Tauragė

Tauragė
	Tauragė
	— City —
	; Coat of arms
	; Coat of arms
	; Tauragė Location of Tauragė
	Coordinates: 55°15′N 22°17′E / 55.25°N 22.283°ECoordinates: 55°15′N 22°17′E / 55.25°N 22.283°E
Country	Lithuania
Ethnographic region	Samogitia
County	Tauragė County
Municipality	Tauragė district municipality
Eldership	Tauragė town eldership
Capital of	Tauragė County; Tauragė district municipality; Tauragė town eldership; Tauragė rural eldership
First mentioned	16th century
	Population (2005)
- Total	28,504
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
- Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Website	http://www.taurage.lt/

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Tauragė ( pronunciation (help·info); known also by alternate foreign names) is an industrial city in Lithuania, and the capital of Tauragė County. In 2005, its population was 28,504. Tauragė is situated on the Jūra River, close to the Russian border of the Kaliningrad Oblast, and not far from the Baltic Sea coast.

Tauragė received its city charter in 1932, and its coat of arms (a silver hunting horn in a red field), in 1997. Notable buildings in the city, include the neo-Gothic Radziwiłł palace - "the castle" (currently housing a school, and the "Santaka" regional museum) and several churches: the Lutheran (built in 1843), the Orthodox (1853), and the Catholic church (1904). A ceramics manufacturing plant operates in the city.

[edit] Etymology

Tauragė in Lithuanian is a conjunction of two words: Tauras which means "aurochs" and ragas which means "horn", hence its coat of arms. Located close to the former Memel Territory, the city is known as Tauroggen in German. The city is known in Polish as Taurogi, mostly for being prominently mentioned [1] in The Deluge, a classic historical novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz.

[edit] History

One of the major residences of the Radziwiłł family since 1655, the city has been a center of Lutheranism in Lithuania. From 1691 until 1795 Tauragė belonged to Brandenburg-Prussia, after the marriage of Margrave Ludwig of Brandenburg with Princess Ludwika Karolina Radziwiłł. Afterwards, the city became part of the Russian Empire.

Tsar Alexander I of Russia, signed an armistice with Napoleon I in Tauragė on June 21, 1807, that was soon to be followed with the Treaties of Tilsit. On December 30, 1812, the Prussian General Yorck, signed the Convention of Tauroggen, declaring his troops neutral, that effectively ended the fragile Franco-Prussian alliance during the French invasion of Russia. In 1836, much of the city was destroyed by a fire. Honoré de Balzac stayed in Tauragė in 1843.

In 1915, a significant part of the city's infrastructure was destroyed by German troops during World War I. On September 9, 1927, elements in the town rebelled against the rule of Antanas Smetona, but the revolt was quickly extinguished.

The so-called Tauragė Castle

After the Soviet annexation of Lithuania in 1940, the "Tauragė Castle" was a place of imprisonment for Lithuanian political dissidents, and Polish POWs. Many local inhabitants, including the parents and relatives of Roman Abramovich, were exiled to Siberia during the Soviet occupation in 1940. This saved the family from the Holocaust. When Operation Barbarossa commenced on June 22, 1941, the Soviets retreated, and Tauragė was captured by the German Wehrmacht on the same day. About four thousand Jews were murdered in Tauragė and nearby villages during the Second World War. The Nazis were replaced by the Soviets in the autumn of 1944.