Dubingiai
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Dubingiai (Polish Dubinki) is a small village in Lithuania, nearby the Asveja lake , the longest lake in Lithuania. The village was first mentioning in 1334, when Teutonic knights razed terra Dubingam during one of their raids. Other raids took place in 1373 and 1375. During the reign of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas the Great the village became an important place in that part of Lithuania. In 1415 the duke ordered the building of a new wooden castle.
Later Dubinki was governed by the Radzivills and became one of the centres of the reformation in Lithuania. In 17th century -18th century the village was slowly converted to catholicism.
The population of the village was generally Polish in the 19th century. When the Lithuanian national renaissance began, conflicts between Poles and Lithuanians were almost inevitable. The local population struggled to receive education and masses in Polish and continued to complain about local priests, who used only Lithuanian.
During World War II Lithuanians of Dubingiai were massacred in 1944 by the local AK unit of Zygmunt Szendzielarz "Łupaszko". The crime was a retaliation of a Polish commander for an earlier massacre of Polish villagers in Glinciszki by Lithuanian police. The number of Lithuanian victims is estimated at 20 to 27 by Polish historians and 200 by some Lithuanian historians.
External link
- Location on Encarta map (http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/MapCenter/Map.aspx?TextLatitude=54.74949094399572&TextLongitude=24.6898011132225&TextAltitude=10&TextSelectedEntity=39070&SearchEnc=false&MapStyle=Comprehensive&MapSize=Large&MapStyleSelectedIndex=0&searchTextMap=Dubingiai&MapStylesList=Comprehensive&ZoomOnMapClickCheck=on)