Terleckas, Vladas. “Forgotten by History: The First Mass Murders and Deportations of Lithuanians”

The catastrophe that befell Lithuania in the 17^th century is little known today and plays no part in our nation’s communal memory.  That’s largely due to the silence of her historians, who have made no attempt to examine this painful epoch and analyze its relevance.  

It’s a matter of historical fact, that in 1655 the eastern region of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was occupied by the Muscovite army, while Samogitia was occupied by the Swedes.  According to various sources, it had been attacked by 200,000 to 300,000 Muscovites and 20,000 Cossacks. Vilnius alone was invaded by an army of 60,000 to 80,000 men. By contrast, the Grand Hetman of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy, Jonušas Radvila, had only 5,000 to 7,000 soldiers.  To make matters worse, he was in disagreement with the field commander   Gosievsky regarding military tactics. Nor did the fact that the city’s defense fortifications had been neglected and were actually crumbling help the situation. What’s more, the inhabitants of Vilnius were in a panic.  Refugees from Belarus in flight from the Muscovites and Cossacks were bringing horrific news regarding the pillaging and slaughter in their own country.  The Muscovite army that was invading Vilnius had already massacred the entire populations of Bykov, Dysna, Kletsk, Mstsislavl, Pinsk and Slonim. Terrified of a similar fate, nearly the entire population of Minsk and Grodno had fled to Lithuania and Poland.

The governor of Vilnius, Povilas Jonas Sapiega, urged the inhabitants of Vilnius to flee to whatever safety they could find [1]. Various gentry and religious denominations as well as the city’s artisans and tradesmen fled having learned, various sources tell us, because they knew that the Polish gentry and the Jews were slated for annihilation [2]. People fled en masse.  In whatever way they could, whether on foot, in wagons, and even rowboats. The rector at the Academy of Vilnius, Benedict de Saks, who was 70 years old, was wheeled out of the city in a pushcart by two of his students.  Every attempt was made to rescue historical, cultural, and other treasures. Thanks to the city’s chancellor, Vilnius’s archival documents dating from the 14^th century (Metrika Magistratas) was moved to safety as were other official documents of the city, its valuables and even its most costly furniture.  With the help of his assistants, the Bishop of Vilnius, Jurgis Tiškevičius removed the casket of St. Casimir to safety.  He also hid the remains of Lithuania’s grand dukes and their wives in the cathedral cellars, while removing some of the church’s treasures like the goblet that Jogaila had donated to the cathedral as well as the crucifix encrusted with precious stones that was a gift from Vytautas the Great. Unfortunately, the flat-bottom river boat which carried the treasures was intercepted by the Cossacks and never seen again.

Prior to the Russian invasion, the Chapel of St. Casimir had glittered with silver, gold and marble [3].  Full size statues of the Mother of God, St. John, and Mary Magdalene had been cast in pure silver.  According to one source, the Cathedral had 800 centners (80,000 kg) of silver [4]. Viktoras Petkus points out that for defense purposes, 4.5 tons of silver were expropriated from the Cathedral [5]. Not surprisingly historian Albertas Vijūkas-Kojelavičius wrote that Vilnius had acquired so much fame in so many respects that it could compare favorably with the most celebrated of cities.  It could boast that it lacked nothing…[6].  Jonas Užurka was probably not exaggerating when he described Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich being stunned upon entering the Rulers’ Palace: he had never seen such elegant architecture, such an abundance of elaborate ornaments….paintings ensconced in gold frames, walls filled to the ceiling with books nor such beautiful tapestry [7].

The Grand Duchy’s small army and the inhabitants of Vilnius with its treasures were no match for a military force of 60,000–80,000 thousand Russian soldiers. The resistance mustered by the citizens of Vilnius proved to be more like a slaughter than a battle [8], though some historians paint a more heroic picture of the battle for control of the city: namely, that Jonušas Radvila’s Lithuanian cavalry fought valiantly all day in the pouring rain [9].  A historian from one of the neighboring regions pointed out that citizens shut themselves up in their castles and fought with the enemy for two straight days [10]. Eventually, however, the Russian soldiers took the city and the surrounding towns and manors, then driven by fanaticism and hatred, took revenge by vandalizing property and butchering its owners.

Historical sources are most explicit about the massacre of Vilnius’s inhabitants. One source claims that he had never witnessed such sadistic ruthlessness as that which took place during the occupation of Lithuania’s capital [11]. Anyone within reach of the invaders’ sword was killed without regard–women, children, infants. No mercy was shown, and no escape possible.  Churches could not provide any sanctuary from the invaders.  People hiding in the Church of the Bernardines in Vilnius and in the church at Zapiškis were slaughtered regardless of their hallowed surroundings.  A dozen or so nuns were also murdered.  Brutally tortured was Darata Siedleckaitė, a nun at the Bernardine convent in Vilnius.  Her arms were twisted out of their sockets, her ears cut off [12]. The German press wrote about the elderly women and children who were incinerated [13], about pregnant women who were hung by their ribs from hooks.  Jews who refused to renounce their faith in favor of the Russian Orthodox religion were rounded up and driven into the River Neris, where most drowned.

The unspeakable cruelty of the Muscovite state can to some degree be traced back to the Asiatic tradition and its judicial mindset as well as its penal practices, in which as many as 35 different crimes are given the death penalty, and which include the unusually hideous torture of severing the ears and nose, lacerating the lips and nostrils, blinding, severing hands and feet, burying alive, pouring molten metal down the throat [14]. Apart perhaps from the (regrettable) severing of the hand, the Lithuanian penal code, by contrast, has never endorsed mutilation or any other such barbaric punishments.

In the interest of exonerating the Russians, there are sources that underscore the fact that the regiments occupying the cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were composed primarily of Volga Tatars, Mordvinians and Cossacks–thus implying that it wasn’t ethnic Russians committing the brutalities. On the other hand, just how humane could the Russians have been, considering that the commander of the army was a Russian named Trubetskoy, who was otherwise known as the Butcher of Mstsislaw.  And then there was D. Mychevsky, a member of the Russian aristocracy and commander of the Russian regiment in Vilnius, whose barbarity towards the inhabitants of Vilnius exceeds the imagination. In 1660, the height of the Renaissance in Europe, he was still having his enemies quartered, civilians fired at with cannons, forced to sit on stakes, and other such atrocities.

Various sources indicate that between 1655-1661 somewhere from 8,000-10,000 people (some sources put the number as high as 25,000) were slaughtered in Vilnius, which would make it practically one third of the city’s population.  An envoy arriving in Vilnius from Brandenburg reported that there was no one left alive in the entire city. Streets, courtyards, buildings were piled high with bodies, and city flowed with human blood, turning the horses’ hoofs red.  During the Soviet era all these horrific events were classified information. Or in some cases fictionalized as in the narrative about Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich, who was depicted as a “sensitive soul” that had been so horrified by the sight of Vilnius, according to the Metropolitan of the Russian Unity Church, that in a gesture which, supposedly, revealed his profound humanity, he ordered the bodies to be buried immediately. 

Lithuania continued to be plundered and ravaged with frenzied greed and barbarity until 1661.  On the orders of the Tsar, Vilnius churches were stripped of their furnishings, their bells, copper roofs, the most beautiful of architectural details. Decorative tiles were ripped out of the hearths and ovens of palatial residences as were their marble windowsills, parquet floors, ornaments, household goods, historical and cultural treasures. The cathedral in Vilnius along with the city’s complex of castles, churches, and palaces sustained the heaviest looting. Its copper roof was ripped off, its naves and arches damaged, the interior completely destroyed, and approx. 1,900 of its most treasured artifacts stolen. Lithuania thus lost the cultural treasures that had given it equal status with other European nations. The cathedral was turned into a stable. The Churches of St. Casimir and St. Michael were similarly ransacked. The latter had contained priceless silver caskets of the Sapiega family, all of which were stolen by the looters.  And the embalmed remains of the Chancellor of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy and those of the Grand Hetman, Leon Sapiega, were tied to a horse’s tail and dragged through the streets of the city.  Only 4 of the 23 Catholic churches and 9 Orthodox churches remained unscathed. After 3 days of pillaging and looting the city of Vilnius was deliberately set on fire. The fire was allowed to rage for 17 days thus destroying whatever had survived the plundering. The capital city was turned into a ruin. It was said at the time that Vilnius had disappeared from Vilnius. The Polish historian, J. Rudaiskis, was right when he said: Vilnius, which had been the arch rival of Cracow. had gone the way of Carthage. [16], which the Romans had leveled to the ground.  In fact, nothing was left standing in a 40-60 km radius around the city of Vilnius.

Similarly, the cities of Kaunas, Trakai, Gardinas (Grodno) and a multitude of villages were also plundered and incinerated.  Even though it is generally believed that Trakai surrendered, it did not escape Vilnius’s fate.  The city was first plundered, then together with its two castles and the church, it was burned to the ground.  Its ruins buried much art and other cultural artifacts including archival material.  According to contemporary observers, the marauding army did not leave a single stone upon a stone [17]. Leveled to the ground were homes and even buildings where town meetings could be held so that in 1662 their 36 remaining citizens would meet in the village of Aukštadvaris. Trakai never recovered, as a city it ceased to exist. In his multi-volume work, A. Miškinis scrupulously records the destruction of Lithuania’s cities, towns, and villages. For instance, he writes that because of the Russian invasion, Eišiškės declined, the city became deserted [18]; the munitions factory in Valkininkai was demolished, and the village of Puškarnis was burned.

Throughout the countryside the Muscovite army wrought havoc wherever it went, burning manors and villages, snatching people, valuables, animals, birds, grain, everything they found.    The Russian army had pursued a scorched earth policy, as witnessed and confirmed by a letter sent to Boguslav Radvila: the entire manor [in Dubingiai] with all of its buildings was burned to the ground as was the entire county…some of its inhabitants massacred, the rest expelled to Moscow [19]. Everything in the church was looted, smashed, remains removed from their caskets and strewn about. S. Medekša, who practiced agricultural law, and was en route from Kėdainiai to Trakai said that he had seen many dead bodies along the way.

All the plunder flowed into Moscow. The Venetian diplomat, M. Bianchi, who spent six months in Smolensk in 1655 was very specific as to what he had witnessed:  Had I not seen, during the entire six months of my stay, the endlessly moving chain of wagons, filled with all manner of plunder and had I not myself witnessed the innumerable number of horses as well as other large bovines and the 100,000 wagons loaded with furniture as well as copper, iron, tin and lead products and cloth made of wool and hemp etc., I would have sworn it wasn’t true [20].

Historian J. Užurka describes the scope of the plunder of Lithuania: the first transport towards Moscow bypassed Smolensk, while the last one carrying Vilnius’s treasures hadn’t yet begun [21]. An English diplomat in Moscow offers a more detailed assessment:  The loot in terms of actual currency, silver, gold, precious stones and furnishings was so huge that it’s impossible to describe.  We were stunned by the sight of the silver vessels, silver locks, silver rivets on chests and trunks, silver braces and supports on carriages…[22]. The Tsar was presented with seven gold-plated cupolas that had been torn out of the Radvila mansion, columns of red and gray marble, parquet, all the furniture and dishes. Undoubtedly, other mansions had been ransacked as well. The marketplaces in Moscow were overloaded with a multitude of goods from Lithuania, hitherto unseen by Muscovites. There was so much of it on the market that it drove down the price of silver.

The third blow sustained by Lithuania involved the deportation of its people, especially that of craftsmen and artisans.  In fact, in the second half of the 17^th century, mass deportation to the remotest regions in Russia as a form of punishment created an entirely new category in the Russian penal system–political deportation [23]. Families were deported for life.  Their estates and manors and farmsteads were burned or confiscated by the Tsar. Deportations of Lithuanians fell into three of the categories: deportation of those who took up arms against the Russian army; deportation of those who staged a resistance in Russian–occupied cities, and “miscellaneous” resisters. These categories of people were deported to the most remote and uninhabitable regions. The only way to escape deportation was to pledge allegiance to the Tsar or to renounce one’s faith and embrace the Russian Orthodox religion. The worst repressive measures, including the death penalty, were reserved for the gentry who were regarded as “seditious” or “indecisive.” The Tsar was deaf to the pleading of delegations requesting that artisans and their families be spared deportation since they and the merchant class in general were essential to the commercial life of the city. The deportation of tradespeople clearly showed just how backward Russia was economically and technologically. Without Lithuania’s craftsmen, Russia was incapable of assembling the plunder and producing, marketable goods, firearms, cultural treasures and the like that would be considered of a European style and quality.

Soviet historians confirm the fact that the craftsmen deported from the Grand Duchy had grown famous for the high quality of their products; they specialized in applied art and were sought after by Moscow’s craftsmen as teachers [24]. Most of the craftsmen who were deported were precisely the ones who decorated the Eastern Orthodox churches, painted its icons, operated the presses in the monasteries, published books and built paper factories. A number of qualified deportees worked within the Tsar’s palace itself as goldworkers and gunmakers; they made chess pieces for the Tsar and built monuments. It was the deportees that helped establish the first Russian theatre–the Tsar’s Palace Theatre. The troop of actors consisted of 60 foreigners.  In the middle of the 17^th century, the deportees from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania made up 20 percent of the inhabitants that lived on the outskirts of Moscow [25].

Deported peasant families, M. Bianchi points out, were relocated to the Moscow principalities that were the most sparsely settled…[26]. The Belarussian historian G.Saganovich adds the fact that tens of thousands of inhabitants from the Grand Duchy were also deported to places that had been decimated by the plague like Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Suzdal, Vladimir, and the Vologda lands. Some unfortunates were even deported to Yakutsk and the Yenisei River in Siberia. Many were turned into sefs. The extreme cruelty of the deportations is painfully illustrated by various sources which talk about a glut of children for sale on the market thus driving down their price.  In other words, the deportations routinely involved the breaking up of families and treatment of children like chattel.

Lithuanian prisoners of war were also deported to Siberia, a policy that had began earlier during the Livonian War. In 1593, 1,000 POW’s were deported from Kazan alone [27]. Other sources write of the Karaims from Trakai being deported to Pavolgi [28]. The deportees came from various social classes and ethnicities. Surviving documents reveal that the Tsar had planned to deport 300,000 Grand Duchy inhabitants [29].

Terror, murder and deportation were not the only means, however, whereby Russia sought to dismantle the Grand Duchy’s economic, cultural, and military potential beyond the possibility of recovery. The other methods it relied on included inhibiting foreign trade, flooding the market with cheap, inflationary copper coins, expropriating for the army’s use the city’s manorial estates and the industries associated with them.  Thus the Russian army expropriated  the estates of  Aukštadvaris, Barbiškis, Ribiškis, Kuprijoniškis and Leoniškis with their mills and their cloth producing and brick making workshops, as well as the estates of  Lukiškės and Užneris with their clay quarries [30]. In Vilnius the flat bottomed river boats belonging to merchants were not allowed to transport goods to Prussia, or if they were, it was only on condition that the merchant leave his wife and children as security.  Meanwhile, foreign traders did not trade with Lithuania, since they did not recognize the copper currency being used.  The result was that trading pretty much stopped for lack of traders and merchandise.  Trade that had prospered on the Dauguva and the Nemunas Rivers waned, and sources indicate that the enormous traffic at the port in Riga diminished also. At the beginning of the 17^th century more than 700 boats would visit the port, while by 1700 it had dwindled to 44 [31]. A similar fate befell the Lithuanian trade in Klaipėda (Memel), Karaliaučius (Königsberg), and Danzig (Gransk). Even the city that seemed least affected, Kėdainiai, had only 20 percent of its original craftsmen left by 1663.

Whatever peasants remained undisplaced and still alive had nothing with which to work the land. The pathetic condition of the state of agriculture is revealed by the fact that 45 percent of the farmland had been burned or otherwise destroyed and much of it turned into desert conditions. Inevitably, famine arrived and lasted until the first rye harvest of 1657. In the eastern part of Lithuania’s Grand Duchy people had resorted to eating cats, dogs, even “dead meat”, and in some instances resorted to cannibalism. Needless to say, famine was then followed by the plague, which lasted for nearly the entire year.  Some argue that the plague had been brought by the Russian army [32]. In any case, between 1648-1667 the Grand Duchy lost almost half of its inhabitants to massacres, deportation, famine and plague [33]. The province that surrounded Vilnius lost was down to 41 percent of its original population, Breslau province–down to 44 percent, Ašmena–to 46 percent. Samogitia was perhaps the least damaged having been plundered, burned, and its people massacred and deported by the Swedish army.  But that is a subject for another time.

The Russians also attacked the educational system; as a result, all learning was suspended.   Catholic schools were closed, as were, probably, all the schools affiliated with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It’s common knowledge that the University of Vilnius had to suspend its activities since many of its professors and students had fled to the West. Nor were there any funds to support the purchase of books, other educational materials and basic fixtures necessary to an educational institution.

As a result of Russian policy, the entire demographic situation of Lithuania changed:  population growth slumped, its social and ethnic structure shifted in that, to give one example, the Jewish and Belorussian peasant populations increased as their people began to move into the deserted villages. 

In short, what befell the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 17^th century was a catastrophe the scope of which, it seems, no other country in Europe has experienced! 

Members of the Lithuanian parliament should feel obligated to mark the deportations of the 17^th century and add 1655 into its list of dates to be commemorated nationally. One could use August 7, 1655–the date of the occupation of Vilnius–as a Memorial Day.  Sadly, however, I have little hope that even our political right wing will have the courage and determination or sense to recognize the importance of such a gesture.

In my opinion 1655-1661 is a rupture in Lithuania’s history that led inevitably to her loss of sovereignty. In the interest of encouraging our members of parliament, I want to remind them that Belorussian historians like A. Tarasas have used the term “genocide” to describe Russian actions within the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.  In fact, Tarasas has called it the worst disaster to befall its inhabitants throughout its entire history. According to G. Saganovich, 1654-1667 is the most tragic period in Lithuanian history and the most falsified [34].  By being indecisive and fearful, we enable the forgery to continue, and thus we fail to cultivate our historical memory.    The writer S. Zweig points out with supreme insight that a historical event can pass into history…only when its descendants have taken possession of it.

Translated by Delija Valiukėnas

1. Vilniaus miesto istorija (History of Vilnius), Vilnius, 1968, p. 164.
2. Памятники русской старины в запанных губерниях империи. Санкт Петербург, 1874, с. 51.
3. V. Petkus. Vilniaus Arkikatedros bazilikos koplyčios (Chapels of the Vilnius Cathedral), Vilnius, 1994, p. 36.
4. Vilniaus Katedros lobynas (Treasures of the Vilnius Cathedral). Vilnius, 2002, p. 291.
5. V. Petkus. Ibid., p. 36.
6. A. Vijūkas-Kojelavičius. Lietuvos istorija (History of Lithuania), Vilnius, 1988, p. 207.
7. J. Užurka. Tvanas  (The Flood), Vilnius, 2007, p. 101.
8. Vilniaus miesto istorija (History of Vilnius city), p. 166.
9. R. Batūra, D. Karvelis. Kovų istorijos (War Histories), Vilnius, 2009, kn. 1, p. 174.
10. А. Е. Тарас. Войны Московской Руси с Великим княжеством Литовском и Речью Посполитой в XIV–XVII веках, Мiнск, 2006, с. 700.
11. Памятники русской старины в запанных губерниях империи, с. 52.
12. Kultūros barai (Kulturos Barai Journal), 1997, No. 8–9, 10.
13. Ibid.
14. Ф. Г. Сафронов. Ссылка в Восточную Сибирь в XVII веке, Якутск, 1967, с. 6, 12.
15. Z. Kiaupa. Lietuvos kultūros vertybių kelionės iki 1990 m. (The Migration of Lithuania’s Cultural Treasures to 1990), Vilnius, 2006, p. 41.
16. Cit. pagal: Г. Саганович. Невядомая война 1654-1667, Мiнск, 1995, с. 47.
17. A. Baliulis ir kt. Trakų miestas ir pilys (City of Trakai and Its Castles), Vilnius, 1991, p. 100.
18. A. Miškinis. Rytų Lietuvos miestai ir miesteliai (Cities and Towns of Eastern Lithuania), Vilnius, 2006, p. 648.
19. Kultūros barai (Kulturos Barai Journal), 2006, No. 2, p. 85.
20. M. Bianchi. Trumpas pasakojimas apie Lietuvos ir Lenkijos karą su Maskva XVII a. viduryje (Brief Narrative of the Mid Seventeenth Century Lithuanian-Polish War with Moscow), Vilnius, 2004, p. 139.
21. J. Užurka. Ibid., p. 128.
22. V. Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė. Lietuvos istorija (History of Lithuania), Chicago, 1956, p. 579.
23. Ф. Г. Сафронов. Ук. соч., с. 15–16.
24. Л. С. Абецедарский. Белоруссия и Россия, Москва, 1978, с. 225.
25. Ibid., p. 213.
26. M. Bianchi. Ibid., p. 139.
27. В. П. Грицкевич. От Немана к берегам Тихого океана, Мiнск, 1986, с. 23.
28. B. Kviklys. Mūsų Lietuva (Our Lithuania), Vilnius, 1989, t. 1, p. 452.
29. А. Е. Тарас. Ibid., с. 732.
30. Vilniaus miesto istorija (History of Vilnius), p. 168.
31. P. Šalčius. Raštai. Lietuvos prekybos istorija (Works. History of Lithuanian Commerce), Vilnius, 1998, p. 90.
32. А. Е. Тарас. Ibid., с. 732.
33. M. Bianchi. Ibid., p. 34.
34. Г. Саганович. Ibid., с. 5.