Rusnė
| Rusnė | |||
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| State : |
 Lithuania
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| District : | Klaipeda | ||
| Rajong municipality : | Šilutė | ||
| Coordinates : | 55 ° 18 ′ N , 21 ° 23 ′ E | ||
| Inhabitants (place) : | 1 274 (2011) | ||
| Time zone : | EET (UTC + 2) | ||
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Rusnė ( German soot ) is a small town (miestelis) in western Lithuania in the Klaipėda district . The place is the seat of an administrative district in the district of Šilutė .
Surname
The name may derive from the Scandinavian tribe of the Rus .
In the dialect of the Baltic Shalaws who live on the Memel, the name means place that flows around .
geography
The place is located at the starting point of the Memel Delta or the island formed by the local branches of the Memel , on whose territory the regional park "Nemuno Deltos" (Memel Delta) extends. It is about 12 kilometers from the Curonian Lagoon via the northernmost estuary and main shipping route Atmata (Atmath) . Immediately southeast of Rusnė, along the southernmost arm, runs the border with Russian Kaliningrad Oblast , where the elk lowland begins. To the northeast is the town of Šilutė (Heydekrug) .
history
The Vikings found a safe harbor in the town of Ruß in the Memel Delta, from which they advanced further east via the river routes.
The village was in the tribal area of the Baltic Schalauer . The place is first mentioned in writing in 1365. The parish of Ruß existed from around 1419 . With the peace treaty of 1422, which defined the border between the territory of the Teutonic Order and Lithuania, the place finally became part of the Order's land. However, since the Lithuanians invaded the border areas again and again, the area remained settled for a long time. For 1448, however, the presence of a pitcher in soot is mentioned. After the secularization of the order, the Office of Ruß was established as an administrative area in 1525; it was subordinate to the main office of Insterburg. In 1750 the soot office had 4,254 inhabitants. After overcoming the suffering caused by the Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763) and the epidemics of the 18th century, soot began to develop positively, mainly due to the booming timber trade on the Memel. Especially immigrated Jews practiced this trade, and after 133 Jews lived in Ruß in 1880, the place was one of the largest Jewish settlements in the region. At the end of the 19th century there were six steam-powered cutting mills in Ruß, which had belonged to the Prussian district of Heydekrug since 1818 , and salmon fishing and shipping were also carried out. In 1885 the place had mostly Protestant inhabitants in 2078. Some of them were wealthy, and so it was possible that their own schoolhouse could be built on the tip of the island, which could not only accommodate an elementary school, but also a middle school. In 1910 the number of inhabitants had decreased slightly to 1826. With the Versailles Treaty of 1919, soot came to the so-called Memel region , which was initially administered by the French. Lithuanian militants occupied the area in January 1923, and the following year the League of Nations ceded Memelland to Lithuania as an autonomous region. Even before the outbreak of the Second World War , Lithuania was forced by Germany in an ultimatum in March 1939 to return Memelland to Germany. In October 1944, soot and the entire district were liberated by the Red Army. From 1948 to 1990 it belonged to the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic , USSR .
Religions
Christians
See the main article → Evangelical Lutheran Church Rusnė
Church building
The oldest church in Memelland stood in what was once soot . In 1419 it was built as the first church in town. After it was destroyed by a devastating fire in 1774, a new church was built in 1809 - in field stone and brick with a massive tower that was built on the remains of the first church. The interior of the church was dominated by the pulpit altar . The organ gallery protruding far into the room made the room appear dark.
The church survived the Second World War almost unscathed and was still used for religious services after 1945 until the state authorities ordered its closure. The nave was given to the old and then continued operation of the deaf-mute institution as a gym.
In the early 1990s the church was transferred back. It now belongs to the local community, which it re-inaugurated on August 21, 1994 after extensive repair work based on the historical model.
Parish
A parish in Ruß was founded around 1419. With the introduction of the Reformation , Lutheran clergymen were active here from 1541 . If the parish was initially part of the Memel Inspection , then until 1945 it was assigned to the church district Heydekrug in the church province of East Prussia (from 1920 to 1939 in the Memelland Synodal Association) of the Church of the Old Prussian Union .
In the 1990s, a new Evangelical-Lutheran congregation was established in the small Lithuanian town of Rusnė, to which the church, which was no longer used for worship purposes, was assigned. She belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lithuania .
Jews
Synagogue building
In 1857 a synagogue and a ritual bath were built in Ruß . A cemetery had already been laid out in 1837, but it was abandoned in 1844 due to regular flooding and rebuilt in Heydekrug.
Synagogue community
The first Jews who settled in the Heydekrug district did not do so in the district town, but in soot. Most of them were timber traders who helped ensure that the timber trade got a boost here. In 1855 33 Jews lived in Russ and in 1880 133 Jews. On January 1st, 1863, they founded their own synagogue community in Russ.
After the First World War , the Jewish community no longer grew. In 1920 only 17 families are said to have lived here. At the beginning of 1939 they and their co-religionists left the region en masse in other places in the Memelland after the NSDAP won the elections for the regional directorate . It is believed that many of them were killed in mass extermination in the summer of 1941.
economy
Because of its natural surroundings and its largely preserved local appearance, Rusnė is increasingly becoming a center of attraction for tourism in Lithuania. Ecotourism is very popular here, as you can observe a number of rare bird species, especially during bird migration. Rusnė is also a popular place for fishing. There are also ferry connections across the lagoon to the Curonian Spit .
Personalities
Sons and daughters
- Heinrich Ancker (1850–1900), member of the Reichstag
- Gerhard Gregor (1906–1981), organist and pianist
- Rudolf Jenett (1914–1998), Major in the Air Force in World War II and Major General in the German Armed Forces
- Hermann Kallenbach (1871–1945) architect
- Charlotte Keyser (1890–1966), teacher in Tilsit, native writer
Other
- Arthur Kittel , country doctor in Ruß from 1869 to 1906
Rusnė District
The Rusnės seniūnija, which belongs to the Rajongemeinde Šilutė , has existed since 1995 . In addition to the town of Rusnė, four villages with a total of 1,524 inhabitants on an area of 56.0 km² are united in the administrative district (as of 2011). The district has been divided into the three subdistricts (lit. Seniūnaitija) Pakalnės seniūnaitija, Rusnės seniūnaitija and Šyškrantės seniūnaitija since 2009. The district includes:
| Place name | German name | Subdistrict |
|---|---|---|
| Pakalnė | Pokallna | Pakalnė |
| Rusnė | soot | Rusnė |
| Šyškrantė | Schießkrandt | Šyškrantė |
| Uostadvaris | Kuwertshof | Šyškrantė |
| Vorusnė | Carbon black | Pakalnė |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rusnė - soot at ostpreussen.net
- ↑ a b c soot at wiki-de
- ↑ Walther Hubatsch : History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia. Volume 2: Pictures of East Prussian churches. Göttingen, 1968, p. 100, fig. 430.
- ↑ Walther Hubatsch: History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia. Volume 3: Documents. Göttingen, 1968, p. 510.
- ↑ According to the 2011 census, the village of Skirvytė (Skirwietell) is no longer listed there.