Middle Ages The area where the town of Ełk is located was originally inhabited by
Jatvingians, a
Baltic peoples, during the
Early Middle Ages. By 1281,
Skomand the last leader of the pagan Jatvingians, capitulated to the
crusading Teutonic Knights, who initially were invited in 1226 by
Konrad I of Masovia from the Polish
Piast dynasty to put an end to the constant pagan raids into his territory. After 1323, the northern part of the region was administered by the
commandery of
Brandenburg, while the larger part with the later town belonged to
Balga commandery. A former
Old Prussian settlement, the town was first documented in 1398 around a castle built by the Teutonic Knights. It was populated by Poles from
Mazovia. The town's name has various postulated origins. Its German version
Lyck is postulated to be derived from its
Old Prussian name,
Luks (from the word for
waterlily,
luka), while another theory holds that the name comes from Polish word "łęg" meaning meadow. Old Polish names of the town included
Łek,
Łęg and
Łęk. In 1425 the village was granted
Chełmno rights and Bartosz Bratomi, most possibly from Mazovia, became its first
lokator. It received
town rights in 1445. After the outbreak of the
Thirteen Years' War in 1454, the town sided with the
Prussian Confederation, The town was briefly captured by the Teutonic Knights in 1455, and later on, it was conquered alternately by the Poles and the Teutonic Knights. After 1466 it came under Polish
suzerainty as a
fief.
Early modern era In 1537, Duke
Albert of Prussia donated an estate to Jan Malecki, a Polish printer from
Kraków who had either fled or moved to
Ducal Prussia for material reasons, to establish a printing house, the first in Masuria. After converting to Lutheranism, Malecki translated and published
Martin Luther's
Small Catechism in Polish In 1546 a Polish school, the first school for secondary education in
Masuria, was founded in the city, where apart from locals also
Polish nobles from the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were taught. Polish pastor, translator, publisher and co-creator of the literary Polish language,
Hieronim Malecki, was the school's first
rector. In the mid-16th century Ełk was one of the most thriving centers of Polish-language printing. In 1560, weekly markets were established, and later also three annual
fairs. In 1639 the King of Poland
Władysław IV Vasa visited the town. It remained under Polish suzerainty until 1657, when Poland renounced its sovereignty in the
Treaty of Bromberg and the
Hohenzollern dynasty of
Brandenburg gained hereditary sovereignty in the Duchy.
18th and 19th centuries In 1709-10, the
plague claimed 1,300 victims. In 1831, 300 people, about 10 percent of the populace, died of the
cholera, in 1837 another 80 and 333 in 1852. At the beginning of the 19th century, a Polish-language teachers' college was organised in the city by Tymoteusz Gizewiusz. Until 1802, students of the local school spoke almost exclusively Polish. In 1820, Fryderyk Tymoteusz Krieger became the superintendent of the school and actively defended the rights of local Poles to use the Polish language. Krieger also prepared Polish educational programs, in opposition to attempts at
Germanization by Prussian authorities. He was the first pastor in Masuria to protest against the Germanization of Polish schools in the region. Prussian authorities launched investigations against him three times. Among the students of the local gymnasium was
Gustaw Gizewiusz, a relative of Krieger, who became one of the best-known advocates against the Germanisation of Masuria. Polish people who had acquired knowledge of the German language, including children whose parents did not speak German, were officially classified as ethnic Germans by the authorities, and were denied the right to attend Polish church services. In 1825, according to the official statistics, Lyck was inhabited by 1,748 Germans and 1,394 Poles. In 1840, the German-language newspaper
"Lycker gemeinnütziges Unterhaltungsblatt", later called
"Lycker Zeitung", was founded. Between 1842 and 1845, a Polish newspaper
"Przyjaciel Ludu Łecki" (Łek's Friend of the People) was printed in the city, whose aim was to resist Germanisation and cultivate Polish folk traditions as well as educate the local rural population. The Polish press faced hindrances from the Prussian administration, while the German press could operate without obstacles. In May 1845, a Polish resistance movement in the city was organized by Kazmierz Szulc, whose aim was to prepare local Polish youth for an uprising. During the
January Uprising, weapons were smuggled through the city to the
Russian Partition of Poland, and Polish insurgents fleeing the Russian Partition took refuge in the city; among others, a detachment of Colonel passed through it. In 19th-century Polish encyclopedias and gazetteers the city was noted as
Ełk. In the late 19th century it was the largest town of the region (according to data from 1880 and 1890), before being surpassed by
Osterode (Ostróda) (according to data from 1905 and 1925). From 1896 to 1902,
"Gazeta Ludowa", a Polish-language newspaper, heavily subsidised by banks from
Greater Poland representing the Polish national movement in Masuria, was published in the city. It soon faced repression and discrimination from the German authorities which led to its demise; its paid circulation dropped from 357 copies in 1896 to less than 250 at the turn-of-the-century. According to German-American author, Richard Blanke, the "demise marked the end of the second major effort by Polish nationalists to establish a journalistic foothold in Masuria". In 1896, Polish and Masurian activists founded the
Masurian People's Party in the city, which sought to resist efforts of German authorities at forced Germanization. The co-founder of the party was poet
Michał Kajka, today honoured in Ełk with a monument in the centre of the city. From the start, the party was subject to severe repressions and attacks by Prussian authorities. In the German federal elections, the MPL received 229 votes in 1898 and 20 in 1912 in the Lyck constituency.
20th century In 1910, Lyck had more than 13,000 inhabitants. Mateusz Siuchniński gives the percentage of Poles in 1900 as 35.7% but warns that the numbers come from lowered German estimates. Many citizens fled during
World War I, when
Imperial Russian troops attacked the region, but returned after the battles of
Tannenberg and the
Masurian Lakes. English and Italian troops were deployed in the town after the
Treaty of Versailles to supervise the
East Prussian plebiscite. Contemporary Polish newspaper articles reported that the Germans vandalized Polish information boards and held an anti-Polish rally at which they encouraged the beating of Poles and the devastation of their homes and property. In April 1920, the German
Sicherheitswehr battered Italian soldiers, two fatally. In the plebiscite, 8,339 inhabitants voted for
Germany and 8 for
Poland, which just regained independence. As a result of the plebiscite, the city remained part of Germany. During the
Polish–Soviet War, on 31 July 1920, some 1,000 Polish soldiers arrived and were soon interned by Germany in nearby
Orzysz. In 1922, a Polish consular agency was opened, which was upgraded to a vice-consulate the next year. It was in Lyck that the first-ever weekly newspaper in the
Hebrew language,
Ha-Magid ("the preacher") was founded in 1856 by
Eliezer Lipmann Silbermann, a local rabbi. The paper was eventually moved to Berlin. In 1932, the local pharmacist Leo Frankenstein was attacked; a hand grenade was thrown into his home. The wave of anti-Semitic repressions intensified after Nazis gained power in Germany in 1933 and many local merchants and intellectuals of Jewish descent were arrested. Over 60
Italian PoWs were imprisoned as
forced labour in the town. The
Polish resistance was active and operated one of the region's main smuggling points for
Polish underground press in the city. It was heavily damaged by bombardments. The
Soviet Army approached in January 1945. The city was placed under Polish administration in April 1945 and the remaining German inhabitants were expelled in accordance with the
Potsdam Agreement. It was rebuilt and its modern Polish name
Ełk was confirmed as official.
Contemporary times In 1999, Ełk was visited by
Pope John Paul II. About 300,000 people attended a papal Mass. In 2017, the
anti-Muslim Ełk riots occurred after a fatal stabbing of a 21-year-old man by a Muslim kebab cook. Several hundred men surrounded the
Prince Kebab restaurant, tossing firecrackers, stones, and
Molotov cocktails at the shop. In 2018, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Poland's independence, a monument to
Józef Piłsudski was erected in front of the town hall. The Marshal of Poland was also honored with a
mural on one of the townhouses in the city center. ==Population==