He had already been compelled, by the hostilities successfully waged by the Germans, to fall back to Wilna, where he established himself in a citadel and began by diplomacy to build around him a city as the seat of his strength.
By offering immunities to German artisans and by granting them the rights give to towns under the Hanseatic League he stimulated commerce; he also established a Russian quarter in his capital. However, in spite of his intimacy with the Pope he died and was buried according to pagan rites, his body being burned in a caldron with his horse and his favorite groom. After his death his sons Olgerd and Kestout deprived their two other brothers of their properties and dignities, and together governed Lithuania down to 1337. Olgerd was greatly incensed against Novgorod because one of his fugitive brothers had found asylum there and he ravaged her territory and forced her to put to death the burgomaster whom he charged with being the cause of the war. He extended his possessions to the East and South, becoming master of nearly all the valley of Dnieper, obtaining a footing on the coast of the Black Sea between the mouths of the Dnieper and Dniester.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
