Juodupė (literally: ''black river'') is a town in

Rokiškis district municipality Rokiškis () is a list of cities in Lithuania, city in northeastern Lithuania, close to the Latvia–Lithuania border, with a population of 11,606 (2023). The city is a capital of the Rokiškis District Municipality with a population of 28,715 (20 ...

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 near the confluence of Juodupė rivulet with river, about 6 km. from the border with

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

. According to the 2011 census, population was 1,769.

History

The place was first mentioned in 1690. A record has been found in the Onuškis Church's 1680-1740 yearbook, which states that in 1690 a boy was baptized in Aknysta, whose baptismal mother was Elena Bučinska (Bučinskaitė) from Juodupe (de Jodupe). The development of Juodupė began to accelerate after 1907, when the entrepreneur Oskaras Trėjus set up a wool carding and spinning mill in the old mill owned by count Pžezdeckis, and later installed a weaving machine. In 1931 Trėjus went bankrupt and in 1933, the "Nemunas" company bought the mill. At the time it was the only woolen fabric factory in Lithuania. A chapel was built in 1936, and in 1938 Church of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn was built. At the beginning of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in 1941, the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

killed 13 residents of Juodupė. In 1944, during the heavy fighting between the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

troops, the town was burnt down. On 30 July 1944, after the gunfire ceased and the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

retreated during the night, the Juodupė church, which had been standing for only six years, caught fire and burned to the ground. The Soviet authorities did not allow the church to be rebuilt on the remaining foundations of the first church. In 1946, a new house of worship was established by converting the barn of the

clergy house A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...

. It is still used by the people of Juodupė today. In November 1944, major Lithuanian partisan group were active in the area. In 1945, 23 partisans were killed in Juodupė and 9 houses were burnt down by order of the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

. After World War II, the town recovered, the fabric industry developed rapidly, and on April 2, 1956, the village was fully rebuilt. In 1956, a library was established, and from 1960 onwards a peat company, a post office, a clinic, and a pharmacy were established. On 16 December 2002, the status of Juodupe was demoted from "city" to "town".Nutarimas Dėl gyvenamosios vietovės pavadinimo pakeitimo
/ref> In 2006, the coat of arms of Juodupe was adopted by decree of the President of the Republic of Lithuania.

References

Towns in Panevėžys County Towns in Lithuania Novoalexandrovsky Uyezd {{PanevėžysCounty-geo-stub