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Petras Vileišis Bridge
Petras Vileišis Bridge formerly known as Vilijampolė Bridge is a bridge connecting Kaunas Old Town and Vilijampolė, Lithuania. It is the last bridge over the Neris River before its mouth. Its length exceeds 291 metres, width 14 metres. The bridge was completed during the interbellum period in 1929. The Vilijampolė Bridge across the Neris River received special attention from the Lithuanian rebels during the June Uprising in Lithuania in 1941 as they expected the Germans to enter the city using this bridge. When the Lithuanians got to the bridge, it was already wired by Red Army with explosives. 40 Soviet troops and three armoured vehicles protected the bridge and waited for the right moment to detonate. When the Soviets retreated a bit after facing Lithuanian fire, Juozas Savulionis ran to the middle of the bridge, cut the wires, and thus saved it from destruction. On his way back Savulionis was shot and killed by Soviet fire, becoming one of the first victims of the uprisin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaunas
Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a in the Duchy of Trakai of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Trakai Voivodeship, Trakai Palatinate since 1413. In the Russian Empire, it was the capital of the Kovno Governorate, Kaunas Governorate from 1843 to 1915. During the interwar period, it served as the temporary capital of Lithuania, when Vilnius was Polish–Lithuanian War, seized and controlled by Second Polish Republic, Poland between 1920 and 1939. During that period Kaunas was celebrated for its rich cultural and academic life, fashion, construction of countless Art Deco and Lithuanian National Revival architectural-style buildings as well as popular furniture, interior design of the time, and a widespread café culture. The city in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Town (Kaunas)
The Centras Eldership () is an Eldership in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, based on two neighbourhoods of Kaunas - the Old City and the New City. It lies at the confluence of two major Lithuanian rivers, the Nemunas and the Neris. The borough borders Žaliakalnis in the north, Šančiai in the east, Aleksotas in the south and Vilijampolė in the west. Kaunas Old Town Kaunas Old Town - the oldest part of Kaunas town, located to the east of the confluence of the Nemunas and Neris rivers, occupies 144 hectares. There are a lot of surviving Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque buildings, especially in the western part of the Old Town. Many notable buildings and facilities are located in the Old Town, such as the Kaunas Town Hall, the Kaunas Castle and the Historical Presidential Palace, House of Perkūnas, also the Kaunas Cathedral, the Church of St. Gertrude, Vytautas' church and many other churches. A great variety of museums, such as Museum of the History of Lithuanian Medic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vilijampolė
Vilijampolė is a neighborhood in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, located on the right bank of the Neris River and the Nemunas River, near their confluence. Part of a larger which consists of Vilijampolė, , , and neighorhoods, and covers 1438 hectares with population of 23,687 people.https://www.kaunas.lt/administracija/struktura-ir-kontaktine-informacija/seniunijos/vilijampoles-seniunija/ In the past, it was a separate town from Kaunas. The Jews are known to have settled here since the fourteenth century. Due to this the place was referred to as ''Judenstadt'', 'Jewtown'. The popular nickname ''Slabotkė'' is still in use, derived from the Polish name of the place, ''Słobódka Wiliampolska''. The word ''Wiliampolska'' is an adjective from "Wiliampol" ("Wilia town"), derived from the Slavic name of the nearby Neris river - ''Wilia''; and "słobódka" means "little ''sloboda''", i.e. 'little free settlement'. Later this name was Lithuanised into "Vilijampolė". Historically, it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lithuania
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, 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, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and the Russian exclave, semi-exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest, with a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Sweden to the west. Lithuania covers an area of , with a population of 2.89 million. Its capital and largest city is Vilnius; other major cities include Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys. Lithuanians who are the titular nation and form the majority of the country's population, belong to the ethnolinguistic group of Balts and speak Lithuanian language, Lithuanian. For millennia, the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Balts, Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, Lithuanian lands were united for the first time by Mindaugas, who formed the Kingdom of Lithuania on 6 July ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neris River
The river Neris () or Vilija (, ) rises in northern Belarus. It flows westward, passing through Vilnius (Lithuania's capital) and in the south-centre of that country it flows into the Nemunas (Neman) from the right bank, at Kaunas, as its main tributary. Its length is . After passing through Belarus for , the Neris flows through Lithuania for a further . The Neris connects successive Lithuanian capitals – Kernavė and Vilnius. Along its banks are the burial places of the pagan Lithuanians. At from Vilnius there is are old Karmazinai Hillfort and . Dual naming The reasons for the dual naming of the river as Neris by the Lithuanians and Viliya (formerly ''Velja'', meaning "big, great" in Slavic) by the Slavs are complex. Even in Vilnius, there are toponyms including both names, e. g. ''Neris'' remains in the riverside names of '' Paneriai'' and ''Paneriškės'' while ''Velja'' is a part of the name ''Valakampiai'', which means "an angle of Velja" in Lithuanian. Vyk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interbellum
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II (WWII). It was relatively short, yet featured many social, political, military, and economic changes throughout the world. Petroleum-based energy production and associated mechanisation led to the prosperous Roaring Twenties, a time of social and economic mobility for the middle class. Automobiles, electric lighting, radio, and more became common among populations in the first world. The era's indulgences were followed by the Great Depression, an unprecedented worldwide economic downturn that severely damaged many of the world's largest economies. Politically, the era coincided with the rise of communism, starting in Russia with the October Revolution and Russian Civil War, at the end of WWI, and ended with the rise of fascism, particularly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
June Uprising In Lithuania
The June Uprising () was a brief period in late June 1941 between the first Soviet and the Nazi occupations. A year prior, on June 15, 1940, the Red Army occupied Lithuania and established the unpopular Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, which silenced its critics and suppressed resistance with political repression and state terrorism. When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Lithuanian Activist Front initiated the June uprising for which it had been preparing since late 1940 and formed the short-lived provisional government. The Lithuanian insurgents liberated Kaunas and Vilnius before the ''Wehrmacht'' arrived and within a week, all of the Lithuanian territory was free from the occupying Red Army. The June uprising was directed militarily against the Soviets but politically against the Germans, who were against the declaration of Lithuanian independence, the establishment of the Provisional Government of Lithuania and various Lithuanian self-rul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previously used term (''Reich Defence'') and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to German rearmament, rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted. After the Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Nazi rise to power in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler's most overt and bellicose moves was to establish the ''Wehrmacht'', a modern offensively-capable armed force, fulfilling the Nazi regime's long-term goals of regaining lost territory as well as gaining new territory and dominating its neighbours. This required the reinstatement of conscription and massive investment and Military budget, defence spending on the arms industry. The ''Wehrmacht'' formed the heart of Germany's politico-military po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War, especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army. In February 1946, the Red Army (which embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces alongside the Soviet Navy) was renamed the "Soviet Army". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union it was split between the post-Soviet states, with its bulk becoming the Russian Ground Forces, commonly considered to be the successor of the Soviet Army. The Red Army provided the largest land warfare, ground force in the Allies of World War II, Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II, and its Soviet invasion of Manchuria, invasion of Manchuria assisted the un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petras Vileišis
Petras Vileišis (; 25 January 1851 – 12 August 1926) was a prominent Lithuanian engineer specializing in the construction of railroad bridges. He was very active in Lithuanian public life and together with his brothers Jonas Vileišis, Jonas and Antanas Vileišis, Antanas became one of the key figures of the Lithuanian National Revival. He studied mathematics at St. Petersburg University and railroad construction at the St. Petersburg State Transport University, Emperor Alexander I Institute of Transport Engineers. For about two decades, Vileišis designed and constructed various railroad bridges across the Russian Empire amassing a substantial personal fortune. In 1899, he returned to Lithuania and settled in Vilnius where he built Vileišis Palace and established the first Lithuanian-language daily newspaper ''Vilniaus žinios'' as well as a Lithuanian printing press, bookstore, and ironwork factory which later became Vilija (company), Vilija. None of these activities were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
