Temporary capital of Lithuania historical grounds, as the city was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, the city was multi-ethnic and other groups laid similar claims. Belarusians saw it as the capital of the Belarusian nation and laid claims to the heritage of the former Grand Duchy; Jews saw it as the capital of Yiddish culture; Poles saw it as a Polish-inhabited city. As Soviet forces pushed westward to spread the global proletarian revolution, German Ober-Ost administration evacuated and the Lithuanians withdrew to Kaunas. Vilnius was captured by the Red Army on January 5, 1919. During the Polish–Soviet War the city
Jerusalem: The Biography Jerusalem: The Biography Jerusalem: The Biography is a 2011 bestselling non-fiction book by British popular historian and writer Simon Sebag Montefiore. Drawing on new archives, current scholarship, his own family papers and a lifetime's study, Montefiore illustrates the essence of sanctity and mysticism, identity and empire in a historical chronicle of the city of Jerusalem. Montefiore chose to organize "Jerusalem" chronologically, stretching it from King David's establishment of the city as his capital to the 1967 Six-Day War, with an epilogue pondering on more recent events. In the introduction, the author explains that ""it is only by chronological narrative that