Bezdonys secondary schoolCatholic church in Bezdonys, built in 1937
The site of the modern village has been inhabited at least since early Middle Ages. Local dense forests were a hunting resort of the Grand Dukes. Jan Długosz mentions, that the local hunting manor was visited by the Grand Duke of LithuaniaJogaila. In 1516 a hunting manor and surrounding land was granted by Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund I the Old to Ulrich Hosius, better known as father of Stanislaus Hosius.[4] The area donated to the Hosius family consisted of roughly 7000 hectares of forests, with a single mill and three villages.[5]
After the Partitions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth the village remained in the hands of the Łopaciński family. The yearly fee however was instead paid to Saint Petersburg. Following the January Uprising the peasants living in Bezdany were granted with roughly 400 hectares (or desiatinas) of land.[4] On March 15, 1862 the Warsaw – Saint Petersburg Railway was opened and one of its stations was located in Bezdany (or Безданы in Russian). It was there that the Bezdany raid of September 26, 1908 took place. A group of Polish revolutionaries led by Józef Piłsudski stole roughly 200,000 Russian rubles[nb 2] from a passenger train. It is usually being said, that this sum was intended for the construction of an electric tram lines in Vilnius (Vilniaus arklinis tramvajus [lt]), that were never built in the aftermath.
On 9 July 1943, 350 local Jews are murdered in a forest nearby Bezdonys. The massacre was perpetrated by an einsatzgruppen of Germans and local collaborationists lead by Bruno Kittel.[6]
Following World War II the village was returned to Lithuania. Roughly half[citation needed] of pre-war inhabitants were evicted and expelled[dubious – discuss]to within post-war Poland.[7] In the late 1930s as a means of Polonisation of local peasant population, a hundred Polish schools, named after Józef Piłsudski were built in Vilnius region[8] – one such wooden school was built in Bezdonys too. In 1946 a Russian language class was added to the Polish language school and in 1957 also Lithuanian language class was opened. In 1968 a new school building was opened and in 1992 a new Lithuanian language only school was built.
Demographics
According to the 2021 census, out of 2790 inhabitants of Bezdonys Eldership:
^Specifically Łopaciński and his heirs were to pay 4,5% of the value of the village, estimated at 72222 złoty 62⁄3 grosz
^Roughly 100,000 contemporary US Dollars, or almost 10,000,000 in 2007 dollars (using the unskilled wage indicator of relative worth). See: measuringworth.com
References
^(in Polish)Bohdan Urbankowski, Józef Piłsudski: marzyciel i strateg (Józef Piłsudski: Dreamer and Strategist), Wydawnictwo ALFA, Warsaw, 1997, ISBN83-7001-914-5, p. 133-141
^ abcdeMirosław Gajewski. "Z historii Bezdan". Nasza Gazeta (in Polish). 10 (446). Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 28 August 2008.
^Czesława Paczkowska (February–March 2008). "Gminy z dorobkiem w tle – Bezdany". Tygodnik Wileńszczyzny (in Polish). 9 (390). Retrieved 28 August 2008.
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Lithuania
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