Kaunas A Brief Historical City Overview

Kaunas, the second largest city of Lithuania sits at the confluence of the Nemunas and Neris, the country's two largest rivers. "Kaunas" was originally used as a person's name, later as a surname. The city was strongly influenced by its status as the provisional capital during the inter-war period and by the growth in industry during the Soviet-period. Its most interesting districts lie along the banks of the Nemunas and include the Old Town at the confluence of the two rivers, and Naujamiestas (New Town) on both sides of Laisves (Freedom) Avenue to the east and up on the Žaliakalnis crest along Vaižganto and Kipro Petrausko streets.

History of Kaunas until the Second World War

The settlement grew around a castle built at the end of the 13th century and was mentioned in written sources in 1361; according to legend the city was founded in 1030 by Kunas (Kaunas), son of the Roman Palemon. It acquired the rights of Magedeburg in 1408, a Hanseatic merchant trade office by 1441, and a school, hospital and apothecary in the 16th century. The city was ravaged by Russian soldiers in 1655, by the Swedes in 1701. Much of the city's population died of the plague in 1657 and 1708; it was damaged by fire in 1732, and pludered twice by Napoleon's army at the beginning of the 19th century.

Kaunas was the centre of an administrative province in 1843, and of the Samogitian diocese after the 1863 uprising. In 1861 Lithuania's first branche of the St. Petersburg-Warsaw railway line passed through Kaunas; a year later it acquired the 1.28 km long train tunnel, which is used to this day. The railway stimulated the development of industry and the construction of residential districts for workers. In 1879 Kaunas was assigned 1st class militairy defence status, and was encircled by fortifications; it acquired army barracks and other military buildings, as well as a law limiting public construction to two storeys. Its urbanistic structure changed once again with its rapid expansion as the provisional capital of independent Lithuania at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Naujamiestas district of taller residential and administration buildings emerged on the right bank of the Nemunas, and villas appeared in Žaliakalnis; inustrial areas had developed along the railway line by the end of the 19th century. The city's ethnic structure also changed with an increase in he number of Lithuanians alongside the large communities of Jews and Russians. The Jewish people lived mostly on the right bank of the Neris - in Vilijampole, where their schools and prayer houses were located; a ghetto enforced there at the onset of the Second World War was liquidated in 1942-1943.

History of Kaunas after the Second World War

The Soviet period brought new industrial enterprises, blocks of typical residential buildings, and the institutes of medicine, polytechnics and physical education in place of the destructed university. The Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis Art Museum remained an important cultural hearth;as did the city's musical and drama theatre; the latter was especially popular during the 1970s-1980s under directors Jonas Jurašas, Gytis Padegimas and Jonas Vaitkus. Kaunas was also the centre for basketball, Lithuania's national sport: over the years its "Žalgiris" team won many important tournaments, including the European Championships in Riga (1937), Kaunas (1939) and France (1999).

During the Soviet-period Kaunas wa a centre of "quiet" anti-Soviet resistance, and of youth demonstrations which followed self-immolation by the student Romas Kalanta in front of the musical theatre on Laives Avenue in 1972. Those times are commemorated by several museum displays, and a monument on the site of his death. Another testimonial to the resistance was the underground printing-press which Vytautas Adziulis ran from 1980-1989 in the basement of his house in the suburb of Domeikava.