Сувальский край: история и современность

the part of the region in Poland

Suwałki Region (Suwalszczyzna ; ) is a historical region around the city of Suwałki in northeastern Poland near the border with Lithuania. It encompasses the powiats of Augustów, Suwałki, and Sejny, and roughly corresponds to the southern part of the former Suwałki Governorate. The region was disputed between Poland and Lithuania after their re emergence as independent states following World War I. This dispute along with the Vilnius question was the cause of the Polish Lithuanian War and the Sejny Uprising. The area has been subsequently part of Poland until today, with the exception of the German and Soviet occupation during World War II. The Suwałki Region remains as the center of the Lithuanian minority in Poland.

The Neolithic era ushered in the first settled agricultural communities in the area of present day Poland, whose founders had migrated from the Danube River area beginning about 5500 BC. Later, the native post Mesolithic populations would also adopt and further develop the agricultural way of life (between 4400 and about 2000 BC). During the Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, the northeast corner of what is now Poland was populated by West Baltic tribes. They were at the outer limits of any substantial cultural influence from the Roman Empire.

After the local Yotvingians were eradicated or Germanized by the Teutonic Order in the 14th century, their southern lands were repopulated by Poles, Belarusians, and Ukrainians, while their northern territories (Suvalkija) remained largely void of settlement until the 16th century when Lithuanians began to migrate into the area.

The region belonged (either fully or partially) to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (within the Polish–Lithuanian union) until 1569, and afterwards it was divided between the Grand Duchy and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, both forming the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Following the joint German Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, most of the Suwałki Region was annexed by Nazi Germany and adjoined to the province of East Prussia, while a small part with the town of Lipsk was occupied by the Soviet Union until 1941. Under German occupation, the Polish population was subjected to the genocidal Intelligenzaktion campaign, which included mass arrests, massacres, deportations to forced labour and concentration camps, and expulsions, while in the Soviet occupied part the Russians carried out deportations of Poles into the USSR. In April 1940, the Germans carried out mass deportations of local Polish intelligentsia to concentration camps, including Soldau, Sachsenhausen and Dachau.

After World War II, Poland regained control over the territory. The area was administratively part of the Białystok Voivodeship until 1975, then the Suwałki Voivodeship until 1998, and since 1999 it is located in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. The area is still inhabited by the Lithuanian minority. Lithuanians are concentrated in the Sejny County where they accounted for 20.2% of the population in 2011 and exceeded 10% of the inhabitants in two communes – Gmina Puńsk (73.4%) and Gmina Sejny (15.5%). There are Lithuanian schools and cultural societies present in the Suwałki region and the Lithuanian language is spoken in the offices in the commune of Puńsk.