Bartninkai is a small town in Marijampolė County, Vilkaviškis District Municipality in southwestern

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. The town is located 17 km south of

Vilkaviškis Vilkaviškis () is a city in southwestern Lithuania, the administrative center of the Vilkaviškis District Municipality. It is located northwest from Marijampolė, at the confluence of of and rivers. The city got its name from the Vilkau ...

. It is the seat of the Bartninkai Eldership.The town is home to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, a post office, a clinic, the Bartininkai Jonas Basanavičius High School, a library, and the grounds of the former Bartininkai manor. According to the 2011 census, the town has a population of 390 people.

History

Bartninkai was founded in the second half of the XVI century. In 1649, the village of Bartninkai is recorded having 16

valakas Volok ( lt, valakas, pl, włóka) was a late medieval unit of land measurement in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Kingdom of Poland and later, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was equal, on average, to in Lithuania or to in Poland. It was s ...

of land. A Catholic church was built in 1663, and a parish was established in 1783 (in 1790 the church was rebuilt of stone masonry, in 1865 towers were added). In 1736 6 families lived in the village. In 1744 Bartninkai was referred to as a town. Treasurer of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Antoni Tyzenhauz turned the town into the estate of Bartininkai manor. He oversaw the construction of an iron weaving mill and an iron foundry and built roads to Kalvarija and Pajevonis. From 1781 to the second half of the XIX century there was a parish school. After the

November Uprising The November Uprising (1830–31), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in W ...

of 1830-1831, the Tsar gifted Bartninkai to the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...

Officer of Nostitz family, who declared the estate a majorate. 1861-1950 Bartninkai was the center of the parish. At the end of 1905, the people of the town drove out the Russian authorities. In 1923 there were 72 households. During World War II the town was almost entirely destroyed. The church was heavily bombed (in 1950 a new wooden church was built next to the ruins of the old one). During the soviet occupation, Bartninkai was a town of Kolkhoz farm. In 1999 the coat of arms of Bartininkai was adopted by a decree of the President of the Republic of Lithuania.

References

Towns in Lithuania Towns in Marijampolė County {{MarijampolėCounty-geo-stub