Panevėžys (Lithuanian pronunciation: [pɐnʲɛvʲeːˈʑiːs] ⓘ) is the fifth-largest city in Lithuania. As of 2021, it occupies 50 square kilometres (19 sq mi) with 89,100 inhabitants. As defined by Eurostat the population of the Panevėžys functional urban area that stretches beyond the city limits is estimated at 124,412 (as of 2022).
Panevėžys is an important cultural and economic hub in the country's northeast. Located on the banks of the Nevėžis river, the city is known for its strong industrial heritage and vibrant arts scene. Panevėžys is also considered as a gateway to the picturesque landscapes of the Aukštaitija region.
The city is still known in the Jewish world for the eponymous Ponevezh Yeshiva.
Name
The name of the city is derived from the Lithuanian language hydronym Nevėžis marking the river. The city is referred to by various names in different languages, including Latin: Panevezen; Polish: Poniewież; Yiddish: פּאָנעװעזש, Ponevezh; see also other names.
Coat of arms
Historical facts allow to state that the first seal of the city of Panevėžys appeared when the city self-government was established. It is clear that until the end of the 18th century, Panevėžys did not have the right of self-government, therefore it could not had its coat of arms. All the preconditions for the establishment of self-government arose during the period of the Four-Year Sejm (1788–1792). In 1791–1792, most of the county centers, which previously did not have self-government rights and coat of arms, established them.
The coat of arms of Panevėžys, as well as other Lithuanian counties, has been changed, modified and banned several times over the past 200 years. There are 3 types of Panevėžys city seals, which were used in the early 19th century. The first appeared in 1801, the second was put into use in 1812, and the third in 1817. All three seals under the double-headed eagle of the coat of arms of the Russian Empire depicted the old coat of arms of Panevėžys – a brick or stone building with three towers, later a brick gate with three towers and a powerful tower behind them with a Cyrillic letter P (П) on the roof – the first letter of the city.
After the Uprising of 1831 the old symbolism was erased from the seals of the county centers. Instead, a double-headed eagle prevailed in them unilaterally. It was only in 1845 that Emperor Nicholas I of Russia confirmed with his own hand the new coat of arms of Panevėžys County, at the top of which a silver obelisk was depicted in a blue field and a brown žagrė with a steel plowshare in the silver field at the bottom; the base of the shield was green-brown.
With the outbreak of World War I and the collapse of Russian monarchy, most Lithuanian cities removed the symbols established by the Russian Empire and had returned to their historical coats of arms. At the beginning of the 1920s, two symbols were used in the coat of arms of Panevėžys in one field of a shield shape. At the top – two tied plant bundles, below them – a plough. Later, the žagrė was used instead of the plough.
The use of city coats of arms resumed in the post-World War II years only in 1966, when the Republican Heraldry Commission was established under the Ministry of Culture. The standard of the coat of arms of Panevėžys was proposed to be made by the artist Arvydas Každailis. Thus another version of the coat of arms of the city of Panevėžys appeared: two crossed white bundles of linen were depicted in the upper red field, and a white stylized plough in the lower blue field. Later, after adjusting the colors, it was decided to leave this coat of arms to the Panevėžys District Municipality.
The current coat of arms of the city of Panevėžys has been created taking into account the international practice of restoration of the historical coats of arms of the cities and the requirements of heraldry. The oldest coat of arms of the city was chosen to restore the coat of arms. The 1812 iconography of the seal was used as the best heraldically arranged on which a two-storey gates with an entrance opening on the first floor and two windows on the second floors are depicted. Above the gate – three towers, behind them, in the middle – a powerful tower.
As the historical colors of the coat of arms are unknown, it was decided to use the most common colors and metals in the heraldry of Lithuanian cities: silver (white), red, and as auxiliary – black. The current coat of arms of Panevėžys is a red brick building in the silver panel field, symbolizing the city gate. The coat of arms of Panevėžys was approved by a presidential decree on 11 May 1993. The author of the current coat of arms of the city standard is Arvydas Každailis.
History
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Legend has it that Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas the Great, returning from Samogitia to Vilnius in 1414, found a temple (alka) of the old Lithuanian religion in the present-day surroundings of Panevėžys, but this has not been documented.
Panevėžys was first mentioned evidently on 7 September 1503 in documents signed by the Grand Duke Alexander Jagiellon, who granted the town building rights to construct a church and other structures. Alexander Jagiellon is considered as the founder of the city, which celebrated its 500th anniversary in 2003; two renowned monuments were built in the city for this anniversary, one of which, by Stanislovas Kuzma, is dedicated to Alexander Jagiellon.
The city lies on the old plain of the river Nevėžis and the city name means "along the Nevėžis." Panevėžys Mound with a flat top and 1.5 – 2 meters high embankments previously stood at the confluence of river Nevėžis and stream Sirupis (destroyed in the 19th – 20th centuries). Throughout the 16th century, the city maintained a status of a Royal town. Karaites, settled in the area as early as the 14th century. A Karaite Kenesa existed in Panevėžys until the Second World War.
In the 16th century, the part of the city on the left bank of the river started to develop and expand further. In 1727, the Piarists, who moved to the western part of Panevėžys, built a Church of the Holy Trinity, established a monastery and a college.
In 1791, Panevėžys was granted a conditional privilege to elect the city government and acquired an autonomous self rule.
19th to early 20th centuries
Following the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, the city was assigned to the Vilna Governorate. In 1800, Panevėžys received a permission to build a town hall. In 1825, the Evangelical Lutheran Church was built in Panevėžys, and the Orthodox parish was founded in 1841. The city played an important role in both the November Uprising, and the January Uprising, and the fights for independence continued there after 1864. In 1843, Panevėžys was assigned to the Kovno Governorate and in 1866 the town hall was replaced with a City Duma.
Following the Industrial Revolution, at the end of the 19th century, the first factories were established in the city, and industry began to make use of modern machinery. As products were oriented towards the mass market, banking intensified and commerce increased. The educational system became more accessible, and literacy increased, as well. By the end of 19th century – the beginning of the 20th century, Panevėžys became a strong economic and cultural center of the region. At the time it was the fourth most important city in Lithuania (excluding Klaipėda).
Panevėžys also was a center of operations by local knygnešiai (book smugglers). In 1880, Naftalis Feigenzonas established the first printing house in Panevėžys. At the end of the book prohibition, one of the Lithuanian book smugglers – *Juozas Masiulis – in 1905 opened the first Lithuanian bookstore and printing house. The building is still a landmark of Panevėžys, and local people are proud of this heritage, symbolized in a bookstore that has been functional for more than 100 years.
1918–1941
Volunteers of the Lithuanian Armed Forces had liberated the city for the first time from the Bolsheviks' forces on 27 March 1919 during the Lithuanian Wars of Independence and raised flags of Lithuania. Before the Second World War Panevėžys was multicultural city with Lithuanian, Jewish, Polish, Russian, German, Karaite, Tatar and other city communities. Between the World Wars, in the newly independent Lithuania, Panevėžys continued to grow. According to the Lithuanian census of 1923, there were 19,147 people in Panevėžys (19,197 with suburbs), among them 6,845 Jews (36%) (in Yiddish the town's name was פּאָניוועזש, transliterated as Ponevezh).
The Ponevezh Yeshiva, one of the most notable Haredi yeshivas in the history of the Jews in Lithuania, was established and flourished in the town. Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman (1886–1969) was its rosh yeshiva (head) and president. Known as the "Ponovezher Rov", he was also the leading rabbi of Panevėžys. He managed to escape to the British Mandate of Palestine where he set about rebuilding the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak where it still exists in modern Israel. It has a very large student body of young Talmud scholars.
Communities of Poles inhabit the area from the 19th century and a Polish Gymnasium existed in Panevėžys until the Second World War (the Polish version of the name of the city was Poniewież).
The town's population rose to 26,200 between 1923 and 1939. On 15 June 1940, Red Army military forces took over the city, as a consequence of the forced incorporation of Lithuania into the Soviet Union. A number of political prisoners were murdered near the sugar factory. A large number of residents were exiled to Siberia (merely during the June deportation in 1941 over 600 residents were exiled to Siberia) or suffered other forms of political repression.
On 23 June 1941, the June Uprising began in Panevėžys County. The most active participants of the uprising were in Ramygala and Krekenava counties. The participants of the uprising were also active in the city of Panevėžys. On 25 June 1941, the Panevėžys Staff of the June Uprising was established in the city which was headed by Lieutenant Colonel Antanas Stapulionis. One of the staff's tasks was to oversee the order in the city, thus Antanas Stapulionis had issued an order stating that the robbers will be shot on the spot, and ordered to remove all signs which reminisced the Soviet rule. Moreover, the scouts were sent to all roads leading from the city and on 25 June, at the initiative of the rebels, the Piniavos Bridge and the food factory Maistas were demined. The Panevėžys Post Office was peacefully passed into the hands of the rebels. During the first days of the war, the NKGB units carried out repressions, arrested participants of the June Uprising and civilians who spoke out against the Soviet government; the detainees were transported to the Panevėžys Prison. As the Germans were approaching, seeing no way out, the Soviets had decided to retreat to the East and to shoot the political prisoners in the prison. Already on 27 June, the city was full of the tricolor flags of Lithuania and without any serious clashes with the retreating Soviet Army in the city or its surroundings. Furthermore, on 27 June, the German army had entered Panevėžys and in the end of June 1941 the Germans liquidated the staff of the rebels.
Soviet and Nazi occupations
After Germany attacked the USSR, Panevėžys was occupied by German forces, as it had been during the First World War. It acquired the status of a district center (Gebietskommissariate) within the Reichskommissariat Ostland. During the Nazi occupation nearly all the Jewish population of the town was killed in 1943 during the Holocaust; only a few managed to escape and find asylum abroad. The major massacre was in August 1941 when 7,523 Jews were executed by the German Army officers and soldiers, German-SS officers During the period of Nazi German occupation, one police battalion and three engineer battalions were organised primarily from the local population. Also, two companies of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force were stationed in Panevėžys
In 1944, the city was yet again occupied by the Soviet Union leading to a new wave of political exiles and killings. The Lithuanian partisans of the Vytis military district actively operated in the Panevėžys County from 1944 and militarily confronted with the Soviet forces in notable battles, however following the death of chief Bronius Karbočius in 1953 the staff of the Vytis military district was not restored and the last partisans were killed in action in 1956.