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The Vilna Governorate [a] was a province of the Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire. In 1897, the governorate covered an area of 41,907.9 square kilometres (16,180.7 sq mi) and had a population of 1,591,207 inhabitants.
Soviet forces reoccupied Vilna in July 1944, after bitter street fighting with the German garrison. They then continued on toward Kovno, the capital of Lithuania. This Soviet footage depicts the battle for Vilna and the final reoccupation of the city by the Soviet army.
Vilnius (/ ˈvɪlniəs / VIL-nee-əs, Lithuanian: [ˈvʲɪlʲnʲʊs] ⓘ), previously known in English as Vilna, is the capital of and largest city in Lithuania and the second-most-populous city in the Baltic states.
Once called the Jerusalem of Lithuania, the city of Vilna was a vibrant center of Jewish life for centuries until the Nazis wiped it out in the Holocaust. Peddlers under the arch on Jatkowa Street in the Jewish quarter.
Appearance. The city of Vilnius, the capital and largest city of Lithuania, has an extensive history starting from the Stone Age. The city has changed hands many times between Imperial and Soviet Russia, Napoleonic France, Imperial and Nazi Germany, Interwar Poland, and Lithuania.
On the eve of the Holocaust, the Jewish community of Vilna was the spiritual hub of Eastern European Jewry. A center of Jewish learning, political life, creativity and tradition, the community bustled with cultural and religious activity, including movements and parties, educational institutions, libraries and theaters.
Vilna was one of the first cities in Russia to be reached by the Enlightenment movement, via tradesmen and doctors who arrived from Germany. At the beginning of the 19th century, Vilna was one of the most important centers of Enlightenment in Eastern Europe, with many of the greatest Jewish writers and poets living in its environs, among them.
