Kalvarija, Lithuania

Kalvarija
Kalvarija
Town
	Church in Kalvarija
	Coat of arms
	Kalvarija Location of Kalvarija
	Coordinates: 54°25′0″N 23°13′0″E / 54.41667°N 23.21667°E
Country	Lithuania
Ethnographic region	Suvalkija
County	Marijampolė County
Municipality	Kalvarija Municipality
Eldership	Kalvarija eldership
Capital of	Kalvarija Municipality ; Kalvarija eldership
First mentioned	1667
Granted town rights	1791
Population (2021)
• Total	3,971
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 (EEST)

Kalvarija (pronunciation^ⓘ) is a town in southwestern Lithuania, located in the Marijampolė County, close to the border with Poland. It is the administrative seat and largest town of Kalvarija Municipality.

Etymology and names

Variants of the name include Kalvarijos, Kalvariya, Kalwarja,^[1] Kalvarye (Yiddish), Kalwaria (Polish), Kalvarien (German), Calvaria, Kalvaria, Kalwariya, and Kalwarya.^[2] The town is named so because it was established in the 17th century as a shrine commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus.

History

In 1705 the first wooden church was built. In 1713, local Jews received permission from King August II to build a synagogue and Jewish craftsmen were first permitted to practice their crafts without having to be members of the craft guilds. In 1791 Stanisław August Poniatowski recognized that Kalvarija had the right to call itself a town and confirmed the municipality's coat of arms. 1840 saw the construction of a new Catholic church, which still stands today. Kalvarija developed rapidly when the new St. Petersburg–Warsaw road was constructed toward the end of the 19th century. By the outbreak of World War I, Kalvarija had over 10,000 inhabitants; the destruction of two-thirds of the town during the war caused the population decline. The city was the site of a battle in 1915, during World War I.

During World War II, Kalvarija was under German occupation from 22 June 1941 until 1 August 1944.^[3] It was administered as a part of the Generalbezirk Litauen of Reichskommissariat Ostland. In 1941, a mass execution of 38 Jews of the city was perpetrated by Gestapo soldiers and Lithuanian policemen.^[4]