This week I visited Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, for a couple of days. The city has a beautiful historic centre which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The various building styles (Gothic, Baroque, Renaissance, (Neo-)classical) are a symbol of its rich, culturally diverse, and turbulent past.

Vilnius was founded in the 14th century by Gediminas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania and one of the most significant figures in Lithuanian history. The area was already settled before as archaeological findings have proven. Vilnius is situated in a great location next to the rivers Vilnia and Neris with different hilltops and surrounded by forests and marshes.   

Gediminas invited foreign merchants to the city and the city maintained a very diverse and multinational population ever since which changed quite a lot. Many Poles, Germans and Jewish joined the original Lithuanian population during its first centuries and the city was sometimes compared to Babel because of the many languages one could hear there. It also became an important scientific town when a university was founded.

After the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century Vilnius became part of the Russian Empire and was Russified. The city also contained a very large Jewish population and was nicknamed ‘Jerusalem of the East’. In 1897 a census was held, and the population was asked about their mother tongue: 40% said Yiddish, 30% Polish, 20% Russian and only 2% Lithuanian.

In 1931 the results were totally different. In the conflicts after World War 1 Vilnius ended up in Polish hands and now 65% spoke Polish as mother tongue with 28% Yiddish and 4% Russian. This drastically changed again after WW2 and the communist takeover. 55% spoke Lithuanian, 22% Russian and 21% Polish. Because of the Holocaust and its terrible events, all Yiddish speakers were gone.

These numbers illustrate the turbulent past of Vilnius and how its population completely changed in less than 100 years because of World War 1, World War 2 and its effects.  

Originally posted on Instagram on July 28, 2022