History of Vilnius

The city was first mentioned in written sources in 1323 in letters by Grand Duke Gediminas, who invited Jews and Germans to settle and built a wooden castle on a hill.

The city experienced significant growth and development, though it faced numerous invasions and occupations, including by the Teutonic Knights, Russia, and later, Germany.

The city became more widely known after he wrote a circular letter of invitation to Germans and Jews to the principal Hansa towns in 1325, offering free access into his domains to men of every order and profession.

At this time Vilnius was facing numerous raids of the Teutonic Order, although they never captured the castle, large portions of the town were burned down in years 1365, 1377 and 1383.

The town reached the peak of its development under the reign of Sigismund II Augustus, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, who relocated there in 1544.

The gradual Polonization of Vilnius, which began in the late 14th century,[19] proceeded through the influx of Polish elements[citation needed] and assimilation of non-Polish burghers.

[19] After the Union of Lublin (1569) that created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the city flourished further in part due to the establishment of Vilnius University by Stephen Báthory, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1579.

[25] During the January Uprising in 1863 heavy city fights occurred, but were brutally pacified by Mikhail Muravyov, nicknamed The Hanger by the population because of the number of executions he organized.

Finally, on 1 January 1919, the German garrison withdrew and passed the authority over the city to a local Polish committee, against the pleas of the Lithuanian administration.

However, after the Battle of the Niemen River the Red Army was again defeated and Bolshevik Russia was forced to temporary abandon her plans for the reincorporation of all the lands lost by the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

[46] After the Bolshevik armies were pushed out of the area, the line reached by the Lithuanian forces before the Poles arrived was secured and diplomatic talks started.

However, the negotiations on the future of the disputed area, held under the auspice of the Conference of Ambassadors in Brussels and Paris came to a stalemate and the Polish head of state, Józef Piłsudski feared, that the Entente might want to accept the fait accompli created by the Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920.

As both countries were officially at peace and the Lithuanian side rejected the idea of a plebiscite, the Poles decided to change the stalemate by creating a fait accompli for their own cause (see Polish–Lithuanian War).

Apart from the Lithuanian, Jewish and Belarusian organisations that eventually decided to boycott the voting, Poles, who took part in it supported the incorporation of the area into Poland – with different levels of autonomy.

[50][51][52] Group of 32 Lithuanian activists, among them Mykolas Biržiška and Juozapas Kukta were deported to Lithuania on 6 February 1922, they were charged with espionage, what theoretically could be punished with death, but Polish officials just wanted to get rid of the most troublesome individuals, which anti-Polish activity was funded by the government in Kaunas.

[53][54][55] At the Central Lithuanian Parliament session on 20 February 1922, the decision was made to annex the whole area to Poland, with Vilnius becoming the capital of the Wilno Voivodship.

[63] In spite of the unfavorable geopolitical situation (which prevented the trade with the immediate neighbors of Lithuania, Germany and Soviet Russia, life in the town flourished.

Much of the development concentrated along the central Mickiewicz Street, where the modern Jabłkowski Brothers department store was opened, equipped with lifts and automatic doors.

New radio buildings and towers were erected in 1927, including the site where noted Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner Czesław Miłosz worked.

[citation needed] The city became an important centre of Polish cultural and scientific life, while economically the rest of the region remained relatively backward.

[citation needed] It was claimed that this relative underdevelopment, among other issues, was the reason for difficulties with integrating the region and the city with Lithuania when it regained Vilnius in 1939.

[69] On 1936 February 11, a secret anti-Lithuanian memorandum called O posunięciach władz administracji ogólnej w stosunku do mniejszości litewskiej w Polsce oraz o zamierzeniach w tym wględzie na przyszłość (transl.

As a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and subsequent Soviet invasion, the territories of Eastern Poland were occupied by the Red Army, which seized the city following a one-day defence on 19 September 1939.

The Polish envoy in Kaunas protested against the unlawful takeover of the city on October 13 and left Lithuania three days later, suspending once again diplomatic relations between both states.

A month of Soviet rule in Vilnius had catastrophic consequences: the city was starving, the museums and archives looted, the valuables, industry[80] and historic documents were stolen and transferred to Russia, and many people were imprisoned or deported.

[82] After the Lithuanian army entered the city, at the end of October 1939, the demoralized Polish local population started a four-day-long anti-Jewish pogrom, in which one person lost their life and some 200 were wounded.

In 1944–1947 the opponents of the regime included were captured, interrogated in the NKVD Palace in Lukiškės Square, executed and buried in the Tuskulėnai Manor park.

These events, coupled with the policy of Russification and immigration of Poles, Russians, Belarusians from other Soviet republics during post-war years, giving rise to a significant Russophone minority,[89] and slow but steady emigration of the surviving Jews to Israel, had a critical influence on the demographic situation of the city in the 1960s.

In June 1989 Vilnius was the site of the Belarusian Popular Front conference as the Belorussian Soviet authorities would not allow the event to take place in Belarus.

At the beginning of the 21st century, several institutes such as the European Humanities University and the independent sociology centre NISEPI were persecuted in Belarus by the government of Alexander Lukashenko have found an asylum in Vilnius.