Jieznas is a small city in the Prienai district municipality

Prienai district municipality

-References:...

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

. It is located 16 km (9.9 mi) east of Prienai

Prienai

Prienai is a city in Lithuania situated on the Neman River, south of Kaunas. In 2001 the city had 11,353 inhabitants. The name of the city is a derivative from a surname Prienas. Pociūnai Airport is associated with the city.-History:...

 along the northern shores of Lake Jieznas.

History

Jieznas was first mentioned in written sources in 1492 as property of the Grand Duke of Lithuania. In 1633, the settlement was acquired by the Pac family. They sponsored construction of a church, which was reconstructed in Baroque style

Baroque architecture

Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...

 in 1768–1772.

In 1747, the Pac family built a luxurious palace in Jieznas. The palace had 12 halls, 52 rooms, and 365 windows to match the number of months, weeks, and days in a year. It was decorated with frescoes, gilded

Gilding

The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as "gilt"...

 engravings, Venetian mirrors. The palace was lost due to family indebtedness in 1807 and was destroyed by a fire in 1837.

In February 1919, Jieznas saw the first battles and casualties of the Lithuanian–Soviet War

Lithuanian–Soviet War

The Lithuanian–Soviet War or Lithuanian–Bolshevik War was fought between newly independent Lithuania and the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in the aftermath of World War I. It was part of the larger Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919...

. Lithuanian victory prevented the Red Army from marching into Kaunas

Kaunas

Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...

. This battle is commemorated by the coat or arms, designed by Arvydas Každailis

Arvydas Každailis

upright|thumb|[[Coat of arms of Lithuania]] modernized by Každailis in 1991Arvydas Stanislavas Každailis is a Lithuanian artists, best known as the creator of many coat of arms for cities and towns of Lithuania...

 in 2002. The coat of arms depicts allegorical figure of a woman symbolizing the victory. She holds a golden oak branch, a symbol of strength.

Name

Jieznas is the Lithuanian

Lithuanian language

Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

 name of the city. Versions of the name in other languages include Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

: Jezno, Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

: Езно Yezno, Belarusian

Belarusian language

The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...

: Езно Yezno, Yiddish: יעזנע Yiezne.