Puńsk

Puńsk puńsk (Punskas) is a village in the Podlaskie Voivodeship in northeastern Poland, seat of the Gmina Puńsk in the Sejny County. It is located only from the border with Lithuania. The oldest traces of humans in Puńsk territory date back to about 10 000 years BC. In the early medieval ages it was inhabited by the Baltic Yotvingian and Sudovian peoples. In the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights mostly exterminated the local Balts with only few of them surviving. Nowadays only some castle hills (e.g. in Šiurpilis), mounds (e.g. in Eglinė), cemeteries (e.g. in Szwajcaria), village names (e.g. Zervynai, Krosna) and archaeological excavations remind us about their existence. Later on the Suwałki Region became overgrown with forests. Lithuanian Grand Dukes hunted there. In the early 15th century the people from Merkinė and Punia started to colonize this territory again. The lake was named Punia, from which the village derived its name. Initially, it might have been called Puniškės after Punia, which over time became Puńsk. It was one of the first settlements in this territory. At the same time the other ones were created, such as: Beržininkai, Seinai or Kreivėnai. In 1597, the Seivai forester, Stanisław Zaliwski built the church in Puńsk, and here was the parish established. Later on the Lithuanian chancellery published the document of the king Sigismund I the Old, which stated that Puńsk's parish priest can only be a Lithuanian-speaking person. In 1647, the king Władysław IV Vasa approved Puńsk's civic rights according to the Magdeburg rights and gave it a coat of arms with Saint Peter's image. At that time the parish of Puńsk belonged to the Diocese of Vilnius, and later (from 1795) to the bishopric of Wigry. There was a school and a hospital by the church. In 1795, there lived 583 people in Puńsk and in 1827 even more – 748. Puńsk was annexed by Prussia in the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. In 1807 it became part of the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw, within which it was administratively located in the Łomża Department.