Ragnita, founded in 1288, was a settlement of the Baltic tribe of Skalvians. It was contested by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since its creation in the 13th century, and on April 23, 1289 it was conquered by the Teutonic Knights, who built a Gothic castle there, which later became the seat of a Komtur. The stronghold was called Landeshut, but the name did not become popular and the name Ragnit, after a local river, a tributary of the Memel, continued to be used. Although the settlement had an important castle not only guarding the Prussian lands of the State of the Teutonic Orderfrom the north but also serving as a military base for the Knights' campaigns into adjacent Samogitia, it was living in the shadow of the nearby city of Tilsit. After the dissolution of the Order's State under its last Grand Master Albrecht von Hohenzollern, Ragnit on April 10, 1525 became a part of the Duchy of Prussia, which was ruled by the House of Hohenzollern as a fief of the Polish Crown until 1657. The duchy was inherited by the Hohenzollern margraves of Brandenburg in 1618, becoming an integral part of Brandenburg-Prussia, whereby remote Ragnit retained its status as a regional capital. Ragnit was devastated by Tatars during the Second Northern War in 1656 and again by Swedish forces during the Scanian War in 1678, while the "Great Elector" Frederick William of Brandenburg had achieved full sovereignty over his Prussian lands by the 1657 Treaty of Wehlau. His son and successor Elector Frederick III elevated himself to a King in Prussia in 1701. He granted Ragnit town privileges on April 6, 1722. It was again destroyed during the Seven Years' War, this time by Russian forces in 1757. Incorporated into the Province of East Prussia from 1815, Ragnit became a part of the German Empire upon the Prussian-led unification of Germany in 1871. On November 1, 1892, a railroad line linking the town with Tilsit was opened. It was built to develop the wood industry in the area, but the development did not actually start and the area's economy remained dominated by food production. When Germany had to cede the Klaipėda Region north of the Neman River to the Conference of Ambassadors according to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Ragnit became a border town. In 1922, it lost its status as an administrative capital in favor of Tilsit. During World War II, on January 19, 1945, Ragnit was captured without a fight by the 3rd Belorussian Front of the Red Army in the course of the East Prussian Offensive. In accordance to the 1945 Potsdam Agreement, the town became a part of Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian SFSR. It was renamed to Neman in 1946. Most of the local inhabitants who had not fled during the Soviet conquest of East Prussia were subsequently expelled to the western parts of Germany.
Despite being a part of German-speaking states, for centuries Ragnit was an important center of Lithuanian culture. From 1549 to 1563, famous Lithuanian writer and translator Martynas Mažvydas was priest and Archdiacon of Ragainė. While living in Ragainė he wrote "The Song of St. Ambrosy", translated "The Form of Baptism" from German into Lithuanian, published "The Prussian Agenda" into the prayer "Paraphrasis". One of his major works was "The Christian Songs". In the 19th century, after the January Uprising when the Lithuanian language was banned from the office in all of Russian-ruled Lithuania, books in that language were printed in Ragnit and then smuggled to Russia by the Lithuanian book smugglers. According to German data 17,500 Lithuanians lived in the Ragnit district in 1890. In 2010 Lithuanians composed 2.8% of the town population, being the third largest ethnic group after Russians and Belarusians.
Notable people
Martynas Mažvydas, Lithuanian priest, writer, translator
