Konfesinės problemos žemaitijoje: stačiatikiai XVI a. II pusėje

The article provides new materials (mostly from unpublished sources, i. e. the act books of the court of Samogitia, the Lithuanian Metrics) on the ethnical and confessional processes in Samogitia in the 2nd half of the 16th century, when the nobles of Lithuania and its Russian lands started purchasing land in Samogitia. The processes accelerated from the middle of the 16th century, the administrative apparatus of the land was supplemented by not local nobles. Apart from the Russian families of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the refugees from Russia also settled in Samogitia. The foreign immigration and the increase of the immigrant’s political and social influence was attempted to be tempered by laws. While in the middle of the 16th century attempts were still made to limit the moving of Poles and Russians to Samogitia and the positions, which could be granted to such migrants, in the eighties of the 16th century only the limitation of indigenate of foreign persons was discussed. The immigration of residents of Moscow to Samogitia was intensified during the Livonian wars. Most persons, who came from Russia, were war refugees. The grand dukes gave them land for “subsistence” till their lands in their motherland are not recovered. A part of Orthodox persons integrated into the Samogitian community by accepting the Evangelist faith or Catholicism (Golovins, Bunakovs, maybe Obolenskis). The high positions for Russians in Samogitia were ensured not only by their origins and riches, but also quite frequently by their confessional dependence to the Catholic of Evangelist church. The Orthodox Russians most frequently had the right to purport to the position of the tijūnas however no refugees from Russia, even their third generation descendants, were seen among Samogitian officials