Dieveniškės

Town in Dzūkija, Lithuania

Dieveniškės Dziewieniszki
Town

Coat of arms
54°11′40″N 25°37′30″E / 54.19444°N 25.62500°E / 54.19444; 25.62500
Country	Lithuania
Ethnographic region	Dzūkija
County	Vilnius County
Municipality	Šalčininkai district municipality
Eldership	Dieveniškės eldership
First mentioned	1385
Area
• Total	0.47 km² (0.18 sq mi)
Population (2021)
• Total	578
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 (EEST)

Dieveniškės (in Lithuanian literally: Place of gods; Polish: Dziewieniszki; Belarusian: Дзевянішкі Dzevyanishki) is a town in the Vilnius County of Lithuania, about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the Belarusian border in the so-called Dieveniškės appendix. It is surrounded by the Dieveniškės Regional Park.

The Largest Town nearby is Krakunai

History

The estate of Dieveniškės was first mentioned in 1385 as a village of a Lithuanian noble Mykolas Mingaila, possibly the son of Gedgaudas, later ruled by the Goštautai family. Stanislovas Goštautas visited Dieveniškės with his wife Barbara Radziwill (Lithuanian: Barbora Radvilaitė), who used to pray in Dieveniškės church, built in the 16th century. According to the 1897 census, 75% of the village population was Jewish, and the town had two synagogues. The Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust in Lithuania.^[1]^[2]

The people living in the Dieveniškės were ethnically mixed (Lithuanian, Polish, Belarusian), when the region was assigned to Belarus post-1939. Belarus gave the area voluntarily to Lithuania in 1940. As the result, Dieveniškės becomes a 207-square-kilometre Lithuanian salient surrounded by and projecting some 30 kilometres into the Belarusian territory. At its neck, the “Lithuanian appendix” is less than 3 kilometres wide. According to the 1989 census, slightly over 60 percent of residents considered themselves Polish.^[3]

References

^ "DIEVENISKES: Vilnius County, Salcininkai district | Lithuania | International Jewish Cemetery Project".
^ "Devenishki book; memorial book, Lithuania".
^ "Lithuanian-Belarusian border: Divided villages, divided lives". 15min.lt. 19 October 2012.