Samogitians in the context of "Balts"

The Balts or Baltic peoples (Lithuanian: baltai, Latvian: balti) are a group of peoples inhabiting the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea who speak Baltic languages. Among the Baltic peoples are modern-day Lithuanians (including Samogitians) and Latvians (including Latgalians) — all East Balts — as well as the Old Prussians, Curonians, Sudovians, Skalvians, Yotvingians and Galindians — the Western Balts — whose languages and cultures are now extinct, but made a large influence on the living branches, especially on literary Lithuanian language.

The Balts are descended from a group of Proto-Indo-European tribes who settled the area between the lower Vistula and southeast shore of the Baltic Sea and upper Daugava and Dnieper rivers, and which over time became differentiated into West and East Balts. In the fifth century CE, parts of the eastern Baltic coast began to be settled by the ancestors of the Western Balts, whereas the East Balts lived in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. In the first millennium CE, large migrations of the Balts occurred. By the 13th and 14th centuries, the East Balts shrank to the general area that the present-day Balts and Belarusians inhabit.

The Prussian Crusade was a series of 13th-century campaigns of Roman Catholic crusaders, primarily led by the Teutonic Knights, to Christianize under duress the pagan Old Prussians. Invited after earlier unsuccessful expeditions against the Prussians by Christian Polish princes, the Teutonic Knights began campaigning against the Prussians, Lithuanians and Samogitians in 1230. By the end of the century, having quelled several Prussian uprisings, the Knights had established control over Prussia and administered the conquered Prussians through their monastic state, eventually erasing the Prussian language, culture and pre-Christian religion by a combination of physical and ideological force. Some Prussians took refuge in neighboring Lithuania.

The Lithuanian nobility (Lithuanian: bajorija) or szlachta of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės šlėkta, Polish: szlachta Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego) was historically a legally privileged hereditary elite class in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth (including during period of foreign rule 1795–1918) consisting of Lithuanians from Lithuania Proper; Samogitians from Duchy of Samogitia; following Lithuania's eastward expansion into what is now Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, many ethnically Ruthenian noble families (boyars); and, later on, predominantly Baltic German families from the Duchy of Livonia and Inflanty Voivodeship.

Initially, the privileged social group of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was called boyars. Boyars became part of the szlachta (nobility) during the Union of Horodło on October 2, 1413, initiating nobility in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania following the Western European model (with a hereditary system of heraldic identification), as well as an increase in the position of the Greater Lithuanian nobility. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania adopted Polish institutions of castellans and voivodes, and 47 selected boyars of Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the Catholic faith were adopted by Polish noble families and received Polish coats of arms.

Bronisław Piotr Piłsudski (Polish: [brɔˈɲiswaf piwˈsut͡skʲi]; 2 November 1866 – 17 May 1918) was a Polish ethnologist who researched the Ainu people after he was exiled by Tsar Alexander III of Russia to the Far East.

Piłsudski considered himself Polish, Lithuanian, and Samogitian. Thus some sources identify him as Polish, others as Lithuanian.

Semigallians (Latvian: Zemgaļi; Lithuanian: Žiemgaliai; also Zemgalians, Semigalls or Semigalians) were the Baltic tribe that lived in the south central part of contemporary Latvia and northern Lithuania. They are noted for their long resistance (1219–1290) against the German crusaders and Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades.Semigallians had close linguistic and cultural ties with Samogitians.