I have previously posted about Lithuania’s second largest city, Kaunas. And I posted about Kaunas first because that is where I spent most of my time while I was there (yes, I went on vacation already…yes, I just moved to Norway). But now I wanted to share with you some things about the amazing capitol of Lithuania - Vilnius.

Before I go into the history of Vilnius, I just wanted to say what struck me most about the city was the amount of amazing and historical churches that are there. Vilnius feels a little more modern than Kaunas. Kaunas is more slow paced, and Vilnius is more rushed. They both have the same romantic and haunted feeling, but the haunted feeling in Vilnius is almost masked by the faster pace of life. I will go into more detail about that and the churches a little later, but first I want to share the history and story of Vilnius.

“Legend has it that the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Gediminas, was hunting in the sacred forest near the Valley of Šventaragis. Tired after the successful day’s hunt, the Grand Duke settled in nearby for the night. He fell soundly asleep and began to dream. A huge Iron Wolf was standing on top a hill and the sound of hundreds of other wolves inside it filled all of the surrounding fields and woods. Upon awakening, the Duke asked the pagan priest Lizdeika to interpret the meaning of the dream. And the priest told him: “What is destined for the ruler and the State of Lithuania, is thus: the Iron Wolf represents a castle and a city which will be established by you on this site. This city will be the capital of the Lithuanian lands and the dwelling of their rulers, and the glory of their deeds shall echo throughout the world”

The Legend of the Founding of Vilnius (taken from Wikipedia)

Vilnius was first mentioned in written sources in 1323, but it was between 1503 and 1522 that Vilnius built walls around its city. They built the walls with three towers and nine city gates. Vilnius then rapidly grew and was a healthy and developing city. During that time of development in Vilnius, they welcomed all foreigners and migrants who wanted to move and live there. That created a large variety of different communities in Vilnius and all of them made very unique contributions to the city. All of the groups in their own ways contributed in science, in crafts and in trades. Vilnius blossomed because of the rich variety that contributed to the citys growth. But during the Russo-Polish War (1654-1667) Vilnius was occupied by Russia, the population was massacred and the city was pillaged and burned.

Then after that war, the city had difficulty ganing momentum for many years but eventually the population began to grow. Slowly but surely they grew till the beginning of the 19th century where they were one of the largest cities in Northern Europe.

Then again in 1795 Vilnius was annexed by Russia. The citys walls were destroyed during Russia’s occupation. Then in 1812 Napoleon seized the city on his push to Moscow. Then…”Following the November Uprising in 1831, Vilnius University was closed and Russian repressions halted the further development of the city. During the January Uprising in 1863 heavy fighting occurred within the city, but was brutally pacified by Mikhail Muravyov,
nicknamed The Hangman by the population because of the number of executions he organized. After the uprising all civil liberties were withdrawn, and use of the Polish^[3] and Lithuanian languages was banned. Ethnic Lithuanians constituted only a small minority of citys population, Poles, Jews and Russians made up a majority of the population of the city.”(Wikipedia)

All of Lithuania was occupied by the German Empire dring 1915-1918. Then The Act of the Restoration of Independence of Lithuania happened on February 16, 1918 and the German forces retreated. But the Lithuanian forces were also made to retreat because (deep breath….) Russia was beginning to occupy them. They were then taken over by the Polish self-defence units (they didn’t want Russian-Bolshevik forces to occupy the city). Then the Polish Army took them over then the Soviet army controlled them (again). It seems to me like a ping-pong game but its not so much fun and games when it is a country you are dealing with and peoples lives are lost.

Lithuania signed peace a peace treaty (July 12, 1920) and Vilnius was recognized as a part of Lithuania again on October 7, 1920. But (yes of course, there is more…) on October 9, 1920 (the same year), the treaty was broken and the Polish Army seized Vilnius again in a coup. Then in February 1922 the whole area was annexed to Poland.

During the time Vilnius belonged to Poland the city actually enjoyed a rapid growth and fast development. But some Lithuanians dispute the “picture of economic growth and point out that the standard of living in Vilnius at that time was considerably lower than compared to that in other parts of contemporary Lithuania” (Wikipedia).

I just have to insert a side note (aka a personal public service announcement) at this time about that last paragraph. I had a long conversation with my friend who is a Lithuanian. I was asking him to tell me some things about the history of Lithuania which turned into a discussion about “What is history?”. Because he was a history major in college but ended up doing something totally different because he ended up being completely turned off to history when he came across many text books and documents and information about Lithuania’s history that was completely false. He explained how all of these times that Lithuania has been occupied and controlled by other countries and forces (see previous and following paragraphs for just an idea of how many times and how much of their history they have been unwillingly controlled by outside forces), all of those times when people wrote or told the world what Lithuania’s history was, or what was happening there, it was told how the occupying forces wanted the world to see it. It was at times that no one could enter or leave Lithuania that the people who had taken control would say what was going on, but no one really knew the truth. The world only knew what whoever was in control at that time wanted us to know.

Sorry to totally stray from the story and history here but I feel this is an important point while sharing what I found on Wikipedia as Vilnius’ and Lithuania’s history. I had asked my friend if anything was being done about it and he said that yes, historians who ARE Lithuanians are working on that right now. It just takes some time. And as you can already see, they barley had time in their past to take a breath between occupations. Now they are trying to clear up the records. Soon the world can know Lithuania’s story FROM Lithuanians.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming :)

So then there was the to the officially-titled Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics August 24, 1939, which was when the Soviets and Germany basically agreed to not attack each other. But along with this there was the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (September 19, 1939) which was where Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and Romania into “spheres of Nazi and Soviet influence, anticipating ‘territorial and political rearrangements’ of these countries’ territories.” (Wikipedia). Then Lithuania (as the others) was invaded, occupied and forced to give up their territory to the Soviet Union.

Soon after in June of 1940, the Soviet Union had completely occupied Lithuania and a new communist government of the Lithuanian SSR was installed into the capitol, Vilnius. The Soviets destroyed the industries of Vilnius and sent 40,000 of its residents to “gulags” (I didn’t know that word, but found it is basically a sort of Soviet concentration camp).

In June of 1941 Nazi Germany seized the city and established two ghettos for the large Jewish population. That was in June and by October the smaller of the ghettos had already been “liquidated”. The larger lasted (lasted=the population was regularly “decimated” but there were still people there) until 1943. There was an attempted uprising that failed and was followed by the destruction of that ghetto. “About 95% of the 265,000-strong Jewish population of Lithuania was murdered by the German units and their local collaborators” (Wikipedia).

Back and forth, back and forth. In July 1944 Vilnius was reoccupied again by the Soviets who remained in control until August 1991.

One thing I find interesting, is that in doing research for writing my posts about Lithuania I never find what was happening there during the last Soviet occupation of 1944-1991. I really wonder what life was like for Lithuanians during that time. I know that my friend has told me some things that he remembers and heard stories of (he was born in 1979 - during that time) and it seems a little suspicious that I cannot find any good information or stories like he has told me about that time in Lithuania. Who knows, maybe one day we will know what happened.

Now Vilnius is so fastly growing its like you can hear it buzzing. But it still has some of its beautiful history and are recovering some of its lost history.

Very soon in 2009, Vilnius will be the capital of European Culture.

Going back to talk about some of the things that had happened while the Soviet Union occupied Vilnius (and Lithuania). My friend told me that they shut down all operation of religion and churches. They turned the many amazing churches and cathedrals into storehouses and warehouses. There were many beautiful buildings before the Soviet Union were in control of Vilnius, and many were destroyed. Many historical sites were just built on top of (they literally just covered places in concrete and built on top of them). I saw it myself, they are digging under roads and the ground all over the city and you will see excavation sites where they are trying to find some of what was lost in the piles of concrete. It’s very bizarre looking to see (at least it was for me).

Thankful so much of its beautiful and romantic architecture remains and is being restored as a very quick pace. I visited many of the churches (you have to go inside them to really see them) and they were like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There are amazing parks to visit and plenty of sites to see. If you visit Vilnius, don’t miss the old town, its little streets and shops and cafes look like something out of a story book.

I was amazed at every turn how the buildings and the narrow streets were so picturesque and perfectly “worn”. I had such an amazing time there, but definitely not long enough! I will be back to experience more of Vilnius soon (hopefully), and think it is a place that is definitely worth visiting.

Check out my other post about Lithuania:

• Lithuania - The Introduction
• Lithuania - Trakai Island Castle
• Lithuania - The Food & Drinks
• Lithuania - Kaunas