A settlement area of the Baltic
Curonians, the original place called
nida ("fluent" in the
Old Prussian language) was first mentioned in 1385 documents issued by the
Teutonic Knights, who ruled the lands within their
Monastic State. The original settlement on the road along the Curonian Spit from
Königsberg to
Memel was located about south of its today's position near the
Hohe Düne (High Dune) at Cape Grobštas (from Old Prussian:
grabis, "hill"). In 1454, King
Casimir IV Jagiellon incorporated the region to the
Kingdom of Poland upon the request of the anti-Teutonic
Prussian Confederation. After the subsequent
Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466), the fishing village became a part of Poland as a
fief held by the Teutonic Knights until 1525, and by
Ducal Prussia afterwards, and thus was located within the
Polish–Lithuanian union and
Commonwealth. From 1701, it was part of the
Kingdom of Prussia. In 1709 nearly all of the population died from a
bubonic plague epidemic. Continuously threatened by sand drifts, the village was moved away from the approaching dune to today's position in the 1730s. Incorporated into the Prussian
Province of East Prussia in 1773, it became part of the
German Empire upon the
German unification of 1871. In 1874 a
lighthouse on Urbas hill was built, later destroyed in the war and rebuilt in 1945 and 1953. In 1878, the village had a population of 655, mostly living off fishing, with fish being sold mainly to nearby
Klaipėda and other coastal settlements.
Artists' colony 's summer house, now a museum From the late 19th century, the dune landscape became popular with
landscape and
animal painters from the
Kunstakademie Königsberg arts school. The local inn of Herman Blode was the nucleus of the
expressionist artists' colony (
Künstlerkolonie Nidden).
Lovis Corinth sojourned there, as did
Max Pechstein,
Alfred Lichtwark,
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and
Alfred Partikel. Painters from Königsberg such as Julius Freymuth and Eduard Bischoff visited the area, as did poets such as
Ernst Wiechert and
Carl Zuckmayer. Other guests included
Ernst Kirchner, Ernst Mollenhauer,
Franz Domscheit, and Hermann Wirth. The painters usually took accommodations at Blode's hotel, and left some of their works with him. Some also built their own residences in the vicinity. After
World War I Nidden, together with the northern half of the Curonian Spit, became part of the
Klaipėda Region under the 1919
Treaty of Versailles, but was subsequently incorporated to
Lithuania in 1923. Renamed Nida, the village nevertheless remained a predominantly German settlement; the border with the remaining German (East Prussian) half of the spit lay only a few kilometers to the south. In 1929
Nobel Prize-winning writer
Thomas Mann visited Nida while on holiday in nearby
Rauschen and decided to have a summer house erected on a hill above the lagoon; it was mocked by locals as ''
Uncle Tom's Cabin. He and his family spent the summers of 1930–32 in the cottage, and parts of the epic novel Joseph and His Brothers'' were written there. Threatened by the
Nazis due to his
political views, Mann left Germany after Hitler's
Machtergreifung in 1933 and eventually emigrated to the United States. After the Klaipėda Region was again annexed by (now Nazified) Germany in 1939, his house was seized at the behest of
Hermann Göring and designated a recreation home for
Luftwaffe officers.
Post-war In 1939 the town had 736 inhabitants. Like all of the Curonian Spit, Nida became nearly uninhabited as a result of the advancing
Red Army, the
Evacuation of East Prussia and the eventual expulsion of surviving German inhabitants. After the end of
World War II, Nida again became part of then
Soviet-occupied Lithuania. In the early postwar period, Nida was a little-visited fishing village. Later during the Soviet occupation, together with three other villages of the
Neringa Municipality (
Juodkrantė,
Preila and
Pervalka), Nida was a controlled-entry holiday resort reserved for the
Communist party officials and elite (
nomenklatura). Since Lithuania restored its independence in 1990, the area has been open to all and the tourism has flourished. However, as Curonian Spit is a
national park and a
UNESCO World Heritage Site, there are various restrictions to protect its ecosystem and the unique architecture of settlements like Nida. Mann's summer cottage survived the war and was preserved on the initiative of the Lithuanian poet
Antanas Venclova. A first memorial site was inaugurated already in 1967. During the Soviet occupation, it hosted a library open in summer only, with residential quarters of the visiting librarian posted from
Klaipėda upstairs and public areas downstairs. In 1995/96 the house was restored according to the original architectural design and reopenend as a cultural center dedicated to the writer, with a memorial exhibition and an annual festival. ==Climate==