Place:Vilnius city, Vilnius, Lithuania

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Vilnius (; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 . The population of Vilnius's functional urban area, which stretches beyond the city limits, is estimated at 718,507 (as of 2020),^[1] while according to the Vilnius territorial health insurance fund, there were 732,421 permanent inhabitants as of October 2020 in Vilnius city and Vilnius district municipalities combined. Vilnius is situated in southeastern Lithuania and is the second-largest city in the Baltic states, but according to the Bank of Latvia is expected to become the largest in 2025. It is the seat of Lithuania's national government and the Vilnius District Municipality.

Vilnius is classified as a Gamma global city according to GaWC studies, and is known for the architecture in its Old Town, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. Before World War II, Vilnius was one of the largest Jewish centres in Europe. Its Jewish influence has led to its nickname "the Jerusalem of Lithuania". Napoleon called it "the Jerusalem of the North" as he was passing through in 1812. In 2009, Vilnius was the European Capital of Culture, together with Linz, Austria. In 2021, Vilnius was named among top-25 fDi's Global Cities of the Future – one of the most forward-thinking cities with the greatest potential in the World.

History

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Early history and Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Historian Romas Batūra identifies the city with Voruta, one of the castles of Mindaugas, who was King of Lithuania after coronation in 1253. During the reign of Grand Dukes Butvydas and Vytenis, a city started emerging from a trading settlement and the first Franciscan Catholic church was built.^[2]

Vilnius is the historic and present-day capital of Lithuania. Archeological findings indicate that this city was the capital of the Kingdom of Lithuania and later that of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After Lithuania formed a dual confederation with the Kingdom of Poland, Vilnius still remained as Lithuania's capital.

The city was first mentioned in written sources in 1323 as Vilna, when the Letters of Grand Duke Gediminas were sent to German cities inviting Germans (including German Jews) to settle in the capital city, as well as to Pope John XXII. These letters contain the first unambiguous reference to Vilnius as the capital;^[3] Old Trakai Castle had been the earlier seat of the court of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Vilnius's location offered practical advantages: it lay in the Lithuanian heartland at the confluence of two navigable rivers (Vilnia and Neris), surrounded by impenetrable forests and wetlands.

At the time of the 14th century, Lithuania was continuously invaded by the Teutonic Order. The future King of England Henry IV (then Henry Bolingbroke) spent a full year of 1390 supporting the unsuccessful siege of Vilnius by Teutonic Knights with his 300 fellow knights. During this campaign he bought captured Lithuanian women and children and took them back to Königsberg for their conversion. King Henry's second expedition to Lithuania in 1392 illustrates the financial benefits of these guest crusaders to the Order. His small army consisted of over 100 men, including longbow archers and six minstrels, at a total cost to the Lancastrian purse of £4,360. Despite the efforts of Bolingbroke and his English crusaders, two years of attacks on Vilnius proved fruitless. Vilnius was the flourishing capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the residence of the Grand Duke. Gediminas expanded the Grand Duchy through warfare along with strategic alliances and marriages.^[3] At its height it covered the territory of modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Transnistria, and portions of modern-day Poland and Russia. His grandchildren Vytautas the Great 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.^[3] The two Gediminids cousins later settled their differences; after a series of treaties culminating in the 1569 Union of Lublin, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was formed. The Commonwealth's rulers held two titles: Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland. In 1387, Jogaila acting as a Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, granted Magdeburg rights to the city.^[3]

The city underwent a period of expansion in the 16th century. The Wall of Vilnius was built for protection between 1503 and 1522, comprising nine city gates and three towers,^[3] and in 1547 Sigismund II Augustus moved his court from Kraków to Vilnius.

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

Vilnius's growth was due in part to the establishment of Alma Academia et Universitas Vilnensis Societatis Iesu by the Polish King and Grand Duke of Lithuania Stephen Báthory in 1579. The university soon developed into one of the most important scientific and cultural centres in the region and the most notable scientific centre of the Commonwealth.

During its rapid development, the city was open to migrants from the territories of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Grand Duchy and further. Many languages were spoken: Polish, German, Yiddish, Ruthenian, Lithuanian, Russian, Old Church Slavonic, Latin, Hebrew, and Turkic languages; the city was compared to Babylon. Each group contributed uniquely to the city's life, 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. During the Thirteen Years' War (1654–1667), Vilnius was occupied by Muscovite forces; it was pillaged and burned, and its population massacred. During the Great Northern War it was looted by the Swedish army. An outbreak of bubonic plague in 1710 killed about 35,000 residents; devastating fires occurred in 1715, 1737, 1741, 1748, and 1749. The city's growth lost its momentum for many years, but even despite this fact, at the end of the 18th century and before the Napoleon wars, Vilnius, with 56,000 inhabitants, entered the Russian Empire as its third-largest city.

In the Russian Empire

The fortunes of the Commonwealth declined during the 18th century. Three partitions took place, dividing its territory among the Russian Empire, the Habsburg Empire, and the Kingdom of Prussia. Forces led by Jakub Jasiński expelled Russians from Vilnius during the uprising in 1794. However, 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 on his push towards Moscow, and again during the disastrous retreat. The Grande Armée was welcomed in Vilnius. Thousands of soldiers died in the city during the eventual retreat; the mass graves were uncovered in 2002. Inhabitants expected Tsar Alexander I to grant them autonomy in response to Napoleon's promises to restore the Commonwealth, but Vilnius did not become autonomous, neither by itself nor as a part of Congress Poland.

Following the November uprising in 1831, Vilnius University was closed and Russian repressions halted the further development of the city. Civil unrest in 1861 was suppressed by the Imperial Russian Army.

During the January uprising in 1863, heavy fighting occurred within the city, but was brutally pacified by Mikhail Muravyov, nicknamed The Hangman by the population because of the many executions he organized. After the uprising, all civil liberties were withdrawn, and use of the Polish and Lithuanian languages was banned. Vilnius had a vibrant Jewish population: according to the Russian census of 1897, out of the total population of 154,500, Jews constituted 64,000 (approximately 40%). During the early 20th century, the Lithuanian-speaking population of Vilnius constituted only a small minority, with Polish, Yiddish, and Russian speakers comprising the majority of the city's population. On 4–5 December 1905, the Great Seimas of Vilnius was held in the current Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society building with over 2000 participants. It was the first modern national congress in Lithuania. The assembly decided to demand wide political autonomy within the Russian Empire and achieve this by peaceful means. It is considered an important step towards the Act of Independence of Lithuania, adopted on 16 February 1918 by the Council of Lithuania, as the Seimas laid the groundwork for the establishment of an independent Lithuanian state.

World War I

During World War I, Vilnius and the rest of Lithuania was occupied by the German Army from 1915 until 1918. The Act of Independence of Lithuania, which declared Lithuanian independence without any affiliation to any other nation, was issued in the city on 16 February 1918 with Vilnius as its capital.

Regional turmoil 1918–1920

At the end of 1918 Soviet Russia invaded Lithuania with massive forces, and the Lithuanian Army withdrew from Vilnius to the center of the country in order to form a defense line. The German Army withdrew together with the Lithuanian government. The Self-Defence of Lithuania, which was affiliated with the Second Polish Republic, briefly controlled the city and unsuccessfully tried protecting it against the invading Soviet forces. Vilnius changed hands again during the Polish–Soviet War and the Lithuanian Wars of Independence: it was taken by the Polish Army, only to fall to Soviet forces again. Shortly after the Red Army's defeat at the 1920 Battle of Warsaw, in order to delay the Polish advance, the Soviet government ceded the city to Lithuania after the signing the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty on 12 July 1920.

The League of Nations became involved in the subsequent Lithuanian self defense from Poland after it attacked Lithuanian army positions in the south west of Lithuania. The League brokered the ceasefire called the Suwałki Agreement on 7 October 1920. Lithuanians believed that it stopped a Polish aggression. Although neither Vilnius or the surrounding region was explicitly addressed in the agreement, numerous historians have described the agreement as allotting Vilnius to Lithuania. On 9 October 1920, the Polish Army surreptitiously, under General Lucjan Żeligowski, seized Vilnius during an operation known as Żeligowski's Mutiny. The city and its surroundings were designated as a separate state, called the Republic of Central Lithuania.

Interwar Poland

On 20 February 1922, after the highly contested election in Central Lithuania, the entire area was annexed by Poland, with the city becoming the capital of the Wilno Voivodeship (Wilno being the name of Vilnius in Polish). Kaunas then became the temporary capital of Lithuania. Lithuania vigorously contested the Polish annexation of Vilnius, and refused diplomatic relations with Poland. The predominant languages of the city were still Polish and, to a lesser extent, Yiddish. The Lithuanian-speaking population at the time was a small minority, at about 6% of the city's population according even to contemporary Lithuanian sources. The Council of Ambassadors and the international community (with the exception of Lithuania) recognized Polish sovereignty over Vilnius Region in 1923.

Vilnius University was reopened in 1919 under the name of Stefan Batory University. By 1931, the city had 195,000 inhabitants, making it the fifth largest city in Poland with varied industries, such as Elektrit, a factory that produced radio receivers.

World War II

Nazi Germany had invited Lithuania to join the invasion of Poland and retake the historical capital Vilnius by force; however, President Antanas Smetona and most of the Lithuanian politicians declined this offer because they had doubts about Adolf Hitler's eventual victory and were outraged by the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania. Instead, they supported the neutrality policy and after being encouraged by the French and British diplomats – Lithuania adopted the Neutrality Act, which was supported by all the political forces.

World War II began with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. The secret protocols of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact had partitioned Lithuania and Poland into German and Soviet spheres of interest. On 19 September 1939, Vilnius was seized by the Soviet Union (which invaded Poland on 17 September). The Soviets repressed the local population and devastated the city, moving assets and factories to the USSR territory, including the major Polish radio factory Elektrit, along with a part of its labor force, to Minsk in Belarus SSR. The Soviets and Lithuania concluded a mutual assistance treaty on 10 October 1939, with which the Lithuanian government accepted the presence of Soviet military bases in various parts of the country. On 28 October 1939, the Red Army withdrew from the city to its suburbs (to Naujoji Vilnia) and Vilnius was given over to Lithuania. A Lithuanian Army parade took place on 29 October 1939 through the city center. The Lithuanians immediately attempted to re-Lithuanize the city, for example by Lithuanizing Polish schools.

Following the normalisation of relation with Poland the Lithuanian Consulate was opened in Vilnius on 22 August 1939, but the consule started operating there only after the war already began, on 9 September 1939.

The whole of Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union on 3 August 1940 following a June ultimatum from the Soviets demanding, among other things, that unspecified numbers of Red Army soldiers be allowed to enter the country for the purpose of helping to form a more pro-Soviet government. After the ultimatum was issued and Lithuania further occupied, a Soviet government was installed with Vilnius as the capital of the newly created Lithuanian SSR. Between 20,000 and 30,000 of the city's inhabitants were subsequently arrested by the NKVD and sent to gulags in the far eastern areas of the Soviet Union.

On 22 June 1941, the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union, while at the same time Lithuanians began the anti-Soviet June Uprising, organized by the Lithuanian Activist Front. Lithuanians proclaimed independence and organized the Provisional Government of Lithuania. This government quickly self-disbanded. Nazis captured Vilnius on 24 June 1941. Lithuania became part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, German civil administration. Two ghettos were set up in the old town centre for the large Jewish population – the smaller one of which was "liquidated" by October. The larger ghetto lasted until 1943, though its population was regularly deported in roundups known as "Aktionen". A forced labour camp (Kailis) was also set up behind the Vilnius Town Hall as a factory to produce winter clothing for the Wehrmacht and another one later for vehicle repair (HKP 562) on 47 & 49 Subačiaus Street. A failed ghetto uprising on 1 September 1943 organized by the Fareinigte Partizaner Organizacje (the United Partisan Organization, the first Jewish partisan unit in German-occupied Europe), was followed by the final destruction of the ghetto. During the Holocaust, about 95% of the 265,000-strong Jewish population of Lithuania was murdered by the German units and Lithuanian Nazi collaborators, many of them in Paneriai, about west of the old town centre (see the Ponary massacre).

Vilnius' situation in 1944 was tenuous. As the Eastern Front neared Lithuania, the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force (LTDF) under general Plechavičius was founded in mid-February to fight the Red Army and Soviet partisans, both only within Lithuanian borders, but it was soon brutally disbanded in mid-April by the Germans due to German-Lithuanian friction. As Armia Krajowa (AK) operated within the borders of interwar Poland, which overlapped with the Lithuanian lands, this caused clashes between both organisations. In early July, Operation Ostra Brama was a failed attempt of the AK to take the city from the Wehrmacht before the approaching Red Army. As the Polish army did not take over the city, the speed of the Soviet Vilnius offensive led to a joint Polish-Soviet effort to seize Vilnius. After the battle, the Polish army was dispersed, some of it incorporated into the Soviet-loyal Polish People's Army, while the officers were arrested and imprisoned.

In the Lithuanian SSR (Soviet Union)

In July 1944, Vilnius was once more occupied by Soviet Army with the Vilnius offensive, during which it defeated the German garrison. The town was once more the Lithuanian SSR's capital. The NKVD began repressions against Lithuanians and Poles. Sovietization began in earnest.

The war had irreversibly altered the city – between 1939 and 1949, Vilnius lost almost 90% of its population, through murder, deportation or exile, many buildings were destroyed. The Jewish population had been exterminated in the Holocaust, while most of the remaining ones were compelled to move to Communist Poland by 1946. Some partisans and members of the intelligentsia hiding in the forest were now targeted and deported to Siberia after the war.

From the late 1940s on Vilnius began to grow again, following an influx of Lithuanians, Poles and Belarusians from neighbouring regions and throughout Lithuania as well as neighbouring region of Grodno and from other more remote areas of the Soviet Union (particularly Russia, Belarus and Ukraine). Most of these new residents moved to Vilnius, due to repressions or poor living conditions caused by, e.g. collectivisation, in areas, where they lived previously. On the previously rural outskirts as well as in the very vicinity of the Old Town (industrial zones in Paupys, Markučiai, Naujamiestis), industrial areas were (re)designed and large Soviet plants were built, following a program of industrialization.

In November 1980, the number of inhabitants of Vilnius exceeded 500,000. Because of shortage of housing for a growing population of the city, large scale Microdistricts (so-called sleeping districts) were built in the elderates of Antakalnis, Žirmūnai, Lazdynai, Karoliniškės, Viršuliškės, Baltupiai, Šeškinė, Justiniškės, Pašilaičiai, Fabijoniškės and on a smaller scale in other parts of Vilnius.^[3] These were connected with the central part as well as with industrial areas via expressway-like streets (so-called fast traffic streets) and by public transport, noticeably extensive network of trolleybuses (from 1956).

Independent Lithuania

On 11 March 1990, the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR announced its secession from the Soviet Union and intention to restore an independent Republic of Lithuania. As a result of these declarations, on 9 January 1991, the Soviet Union sent in troops. This culminated in the 13 January attack on the State Radio and Television Building and the Vilnius TV Tower, killing at least fourteen civilians and seriously injuring 700 more. The Soviet Union finally recognised Lithuanian independence in September 1991. The Constitution, as did the earlier Lithuanian Constitution of 1922, mentions that "the capital of the State of Lithuania shall be the city of Vilnius, the long-standing historical capital of Lithuania".

Vilnius has been rapidly transforming, emerging as a modern European city. The majority of its historical buildings during the last 25 years had been renovated, and a business and commercial area is being developed into the New City Centre, that is expected to become the city's main administrative and business district on the north side of the Neris river. This area includes modern residential and retail space, with the municipality building and the Europa Tower as its most prominent buildings. The construction of Swedbank's headquarters is symbolic of the importance of Scandinavian banks in Vilnius. The building complex Vilnius Business Harbour was built in 2008, and one of its towers is now the 6th tallest building in Lithuania. More buildings are scheduled for construction in the area. More than 75,000 new flats were built between 1995 and 2018 (including almost 50,000 new flats between 2003 and 2018), making Vilnius an absolute leader in construction sector in the Baltics of the last two decades. On average, or 3,246 flats are built each year. In 2015, there were 225,871 units in multi-storey houses and 20,578 flats in single-family or duplex apartment houses, the share of such housing increasing from 6.9% in 2006 to 8.3% in 2015. The record numbers of flats were built in 2019 – 4,322 flats in multi-family residentials were built in Vilnius city municipality and 817 flats were built in Vilnius urban zone (the city and the closest surroundings) in single-family detached houses – the later being the highest number in history.

Vilnius was selected as a 2009 European Capital of Culture, along with Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. Its 2009 New Year's Eve celebration, marking the event, featured a light show said to be "visible from outer space". In preparation, the historical centre of the city was restored, and its main monuments were renovated.

The global economic crisis of 2007–2008 led to a drop in tourism which prevented many of the projects from reaching their planned extent, and allegations of corruption and incompetence were made against the organisers, while tax increases for cultural activity led to public protests and the general economic conditions sparked riots. In 2015 Remigijus Šimašius became the first directly elected mayor of the city.

On 28–29 November 2013, Vilnius hosted the Eastern Partnership Summit in the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. Many European presidents, prime ministers and other high-ranking officials participated in the event. On 29 November 2013, Georgia and Moldova signed association and free trade agreements with the European Union. Previously, Ukraine and Armenia were also expected to sign the agreements but postponed the decision, sparking large protests in Ukraine.

The 2023 NATO summit will be held in Vilnius.

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