Klaipeda in colors

Klaipeda, or Audra, is my much older Hetalia oc, yeah, I need to get her info on here, but that will take awhile, the file that had it all was deleted because I didnt save it correctly...


Personality:

*Her favorite things to do are fishing, eating bread (read info below) and exporting.

* Seriously waaaayy to sensitive for her own good
* If she were to be real though, she would be very outgoing, shes friends with alot of the Nordics and does exporting and importing business with them.
* Prussia was sort of a caretaker you can say, when she was little, but this is historical, and he had her under his control for awhile from when he first found her.

While the History Museum of Lithuania Minor offers interesting exhibitions on the cultural and social history of Klaipeda, it provides relatively little insight on the city’s political history and almost no information of any sort in English. I hope that this brief history will enhance both your understanding and enjoyment of Lithuania’s third largest city and only commercial port.

On the bank of the Danes River stands a large stone monument, sculpted by A. Sakalauskas, inscribed with a quotation by the local writer Ieva Simonaityte, "We are one nation, one land, one Lithuania." The sculpture itself, whose larger gray column represents Lithuania Minor and whose smaller red Doric column represents Lithuania major, hints that history has told a different story. With its deliberately jagged edge, representing the loss felt by Lithuanians because of Russian sovereignty over what is now the Kaliningrad Oblast, it indicates that this thinking remains somewhat wishful.

Klaipeda owes its name to members of the Curonian tribe, among the ancestors of today’s Lithuanians, in whose language the words klaip and eda mean "bread" and "eat" respectively. While they established a fishing village in the general vicinity of today’s city around the first century AD, they rarely had the opportunity to consume their bread in peace. Various invaders, in particular the Vikings and later the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Knights, attacked the region with regularity. The latter succeeded in taking the settlement, and in 1252, erected a brick fortress they named Memelburg (Memel Castle) after the German name for the Nemunas River, which runs into the Curonian Lagoon 50km south, near Nida on the Curonian Spit.

In 1258 the city, which came to be known as Memel, was given municipal rights, and in 1328, the Livonian Order transferred control of the city to its counterpart in Prussia. Despite frequent attempts to take the city, first by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and then by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the town remained firmly in the hands of the Teutonic Knights, even after their otherwise decisive defeat at the Battle of Zalgiris (Gruenwald) in present-day Poland in 1410. After the Order’s abandonment of its religious status in 1525, Memel became the northernmost town of the Duchy of Prussia, which it would remain until 1918.

As a member of the Hanseatic League and a key strategic fortress, Memel was often attacked by foreign powers; however, its sturdy fortress fell into non-Prussian hands on only two occasions – to the Swedes in 1628-1635 and the Russians in 1757-62. The thriving trading city that developed was less fortunate – burning to the ground in 1540, badly damaged again in 1678, and stricken with famine and plague between 1709 and 1711. Nonetheless, it developed strong trading ties with Britain and was settled by both Scottish and English merchants, who gave it something of a multicultural character. When King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia fled French occupation of Berlin in 1807, he made Memel his temporary capital for a single year.

With the establishment of the Second Reich in 1871, the Prussian King Wilhelm I became Kaiser (Emperor) of Germany as well, and on the urging of his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, commenced a Germanization campaign that rankled with Lithuanians. After Germany’s defeat in the First World War, the city and surrounding region were placed under international jurisdiction (akin to the status afforded the Free City of Danzig/Gdansk) with day-to-day administration to be conducted by the French. Embittered by the awarding of Vilnius (Wilno) to Poland, the fledgling Lithuanian Republic organized demonstrations by the local Lithuanian population, and amid international dithering, annexed the city in 1923, giving the new country a working port.

Although the international community accepted the transfer as compensation for the loss of Vilnius, this Germans regarded the action as yet another entry on the list of territorial grievances they had with their victorious enemies in the First World War. Adolf Hitler was able to play upon this sentiment, and on March 23, 1939, unilaterally announced the annexation of the territory while the international community again stood by. It was Nazi Germany’s last territorial annexation before it attacked Poland in September of the same year.

The Soviet Army seized Klaipeda in 1945 and annexed it to the rest of Lithuania, which it had recently captured from Nazi Germany. During the war, much of the city was destroyed, accounting for the Soviet character of its architecture outside the small (and largely reconstructed) Old Town.

The Soviets expelled the German population and deported many members of the Lithuanian population to Siberia. At the same time, Russians were settled in Klaipeda, which became a major shipbuilding and fishing center, and its prewar population more than quadrupled to 200,000. By the time Lithuania regained its independence, Klaipeda had become the fourth largest port in the entire Soviet Union as a result of its status as the country’s only ice-free port


a city in Lithuania situated at the mouth of the Danė River where it flows into the Baltic Sea. It is the third largest city in Lithuania and the capital of Klaipėda County.

The city has a complex recorded history, partially due to the combined regional importance of the Port of Klaipėda, a usually ice-free port on the Baltic Sea, and the Akmena - Danė River. It has been controlled by the Teutonic Knights, the Duchy of Prussia, the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, the Entente States immediately after World War I, Lithuania as a result of the 1923 Klaipėda Revolt, and the Third Reich following the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania.

The city was incorporated into Lithuania during its tenure as a Soviet Socialist Republic and has remained within Lithuania following its re-establishment as an independent state.

The population shrank from 207,100 in 1992 to 177,823 in 2011. Popular seaside resorts found close to Klaipėda are Nida to the south on the Curonian Spit, and Palanga to the north.


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2006 03 01

The first mention of Lithuania dates back to the mid-XIII century. The town of Klaipeda was founded in 1252. Klaipeda is a unique Lithuanian city by virtue of its colourful, turbulent and tragic history and also because the Old Town’s architectural style is similar to many western European cities with which it had close links.

The history of the city dates back to the time when the Livonian Order built a castle called Memelburg. A town grew around the castle close to where the waters of the Curonian Lagoon flow into the Baltic Sea.

Klaipeda is now Lithuania’s gateway to the world and the capital of the west of Lithuania. It is a vibrant and exciting city in which to live and work. The City has its own university, which is a true scientific and cultural centre. The Lithuanian Christian College has just celebrated its tenth anniversary and goes from strength to strength.

The seaport of Klaipeda is popular with investors and foreign partners because of its attractive and competitive conditions to develop industry and promote small and medium businesses.

Klaipeda will become increasingly important because of its direct links with other European and world-wide ports and because it is a sea transport centre, where regular shipping lines and fast modern motorway routes merge together.

Tourism is becoming increasingly important to Klaipeda and its hinterland and major investments are being made to promote it. The newly opened passenger cruise terminal, close to the City centre, will bring increased traffic to the area in the years to come.

Klaipeda has a population of around 200,000. It has direct motorway links with Lithuania’s capital city of Vilnius (310 km) and the second city of Kaunas (220 km).