Svencionys (Švenčionys) is a Lithuanian town not far from the border with Belarus. It was first mentioned in the 15th century. It gained autonomy in 1800, and Poland annexed it in the first part of the 20th century. The Lithuanian gymnasium established in 1919 by the “Rytas Society” functioned in a building on Audutiskio Street from 1925 to 1937, when Vilnius palatine Ludwik Bocianski closed it.
Students at the gymnasium included the physician Povilas Čibiras, ethnographer Pranė Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė, actor Vladas Jurkūnas and the historian Vincas Žilėnas. There is a small chapel (ca. 1897, torn down in 1964 and rebuilt in 1989) dedicate to the participants of the 1831 and 1863 insurrections, at the junction of Audutiskio and Vidžių streets. One of the rebels, the reverend Anupras Labutis, is buried in the churchyard.
The organ in the present-day Church of All Saints (1898, the first church was mentioned in 1514) is by Martynas Masalskis. The Nalšia Museum (Adutiskio Street 2) has a 19th-century portrait of the reverend Mikolaj Kozlowski by Jan Damel, a 17th-century chasuble with family emblem and initials donated by the family Pac, prayer books published during the time of the Lithuanian press ban, and exhibits on estate culture and the history and natural habitat of the region and the city, including its medicinal herb dispensary (1883).
Orthodox Church of Uspenye in Svencionys
The Orthodox Church of the Uspenye has interesting 19th-century icons. Editions of the Novaja zicio newspaper are a reminder that the Svencionys region was given to Soviet Belarus at the beginning of the Second World War. The activities of the armed anti-Soviet resistance movement (1944-1953) are outlined in documents of the Tigras (Tiger) partisan division headquarters, discovered in 1999 during road work in the Antanai Forest, and now held at the Lithuanian Special Archives.
Buried in the town cemetery are the remains of Lithuanian officers tortured to death by the Soviet army in 1941, as well as Svencionys residents shot by the Nazis in 1942. There are also several graves of book-carriers.