Sudovia

It has been suggested that Suvalkai Region be merged into this article or section. ()

Etnographic regions of Lithuania with Sudovia highlighted in light orange.

Sudovia (Lithuanian: Sūduva / Suvalkija, Polish: Suwalszczyzna / Jaćwież; German: Sudauen) is the area in north-eastern Poland and southern Lithuania. It is also the name of one of the ethnographic regions of Lithuania. Suwałki is the major city of Sudovia in Poland and Marijampolė is considered to be its capital in Lithuania. Small border region around the towns of Suwałki and Sejny (known as Suvalkai Region) was disputed between Lithuania and Poland after World War I

Name

The English name of Sudovia stems from the extinct Baltic tribe of Sudovians. They were conquered and assimilated by Lithuanians, Poles, and the Teutonic Knights. The name likely originated from a Baltic noun *sūdas/šūdas, and meant "a muddy place".^[1] The northern part of Suwałki Governorate of the Russian Empire almost corresponded to the region of Sudovia. Therefore people started calling the are Suvalkija / Suwalszczyzna after the town of Suwałki (Lithuanian: Suvalkai). Lithuanians also refer to the region as Užnemunė (literally: behind Nemunas) as it is located on the opposite bank of the Neman River (Lithuanian: Nemunas) as the rest of the country.

History

Originally, the region was inhabited by the Baltic tribe of the Sudovians. Because of continuous raids by the Teutonic Knights in attempts to baptize pagan Grand Duchy of Lithuania most of Sudovia became rarely inhabited wilderness. After the Battle of Grunwald, which ended the crusade against Lithuania, the territory became slowly repopulated by settlers from other parts of the Grand Duchy or Lithuania. Much of the territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until the 3rd Partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1795, when it was occupied by Kingdom of Prussia until 1807. In 1807 Napoleon Bonapart established Duchy of Warsaw and enacted his Napoleonic code and introduced the "new" Gregorian calendar. These changes were not abolished after the disastrious invasion of Russia. It meant that serfdom in Sudovia was abolished almost 50 years earlier than in the rest of Lithuania which at the time was under control of the Russian Empire. The peasants of Sudovia gained personal freedom and opportunities to acquire wealth. This led to formation of a new intellectual class. It played an instrumental role in the Lithuanian National Revival. The Sudovian dialect of the Lithuanian language became the basis for the standardized modern Lithuanian. In 1918 the area was divided between Poland and Lithuania along the ethnic lines. There were some disagreements about the border Suwałki Region. This was one of the main causes of the Polish-Lithuanian War. Most of the population of the region today is Lithuanian or Polish on both sides of the border. According to the Polish National Census of 2002 there were 5,846 Lithuanians living in Poland, the majority of them inhabiting the region. There are Lithuanian schools and cultural societies present in the area and the Lithuanian language is spoken in the offices in the commune of Puńsk. In Lithuanian part, many local Lithuanians speak Sudovian dialect which is also spoken in some parts of Lithuania Minor, Samogitia and Aukštaitija.

References