Ladislas II Jagellon, King of Poland

LADISLAS II JAGELLON, King of Poland. - B. in 1350, grand duke of Lithuania from 1377. The continuous struggles against the Teutonic Knights and against his son Vytautas, who relied on the latter, induced him to accept the invitation of the Polish nobility that, by marrying Jadwiga of Anjou, queen of Poland, he unite his own fortunes and those of his people with those of Poland. By the act of Krewo of 1385, L. undertook to receive Baptism together with all his people and to bring about the fusion of the two States (the one that would later be called the Unja Jagellońska). L. was baptized in Kraków in 1386, urged the Lithuanians to convert, and in 1387 was able to found the first bishopric in Vilnius.

However, the complete fusion of the two peoples was not achieved, since the Lithuanians continued to maintain their own individuality and L., besides being king of Poland, always remained dux supremus Lithuaniae. From that time on, the process of spontaneous assimilation of the Lithuanian nobility began on the Polish side, admitted to sit in the Diet on an equal footing with the Polish zlachta. Thanks to the union of Krewo, Poland under L. Jagiellon, besides continuing victoriously the struggle against the Teutonic Knights, defeated in a decisive battle at Grünwald on 15 July 1410 (after which the Order was in practice no longer able to rise again), gained breathing space and the role of a great power, since it made its own those objectives of expansion or of simple influence toward the East, Kiev and the Black Sea that had belonged to Grand Lithuania. Thus the eastern horizons opened up for the Polish people as compensation and counterweight to the growing pressure and work of erosion carried out in the west by Germanism. Always opposed to the Hussite movement, L. died at Gródek (Lviv) on 31 May 1434.

Angelo Tamborra