Battle of Saulė Victory Memorial Site - Joniškio turizmo ir verslo informacijos centras

Battle of Saulė Victory Memorial Site

The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle of the 13th century has left us with the proof of one of the most important Lithuanian (Samogitian) and Brothers of the Sword crusades – the Battle of Saulė (Šiauliai) that took place on 22 September in 1236, ending with the defeat of the Brothers of the Sword. Semigallians also fought together with Lithuanians in this battle. The significance of the battle was the abolition of the Brothers of the Sword and the first strong blow to German expansion in the Baltics, which stopped the rapid conquest of the Baltics, and thus shaped the history of the entire region of Central-Eastern Europe and Lithuania.

As the precise location of the battle is not mentioned in the Chronicles, historians’ opinions on this differ: according to the widely spread version, the battle took place in Lithuania in Joniškis’ region in Jauniūnai Village, near the confluence of Mūša and Tautinis rivers. There are other versions too – that the battle could’ve taken place in Latvia and possibly other regions as well.

In 1987 the victory field of the Battle of Saulė in Jauniūnai Village was added to the list of historical monuments of the Republic of Lithuania. In 2000 the Lithuanian and Latvian parliaments proclaimed 22 September, the day of the Battle of the Sun, as Baltic Unity Day.

For decades, various events have been held at the Battle of Saulė Victory Field in Jauniūnai to commemorate this historic event. In 2022, work on a memorial commemorating the victory of the Battle of Saulė began in Jauniūnai.

GPS:56.116858, 23.517945

Jauniūnai, Joniškis district