Tauragės kraštas. Devynakiai - Karšuvos žemės žmonės
LTAutentiškomis nuotraukomis gausiai iliustruota monografija parengta remiantis asmenine autoriaus patirtimi, kraštiečių prisiminimais, archyvine medžiaga. Istoriniuose šaltiniuose nuo 1562 metų minimi Devynakiai paskutinėmis XX amžiaus dienomis išliko tik autoriaus prisiminimuose. Aprašytos 23 sodybos, papasakoti jų šeimininkų ir gyventojų likimai, prisiminti darbai ir papročiai, kaimynų suėjimai ir linksmybės; vaikų žaidimai ir užsiėmimai. Atskirą skyrių sudaro gausus pluoštas autoriaus atmintyje išsaugotų dainų ir jų melodijų. [Anotacija knygoje]
ENAs if hidden from the entire world and living in accordance with their own customs, the villagers, farmers retained the Lithuanian language, used certain dialects and guarded its folklore. The land, common workload and customs strongly bound the farming communities, empowering them topass on the national treasures to other generations, and to the scholars researching national tasks when the importance of our language and folklore for language, literature and other studies became apparent. Those are warm and troubling words of professor Vyt. Vitkauskas on our nation’s spiritual treasures accumulated over ages and preserved up tothe present days: the language, the customs, the traditions and the most important treasure - the laments, cantos and songs. KARSUVA - historic Lithuanian region located between rivers Nemunas and Sesuvis, first mentioned in King Mindaugas gift acts in year 1253. Throughout the 13th and 14th centuries Karsuva region was guarded defended by Bisene (1230) Aukaimis (Batakiai), Veliuna (Junigeda), Bebirvaite (1307-15), Putve and other castles. The most important, mentioned in 1385, was the Karsuya castle, thought to have been standing along river Akmena. In 1259 the Livonian Order had built in Karsuva the Georgeburg (Jurbarkas) castle. This Livonan castle was destroyed after the battle of Durbe(1260). The village of Devynakiai, where I was born and raised (1938-1957), is located inthe Karsuva region (9 km from Batakiai). Its geographic position is 22 degrees, 21 minutes and 50.8 seconds East and 55 degrees, 20 minutes, 23.5 seconds North. Majority ofthe village homesteads are located along the left bank of Sunia stream (tributary of river Jura), however, the village itself begins on the right bank of the stream where several farms, Rimkevicius’ and Danilavicius’ farms, are located.A road from Batakiai, running through Antegluoniai (Mikstpauciai) and what used to be village of Miseikiai, cuts across the Devynakiai and Sunia, and then continues further toward the villages of Karapolis and Sakvieciai. In the Lithuanian Language Institute’s card index of historic family namesection, there exists a following notation: “Adomas Devinakis, 1661 Kraziai parish baptismal register book, page 83": Furthermore, the Institute’s historic location name card index has more notations which further indicate that this location was inhabited from about start of 17th century, From the timeoffirst discovered mention of Devynakiai in the historic recordsuntil its destruction in 1980, Devynakiai was home to about 50 families. Some sources refer to the southern part of the village of Devynakiai as Vingininkai, even though only the name Devynakiai is found in the official state records. The village history begins with the Rimkeviciai and Danilaviciai families - two adjacent family homesteads separated by a road. These homesteads were carved out and settled at that location in the early 17th century. On a hill, at the confluence of Sūnija and Kaipe streams, according old time residents, there used to be an old cemetery from the time of the plagues. There are many documents, among them several land plans, preserved in the Lithuanian State Historic Archive about the village of Devynakiai. One of them is the land plan of Rimkevičius family drawn in 1870. It is believed that the homesteads, in some documents referred to as Estates, were formed after the 1863 revolution. According to them the property within the village boundaries was owned by: Teodoras Rimkevičius - 153.3 dešimtine (1 dešimtine = 2.7 acres); Ksaveras Danilavicius - 76.5 dešimtine; and Gvalbertas Danilavicius - 76.5 dešimtine.From archival documents it is seen that that in this village there were three estates with 336.4 hectares of land. However, soon after some time, the Danilavicius family lands were partitioned-off and, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the village grew at the expense of Rimkevičius and Danilavicius land holdings. Teodoras Rimkevičius and Ksaveras Danilavicius attended the May 1, 1929 meeting pertaining to splitting their large land-holdings into individual farms. Land previously held by Anele Rimkeviciene was distributed to: Jonas and Antanas Oberauskiai - 16.05 hectares; Jadvyga Slepaviciene-Rimkevicaite - 26.97 hectares; Gabriele Juskaitiene-Rimkevicaite - 26.97 hectares; and Kostas Rimkevičius - 96.00 hectares. Land previously held by Gvalbertas , son of Jonas, Danilavicius was distributed to: Marijonas Danilavicius - 41.86 hectares; Teodora Levenauskiene - 40.87 hectares; Juze Kucinskiene - 0.25 liectares; Vladas Batavicius - 39.76 hectares; Juozas Batavicius - 32.85 hectares; and Paulina Grimaliene - 10.38 hectares. From the above listings it is seen who were the owners of the farmland in 1929. The names of others, even though long time resident, renting the farms or working in Devynakiai, are not noted in the above lists. Census, taken several years later in 1936, recorded existence of 17 farms and 69 residents in Devynakiai. [...]. [From the publication]
