Gediminas

Gediminas (c. 1275–1341) became grand duke of Lithuania around 1316 and made it a power between the Teutonic Knights and weakened Ruthenian principalities. Pressed by the Teutonic and Livonian orders, he allied with the Tatars in 1319 and wrote to the Pope in 1322 offering baptism. In 1323 he invited Hanseatic merchants and artisans to settle in his lands and made peace with the Livonian Order, but he backed out of baptism and stayed pagan.

In 1325 his daughter Aldona married Casimir, future king of Poland. In the east he took Belarusian and Ukrainian lands, seized Kiev after the battle on the Irpin, and brought Lithuania close to the Black Sea.

Legend says an iron wolf in a dream led him to found Vilnius. He died in 1341, probably killed in a coup, leaving the Gediminid dynasty; his son Jaunutis succeeded him but was deposed by Algirdas in 1345.