Dieveniškės (in Lithuanian literally: Place of gods; Polish: Dziewieniszki; Belarusian: Дзевянішкі Dzevyanishki) is a town in the Vilnius County of Lithuania, about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the Belarusian border in the so-called Dieveniškės appendix. It is surrounded by the Dieveniškės Regional Park.
Dieveniškės
Dziewieniszki | |
|---|---|
Town | |
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 Coat of arms | |
  Dieveniškės Location of Dieveniškės | |
| Coordinates: 54°11′40″N 25°37′30″E / 54.19444°N 25.62500°E | |
| Country |  Lithuania |
| Ethnographic region | Dzūkija |
| County |  Vilnius County |
| Municipality | Šalčininkai district municipality |
| Eldership | Dieveniškės eldership |
| First mentioned | 1385 |
| Area | |
| • Total | 0.47 km2 (0.18 sq mi) |
| Population (2021) | |
| • Total | 578 |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+3 (EEST) |
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History
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The estate of Dieveniškės was first mentioned in 1385 as a village of a Lithuanian noble Mykolas Mingaila, possibly the son of Gedgaudas, later ruled by the Goštautai family. Stanislovas Goštautas visited Dieveniškės with his wife Barbara Radziwill (Lithuanian: Barbora Radvilaitė), who used to pray in Dieveniškės church, built in the 16th century. According to the 1897 census, 75% of the village population was Jewish, and the town had two synagogues. The Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust in Lithuania.[1][2]
The people living in the Dieveniškės were ethnically mixed (Lithuanian, Polish, Belarusian), when the region was assigned to Belarus post-1939. Belarus gave the area voluntarily to Lithuania in 1940. As the result, Dieveniškės becomes a 207-square-kilometre Lithuanian salient surrounded by and projecting some 30 kilometres into the Belarusian territory. At its neck, the “Lithuanian appendix” is less than 3 kilometres wide. According to the 1989 census, slightly over 60 percent of residents considered themselves Polish.[3]