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The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was an Eastern European state that existed from the mid-13th century to 1795 on the territory of modern-day Belarus (in its entirety), Lithuania (except for the Klaipeda Region), Ukraine (most of it, until 1569), Russia (western lands, including Smolensk), Poland (Podlasie, until 1569), Latvia (partially; after 1561), Estonia (partially; from 1561 to 1629) and Moldova (a small part, until 1569). From 1385 it was in a personal union with the Kingdom of Poland, and from 1569 - in the Sejm Union of Lublin as part of the federal Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the 15th-16th centuries, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a rival of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the struggle for dominance in the Russian lands. It was liquidated by the Constitution of May 3, 1791. It finally ceased to exist after the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795... Historian Igor Danilevsky tells the story.