Volunt esse liberi et dominum suum Swidergal habere regem et habere jus imperiale: Švitrigaila’s accession to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania after Vytautas’ death in 1430 and his dethronement in 1432

ENAfter the death of Grand Duke Alexander Vytautas of Lithuania on 27 October 1430, the new Grand Duke became his cousin Boleslaus Švitrigaila. He soon came into open and acute conflict with the Kingdom of Poland, although it was reigned by his brother, King Władysław Jagiełło, who had just reconciled with Vytautas after his failed attempt to create the Kingdom of Lithuania. The main issues of the conflict were the prospects of the union with Poland and the fate of the borderlands Podolia and Volhynia. In 1432, after two years of hostlities and unproductive negotiations with Poland, Švitrigaila was unexpectedly overthrown by a group of nobles and fled to Polotsk, commencing a war against the new Grand Duke Žygimantas Kęstutaitis which lasted till 1438. The events in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 1430s have been subject to much discussion in scholarly research. In this paper, I concentrate on the developments preceding the dynastic war, which are no less controversial than the war itself. Two questions form the topic of the paper. In the first part, I focus on Švitrigaila’s accession to the Lithuanian grand-ducal throne in 1430, and in the second part I discuss his dethronement in 1432 and its background. The discussion is largely based on new evidence – hitherto unpublished letters about the developments in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania after Vytautas’ death. Their commented publication is provided in the appendix.