Vilnius ( [ˈvilnʲus] (help·info), see also other names Vilnius ( [ˈvilnʲus] , see also other names) is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 555,613 (847,954 together with Vilnius County) as of 2008. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County) is the capital A capital city is the area of a country, province, region, or state, regarded as enjoying primary status; although there are exceptions, a capital is almost always a city which physically encompasses the offices and meeting places of the seat of government and is fixed by law. An alternate term is political capital, but this phrase has a second of Lithuania Lithuania (/ˌlɪθjuːˈeɪniə/, U.S. usually /ˌlɪθuːˈeɪniə/ ; Lithuanian: Lietuva), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north,, and its largest city, with a population of 555,613 (847,954 together with Vilnius County) as of 2008.^[1] It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County Vilnius County is the largest of the 10 counties of Lithuania, located in the east of the country around the city Vilnius.

Etymology and other names

The name of the city originated from the Vilnia River.^[2] The city has also been known by many derivate spellings in various languages throughout its history. The most notable non-Lithuanian names for the city include: Polish Polish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner throughout most of Poland: Wilno, Belarusian The Belarusian language, or the Belarusan is, along with Russian, the language of the Belarusians and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. Prior to Belarus gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1992, the language was called known in English as Byelorussian or Belorussian, transliterating the Russian: Вiльня (Vilnia), German: Wilna, Latvian Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language. Because of language policy in Latvia approximately 30% of: Viļņa, Russian Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three (or four including Rusyn) living members of the East Slavic languages. Written examples of Old East Slavonic are: Вильнюс, Yiddish Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet: ווילנע (Vilne). An older Russian Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three (or four including Rusyn) living members of the East Slavic languages. Written examples of Old East Slavonic are name was Вильна / Вильно (Vilna/Vilno),^[3][4] although Вильнюс (Vilnius) is now used. The names Wilno, Wilna and Vilna have also been used in older English, German, French and Italian language publications. The name Vilna is still used in Finnish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Hebrew.

The city elderates have also names in other languages.

History

Early history

Historian Romas Batūra identifies the city with Voruta, one of the castles of Mindaugas, crowned in 1253 as King of Lithuania. During the reign of Vytenis a city started to emerge from a trading settlement and the first Franciscan Catholic church was built. The city was first mentioned in written sources in 1323, when the Letters of Grand Duke Gediminas were sent to German cities inviting Germans and members of the Jewish The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos community to settle in the capital city, as well as to Pope John XXII Pope John XXII , born Jacques Duèze (or d'Euse), was pope from 1316 to 1334. He was the second Pope of the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377), elected by a conclave in Lyon assembled by Philip V of France. Like his predecessor, Clement V, he centralized power and income in the Papacy, living a princely life in Avignon and funding his court and wars. He. These letters contain the first unambiguous reference to Vilnius as the capital; Old Trakai Castle had been the earlier seat of the court of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was an Eastern and Central European state from the 12th /13th century until 1795. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the pagan Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija. The duchy later expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus' and other Slavic lands, covering the territory of present-day Lithuania,. According to legend, Gediminas dreamt of an iron wolf howling on a hilltop and consulted a pagan priest for its interpretation. He was told: "What is destined for the ruler and the State of Lithuania, is thus: the Iron Wolf represents a castle and a city which will be established by you on this site. This city will be the capital of the Lithuanian lands and the dwelling of their rulers, and the glory of their deeds shall echo throughout the world".^[5] The location offered practical advantages: it lay within the Lithuanian heartland at the confluence of two navigable rivers, surrounded by forests and wetlands that were difficult to penetrate. The duchy had been subject to intrusions by the Teutonic Knights The Order of the Teutonic Knights of St. Mary's Hospital in Jerusalem , or for short the Teutonic Order (Today: German Order), is a German Roman Catholic religious order. It was formed to aid Catholics on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals to care for the sick and injured. Its members have commonly been known as the.^[6]

Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Gediminas expanded the Grand Duchy through warfare along with strategic alliances and marriages. At its height it covered the territory of modern-day Lithuania, Belarus Belarus, (pronounced /bɛləˈruːs/ bel-ə-ROOS; Belarusian: Беларусь, Russian: Беларусь or Белоруссия, Belorussia see Etymology), officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and, Ukraine Ukraine (pronounced /juːˈkreɪn/ ew-KRAYN; Ukrainian: Україна, transliterated: Ukrayina, [ukrɑˈjinɑ]), with its area of 600,000 sq km, is the second largest country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by the Russian Federation to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and, Transnistria Transnistria, also known as Trans-Dniestr or Transdniestria is a breakaway territory located mostly in a strip between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine. It is generally recognised internationally as being de jure in Eastern Moldova as the autonomous region Stînga Nistrului . Since its declaration of independence in 199, and portions of modern-day Poland and Russia. His grandchildren Vytautas the Great Vytautas (Lithuanian: Vytautas Didysis , Belarusian: Вітаўт, Polish: Witold Kiejstutowicz; styled "the Great" from the 15th century onwards; c. 1350 – October 27, 1430) was one of the most famous rulers of medieval Lithuania. Vytautas was the ruler (1392–1430) of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which chiefly encompassed the and Jogaila, however, fought civil wars. During the Lithuanian Civil War of 1389–1392, Vytautas besieged and razed the city in an attempt to wrest control from Jogaila. The two later settled their differences; after a series of treaties culminating in the 1569 Union of Lublin The Union of Lublin replaced the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, since Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was largely abandoned, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was formed. The rulers of this federation held either or both of two titles: Grand Duke of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was an Eastern and Central European state from the 12th /13th century until 1795. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the pagan Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija. The duchy later expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus' and other Slavic lands, covering the territory of present-day Lithuania, or King of Poland Categories: Polish monarchs | Polish history timelines | Lists of monarchs | Lists of Polish people . In 1387, Jogaila granted Magdeburg rights to the city.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The city underwent a period of expansion. The Vilnius city walls were built for protection between 1503 and 1522, comprising nine city gates and three towers, and Sigismund August moved his court there in 1544.

Its growth was due in part to the establishment of Almae Academia et Universitas Vilnensis Societatis Jesu by King Stefan Bathory in 1579. The university soon developed into one of the most important scientific and cultural centres of the region and the most notable scientific centre of the Commonwealth. During its rapid development, the city was open to migrants Immigration is the introduction of new people into a habitat or population. It is a biological concept and is important in population ecology, differentiated from emigration and migration from the territories of the Grand Duchy and further. A variety of languages were spoken: Lithuanian Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they are not mutually intelligible. It is written in an, Polish Polish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner throughout most of Poland, Ruthenian Ruthenian is a term used for the varieties of Eastern Slavonic spoken in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later in the East Slavic territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russian Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three (or four including Rusyn) living members of the East Slavic languages. Written examples of Old East Slavonic are, Old Slavonic Old Church Slavonic, also known as Old Bulgarian or Old Macedonian, was the first literary Slavic language, based on the old Slavic dialect of the Thessaloniki region, employed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who used it for translation of the Bible and other Ancient Greek ecclesiastical texts, and for, Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native speakers, a small number of scholars can fluently speak it and it continues to be taught in schools and universities and has been, and currently is, used in the process of, German, Yiddish Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew Extinct as a regularly spoken language by the 4th century CE, but survived as a liturgical and literary language; revived in the 1880s and Turkic The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family; the city was compared to Babylon Babylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between.^[6] Each group made its unique contribution to the life of the city, and crafts, trade, and science prospered.

The 17th century brought a number of setbacks. The Commonwealth was involved in a series of wars, collectively known as The Deluge Ujście – Danzig – Sobota – Żarnów – 1st Kraków – Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki – Wojnicz – Jasna Góra – Gołąb – Zamość – Sandomierz – Warka – Kłecko – 1st Warsaw – Kcynia – 2nd Warsaw – Lubcz – 2nd Kraków – Prostki – Filipów – Chojnice – Czarny Ostrów – Tykocin – Toruń – Magierów – Grudziądz. During the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667), Vilnius was occupied by Russia and Saxon The Saxons were a confederation of Old Germanic tribes. Their modern-day descendants in Lower Saxony and Westphalia and other German states are considered ethnic Germans (the state of Sachsen is not inhabited by ethnic Saxons; the state of Sachsen-Anhalt is, though, in its northern and western parts); those in the eastern Netherlands are forces; it was pillaged and burned, and its population was massacred. During the Great Northern War During the Great Northern War , a coalition of numerous states successfully contested Swedish supremacy in northern Central and Eastern Europe. Initially, the anti-Swedish alliance comprised Peter the Great of Russia, Frederik IV of Denmark-Norway and August the Strong of Saxe-Poland-Lithuania. Frederik IV and August the Strong were forced out of it was looted by the Swedish army. An outbreak of bubonic plague Bubonic plague is the best known manifestation of the plague, caused by the Gram-negative bacterium Yersinia pestis . It belongs to the family Enterobacteriaceae. The term "bubonic plague" comes from the Greek word bubo, meaning "swollen gland," especially in the armpit and groin. It was often used synonymously for plague, but in 1710 killed about 35,000 residents; devastating fires occurred in 1715, 1737, 1741, 1748, and 1749.^[6] The city's growth lost its momentum for many years, but the population rebounded, and by the beginning of the 19th century its population reached 20,000.

In the Russian Empire

The fortunes of the Commonwealth declined during the 18th century. Three partitions The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The partitions were carried out by the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, and Habsburg Austria dividing up the Commonwealth lands among themselves. Three took place, dividing its territory among the Russian Empire The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union. It was the second largest contiguous empire in world history, surpassed only by the Mongol Empire, and the third largest empire behind the British Empire and the Mongol, the Habsburg Empire The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg (1278–1780), and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine (since 1780), between 1526 and 1867/1918. The capital was mainly Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was Prague. The monarchy from 1804 to 1867 is usually referred to, and the Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire. It took its name from the territory of Prussia, although its power base was Brandenburg. After the third partition of April 1795, Vilnius was annexed by the Russian Empire and became the capital of the Vilna Governorate. During Russian rule, the city walls were destroyed, and, by 1805, only the Gate of Dawn remained. In 1812, the city was taken by Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte was a military and political leader of France and Emperor of the French as Napoleon I, whose actions shaped European politics in the early 19th century on his push towards Moscow The French invasion of Russia of 1812 was a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars, which reduced the French and allied invasion forces (the Grande Armée) to a tiny fraction of their initial strength and triggered a major shift in European politics, as it dramatically weakened the previously dominant French position on the continent. The campaign's, and again during the disastrous retreat. The Grande Armée The Grande Armée first entered the annals of history when, in 1805, Napoleon I renamed the army that he had assembled on the French coast of the English Channel for the proposed invasion of Britain. It never achieved its primary goal, as Napoleon had to re-deploy it East in order to eliminate the threat of Austria and Russia, which were part of was welcomed in Vilnius, since its inhabitants expected Tsar Alexander I Alexander I of Russia (23 December [O.S. 12 December] 1777 – 1 December [O.S. 19 November] 1825), also known as Alexander the Blessed (Russian: Александр Благословенный, Aleksandr Blagoslovennyi) served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was to grant the country autonomy in response to Napoleon's promises to restore the Commonwealth. Thousands of soldiers died in the city during the retreat; the mass graves were uncovered in 2002.^[6]

Following the November Uprising The November Uprising —also known as the Cadet Revolution—was an armed rebellion against the Russian Empire in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine in 1831, Vilnius University was closed and Russian repressions halted the further development of the city. During the January Uprising The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (present-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, parts of Ukraine, western Russia) against the Russian Empire. It began January 22, 1863, and lasted until the last insurgents were captured in 1865 in 1863, heavy fighting occurred within the city, but was brutally pacified by Mikhail Muravyov, nicknamed The Hangman by the population because of the number of executions he organized. After the uprising, all civil liberties were withdrawn, and use of the Polish Polish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner throughout most of Poland^[7] and Lithuanian languages Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they are not mutually intelligible. It is written in an were banned.^[8] Vilnius had a vibrant Jewish population: according to Russian census of 1897 The Russian Empire Census of 1897 was the first and the only census carried out in the Russian Empire . It recorded demographic data as of 28 January [O.S. 15 January] 1897, out of the total population of 154,500, Jews constituted 64,000 (so around 41% percent).^[9] During the early 20th century, the Lithuanian-speaking population of Vilnius constituted only a small minority, with Polish, Yiddish, and Belarusian The Belarusian language, or the Belarusan is, along with Russian, the language of the Belarusians and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. Prior to Belarus gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1992, the language was called known in English as Byelorussian or Belorussian, transliterating the Russian speakers comprising the majority of the city's population.^[10]

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