Jieznas () is a small city in the

Prienai district municipality Prienai District Municipality is one of 60 municipalities in Lithuania. It was a member of the European Union-wide town twinning association Douzelage Douzelage is a town twinning association with one town from each of the member states of the E ...

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

. It is located east of

Prienai Prienai () is a city in Lithuania situated on the Nemunas River, south of Kaunas. In 2023, the city had 8,894 inhabitants. The name of the city is a derivative from the surname ''Prienas''. Pociūnai Airport is associated with the city. Histor ...

along the northern shores of Lake Jieznas.

History

Jieznas was first mentioned in written sources in 1492 as property of the

Grand Duke of Lithuania This is a list of Lithuanian monarchs who ruled Lithuania from its inception until the fall of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1795. The Lithuanian monarch bore the title of Grand duke, Grand Duke, with the exception of Mindaugas, who was crown ...

. In 1633, the settlement was acquired by the

Pac family The House of Pac or Pacowie (, , ) was one of the most influential noble families in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Numerous high-ranking Offices in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, officials of the Commonwealth came from their ra ...

. They sponsored construction of a church, which was reconstructed in

Baroque style The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from the early 17th century until the 1750s. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (i ...

in 1768–1772. In 1747, the Pac family built a luxurious palace in Jieznas. The palace had 12 halls, 52 rooms, and 365 windows to match the number of months, weeks, and days in a year. It was decorated with frescoes,

gilded Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was tradi ...

engravings and Venetian mirrors. The palace was lost due to family indebtedness in 1807 and was destroyed by a fire in 1837. In early February 1919, the Lithuanian victory in the

battle of Jieznas The Battle of Jieznas (; 10–13 February 1919) was one of the first battles of the Lithuanian Army#Interwar and post-war periods, recreated Lithuanian Army against the Red Army near Jieznas during the Lithuanian Wars of Independence. This Lithuan ...

, one of the first battles of the

Lithuanian–Soviet War The Lithuanian–Soviet War or Lithuanian–Bolshevik War () was fought between newly independent Lithuania and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic in the aftermath of World War I. It was part of the larger Soviet westward offensiv ...

, prevented the Red Army from marching into

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

. This battle is commemorated by the coat or arms, designed by

Arvydas Každailis Arvydas Stanislavas Každailis (born 4 April 1939, in Baisogala) is a Lithuanian artist, best known as the creator of many coat of arms for cities and towns of Lithuania. For his achievements in Lithuanian art, he was awarded the Order of the Lith ...

in 2002. The coat of arms depicts allegorical figure of a woman symbolizing the victory. She holds a golden oak branch, a symbol of strength. On September 2, 1941, 144 Jews from Jieznas were shot near the lake in Strazdiškės village by Rollkommando Hamann, policemen and members of the Riflemen's Union from Jieznas.

Name

Jieznas is the

Lithuanian Lithuanian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Lithuania, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe ** Lithuanian language ** Lithuanians, a Baltic ethnic group, native to Lithuania and the immediate geographical region ** L ...

name of the city. Transcribed versions of the Lithuanian name in other languages include

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

: ''Jezno'',

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: Езно ''Yezno'',

Belarusian Belarusian may refer to: * Something of, or related to Belarus * Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent * A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus * Belarusian language * Belarusian culture * Belarusian cuisine * Byelor ...

: Езна ''Yezna'',

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

: יעזנע ''Yiezne''. It is unclear where the name Jieznas came from. Possible contenders are Lake Jieznas, the stream Jieznelė or the river Jieznis. It is most likely that the original was the name of the lake, and the names of the city and river originated from it. According to

folk etymology Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a mo ...

, Lake Jieznas was very deep, and no one could reach its bottom. They used to say that it was bottomless. Before the Pac family, Jieznas belonged to Yekaterina's descendants. Once, while feasting by the lake, they decided to make sure that the lake was really bottomless. One of three men dived - he did not reach the bottom, the second one didn't either. Finally the third man dived and did not emerge from the water for a long time. Everyone waited, hoping he would return. Finally he emerged and shouted: Есть дно! ("There's a bottom!"). Since then, the lake was called Jiezno, and the city also remained Jiezno.

References

Cities in Lithuania Cities in Kaunas County Troksky Uyezd Holocaust locations in Lithuania {{KaunasCounty-geo-stub