Item: i112907

 Authentic Coin of:

Belarus
Mikalai Radziwill “The Black” 
– Series: Strengthening and Defending the State
2015 Proof Silver 20 Roubles 38.61mm (33.63 grams) 0.925 Silver (1.0001 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 493 (Mintage: 1,000) | Designer: S. Zaskevich
РЭСПУБЛІКА БЕЛАРУСЬ Ag 925 20 РУБЛЁЎ 2015, Royal family; at the top – the relief image of the State Coat-of-Arms of the Republic of Belarus.
МІКАЛАЙ РАДЗІВІЛ ЧОРНЫ 1515-1565, Mikalai facing 1/3 left.
Edge Lettering:
УМАЦАВАННЕ І АБАРОНА ДЗЯРЖАВЫ

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Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł (4 February 1515 – 28 May 1565), nicknamed The Black (Polish: Czarny), was a Polish-Lithuanian noble who held several administrative positions within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Voivode of Vilnius, Grand Lithuanian Chancellor, and Grand Hetman of Lithuania.

Alternate renditions of his name include Lithuanian: Mikalojus Radvila Juodasis, Belarusian: Мікалай Радзівіл Чорны, and Latin: Nicolaus Radvil. His first name is sometimes given in English as Nicholas.

Mikołaj was able to gain much political influence thanks to the romance between his cousin Barbara Radziwiłł and the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Zygmunt II August. This made him one of the most powerful royal advisers. Mikolaj became Marshal of Lithuania, Grand Chancellor of Lithuania, as well as Palatine of Vilnius, gained immense wealth and became the most powerful magnate in the Commonwealth of that time.

The growing influence of the Radziwiłł family was further bolstered when, during a diplomatic mission to Charles V and Ferdinand I, he and his cousin Mikołaj the Red received a hereditary title of Prince (Reichsfürst (SRI)).

He formed an alliance with his cousin Mikołaj “the Red” Radziwiłł against other notable Lithuanian families in the rivalry for the dominant status in the Great Duchy of Lithuania. This alliance marked the formation of a dynastic-like cooperation between Radziwiłłs and showed how family interests could affect magnates’ relations with the state. Both Radziwiłłs backed the cause of Lithuania’s sovereignty and opposed the growing Polish-Lithuanian union.

Coincidentally, despite opposing close ties with Poland, he was the chief negotiator in the successful negotiation between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the state controlled by the Livonian Order, which led to the secularisation of Livonia and its union with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1562.

Mikołaj contributed to the ongoing Polonisation of the Grand Duchy, influencing other Lithuanian nobles to follow him in adopting Polish culture – its fashion, customs and language. Despite being a fervent opponent of the closer union with Poland, he was an active supporter of Polish culture in Lithuania. He himself did not speak Lithuanian, his knowledge of Ruthenian, at that time the official language of the Grand Duchy, was limited. Polish was his native language and the only one he was able to use fluently.

He was known for his religious beliefs, as he was one of the most prominent converts and advocates of the Reformed churches faith in Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He provided financial support for the printing of the first complete Polish translation of the Bible in 1563 in Brest-Litovsk, distributed works written in defense of the Reformed faith, financed a church and college in Vilnius, supported educated Protestants, and in various other ways fostered the Calvinist faith. He is known to have exchanged letters with John Calvin and protected religious exiles from Italy. Because Protestants supported usage of local languages, he is also believed to have funded Lithuanian churches and schools.

With the exception of his daughter Anna, all his children converted to Roman Catholicism and became ardent supporters of the Counter Reformation.

He is remembered by a statue in the Brest Millennium Monument.

Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus covers an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi), with a population of 9.4 million, and is the thirteenth-largest and the twentieth-most populous country in Europe. The country is administratively divided into seven regions, and is one of the world’s most urbanized, with over 40% of its total land area forested. Minsk is the country’s capital and largest city.

Until the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus, including Kievan Rus’, the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in 1917, different states arose competing for legitimacy amidst the Civil War, ultimately ending in the rise of the Byelorussian SSR, which became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. After the Polish-Soviet War, Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland. Much of the borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939, when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were reintegrated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland, and were finalized after World War II. During WWII, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a quarter of its population and half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. In 1945, the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union.

The parliament of the republic proclaimed the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990, and during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus declared independence on 25 August 1991. Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko was elected Belarus’s first president in the country’s first and only free election post-independence, serving as president ever since. Lukashenko’s government is widely considered to be authoritarian and human rights groups consider human rights in the country to be poor. Belarus is the only country in Europe officially using the death penalty. Lukashenko continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. In 2000, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, forming the Union State.

Belarus is a developing country ranking very high in the Human Development Index. It has been a member of the United Nations since its founding; and a member of the CIS, the CSTO, the EAEU, and the Non-Aligned Movement, it has shown no aspirations for joining the European Union but nevertheless maintains a bilateral relationship with the Union, and likewise participates in two EU projects: the Eastern Partnership and the Baku Initiative.