Suvalkija is one of Lithuania's ethnographic regions in the south-west of the country, part of the historical Sudovia landscape. The old Prussian tribe of the Sudovians/Jatwingers resisted the knights of the Teutonic Order for the longest time. It was not until 1283 that the Sudau prince Skomand adopted the Christian faith and gave up resistance. In the Peace of Lake Melno in 1422, the Order had to relinquish most of Sudau, which since then belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and thus, from 1596, to the Polish-Lithuanian Noble Republic. With the Third Polish Partition, this larger part of Sudau came to Russia in 1795. From 1815 onwards, the area was the north-eastern corner of Congress Poland, which was bound to Russia in personal union and deprived of any independence after the Polish Uprising of 1830. In 1918, northern Sudovia became part of the newly constituted Lithuanian state, initially under German occupation. From 1939 to 1944, the south-eastern part of Sudauen was annexed directly by the Greater German Reich as the 'Suwalkizipfel'. Today, the southern part of Sudau with the town of Suwalki (Lithuanian: Suvalkai) belongs to Poland, the northern part with the cultural centre of Marijampolė to Lithuania. Suvalkija was never an independent political entity. Divided between the administrative district of Marijampolė and part of the administrative district of Alytus from 1994 to 2010, it still has no official status in the structure of Lithuania. Suvalkija is a strongly agricultural region due to comparatively good soils. The Lithuanian dialect Westaukshtaitic spoken in this area forms the basis for the modern Lithuanian language. |
