Suvalkija mayors call proposal to rename region to Sūduva a pointless exercise

Mayors from the Suvalkija region have dismissed as meaningless a proposal to officially rename the area Sūduva, calling it an empty political gesture, LRT reports.

Kazlų Rūdos mayor Mantas Varaška told BNS the initiative, backed by a group of lawmakers, was a futile attempt to legislate on matters of no real significance to residents. “This is an empty exercise by the Seimas and a group of its members—imitating lawmaking over completely trivial, and in this case, even unacceptable things for the people,” he said.

The Seimas this week approved the first reading of amendments to the Law on the Basics of State Protection of Ethnic Culture, which would formally recognise five ethnographic regions in Lithuania: Aukštaitija, Dzūkija (Dainava), Sūduva, Žemaitija, and Mažoji Lietuva. Currently, the law refers to Suvalkija (Sūduva).

Varaška argued most locals identify as Suvalkija residents, making a name change unnatural. “For a hundred or a hundred and fifty years, this self-identity has taken root, and they see themselves this way,” he said, citing a municipal online survey where about 90% of over 800 respondents opposed dropping the Suvalkija name. The survey was cut short after suspicious activity—around 600 votes to remove the name came from a single IP address within minutes.

Šakių district mayor Raimondas Januševičius also expressed skepticism, noting residents see themselves as part of the Zanavykija area. “We consider ourselves pure-blooded Zanavykiai. Whether it’s called Sūduva or Suvalkija doesn’t really affect us as the Šakių or Zanavykija region,” he said, adding the move would be like renaming Žemaitija or Aukštaitija.

Kalvarija mayor Nerijus Šidlauskas similarly saw no practical benefit: “In everyday speech, we’ll call them Suvalkija residents as we always have. And whether it’s Sūduva or not, I don’t think the essence will change.”

Supporters of the change, including influential Social Democrats such as Seimas Speaker Juozas Olekas and Culture Committee Chair Kęstutis Vilkauskas, argue that Suvalkija is tied to the 19th-century Suwałki Governorate and does not reflect the region’s ethnic identity or Baltic heritage. They advocate for the historically authentic name Sūduva, citing a 2023 decision by the Sūduva Regional Ethnic Culture Council to use only that name and refer to locals as Sūduviai. The Seimas itself recognised the historical importance of Sūduva in 2021 by declaring 2022 the Year of Sūduva.

However, the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language opposed the change as early as 2005, stating that Sūduva is primarily a historical term for an area once inhabited by the Sūduviai (or Yotvingians), and that Suvalkija and Sūduva do not align chronologically or geographically. Suvalkija (Sūduva) is currently defined as an ethnographic region in southwestern Lithuania, covering most of Užnemunė, including Marijampolė County.