The lands were inhabited by the
Lithuanian tribe
Dainavians. Due to the frequent raids and pillaging of the
Teutonic Order, the Dainavians moved to other parts of Lithuania abandoning the lands and Seirijai became a wilderness. From 1383 to 1398 Seirijai was in the
State of the Teutonic Order. After the defeat of the Teutonic Order in the
Battle of Grunwald and the
Treaty of Melno (1422), the land became populated again and started to grow economically. Since the 16th century Serijai was known as a proprietary land of a ruler. King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania
Sigismund I the Old donated Seirijai to
Jerzy Radziwiłł, and later it became a possession of Radziwill family. Jerzy Radziwill built a Catholic church in 1537. Already in 1564 the church was given to Calvinists, since many in the Radziwill family converted to
Calvinism. The tensions between Catholics and Calvinists lasted up to 1655 and the
Thirteen Years' War with Russia. Seirijai was devastated and the Calvinists retreated. From 1691 until 1793 the district was a Prussian
exclave within Poland-Lithuania (). In 1793 it was ceded, along with
Tauragė (Tauroggen), to Poland-Lithuania as "compensation" for the territories annexed in the
Second Partition of Poland; it returned to Prussian control two years later in the
Third Partition of Poland, this time as a fully
contiguous part of Prussia within the
New East Prussia province. In 1807 it passed by the
Treaties of Tilsit to the
Duchy of Warsaw, a Polish
client state of the
First French Empire. 1815 it became part of
Congress Poland, a kingdom in a
personal union with the
Russian Empire; while formally separate from Russia, Congress Poland increasingly became
de facto part of it, culminating in the 1867 establishment of the
Vistula Land in its place. After
World War I it became part of the newly independent
Republic of Lithuania. During the
World War II almost all Seirijai was bombed by German army. On September 11, 1941, 953 Jews from Seirijai were murdered in the Baraučiškės Forest, including 229 men, 384 women and 340 children. The mass execution was perpetrated by
Rollkommando Hamann (, a small mobile unit that committed mass murders of
Lithuanian Jews in the countryside across Lithuania in July–October 1941, with a death toll of at least 60,000 Jews.) / 1st Battalion 3rd Unit led by Norkus and Obelenis; Lithuanian Activists Front members from Seirijai In 2018 a monument was built in Seirijai for
Lithuanian partisans, who fought against Soviet occupants. Seirijai belonged to
Dainava partisans military district. ==Economy==