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Didactic Commentary: Vilnius 1655, Russian Invasion - Multiethnical structure of population

While performing the task connected with the old names of the streets, the answer about the “multicultural society” can be more difficult. For this is the conception applied to describe the modern societies of some countries (USA, Canada) and the structures of population in urban Europe nowadays. In these cities the people of various origin, nations, ethnicities, languages, religions. From these cultural differences the different traditions, lifestyles, perception of values appear. Seeing the German, Jewish, Russian, Tartar streets in Vilnius, finding these streets with the old names in the city plan, we could better understand that the matter, which appeared in the European countries, for example, in Germany, quite lately, in Vilnius was already known in the more recent forms in 16th -17th centuries.   

While performing the task connected with the settlement of Jews in the German street, it must be pointed that due to the Russian occupations the Germans of Vilnius fled the city, moving mostly to the Lithuanian’s neighbour, Prussia.  

While performing the tasks connected with the consist of citizens of Vilnius city in 1661-1795, we can notice that, during the occupation of Muscovites in 1655-1661, the archive of Vilnius city perished. But since 1661-1663 the archival data is already extant and therefore it was possible to estimate the lands, from which the people were moving to Vilnius for settlement.

 

Keywords: Divided, nationality, ethnic communities, fluctuation, Ruthenians, Tartars.