Marijampolis is a village in Vilnius District Municipality,

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 ...

, it is located only about south of Vilnius city municipality. According to the 2011 census, it had population of 870, an increase from 693 in 1989.

History

Already in the early 1900s, pupils were taught in Lithuanian language in Marijampolis. Lithuanian language school was opened in 1921, but was closed down in the early 1930s because of tensions between Lithuania and Poland. During the Soviet occupation, Marijampolis was one of the main centers of Lithuanian culture in the south-eastern part of Lithuanian USR and

Western Belorussia Western Belorussia or Western Belarus ( be, Заходняя Беларусь, translit=Zachodniaja Bielaruś; pl, Zachodnia Białoruś; russian: Западная Белоруссия, translit=Zapadnaya Belorussiya) is a historical region of mod ...

, the territories, which before the outbreak of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

belonged to the interwar Poland, but were claimed by interbellum

on historic and ethnographic grounds. After the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subse ...

, part of Vilnius region was transferred from occupying

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

on the grounds of Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty of 1920 and the new Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty. The remaining part of Vilnius region was merged with the

Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, or Byelorussian SSR; be, Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка, Bielaruskaja Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika; russian: Белор� ...

. Lithuanian language islands were left on the other side of the border. After the war, Soviet authorities did not allow to establish Lithuanian language schools in Lithuanian ethnographic villages in

and pupils from those villages were schooled in

Lithuanian Lithuanian may refer to: * Lithuanians * Lithuanian language * The country of Lithuania * Grand Duchy of Lithuania * Culture of Lithuania * Lithuanian cuisine * Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Jew ...

in Marijampolis, were a dormitory for Lithuanian schoolchildren was opened. Marijampolis served as a schooling center of the region in Lithuanian language. Despite serving as Lithuanian cultural center for a brief period of time, Marijampolis eldership is a very diverse, with Lithuanians making only 23,6% of the population, while

Lithuanian Poles The Poles in Lithuania ( pl, Polacy na Litwie, lt, Lietuvos lenkai), estimated at 183,000 people in the Lithuanian census of 2021 or 6.5% of Lithuania's total population, are the country's largest ethnic minority. During the Polish–Lithuanian ...

constitute 62,6% and

Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...

- 9,0% as according to the 2011 census. The number of inhabitants in the elderate is growing because of recent suburbanization – from 3157 in 2001 to 3395 in 2011 and 3675 in 2020.

References

{{Vilnius County Villages in Vilnius County Vilnius District Municipality