Šilutė

Šilutė (; previously Šilokarčiama; Heydekrug) is a city in the south of the Klaipėda County in western Lithuania. The city was part of the Klaipėda Region and ethnographic Lithuania Minor. Šilutė was the interwar capital of Šilutė County and is currently the capital of Šilutė District Municipality. Šilutė's origin dates to an inn (Krug, locally karčema) catering to travelers and their horses which was located halfway between Klaipėda and Tilsit (Tilžė). The German name of Heydekrug referred to a Krug (an archaic word for inn) in the Heide (heathland). The inn was known for being in the region where most people spoke the Memelland-Samogitian dialect Šilokarčema. A famous fish market was opened in Šilutė almost 500 years ago, when Georg Tallat purchased the inn together with the land and fishing rights in 1511. The town was a gathering place for peasants from nearby Samogitia and Curonian and Prussian fishermen from Rusnė, lt, Nida, and de. Next to the inn a church of Werden (Verdainė) was built in 1550. It was a part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as a fief of Poland, held by the Teutonic Knights and secular Ducal Prussia. From the 18th century, it was part of the Kingdom of Prussia. Heydekrug often sought town rights, but was opposed by Memel (Klaipėda) and Tilsit in 1721 and 1725. In 1722 it became a district center and in 1818 the capital of Landkreis Heydekrug, a predominantly Lithuanian-inhabited district in the late 19th century. From 1863, a Lithuanian newspaper was issued in the settlement. In the late 19th century, the settlement had a partly Lithuanian population of 2,042, which was mostly employed in agriculture, fishing and timber rafting. Several annual fairs were held there. Among the goods sold at the fairs were fish (e.g. to Warsaw and Saint Petersburg), pigs (to Berlin), vegetables, cattle, horses. The settlement was amalgamated with the villages of Werden (Verdainė), Szibben (Žibai), and Cynthionischken (Cintjoniškiai) in 1910, although it still did not receive city rights.