Sudervė


Sudervė is one of the oldest villages in Vilnius District Municipality, Lithuania. It is located just north of Vilnius, on the road from Vilnius to Kernavė and is the center of Sudervė eldership. At the 2011 census, the village had a population of 523. That was an increase from the 1989 census which recorded the population of 393 inhabitants.

History

In 1594, Sudervė was given to the Orthodox St. Trinity brotherhood of Vilnius, but was sold to the Jesuit novitiate in 1669. Bishop Ignacy Jakub Massalski bought Sudervė in the second half of the 18th century. Catholic church of a rare in Lithuania rotunda type was built in Sudervė in 1803–1822. Some historians attribute its project to Laurynas Gucevičius, while others argue, that it was built already after his death and the project was prepared independently by his student Laurynas Bortkevičius.
Sudervė belongs to the suburban belt of Vilnius, which grew substantially during the last 20 years. New houses are being built in the village for newcomer residents from Vilnius. Because of this, ethnographic picture of the eldership is changing rapidly: according to the census of 2001, 88.5% of inhabitants out of population of 3,017 in the Sudervė eldership were Lithuanian Poles, 7.5% were Lithuanians and 2.6% were Russians, but in 2011 Lithuanian Poles constituted 47.7%, Lithuanians – already 41.6%, Lithuanian Russians – 5.8%. These same tendencies persisted in the 2010s as well.