Pietų Lietuvos miesteliai: sampratos kaita Pirmosios Lietuvos Respublikos laikotarpiu ir sovietinės okupacijos metais

LTŠiame straipsnyje nagrinėjami miestelių gyvensenos ir urbanistiniai bruožai iki Antrojo pasaulinio karo, taip pat karo ir sovietizacijos pasekmės bendrai miestelių sampratai bei vystymuisi. Skiriamas dėmesys ir šiandieniniams saugomų teritorijų teisės aktams, kurie iš dalies atspindi siekius ne regeneruoti senųjų miestelių urbanistinius modelius, o Įtvirtinti sovietmečiu vykdytas miestelių užstatymo koncepcijas. Raktažodžiai: miestelis, Antrasis pasaulinis karas, sovietizacija, saugomos teritorijos.

ENThe purpose of this article is to present the lifestyle and features of urban structure in the period of the First Republic of Lithuania and its changes during the Soviet occupation. At the same time, attention is drawn to the echoes of the concept of the Soviet town in today’s Lithuania, where the legal acts of the protected areas do not always reflect a clear understanding of the structure and construction features of old towns. The first part of the article draws attention to the fact that towns have always had a different pattern of urbanization than villages, where the market square was the central axis. In the economic model of the town based on trade and crafts, the access to the market square and central streets was the most valuable part of the town. This determined the intensive construction density of these places and the specific architecture of the buildings. From a cultural point of view, the main focus of the town was a multicultural model of the settlement, where different nations with their own traditions lived, and houses of worship of different denominations were also built. The years of World War II and the Soviet occupation led to disastrous conditions for the traditional development of towns. The fundamental conditions that determined the changes in population were the local massacre of Jews and subsequent Soviet repressions. The policy of Sovietization completely destroyed the economic model of settlement development. During this period, traditional urban planning was destroyed, buildings of typical projects were built, and the previous land ownership was replaced.After the restoration of Independence, the settlements, which were developed on the basis of the planned economy, could not quickly adapt to the market economy due to the destruction of the old inhabitants and traditions. This led to the rapid decline of these settlements. It can be maintained that most towns still need a clear vision of development or plans of strategic territorial development. This problem is felt even more distinctively by the settlements with tourism potential, which often fall within the boundaries of the protected areas. The available legal acts reflect the shortcomings of the historical analysis of towns, their identification with the “traditional ethnographic” architecture, which in the regulations of regional and national parks, is usually associated only with the tradition of villages. The ban on dividing plots of land formed during the Soviet era within the territory of towns, without having historical material on the territory of a certain destroyed urban space, creates conditions not for regenerating or promoting the principles of historical construction, but for legitimizing and consolidating the principles of the Soviet-era town planning. Finally, the blind development and replication of ethnographic accents and elements in the new construction prevent towns from looking for new interpretations of quality architecture, which can reform and interpret the traditional concepts and forms of the destroyed towns.