The coat of arms of Lithuania features an armoured knight on horseback, wielding a sword and carrying a shield with a Jagiellonian cross. This emblem is known in Lithuanian as Vytis (). Historically, the emblem has also been known as Pogoń in Polish and Пагоня (Pahonia) in Belarusian.
The mounted rider first appeared on the seals of Lithuanian rulers in the late 14th century. Initially used as a personal and dynastic emblem, it became established as the coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the reign of Grand Duke Vytautas the Great in the early 15th century. It remained the principal emblem of the Grand Duchy until 1795 and was displayed alongside the Polish White Eagle in the arms of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The emblem was adopted by the restored Republic of Lithuania in 1918 and suppressed following the Soviet occupation in 1940. It was restored in 1990, and the present design, created by Arvydas Každailis, was approved on 4 September 1991. Article 15 of the Constitution of Lithuania states that "the Coat of Arms of the State shall be a white Vytis on a red field".
Names and etymology In early heraldry, a knight on horseback is usually depicted as ready to defend himself and is not yet called Vytis. It is unknown for certain what Lithuania's coat of arms was initially called.Rimša, Edmundas (2005), p.121
Lithuanian language The origins of the Lithuanian proper noun Vytis remain uncertain. Simonas Daukantas first used vytis for the knight, rather than the coat of arms, in his 1846 work Budą Senowęs Lietuwiû kalneniu ir Żemaitiû. The term has been interpreted either as a Lithuanian equivalent of Polish Pogoń, as a noun derived from vyti ("to chase"), or, less plausibly, as a borrowing from East Slavic vityaz ("knight"). Vityas is ultimately derived from Old High German Witing.
The first theory, proposed by linguist Pranas Skardžius in 1937, was challenged by Leszek Bednarczuk, as pogoń does not have a recorded meaning of a "chasing knight." Lithuanian language features personal names with the root -vyt-, such as Vytenis, and the noun vytis follows a morphological pattern typical for verb-derived nounsJonas Palionis. Kieno sukurtas Lietuvos herbas (Vytis). Literatūra ir menas, 2002 According to Bednarczuk, Old Lithuanian had a word vỹtis (genitive vỹčio), meaning "run, chase, pursuit, or general levy," which, at the time the coat of arms was adopted by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was translated into Polish and Ruthenian. Daukantas accurately reconstructed the word's form from the verb výti, but misinterpreted its meaning, an error followed by later authors.
In the 17th century, in his Polish–Latin–Lithuanian dictionary, Konstantinas Sirvydas translated the Polish word Pogonia—in the sense of a person doing the chasing—into Lithuanian as Waykitoias, and in the sense of the act of chasing as Waykimas. In modern Lithuanian orthography, Waykimas is rendered as Vaikymas, and today it is sometimes proposed as the earliest known Lithuanian-language name for the coat of arms of Lithuania. In the multilingual poetry collection Universitas lingvarum magno Palaemonii orbis et urbis hospiti, published by Vilnius University in 1729, the Lithuanian coat of arms is referred to in Lithuanian as the "Horse of Palemon" (Zyrge Palemona). was also used into the 19th century, together with another Lithuanian name – .
In 1884, Mikalojus Akelaitis referred to the coat of arms of Lithuania itself as Vytis in the Aušra newspaper.Šiandien visiem gerai žinomą vyčio terminą XIXa. viduryje, tiesa, ne herbui, bet raiteliui (riteriui) apibūdinti pirmasis panaudojo Simonas Daukantas, o herbui – 1884m. "Aušroje" jį pabandė pritaikyti Mikalojus Akelaitis The name quickly gained popularity and was eventually adopted as the official term in the independent Republic of Lithuania. Originally used in the first person singular dative case as Vytimi, by the 1930s the form Vyčiu had become standard in the same grammatical case.
Slavic languages The words pogoń and pogonia have been attested in Polish since the 14th century, originally meaning "pursuit" or the legal obligation to chase a fleeing opponent.Słownik Staropolski, Wrocław 1970–1973, p. 295. It was not until the 16th century that the term began to be used to describe an armed horseman.
The word entered heraldic usage in 1434, when King Władysław II granted a coat of arms bearing the name Pogonya to Mikołaj, the mayor of Lelów. The design depicted a hand wielding a sword emerging from a cloud. Given its resemblance to the Lithuanian royal coat of arms, it is possible that this was an abatement—a simplified or modified version—of the ruler's own arms.
The term pogonia to refer specifically to the Lithuanian coat of arms first appeared in Marcin Bielski's chronicle, published in 1551. However, Bielski made an error: while describing the Lithuanian arms, he actually referred to a Polish noble coat of arms, writing, "From this custom the Lithuanian principality uses Pogonia as its coat of arms, that is, an armed hand bearing a bare sword.""Z tego obyczaju litewskie księstwo za herb Pogoniey używa, to jest ręka zbroyna goły miecz podawa". The term gradually became established with the spread of the Polish language and culture. is also found in Prince Roman Sanguszko's documents from 1558 and 1564.
The emblem was described a century earlier. In a document issued by Supreme Duke Władysław III, confirming the rights of the Czartoryski family, descendants of Karijotas, to use their ducal seal (; ). Similar descriptions are found in Jan Długosz's or the early 16th-century Bychowiec Chronicle. Another popular Polish term was .
The name was first recorded legally in the Third Statute of Lithuania in 1588.
History
Early Lithuanian emblems The 16th-century Lithuanian Chronicles attributed the mounted knight emblem to the legendary Grand Duke Narimantas, describing an armed rider on a white horse against a red field and associating the image with the name "погоня" (pohonia). A slightly later edition of the chronicle, so-called Bychowiec Chronicle, tells a similar story, without mentioning coat of arms name: "when Narimantas took the throne of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, he handed his Centaur coat of arms to his brothers and made a coat of arms of a rider with a sword for himself. This coat of arms indicates a mature ruler capable of defending his homeland with a sword". This legendary account was repeated by later chroniclers and heraldists, including Augustinus Rotundus, Maciej Stryjkowski, and Bartosz Paprocki.However, there is no historical or archaeological evidence to support this legend. The symbols used by the earliest rulers of Lithuania remain unknown. One of the few relics that have survived to our times is the seal of Mindaugas, depitcing him as crowned ruler sitting on a throne with a scepter and orb in his hands. However the authenticity of a partially survived seal, attached to the act of 1255, according to which Selonia was transferred to the Livonian Order, is disputed.
Symbols used by Mindaugas's successors have not survived, if they ever existed. The appearance of Gediminas' seal is known from a description made by a notary who copied three of the letters sent by Gediminas to recipients in Saxony in 1323. According to the notary's transcript, the oval seal of Gediminas had a twelve-sided border, at the middle of the edging was an image of a man with long hairs, who sat on a throne and held a crown (or a wreath) in his right hand and a sceptre in his left hand, moreover, a cross was engraved around the man along with a Gediminas' title in Latin.Late 14th-century Lithuanian coinage developed following the Christianization of Lithuania in 1387, when Jogaila established systematic minting in Vilnius. Successive issues, reflecting the emergence of a distinct Lithuanian coinage, featured various figures. There were: the Lion and Eagle type (1387), the Regina type (c. 1388–1390), a Lion and the Double Cross type (c. 1390–1392), a Horseman and the Double Cross type (c. 1392–1394/95), and finally the Double Cross and a Spearhead type (from c. 1395). Separate coinage was also issued by the dukes of Trakai: Skirgaila minted coins bearing a Lion and Star from c. 1388, while Vytautas subsequently issued the so-called Pečat' type (featuring a Spear with a Cross and a Cyrillic circumscription Pečat' meaning "seal"), probably at Kaunas, until gaining influence over the grand-ducal mint around 1394–1395. These issues formed part of a broader transition from the earlier regional coinages of Ruthenian Gediminid princes towards a more centralized Lithuanian monetary system.The Columns of Gediminas are one of the earliest surviving Lithuanian heraldic symbols, are first securely attested as the emblem of Vytautas the Great in 1397 and were subsequently used by the Gediminids, becoming a dynastic symbol under Casimir IV Jagiellon. Usually depicted in gold on a red field, the Columns were widely used in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on coins, banners, seals, military equipment, church objects, and other insignia, often alongside the mounted knight. After the extinction of the male Jagiellonian line in 1572, they remained in use as a secondary emblem of the Grand Duchy.
Knight on horseback
The Lithuanian arms developed from equestrian images on rulers' seals. Algirdas was probably the first ruler to use a seal with a depiction of himself on horseback. The seal, which was attached to the Polish–Lithuanian treaty of 1366, wasn't preserved, and we know its appearance only thanks to historian Tadeusz Czacki who claimed to have seen the seal. The oldest preserved such seal is Jogaila's seal used between 1377 and 1380, when he became Grand Duke of Lithuania. Duke of Kernavė Vygantas' seal of 1388 is the earliest surviving example in which the mounted knight appears on a heraldic shield. Jogaila and other Algirdas sons: Skirgaila, Lengvenis, Kaributas, Vygantas, and Švitrigaila all were using seals with a horseman-type images. The horseman was chosen due to at the time flourishing culture of knighthood in Europe. At first, the charging knight was depicted riding to left or right, and holding a lance instead of the sword: two seals of Lengvenis of 1385 and of 1388 exhibit this change. Initially Kęstutis and his son Vytautas were depicted on their seals as standing warriors. Only later Vytautas adopted, like other Lithuanian dukes, the image of a riding knight.
The establishment of the sword in the heraldry of the Lithuanian rulers is related to the ideological changes of the ruling Gediminids dynasty. The lance was more often exhibited on the seals of Skirgaila and Kaributas. In 1386, after Jogaila was crowned as King of Poland, a new heraldic seal was made for him, with four coat of arms: white eagle, representing Kingdom of Poland, knight on a horse, with lance in hand and a Double Cross on his shield, representing the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and coat of arms Kalisz land and Kuyavia. It was the first time that a double cross was depicted on the Lithuanian horseman's shield. The Double Cross was adopted by Jogaila after his baptism as Władysław and marriage with a queen Jadwiga of Poland in 1386, daughter of Louis I of Hungary, therefore the Double Cross was most likely taken over from the Kingdom of Hungary where it spread in the 12th century from the Byzantine Empire. It is also possible that the new coat of arms was made in imitation of the Holy Cross relics from the sanctuary of Łysa Góra, and with this gesture the newly crowned king emphasised his sincere faith. The symbolism of the Double Cross was connected with this event's significance for both Jogaila and the entire land. A similar cross in Western heraldry is called the patriarchal Cross of Lorraine, and it is used by archbishops while the cross itself symbolizes baptism.
Official coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania