In 1998, a cross carved by folk artist Juozapas Jakštas was erected on the territory of the monastery, commemorating the Battle of Valkininkai.
There have been tragic events in the history of the Valkininkai Monastery. In 1700, a civil war took place in Lithuania between the Sapieha family and the noble opposition that formed the Valkininkai Confederation, who fought against the positions of the Sapieha family in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and wanted to limit the power of the Sapieha family. On November 18, 1700, the Battle of Valkininkai took place in the fields between Valkininkai and Liepāny. The Valkininkai Confederation consisted of 4,000 soldiers, while the Sapieha forces, led by the Grand Duke of Lithuania's Grand Horseman Mykolas Pranciškus Sapieha, the son of the Vilnius Voivode and Grand Duke of Lithuania's Grand Hetman Kazimierz Jonas Sapieha, the same one who built the Sapieha Palace in Antakalnis, were half as small. The battle lasted several hours, with several hundred people killed on both sides.
The Battle of Valkininkai is also immortalized in the second book of Kristina Sabaliauskaitė's "Silva Rerum", where it is mentioned that near Valkininkai, in a fratricidal war of Lithuanian against Lithuanian, the two eldest sons of Uršulė Birontienė and Jonas Kirdėjas Birontas, Jonas Motiejus and Samuelis Jeronimas, were killed.
After the battle, Mykolas Pranciškus Sapiega hid in the Valkininkai monastery, but drunken nobles found him and cut him to pieces with swords right there in the monastery. After the defeat, the Sapiegas were punished with infamia, or deprivation of honor, and their estates were confiscated.
Translated by Google •
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