Элк: История польского города в Восточной Пруссии.

Ełk (; former Łek; Lyck; Old Prussian: Luks; Yotvingian: Lukas), also seen absent Polish diacritics as Elk, is a city in northeastern Poland with 61,677 inhabitants as of December 2021. Old Polish names of the town included Łek, Łęg and Łęk. It received its town rights in 1445. After the outbreak of the Thirteen Years' War in 1454, the town sided with the Prussian Confederation, The town was briefly captured by the Teutonic Knights in 1455, and later on, it was conquered alternately by the Poles and the Teutonic Knights. After 1466 it was a part of Poland as a fief.

In 1537, Duke Albert of Prussia donated an estate to Jan Malecki, a Polish printer from Kraków who had either fled or moved to Ducal Prussia for material reasons, to establish a printing house. After converting to Lutheranism, Malecki translated and published Martin Luther's
Small Catechism in Polish In 1546 the first school for secondary education in Masuria was founded in the city, where Polish nobles from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as Poles and Germans from Ducal Prussia were taught in Polish; the position of a Polish teacher remained in place until 1819. Polish pastor, translator, publisher and co creator of the literary Polish language, Hieronim Malecki, was the school's first rector. In the mid 16th century Ełk was one of the most thriving centers of Polish language printing. In 1639 the King of Poland Władysław IV Vasa visited the town. It remained under Polish suzerainty until 1660.

In 1709 10, the plague claimed 1,300 victims. In 1831, 300 people, about 10 percent of the populace, died of the cholera, in 1837 another 80 and 333 in 1852. In 1825, Lyck was inhabited by 1,748 Germans and 1,394 Poles. At the beginning of the 19th century, a Polish language school was organised in the city by Tymoteusz Gizewiusz In 1820, Fryderyk Tymoteusz Krieger became the superintendent of the school and actively defended the rights of local Poles to use the Polish language. Kireger also prepared Polish educational programs, in opposition to attempts at Germanization by Prussian authorities. In 1840, the German language newspaper "Lycker gemeinnütziges Unterhaltungsblatt", later called "Lycker Zeitung", was founded. Between 1842 and 1845, a Polish newspaper "Przyjaciel Ludu Łecki" (Łek's Friend of the People) was printed in the city, whose aim was to resist Germanisation and cultivate Polish folk traditions as well as educate the local rural population. In May 1845, a Polish resistance movement in the city was organized by Kazmierz Szulc, whose aim was to prepare local Polish youth for an uprising. During the January Uprising, weapons were smuggled through the city to the Russian Partition of Poland, and Polish insurgents fleeing the Russian Partition took refuge in the city; among others, a detachment of Colonel pl passed through it. In 1885 the city, under its modern name Ełk, was named capital of Masuria by the Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland. In the late 19th century it was the largest town of the region (according to data from 1880 and 1890), before being surpassed by Osterode (Ostróda) (according to data from 1905 and 1925). From 1896 to 1902, "Gazeta Ludowa", a Polish language newspaper, heavily subsidised by banks from Greater Poland representing the Polish national movement in Masuria, was published in the city. It soon faced repression and discrimination from the German authorities which led to its demise; its paid circulation dropped from 357 copies in 1896 to less than 250 at the turn of the century. According to German American author, Richard Blanke, the "demise marked the end of the second major effort by Polish nationalists to establish a journalistic foothold in Masuria". In 1896, Polish and Masurian activists founded the Masurian People's Party in the city, which sought to resist efforts of German authorities at forced Germanization. The co founder of the party was poet Michał Kajka, today honoured in Ełk with a monument in the centre of the city. From the start, the party was subject to severe repressions and attacks by Prussian authorities. In the German federal elections, the MPL received 229 votes in 1898 and 20 in 1912 in the Lyck constituency.

In 1910, Lyck had more than 13,000 inhabitants. Mateusz Siuchniński gives the percentage of Poles in 1900 as 35.7% but warns that the numbers come from lowered German estimates. Many citizens fled during World War I, when Imperial Russian troops attacked the region, but returned after the battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. English and Italian troops were deployed in the town after the Treaty of Versailles to supervise the East Prussian plebiscite. The plebiscite was preceded by a campaign of violence and terror by the Germans against the Poles and even against Allied soldiers. The Germans vandalized Polish information boards and held an anti Polish rally at which they encouraged the beating of Poles and the devastation of their homes and property. In April 1920, the German Sicherheitswehr even battered Italian soldiers, two fatally. Voting under such conditions resulted in 8,339 votes for Germany and 8 for Poland, which just regained independence. In 1922, a Polish consular agency was opened, which was upgraded to a vice consulate the next year. It was in Lyck that the first ever weekly newspaper in the Hebrew language, Ha Magid ("the preacher") was founded in 1856 by Eliezer Lipmann Silbermann, a local rabbi. The paper was eventually moved to Berlin. In 1932, the local pharmacist Leo Frankenstein was attacked; a hand grenade was thrown into his home. The wave of anti Semitic repressions intensified after Nazis gained power in Germany in 1933 and many local merchants and intellectuals of Jewish descent were arrested. The Polish resistance was active and operated one of the region's main smuggling points for underground Polish press in the city. It was heavily damaged by bombardments. The Soviet Army approached in January 1945. The city was placed under Polish administration in April 1945 and the remaining German inhabitants were expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. It was rebuilt and its modern Polish name Ełk was confirmed as official.

In 1999, Ełk was visited by Pope John Paul II. About 300,000 people attended a papal Mass. In 2017, the anti Muslim Ełk riots occurred after a fatal stabbing of a 21 year old man by a Muslim kebab cook. Several hundred men surrounded the Prince Kebab restaurant, tossing firecrackers, stones, and Molotov cocktails at the shop. In 2018, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Poland's independence, a monument to Józef Piłsudski was erected in front of the town hall. The Marshal of Poland was also honored with a mural on one of the townhouses in the city center.

Local sports clubs include football club Mazur Ełk, boxing club Mazur Ełk, cycling club LUKK Ełk, judo club MKS Żak Ełk and basketball club Wilki Ełk. The Polish Cyclo cross Championships were held in Ełk in 1998, 2005 and 2012.

Since the medieval Christianization of the region, the city's population was Roman Catholic, and after the Reformation, it was almost entirely Lutheran until World War II. After the war, the main religion in Ełk became again Roman Catholicism, although a number of Protestant churches are also represented and play an important role in the religious life of the population. These include the Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal (Assemblies of God Kościół Zielonoświątkowy) and other churches. Ełk is the center of the Catholic Diocese of Ełk with its bishop Jerzy Mazur.

The current coat of arms of Ełk were adopted in 1999, after the town was visited by the Pope John Paul II. The colors have been changed (from green to yellow), the deer is different than in the former emblem. Lastly is the addition of the insignia of the Papacy. Until 1967, a different emblem with the two faced head of the god Janus was used, but its origin is unknown.