Литовский герб: Витис – история и символика

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The coat of arms of Lithuania is a mounted armoured knight holding a sword and shield, known as Vytis Since the early 15th century, it has been Lithuania's official coat of arms and is one of the oldest European coats of arms. It is also known by other names in various languages, such as Waykimas, Pagaunė in the Lithuanian language or as Pogonia, Pogoń, Пагоня (romanized: Pahonia) in the Polish, and Belarusian languages. Vytis is translatable as Chase, Pursuer, Knight or Horseman, similar to the Slavic vityaz (Old East Slavic for brave, valiant warrior). Historically – raitas senovės karžygys (mounted epic hero of old) or in heraldry – raitas valdovas (mounted sovereign). The once powerful and vast Lithuanian state, first as Duchy, then Kingdom, and finally Grand Duchy was created by the initially pagan Lithuanians, in reaction to pressures from the Teutonic Order and Swordbrothers which conquered modern day Estonia and Latvia, forcibly converting them to Christianity. The Lithuanians are the only Balts that created a state before the modern era. Moreover, the pressure stimulated Lithuanians to expand their lands eastward into territory of Ruthenian Orthodox in the Dnieper's upper basin and that of the Eurasian nomads in the Eurasian Steppe between lower Dnieper and Dniester, conquering present day Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Russian lands in the process. This expansive Lithuania was conveyed in the coat of arms of Lithuania, the galloping horseman. The usage of the coat of arms of Lithuania spread even further throughout the country as the Third Statute of Lithuania (adopted in 1588) required to use it on each county's seal. Article 15 of the Constitution of Lithuania, approved by national referendum in 1992, stipulates, "The Coat of Arms of the State shall be a white Vytis on a red field".

The origins of the Lithuanian proper noun Vytis are also unclear. At the dawn of the Lithuanian National Revival, Simonas Daukantas employed the term vytis, referring not to the Lithuanian coat of arms, but to the knight, for the first time in his historical piece Budą Senowęs Lietuwiû kalneniu ir Żemaitiû, published in 1846. According to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, vitez is derived from the Old High German word Witing. The first presumption, raised by the linguist Pranas Skardžius in 1937, is challenged by some, as Pogoń does not mean "chasing (knight)". In support of the second proposal, the Lithuanian language has words with the stem vyt in personal names like Vytenis; furthermore, vytis has a structure common to words derived from verbs. According to professor Leszek Bednarczuk, there existed a derivative word vỹtis, vỹčio in the Old Lithuanian language, which translates to English as pursuit (from persekiojimas), chase (from vijimasis). mentions that after beginning to rule the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 13th century, he came up with a seal with an armored horseman and a sword raised above his head (in the Codex's original Old Church Slavonic it is written that Vytenis named it Pogonia mentions a place referred to as Wythes Hof. This is translatable to Vytenis' Court in German. In 1629 Konstantinas Sirvydas used a toponym Vutec Kalnsь on the basis of a document from Kęsčiai [lt], Karšuvos valsčius [lt] and associated it with personal names Vygailas, Vytenis, Vytautas. In the 17th century in his Polish Latin Lithuanian dictionary Konstantinas Sirvydas translated the Polish word Pogonia in the sense of the person doing the chasing into Lithuanian as Waykitoias, and in the sense of the act of chasing as Waykimas. Today Waykimas (Vaikymas in the modern Lithuanian orthography) is considered to be the earliest known Lithuanian language name for the coat of arms of Lithuania. Waykimas was also used into the 19th century, This name became popular and eventually became official in the independent Republic of Lithuania. Originally called Vytimi in 1st person Sg. Dat., by the 1930s Vytis came to be called Vyčiu in 1st person Sg. Dat. It was not until the 16th century that the use of the word appeared to describe an armed horseman. The word came into heraldic use in 1434, when King Władysław II granted a coat of arms with this name (Pogonya) to Mikołaj, the mayor of Lelów. The coat of arms depicted a hand wielding a sword emerging from a cloud. The resemblance to the Lithuanian coat of arms of the king is obvious, so it is possible that it was an abatement of the ruler's coat of arms. The word pogonia to describe the Lithuanian coat of arms in the Polish language for the first time appears in Marcin Bielski's chronicle, published in 1551. However, Bielski makes a mistake, and speaking about the Lithuanian coat of arms he describes Polish noble coat of arms: "From this custom Lithuanian principality uses Pogonia as its coat of arms, that is an armed hand passes a bare sword". The term gradually became established with the spread of the Polish language and culture. Pogonia is also found in Prince Roman Sanguszko's documents from 1558 and 1564. The emblem was described a century earlier, in a document of Supreme Duke Władysław III Jagiellon from 1442 in which he confirmed the rights of the Czartoryski, descendants of Karijotas, to use the armed horseman (; ), as well as in Jan Długosz's Annales seu cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae [pl] or the early 16th century Bychowiec Chronicle. Another popular Polish term was pogończyk. The Lithuanian Statutes were used not only in Lithuania, but also in White Ruthenia and Little Russia following the Partitions in 1795, into the 19th century.

The leader of neo pagan movement Romuva, Lithuanian ethnologist and folklorist Jonas Trinkūnas suggested that the Lithuanian horseman depicts Perkūnas, considered as the god of the Lithuanian soldiers, thunder, lightning, storms, and rain in Lithuanian mythology. It is believed that the Vytis may represent Perkūnas as supreme god or Kovas who was also a war god and has been depicted as a horseman since ancient times. Very early on, Perkūnas was imagined as a horseman and archeological findings testify that Lithuanians had amulets with horsemen already in the 10th–11th centuries, moreover, Lithuanians were previously buried with their horses who were sacrificed during pagan rituals, and prior to that it is likely that these horses carried the deceased to the burial sites. One of the pendants made from brass and symbolizing a horseman was found in tumulus in the Plungė District Municipality, dating to the 11th–12th centuries. Lithuanian mythologists believe that the bright rider on the white horse symbolizes the ghost of the ancestral warrior, reminiscent of core values and goals, giving strength and courage. Gintaras Beresnevičius also points out that a white horse had a sacral meaning to Balts. These interpretations coincide with one of the interpretations of the German coat of arms, that suggests an adler being the bird of Odin, a god of war, which is commonly depicted as a horserider.

The old Lithuanian heraldry of the Lithuanian nobles was characterized by various lines, arrows, framed in shields, colored and passed down from generation to generation. They were mostly used until the Union of Horodło (1413) when 47 Lithuanian families were granted various Polish coat of arms, yet some Samogitian nobles retained old Lithuanian heraldry up to the mid 16th century. The second redaction of the Lithuanian Chronicles, compiled in the 1520s at the court of Albertas Goštautas mentions that semi legendary Grand Duke Narimantas (late 13th century) was the first Grand Duke to adopt knight on horseback as his and the Grand Duchy's coat of arms. It describes it as an armed man on a white horse, on the red field, with a naked sword over his head as if he was chasing someone, as the author explains that is why it is called "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". The legend of the adoption of the Lithuanian coat of arms at the time of Narimantas in the version of Bychowiec Chronicle is repeated by later authors: Augustinus Rotundus, Maciej Stryjkowski, Bartosz Paprocki and later historians and heraldists of the 17th and 18th centuries.

We do not know the symbols used by the first rulers of Lithuania. One of the few relics that have survived to our times is the seal of Mindaugas. In 1236 Mindaugas united several Lithuanian tribes and accepted Roman Catholicism in 1251. In 1253 he was crowned by the papal legate as King of Lithuania and his realm was elevated to the rank of a kingdom. According to the 1393 description, when the legend was still intact, the seal of Mindaugas had an inscription: + MYNDOUWE DEI GRA REX LITOWIE The coat of arms, seals or symbols of Traidenis are unknown.

Grand Duke Gediminas's authentic symbols did not survive to this day. On 18 July 1323 in Lübeck imperial scribe John of Bremen made a copy of three letters sent by Gediminas on 26 May to the recipients in Saxony. According to the notary's transcript, the oval seal of Gediminas had a twelve corners edging, 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.