Marijampolė (; also known by several other names) is a cultural and industrial

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

and the

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...

of the Marijampolė County in the south of

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 ...

, bordering

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad Oblast (russian: Калинингра́дская о́бласть, translit=Kaliningradskaya oblast') is the westernmost federal subject of Russia. It is a semi-exclave situated on the Baltic Sea. The largest city and admin ...

, and

Lake Vištytis A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

. The population of Marijampolė is 48,700 (2003). It is the Lithuanian center of the Suvalkija region. Marijampolė is the seventh-largest city in Lithuania, and has been its regional center since 1994. The city covers an area equal to . The

Šešupė The Šešupė (; ; ; ) is a 298 km long riverStatistical Yearb ...

River divides the city into two parts which are connected by six bridges.

Names

The city has also been known as Marijampolis, Mariampol, Starapole, Pašešupiai, Marjampol, Mariyampole, and Kapsukas (1955–1989).

History

The settlement was founded as a village called "Pašešupė", after the nearby river of Šešupė. As such the town was first mentioned in 1667. In the 18th century the village, at that time belonging to the Catholic Church, grew to become a market town and its name was changed to Starpol or "Staropole", after a new village built for Prienai starost's guards in the vicinity in 1739. The settlement was destroyed by a fire in 1765. After the disaster the wife of contemporary starost of Prienai, Franciska Butler née Ščiuka, financed a new church and a monastery for the

Congregation of Marian Fathers The Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary ( la, Congregatio Clericorum Marianorum ab Immaculata Conceptionis Beatissimae Virginis Mariae) is a Catholic male clerical religious congregation fo ...

. Following the foundation of the monastery, a new town was built in the area. It was named "Maryampol", after the

Blessed Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother ...

(''Marya-''), with the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

suffix ''-pol'' denoting a town. On 23 February 1792 King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania

Stanisław II Augustus Stanislav and variants may refer to: People *Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.) Places * Stanislav, a coastal village in Kherson, Ukraine * Stanislaus County, Cali ...

granted the "townlet of Mariampol" with Magdeburg Law and a privilege of market organisation. Following the

Partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...

the town was briefly part of

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...

. However, after the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fre ...

it was transferred to

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. I ...

("Russian Poland"). In the 19th century the town continued to grow, mostly thanks to a large number of Jewish and German settlers. In 1817 the town became the seat of a separate

powiat A ''powiat'' (pronounced ; Polish plural: ''powiaty'') is the second-level unit of local government and administration in Poland, equivalent to a county, district or prefecture ( LAU-1, formerly NUTS-4) in other countries. The term "''powiat ...

within the administrative system of the kingdom. In 1827 the town had 1759 inhabitants. By 1861 the number had grown to 3718, 3015 of them being Jewish. A fire consumed many wooden homes in 1868. As a result, many houses were rebuilt of stone.Translation of the Marijampolė chapter fro
Pinkas Hakehillot Lita
/ref> Following the

January Uprising The January Uprising ( pl, powstanie styczniowe; lt, 1863 metų sukilimas; ua, Січневе повстання; russian: Польское восстание; ) was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at ...

and the Russian suppression of the former

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

lands, the powiat of Maryampol was seriously diminished. Around that time also the monastery gained prominence as it was the only monastery owned by the Marians that was not closed down by the tsarist authorities. As the surroundings of the town were primarily inhabited by Lithuanians, the town became the centre of the Lithuanian national revival. The proximity of the

n border made the smuggling of books in Lithuanian language, banned in Imperial Russia, easier. Among the most notable Lithuanian scholars and writers active in Mariampol at that time were Kazys Grinius,

Jonas Jablonskis Jonas Jablonskis (; 30 December 1860, in Kubilėliai, Šakiai district – 23 February 1930, in Kaunas) was a distinguished Lithuanian linguist and one of the founders of the standard Lithuanian language. He used the pseudonym ''Rygiškių Jonas ...

and Vincas Kudirka. Monument to Deported Lithuanians in Marijampolė 1

Following

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

the town became part of

and was renamed to its current name Marijampolė. During

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Marijampolė was occupied by the Soviet Union. During 1940–1941

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

authorities deported several hundred inhabitants of Marijampolė. In 1941

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

occupied the town. On 1 September 1941, between 5,000 and 8,000 Jews from Marijampolė, Kalvarija and elsewhere, along with people from other backgrounds, were murdered. Their bodies were placed in

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...

s near the

Šešupė The Šešupė (; ; ; ) is a 298 km long riverStatistical Yearb ...

River. Most of the murderers were Lithuanian. In the effect of the war the town was heavily damaged and almost emptied. On July 31, 1944 Soviet army once again entered the city. The following year its counter-intelligence

SMERSH SMERSH (russian: СМЕРШ) was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Josep ...

repressed about 500 people from Marijampolė. During the first years of Soviet occupation in 1944–1953

Soviet deportations from Lithuania Soviet deportations from Lithuania were a series of 35 mass deportations carried out in Lithuania, a country that was occupied as a constituent socialist republic of the Soviet Union, in 1941 and 1945–1952. At least 130,000 people, 70% of them ...

to Siberian

gulags The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

numbered somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 Lithuanians from Marijampolė county. In late post war years the city was rebuilt and repopulated with inhabitants from other parts of Lithuania. Currently in Marijampolė roughly 98% of its inhabitants are Lithuanians. On 9 April 1955

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

authorities of the

Lithuanian SSR The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Lithuanian SSR; lt, Lietuvos Tarybų Socialistinė Respublika; russian: Литовская Советская Социалистическая Республика, Litovskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialistiche ...

renamed the town "Kapsukas" after a Lithuanian communist politician Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas.
archived 22 March 2008 fro
the original
at the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

. The old name was restored in 1989. In 1990 Lithuania regained

independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the stat ...

. Marijampolė has been the administrative centre of the county since 1994. In 2018, in the 100th anniversary of the restoration of the independence of Lithuania, the city of Marijampolė became the cultural capital of Lithuania. The Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel synagogue in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

was founded by immigrants from Marijampolė. Other Jewish migrants from Marijampolė settled in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

and

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popul ...

Transport

Marijampolė is accessible by railway, Kaunas-Šeštokai-Alytus line. Marijampolė is located at the crossroads of two highways. The

Via Baltica European route E 67 is an E-road running from Prague in the Czech Republic to Estonia and by ferry to Finland. It goes via Prague, Wrocław, Warsaw, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki. The route is known as the Via Baltica ...

connects

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

with Central and Southern Europe. The other highway links the city of

Kaliningrad Kaliningrad ( ; rus, Калининград, p=kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat, links=y), until 1946 known as Königsberg (; rus, Кёнигсберг, Kyonigsberg, ˈkʲɵnʲɪɡzbɛrk; rus, Короле́вец, Korolevets), is the largest city and ...

with

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative stat ...

Industry and economy

Marijampolė is connected to its partners by business, sport, education, tourism, and other ties. Marijampolė's local means of mass media include a local television station, a local radio station, the newspapers "Marijampolės laikraštis", "Suvalkietis", "TV savaitė", "Sugrįžimai", and magazine "Suvalkija". Culturally, Marijampolė enjoys one cinema and a municipal drama theater. Marijampolė is a regional centre of light industry enterprises, construction, transport and trade. It has also become home to one of the largest second-hand car markets in Europe.

Education

Marijampolė has a strong educational system with state education institutions: 9 pre-school institutions, 6 nursery schools, 1 primary school, 12 lower secondary schools, 9 secondary schools, 4 gymnasium, a youth school, an adult education center, 5 additional training establishments, 3 non-state education institutions, a music school of Christian Culture, gymnasium of Marijonai, and R.Vosylienė languages school.

Marijampolė Municipality

Marijampolė has a City Council with 27 members. The members of the City Council represent different Lithuanian political parties. The Marijampolė Municipality is adjacent to the Vilkaviškis District Municipality in the west, Kazlų Rūda Municipality in the north, Kalvarija Municipality in the south, and the Prienai District Municipality and Alytus District Municipality in the east. The town of Marijampolė and its six surrounding communities make up the territory of Marijampolė Municipality. They are: Gudeliai, Igliauka, Liudvinavas, Marijampolė, Sasnava, and Šunskai communities. Marijampolė Municipality covers of land; 72% of which is an agricultural area, 12.3% is covered by forests; 4.2% – towns and villages, 2% – industrial enterprises and roads, and 6.9% – area used for other purposes.

Twin towns — sister cities

Marijampolė is twinned with: *

Bergisch Gladbach Bergisch Gladbach () is a city in the Cologne/Bonn Region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and capital of the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis (district). Geography Bergisch Gladbach is located east of the river Rhine, approx. 10 kilometers east o ...

, Germany * Kokkola, Finland *

Kvam Kvam is a municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The municipality is located along the Hardangerfjorden in the traditional district of Hardanger. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Norheimsund. Other larger set ...

, Norway * Lesja, Norway * Mayo County, Ireland *

Piotrków Trybunalski Piotrków Trybunalski (; also known by alternative names), often simplified to Piotrków, is a city in central Poland with 71,252 inhabitants (2021). It is the second-largest city situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. Previously, it was the capita ...

, Poland *

Reșița Reșița (; german: link=no, Reschitz; hu, Resicabánya; hr, Ričica; cz, Rešice; sr, Решица/Rešica; tr, Reşçe) is a city in western Romania and the capital of Caraș-Severin County. It is located in the Banat region. The city had ...

, Romania * Rogozno, Poland *

Suwałki Suwałki ( lt, Suvalkai; yi, סואוואַלק) is a city in northeastern Poland with a population of 69,206 (2021). It is the capital of Suwałki County and one of the most important centers of commerce in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Suwałki ...

, Poland * Valga, Estonia *

Valka Valka (; german: Walk) is a town and municipality in northern Latvia, on the border with Estonia along both banks of the river Pedele. Valka and the Estonian town Valga are twins, separated by the Estonian/Latvian border but using the slogan "O ...

, Latvia * Viborg, Denmark

Notable people

* Violeta Urmana, opera singer, an

honorary citizen Honorary citizenship is a status bestowed by a city or other government on a foreign or native individual whom it considers to be especially admirable or otherwise worthy of the distinction. The honour usually is symbolic and does not confer an ...

of the city * Moshe Rosenthalis (1922–2008), Lithuanian-Israeli painter * Witold Teofil Staniszkis, Polish politician * AGE, rock and blues band * Elada Eimaitė, motivational speaker & writer * Darius Songaila, basketball player * Ugnė Siparė, TV presenter * Petronėlė Vosyliūtė-Dauguvietienė, theatre actress * Sharune, actress * Albina Simokaitytė, theatre actress * Saulius Brusokas, male weightlifter and strongman competitor

Gallery

File:Marijampolė coats of arms in 1792.jpg, Coat of Arms of Marijampolė city in 1792 File:Battle of Marijampolė 1831.PNG, Battle of Marijampolė (1831) File:Vytautas of Marijampolė.jpg, Monument for

Vytautas the Great Vytautas (c. 135027 October 1430), also known as Vytautas the Great ( Lithuanian: ', be, Вітаўт, ''Vitaŭt'', pl, Witold Kiejstutowicz, ''Witold Aleksander'' or ''Witold Wielki'' Ruthenian: ''Vitovt'', Latin: ''Alexander Vitoldus'', O ...

File:Marijampolė Šv arkangelo Mykolo mažoji bazilika (Large).jpg, St. Michael's Small Basilica File:Marijampolės Šv. Vincento Pauliečio bažnyčia.JPG, Church of Saint Vincent de Paul File:Mariampol-synagoga.JPG, Marijampolė Synagogue File:Marijampolės ev. liuteronų bažnyčia.JPG, Marijampolė Evangelical Lutheran Church File:MariampoleNádraží.JPG, Marijampolė Railway Station File:Parkas Marijampolėje 3.JPG, Marijampolė park of "Poetry" File:Miesto dienos 2013 - panoramio.jpg, City days 2013 File:Piligrimų namai "Domus Beati" - panoramio.jpg, The House of Pilgrims ''Domus Beati'' File:Marijampolės Rygiškių Jono gimnazija.JPG, Marijampolė Rygiškių Jonas Gymnasium File:Marijampolės Sūduvos gimnazija, stadionas.JPG, Marijampolė Gymnasium stadium File:Paminklas J. Jablonskiui - panoramio.jpg, Monument for

File:Paminklas Tautai ir kalbai, Lietuvos 1000-mečiui paminėti - panoramio.jpg, Monument for the millennia of Lithuania

Notes and references

External links

Homepage of the city

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marijampole Cities in Marijampolė County Capitals of Lithuanian counties Cities in Lithuania Municipalities administrative centres of Lithuania Suwałki Governorate Shtetls Holocaust locations in Lithuania