas. Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing Institute. p. 51. ISBN 978-5-420-01606-0.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Kiaupa, Zigmantas; Jūratė Kiaupienė; Albinas Kuncevičius (2000) [1995]. The History of Lithuania Before 1795 (English ed.). Vilnius: Lithuanian Institute of History. pp. 124–126. ISBN 9986-810-13-2.
10. Zinkevičius, Zigmas (2007). Senosios Lietuvos valstybės vardynas. Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing Institute. p. 51. ISBN 5420016060.