Vilkyškiai
| Vilkyškiai | |||
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| State : |
 Lithuania
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| District : | Tauragė | ||
| Municipality : | Pagėgiai | ||
| Office : | Vilkyškiai | ||
| Founded : | before 1490 | ||
| Coordinates : | 55 ° 7 ' N , 22 ° 8' E | ||
| Inhabitants (place) : | 1,720 (2016) | ||
| Time zone : | EET (UTC + 2) | ||
| Postal code : | 99023 | ||
| Status: | Town | ||
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Vilkyškiai ( German Willkischken ) is a small town ( Lithuanian Miestelis ) in the Lithuanian district of Tauragė (Tauroggen) . The place is the center of the administrative district (Seniūnija) Vilkyškiai and belongs to the municipality Pagėgiai (Pogegen) .
Geographical location
Vilkyškiai is located in southwest Lithuania , 16 kilometers northeast of the former district town of Tilsit (now Russian: Sowetsk) and 13 kilometers east of the municipality of Pagėgiai. The national road KK 141 , which connects Kaunas with Klaipėda (Memel) , runs through the town . In town, a road branches off in a northerly direction via Uplaukis (divert) to the A 12 trunk road ( European route 77 ), and another in a southerly direction to Šereitlaukis (Schreitlaugken) - located on the banks of the Jūra near the confluence with the Memel . A railway connection has not existed since the Pogegen – Schmalleningken small railway , where the former Willkischken railway station was, was decommissioned.
Place name
In the years 1490 and 1540 the place wrote itself Wylkischsken , later Wilküschke (1600) and Willkieschken (1620), then until 1922 Willkischken . The name refers to the Baltic word "vilkas" (LT) or "vilks" (LV), which means " wolf ". The name means something like "little wolves" or "little wolves".
history
The former Willkischken was founded in the 15th century and was already a church village before 1560. The Willkischken estate existed since 1628. In the years that followed, the people of Willkischken suffered a lot from the armed conflicts between Brandenburg - Prussia and the Swedes , but also from plague epidemics . The resulting decline in population was compensated for by the influx of refugees from Salzburg . When it was conquered by the Russians in 1757, a devastating fire destroyed numerous houses, the church, the rectory and the school.
In 1785 Willkischken was a "Köllmisches Gut" and a village with 70 fireplaces. On April 8, 1874, City Center and its name to a newly constructed was District , which until 1922 the county Tilsit , from 1923 to 1939 for memelländisch -litauischen circle Pogegen , and from 1939 to 1945 back to the district Tilsit-Ragnit in Administrative district Gumbinnen of belonged to the Prussian province of East Prussia .
In 1910 there were 747 registered residents in the village of Willkischken and 145 in the manor district. Their number rose to 1,085 by 1925.
When the order to evacuate the Memelland was given on October 7, 1944, the Willkischk people also left their homeland forever. The Memel region was incorporated into the newly formed Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic , which existed until Lithuania's independence was declared in 1990. Today Vilkyškiai, with its current population of 883, forms its own administrative district (Seniūnija) again and belongs to the municipality of Pagėgiai in the Tauragė district . Many houses from the pre-war period as well as the manor building have been preserved to this day. The old town of Vilkyškiai is now a listed building .
Willkischken District (1874–1922 / 1939–1945)
Between 1874 and 1945 - with the exception of the years 1923 to 1939 - six localities belonged to the district of Willkischken:
| German name | Lithuanian name | German name | Lithuanian name | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Callwalks | Kalvaičiai | Polompen | Palumpiai | |
| Kerkutwethen | Kerkutviečiai | Maszurmaten | Mažrimaičiai | |
| Willkischen (village) | Vilkyškiai | Willkischken (good) | Vilkyškiai |
church
Evangelical
Church building
In the years 1895 to 1898 a church was built in Willkischken, which already had three previous churches, all of which had to be demolished due to disrepair or damage caused by the war. The church is a neo - Romanesque three - nave brick building with a 45 meter high pointed tower . After many years of external use in Soviet times as a grain store and mill, the building was restored in the 1990s and 2000s and is now serving its original purpose again.
Parish
The Willkischken parish was built before 1560, with a total of 19 villages and places to live before 1945. In 1925 the parish had 4,117 parishioners. Until 1922 and then again from 1939 the parish belonged to the church district Tilsit / Tilsit-Ragnit , in between to the church district Pogegen in Memelland (with a separate consistory ) in the church province of East Prussia of the Church of the Old Prussian Union . Before 1945 the population of Willkischkens was predominantly Protestant, today they live in a Catholic diaspora . The parish in Vilkyškiai is now part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lithuania .
Catholic
Church building
The Catholic church was before 1945, the former home of the Jewish Epstein family who ran a textile business in Willkischken. When the Memelland was transferred back to the German Reich, she fled. After the war, the house was the seat of the Soviet secret police with an attached prison. Since 2006 the Catholic community has been using the building again as a church, which is now “Katalikų Šv. Onos bažnyčia ”(“ Catholic St. Anne's Church ”) is called.
Parish
Until 1945 the Catholic church members were a small minority in Willkischken. The community belonged to the diocese of Warmia and from 1940 to the Free Prelature of Memel. Today the population of Vilkyškiai is almost exclusively Catholic. The parish now belongs to the dean's office Šilutė (Heydekrug) in the Diocese of Telšiai (Telschen) of the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania .
economy
From 1934 the dairy in Vilkyškiai produced dairy products. The listed company Vilkyškių pieninė achieved a turnover of 105.42 million euros in 2013.
school
A school already existed in Willkischken in the 16th century. The old, many times renovated and partly rebuilt wooden house was replaced by a massive building with a thatched roof in 1818/19 . The school house is next to the Protestant church.
Personalities of the place
Born in Willkischken / Vilkškiai
- Oskar Brüsewitz (1929–1976), German Protestant pastor, opposition activist and resistance fighter in the GDR, caused a stir with his self-immolation in Zeitz
Connected to the place
- Alfonsas Macaitis (* 1956), Lithuanian politician, graduated from high school in Vilkyškiai
- Rolandas Jonikaitis (* 1962), Lithuanian politician, worked as a veterinarian in the Vilkyškiai sovchos from 1985 to 1987
Vilkyškiai District
The Vilkyškių seniūnija has existed since 1995, which belonged to the Rajongemeinde Šilutė until 1999 and has since been assigned to the municipality of Pagėgiai . In 2001, Lumpėnai County was spun off from Vilkyškiai County. In the administrative district, 24 villages and the town of Vilkyškiai with a total of 2,003 inhabitants are united on an area of 157.2 km². Darius Jurkšaitis has been the head of the office since 2011. The administrative district has been divided into the two subdistricts (lit. Seniūnaitija) Vilkyškių seniūnaitija and Žukų seniūnaitija since 2009. In addition to the official location, the administrative district includes:
| Place name | German name | Subdistrict | Place name | German name | Subdistrict | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adomiškiai | Adomishks | Žukai | Opstainėliai | Vilkyškiai | ||
| Aušgiriai | Eyewear | Žukai | Opstainys | Stone | Vilkyškiai | |
| Baltupėnai | Baltuponen | Žukai | Pagenaičiai | Cobbler | Žukai | |
| Barzunai | Bar boys | Vilkyškiai | Raudondvaris | Rothof | Vilkyškiai | |
| Kalvaičiai | Callwalks | Vilkyškiai | Sokaičiai | Socaiten | Žukai | |
| Keleriškiai | Basement taverns | Vilkyškiai |
Stygliškiai before: Bališkiai |
Nausseden inherited | Žukai | |
| Kriokiškiai | Krakischken | Žukai | Šereitlaukis | Screaming eyes | Vilkyškiai | |
| Lindikai | Lindicken | Žukai | Vartūliškiai | Wartulischken | Vilkyškiai | |
| Mažrimaičiai | Maszurmaten | Vilkyškiai | Vėžininkai | Wesziningken | Žukai | |
| Mociškiai | Motzischken | Žukai | Žagmantai | Great Szagmanten | Žukai | |
| Naujininkai | Neusaß-Gritzas | Žukai | Žagmanteliai | Small Szagmanten | Žukai | |
| Nausėdai | (Rural) Nausseden | Žukai | Žukai | Szugken | Žukai |
Remarkable
Willkischken is the setting for the novel “Lithuanian Clavers” by Johannes Bobrowski . In the Protestant church he married the farmer's daughter Johanna Buddrus from the parish of Motzischken . Today there is a small museum dedicated to him in the community center, in which his Berlin study was reproduced with largely original furnishings.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Liūdnas pasienio savivaldybės likimas (Alfa.lt)
- ↑ a b c Vilkyškiai - Willkischken
- ↑ Dietrich Lange: Geographical Register of Places East Prussia: Willkischken (2005)
- ^ A b Rolf Jehke: District Willkischken
- ^ Uli Schubert: Community directory, Tilsit district
- ^ Michael Rademacher: German administrative history from the unification of the empire in 1871 to the reunification in 1990. Pogegen district. (Online material for the dissertation, Osnabrück 2006).
- ↑ Status: 2001
- ↑ The Catholic St. Anne's Church in Vilkyškiai - photo from 2006