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Panevėžys (Latin: Panevezen, , , Ponevezh; see also ) is the fifth largest city in Lithuania. As of 2011, it occupied with 113,653 inhabitants. As defined by Eurostat, the population of Panevėžys functional urban area, that stretches beyond the city limits, is estimated at 127,471 (as of 2017) The largest multifunctional arena in Panevėžys, Cido Arena, hosted the Eurobasket 2011 group matches. The city is still widely known, if indirectly, in the Jewish world, for the eponymous Ponevezh Yeshiva.
[edit] History
[edit] Grand Duchy of LithuaniaLegend has it that Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas the Great, returning from Samogitia to Vilnius in 1414, found a temple (alka) of the old Lithuanian religion in the present-day surroundings of Panevėžys, but this has not been documented. Another myth among the locals, was also that when Anna - wife of Vytautas the Great, was refreshing herself in the river of Nevėžis, and her personal servant got startled by crayfish in river waters (crayfish in lithuanian is Vėžys) - and yelled "Pani, viažys" so Anna would be careful. This was not documented, but is well known story among people from local areas.
[edit] 19th – early 20th centuriesFollowing the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, the city was assigned to the Vilna Governorate.[2] In 1800, Panevėžys received a permission to build a town hall.[2] In 1825, the Evangelical Lutheran Church was built in Panevėžys, and the Orthodox parish was founded in 1841.[2] The city played an important role in both the November Uprising, and the January Uprising, and the fights for independence continued there after 1864.[2] In 1843, Panevėžys was assigned to the Kovno Governorate and in 1866 the town hall was replaced with a City Duma.[2] Panevėžys Teachers' Seminary was the first education institution in the Russian Empire in which the teaching of the Lithuanian language was officially started.
Panevėžys also was a center of operations by local knygnešiai (book smugglers). In 1880, Naftalis Feigenzonas established the first printing house in Panevėžys. At the end of the book prohibition, one of the Lithuanian book smugglers – Juozas Masiulis – in 1905 opened the first Lithuanian bookstore and printing house.[2] The building is still a landmark of Panevėžys, and local people are proud of this heritage, symbolized in a bookstore that has been functional for more than 100 years. [edit] 1918–1941Volunteers of the Lithuanian Armed Forces had liberated the city for the first time from the Bolsheviks' forces on 27 March 1919 during the Lithuanian Wars of Independence and raised flags of Lithuania. Between the World Wars, in the newly independent Lithuania, Panevėžys continued to grow.[2] According to the Lithuanian census of 1923, there were 19,147 people in Panevėžys (19,197 with suburbs), among them 6,845 Jews (36%) (in Yiddish the town's name was , transliterated as ).[2] The Ponevezh Yeshiva, one of the most notable Haredi yeshivas in the history of the Jews in Lithuania, was established and flourished in the town. Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman (1886–1969) was its rosh yeshiva (head) and president.[4] Known as the "Ponovezher Rov", he was also the leading rabbi of Panevėžys. He managed to escape to the British Mandate of Palestine where he set about rebuilding the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak where it still exists in modern Israel. It has a very large student body of young Talmud scholars.
On 23 June 1941, the June Uprising began in Panevėžys County. The most active participants of the uprising were in Ramygala and Krekenava counties.[5] The participants of the uprising were also active in the city of Panevėžys.[5] On 25 June 1941, the Panevėžys Staff of the June Uprising was established in the city which was headed by Lieutenant Colonel Antanas Stapulionis.[5] One of the staff's tasks was to oversee the order in the city, thus Antanas Stapulionis had issued an order stating that the robbers will be shot on the spot,[5] and ordered to remove all signs which reminisced the Soviet rule. Moreover, the scouts were sent to all roads leading from the city and on 25 June, at the initiative of the rebels, the Piniavos Bridge and the food factory were demined.[5] The Panevėžys Post Office was peacefully passed into the hands of the rebels.[5] During the first days of the war, the NKGB units carried out repressions, arrested participants of the June Uprising and civilians who spoke out against the Soviet government; the detainees were transported to the Panevėžys Prison.[6] As the Germans were approaching, seeing no way out, the Soviets had decided to retreat to the East and to shoot the political prisoners in the prison.[6] Already on 27 June, the city was full of the Lithuanian Tricolor flags and without any serious clashes with the retreating Red Army in the city or its surroundings.[6] Furthermore, on 27 June, the Wehrmacht had entered Panevėžys and in the end of June the Germans liquidated the staff of the rebels.[6] [edit] Soviet and Nazi annexationsAfter Germany attacked the USSR, Panevėžys was occupied by German forces, as it had been during the First World War.[2] It acquired the status of a district center within the Reichskommissariat Ostland. During the Nazi occupation nearly all the Jewish population of the town was killed in 1943 during the Holocaust;[2][3] only a few managed to escape and find asylum abroad. The major massacre was in August 1941 when 7,523 Jews were executed by the German Army officers and soldiers, German-SS officers and the Panevėžys (10th) police battalion.[2] In 1944 the city was yet again occupied by the Soviet Union leading to a new wave of political exiles and killings.[2][3] The Lithuanian partisans of the Vytis military district actively operated in the Panevėžys County from 1944 and militarily confronted with the Soviet forces in notable battles, however following the death of chief Bronius Karbočius in 1953 the staff of the Vytis military district was not restored and the last partisans were killed in action in 1956.
The number of inhabitants increased from 41,000 to 101,500 between 1959 and 1979.[2][3] [edit] Independent LithuaniaIn 1990, the population reached 130,000.[2][3] After Lithuania regained its independence, the city's industry faced some major challenges.[3] For some time it was regarded as a place where plastics cooperatives were making large profits. After independence, the population of Panevėžys fell somewhat and for a while most investments went to Vilnius or Klaipėda instead.[2] However, with the economic growth in the early 2000s, investment also reached Panevėžys. Babilonas real estate project, the largest such project in the Baltic States with an 80 ha land area, has been developed in Panevėžys since 2004. Panevėžys Free Economic Zone was established in 2013. [edit] Research Tips
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