Wrocław
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Wrocław | |
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| (Flag) | (Coat of arms) |
| Motto: miasto spotkań (the meeting place) | |
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| Basic Information | |
| Country | Poland |
| Voivodeship | Lower Silesian |
| Powiat (County) | Wrocław |
| Gmina (Commune) | Wrocław |
| Urban Information | |
| Population | 635,800 2005 est. |
| Area of district | - km² |
| Founded | 10th century |
| City rights | 1262 |
| Latitude Longitude |
51°07' N 17°02' E |
| Gmina Wrocław | |
| Type of commune | urban commune (Gmina miejska) |
| Districts (No.) | - |
| Area | 292,9 km² |
| Agglomeration | 945,000 |
| Density | 2181/km² |
| Area code | +48 71 |
| Postal code | 50-041 to 54-612 |
| Car plates | DW |
| Twin towns | Breda, Dresden, Charlotte, Guadalajara, Mexico, Hradec Králové, Kaunas, Vienne, Lviv, Ramat Gan, Wiesbaden |
| Economy and Traffic | |
| Economy | - |
| Highway | A4 / E40, A8 / E67 |
| Railway | - |
| Airport | Copernicus Airport Wrocław |
| Administration | |
| Mayor | Rafał Dutkiewicz |
| Municipal Address | Nowy Targ Square 1/8 50-141 Wroclaw |
| Municipal Website | |
Wrocław (['vrɔʦwaf] ; also known as Breslau , its German name; Czech: Vratislav; Latin: Wratislavia or Vratislavia) is the capital of Lower Silesia in southwestern Poland, situated on the Oder (Polish: Odra) River. It is the principal city of the Lower Silesia region and the administrative seat of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship (since 1999), previously of Wrocław Voivodeship. The city is also a separate urban-county. After Warsaw, Wroclaw is the second largest financial center in Poland. As of 2004, its population was estimated to be 638,000.
Contents |
[edit] Etymology
The city was first recorded in the year 1000 by Thietmar's chronicle: Johannes Wrotizlaensis, bishop of Wrotizla, a newly established diocese, is mentioned, as was later the city itself (as Wortizlawa). The first municipal seal says: Sigillum civitatis Wracislavie, and a simplified city name is given in 1175 as in Wrezlawe, which developed into Prezla, Bresla(u=w).
Early records show that the medieval city name was Wrocisław in Polish and Vratislav in Czech, meaning Wrocisław/Vratislav's town. The Polish name was later phonetically simplified from Wrocisław to Wrotsław to Wrocław, a name which has been used since the 12th century. The Czech spelling was used in Latin documents as Wratislavia or Vratislavia, while the Polish pronunciation was also influential in the spelling Wracislavia. At that time, Prezla was used in Middle High German, which became Preßlau. The Latin name Wratislavia and the Early New High German (and later New High German) form of the name—Breslau—was used as the official name by the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Prussia, and Germany.
The city is traditionally believed to be named after a person called Wrocisław/Vratislaw, often believed to be Duke Vratislav I of Bohemia. It is also possible that the city was named after the tribal duke of the Silesians, or after an early owner of the city called Vratislav. There is also another story which holds that the city was named after a Polish duke named Wrócisław, whose name means "he will return famous" in the old Polish language.
The name of the city today may be an issue among German and Polish nationalists, although the city's municipal website uses Breslau for the German-language version of the site.[1]
Name variations used in other languages:
- Hungarian: Boroszló
- Italian: Breslavia
- Lithuanian: Vroclavas
- Serbian: Вроцлав or Vroclav
- Slovak: Vratislav or Vroclav
- Ukrainian: Вроцлав or Vrotslav
- Russian: Вроцлав or Vrotslav
[edit] History
[edit] Feudal era
Source: http://www.breslau-wroclaw.de.
Situated at a long existing trading place, a stronghold existed and was part of Greater Moravia, then Bohemia and a city was first recorded in the 10th century as Vratislavia, derived from Bohemian duke Wratislaw I, who died in 921.
The settlement was conquered by the Piast Duke Boleslaw I, son of Mieszko I in the 990s, then regained by Bohemia. The dukes from both territories, Bohemia and Poland, were part of the Holy Roman Empire. After 1000 AD, when the Bishopric of Wroclaw was founded, a stronghold with cathedral was built for the bishops and thus it became the administrative , political and religious center of Silesia. It became the capital of Silesia By 1139 two more settlements were founded: One belonged to governor Peter Włast or Wlostowic[vague] close to his residence on the Olbina, with the St. Vincent's Benedictine Abbey[spelling?]. The other settlement was founded on the left bank of the Oder river, near the present seat of the university. This is the location of an old trade route crossing the river, coming from Leipzig and Liegnitz leading on to Opole, then Krakow, and Kievan Rus'. Years of instability because of Piasts ended with the Emperor Barbarossa creating two duchies (1157/63) to govern Silesia. The Silesian dukes took their land as fiefs from the Holy Roman Empire. Political stability and economic expansion of Silesia began in the 13th century. The town was in 1209 referred to as civitas and Henry I the Bearded and his son Henry II the Pious furthered Silesia’s economy by bringing in many German settlers from the western parts of the Holy Roman Empire.
During the Mongol invasion in 1241 most of the population of the city was evacuated. The settlement was then sacked and burned by the Mongols, but they had no time to besiege the castle where the rest of the burghers found refuge.
The rebuilt town was given Magdeburg rights in 1262 and again received many German settlers from the west to replace the population losses.
Around 1300 the king of Bohemia, a Premyslids, became duke of Silesia, then also king of Poland. With John of Luxemburg and his son, emperor Charles IV,and king of Bohemia, Silesia was united with Bohemia, but retained its separate Jus Indigenatus.
The first illustration of the city was published in the Nuremberg Chronicle (Schedelsche Weltchronik) in 1493. Documents of that time refer to the town by many variants of the name, including Bresslau, Presslau, Breslau and Wratislaw.
The city was a member of the Hanseatic League of northern European trading cities. During much of the Middle Ages Wroclaw was ruled by its dukes of the Silesian Piast dynasty. Although the city was not part of its principality, the Bishop of Breslau was a prince-bishop since Bishop Preczlaus of Pogarell (1341-1376) bought the Duchy of Grottkau from Duke Boleslaw of Brieg and added it to the episcopal territory of Neisse, after which the Bishops of Breslau had the titles of Prince of Neisse and Duke of Grottkau, and took precedence over the other Silesian rulers.
In 1335, it was incorporated with almost the entirety of Silesia into the Kingdom of Bohemia and was part of it until the 1740s; from 1526, it was ruled by the Empire's Habsburg dynasty. By this time the inhabitants, although of mixed Silesian, Bohemian, Moravian, and often of Polish ancestry, had become mainly linguistically and culturally German. Conrad Celtes travelled through Breslau in 1490 on his way from Krakow to Prague. His descriptions appear in Hartmann Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle:
Presslau, da Schlesia ein Provinz teutscher Land mit der Oder befeuchtigt, ist ... an beiden Gestanden teutsch Volk habend. Doch ist ... die polnisch Zung in mererm Geprauch. (Breslau, as Silesia is a German region moistened by the Oder, has ... German population on both the river’s shores. However ... the Polish language is frequently used.)
The overwhelming majority became Lutherans during the Protestant Reformation as did most of Lower Silesia, but they were forcibly suppressed during the Catholic Reformation by Austrian and Polish Jesuits working with the support of the Habsburg rulers.
After the death of the last Silesian Piast ruler, Georg Wihelm of Liegnitz Brieg in 1675, the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria inherited the city of Breslau. They resorted to forceful conversion of the city back to Catholicism. During the War of the Austrian Succession in the 1740s, most of Silesia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia's claims were derived from the agreement, rejected by the Habsburgs, between the Silesian Piast rulers of the duchy and the Hohenzollerns who secured the Prussian succession after the extinction of the Piasts.
[edit] Modern history
After the demise of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Prussia became a member of the German Confederation, and in 1811 the Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität (Breslau University) was re-established. In 1813 King Frederick William III of Prussia gave his An mein Volk ("To my people") speech at Breslau as a signal that Prussia would join the Russian Empire in fighting Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars. When the Prussian-led German Empire was created in 1871 during the process of Germany's unification, Breslau became the empire's sixth-largest city and a major industrial centre, notably of linen and cotton manufacture; its population more than tripled to over half a million between 1860 and 1910. In August 1920, during the Korfanty uprisings in Upper Silesia, Germans devastated Breslau's Polish School and burned its Polish Library, and in 1923 the city was a scene of antisemitic riots.[1]
Breslau's municipal boundaries were greatly extended between 1925 and 1930 by incorporating villages at the city's periphery[verification needed]. Breslauers honoured Adolf Hitler with the title of honorary citizen of the city.[verification needed] In 1933 the Gestapo started actions against Polish and Jewish students[2] (who were issued special segregationist ID documents), Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other people deemed threats to the state. People were even arrested and beaten for using Polish in public.[3] In 1938 the Polish cultural centre (the Polish House) in Breslau was destroyed by the police[2], and many of the city's 10,000 Jews were deported to concentration camps; those who remained were killed during the Nazi genocide of World War II. Most of the Polish elites also left during 1920s and 1930s, and Polish leaders who remained were sent to German concentration camps.[2] By 1939 the city, as a German city until 1945, was naturally almost entirely Germanised; in other words, ethnically cleansed.[4]
As the Soviet Red Army approached the city in February 1945, Breslau was declared a Festung (fortress) by the fanatical Nazi Gauleiter Karl Hanke, and concentration camp prisoners were forced to help civilian workers build fortifications.
In one area, the population was ordered to construct a military airfield intended for use in resupplying the fortress, and a modern residential districτ, along the Kaiserstraße (now Plac Grunwaldzki)—was razed. The authorities threatened to shoot as a deserter anyone who refused to do their assigned work, and one eyewitness estimated that some 13,000 died under enemy fire on the airfield alone.[verification needed] In the end, the only plane to use it was that of the fleeing Gauleiter Hanke.
When it was almost too late, Hanke finally lifted a ban on the evacuation of women and children, but during his poorly organised evacuation in early March, around 18,000 froze to death, mostly children and babies, in icy snowstorms and -20°C weather. Some 200,000 civilians—less than a third of the pre-war population—remained in the city, because the railway connections to the west were damaged or overloaded.
By the end of the Battle of Breslau, two-thirds of the city had been destroyed and 40,000 Breslauers and forced labourers lay dead in the ruins of their homes and factories. After a siege of nearly three months, the strategically unimportant "Fortress Breslau" surrendered on May 7, 1945. It was the last major city in historical Eastern Germany to fall.
As almost all Lower Silesia, post-war Breslau too came under Polish administration under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. After mass rapes of the female German population most remaining German inhabitants were expelled to one of the post-war German states between 1945 and 1949, and many of those not directly evacuated left later due to repression by Polish and Soviet communists or poverty. However, as with other Lower Silesian cities, a considerable German presence remained in Wrocław until the late 1950s; the city's last German school closed in 1963.
Wrocław was resettled by Poles either from small towns and villages of central Poland or from Polish lands annexed by the Soviet Union in the east. Many of them had come from Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania), and Grodno (now Hrodna, Belarus).
Gradually the old city was restored to its earlier beauty, and nearly all the monumental buildings were restored[verification needed]. Wrocław is now a unique European city of present-day Poland, with architecture of Bohemian, Austrian, and Prussian influence. Wrocław's Gothic style is originally Silesian; its Baroque style owes much to court builders of Habsburg Austria (Fischer von Erlach, Christoph Tausch). Wrocław still has a number of buildings by eminent German modernist architects, such as Hans Poelzig and Max Berg, the famous Jahrhunderthalle (Hala Ludowa) by Berg (1911–1913) being the most important.
In 2005, Wrocław was hit by a freak storm that felled a number of trees and killed three people. The storm was local and did not affect any other major cities. In July 1997, the city was hit by severe flooding of the Oder River.
[edit] Significant events in the 20th century
External links with photo galleries, mostly in Polish
- 1903 - 1903 great flood of Oder river
- 1907 - "All-German Singing Meeting, 1907"
- 1913 - "100th Anniversary of Leipzig greater Battle Exhibition, 1913"
- 1937 - "All-German Singing Meeting"
- 1938 - "All-German Festival of Sports & Gymnastics" (Internet Explorer only)
- 1945 - Festung Breslau (Wrocław Fortress) siege by Soviet Army - photo gallery
- 1948 - "Retrieved Country Exhibition" - Polish claim on renamed Breslau, defending expulsion and annexation
- 1997 - 1997 great flood of Oder River - photo gallery
[edit] Historical population
| Year | Inhabitants |
|---|---|
| 1800 | 64,500 |
| 1831 | 89,500 |
| 1850 | 114,000 |
| 1852 | 121,100 |
| 1880 | 272,900 |
| 1900 | 422,700 |
| 1910 | 510,000 |
| 1925 | 555,200 |
| 1933 | 625,198 |
| 1939 | 629,565 |
| 1946 | 171,000[5] |
| 1956 | 400,000 |
| 1960 | 431,800 |
| 1967 | 487,700 |
| 1970 | 526,000 |
| 1975 | 579,900 |
| 1980 | 617,700 |
| 1990 | 640,577 |
| 1999 | 650,000 |
| 2003 | 638,000 |
[edit] Main sights
- Hala Ludowa ("Peoples' Hall") by Max Berg — a World Heritage Site
- Ostrów Tumski ("Cathedral Island", German: Dominsel)
- Racławice Panorama
- Plac Grunwaldzki ("Grunwaldzki Square")
- St. Elisabeth's Church
- Wrocław Palace
[edit] Prominent residents
Including some who were not born in Wrocław/Breslau
- Alois Alzheimer - discoverer of Alzheimer's Disease
- Adolf Anderssen - 19th century chess master
- Max Berg - architect, designer of the Hala Stulecia
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer - religious leader in the resistance movement against Nazism
- August Borsig (* 1804) - entrepreneur
- Ernst Cassirer, philosopher
- Johann Dzierzon (1811-1906), apiarist
- Otfrid Förster (* 1873) - neuro-surgeon
- Karl Eduard von Holtei (1798-1880), poet and actor
- Vernon Ingram - biologist
- Alfred Kerr - theatre critic and essayist
- Gustav Robert Kirchhoff - physicist
- Otto Klemperer (* 1885) - conductor
- Carl Ferdinand Langhans - architect
- Ferdinand Lassalle - socialist politician and reformer
- Carl Friedrich Lessing (* 1808) - artist
- Rudolf Meidner - Swedish economist and socialist theorist
- Joachim Meisner - Cardinal priest and archbishop of Cologne
- Adolph von Menzel - artist
- Edda Moser (*1938) - German soprano opera singer
- Manfred von Richthofen - WWI flying ace
- Julius von Sachs - botanist
- Johann Gottfried Scheibel - (* 1783) - theological professor and dissenter to the Prussian Union
- Friedrich Schleiermacher - theologian and philosopher
- Andrzej Sekula - cinematographer and film director
- Angelus Silesius - 17th century religious poet
- Fritz Stern - historian
- Edith Stein - philosopher and Roman Catholic martyr
- Hugo Steinhaus - mathematician
- Michel Thomas - war hero and language teacher
- Christian Wolff - philosopher
- Jerzy Grotowski - theatre director and a leading theatrical avant garde figure
- Waldemar Fydrych alias "Major" - artist, happener, the founder of the Orange Alternative happening movement
- Tadeusz Różewicz - poet and writer
- Wanda Rutkiewicz - female mountaineer
- Mirosław Hermaszewski - astronaut
- Ludwik Hirszfeld - microbiologist, co-discover of the inheritance of the BO blood type
- Marek Hłasko - writer
- Lech Janerka - singer, musician and composer
- Michał Witkowski - writer
[edit] Nobel Prize laureates
listed chronologically, by year of award
- Theodor Mommsen (1902)
- Philipp Lenard (1905)
- Eduard Buchner (1907)
- Paul Ehrlich (1908)
- Gerhart Hauptmann (1912)
- Fritz Haber (1918)
- Friedrich Bergius (1931)
- Otto Stern (1943)
- Max Born (1954)
- Reinhard Selten (1994)
[edit] Education
Today's Wrocław has ten state-run universities, including:
- Wrocław University (Uniwersytet Wrocławski)
- Wrocław University of Technology (Politechnika Wrocławska)
- Wrocław Medical University (Wrocławska Akademia Medyczna)
- University School of Physical Education. (Akademia Wychowania Fizycznego),
- Wrocław University of Economics (Akademia Ekonomiczna im. Oskara Langego)
- Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences (Uniwersytet Przyrodniczy we Wrocławiu)
- Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (Akademia Sztuk Pięknych we Wrocławiu)
- The Karol Lipiński University of Music (Akademia Muzyczna im. Karola Lipińskiego)
- University School of Theatre (Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Teatralna)
- The Tadeusz Kościuszko Land Forces Military Academy (Wyższa Szkoła Oficerska Wojsk Lądowych)
as well as numerous private institutions of higher education
[edit] Economy and transportation
Wrocław's major industries were traditionally the manufacture of railroad cars and electronics. The city is served by Wrocław International Airport and a river port.
[edit] Major corporations
- Volvo Polska sp. z o.o., Wrocław
- WABCO Polska, Wrocław
- Siemens, Wrocław
- Hewlett Packard, Wrocław
- Grupa Lukas, Wrocław
- AB SA, Wrocław
- Polifarb Cieszyn-Wrocław SA, Wrocław
- KOGENERACJA S.A., Wrocław
- Impel SA, Wrocław
- Europejski Fundusz Leasingowy SA, Wrocław
- Telefonia Dialog SA, Wrocław
- Wrozamet SA, Wrocław
- American Restaurants sp. z o.o., Wrocław
- Hutmen SA, Wrocław
- MPEC Wrocław SA, Wrocław
- SAP Polska
- Hologram Industries Polska
[edit] Government and politics
[edit] Administrative divisions
Wrocław is divided into five boroughs, called dzielnice:
- Fabryczna ("Industrial")
- Krzyki ("Screams")
- Psie Pole ("Dog Field")
- Stare Miasto ("Old Town")
- Śródmieście ("City Center")
[edit] Municipal politics
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This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
[edit] Sports
There are many popular professional sports teams in the Wrocław area. The most popular sport today is probably basketball, thanks to Śląsk Wrocław, the award-winning men's basketball team (former Polish champions, 2nd place in 2004). Amateur sports are played by thousands of Wrocław citizens and also in schools of all levels.
[edit] Men's professional teams
- ASCO Śląsk Wrocław - (previous names:ASCO Śląsk Wrocław, Bergson Śląsk Wrocław, Era Śląsk Wrocław, Deichmann Śląsk Wrocław, Idea Śląsk Wrocław, Zepter Idea Śląsk Wrocław, Zepter Śląsk Wrocław, Śląsk ESKA Wrocław, Śląsk Wrocław, CWKS Wrocław) men's basketball team,19 th Polish Champiion former Polish Champion, 2nd place 2004 in Era Basket Liga
- Śląsk Wrocław - men's football team (Polish Championship in Football 1977; Polish Cup winner 1976, 1987; Polish SuperCup winner 1987) (2nd league in season 2005/2006)
- Śląsk Wrocław - men's handball team (1st league in season 2003/2004)
- Atlas Wrocław - men's speedway racing team (Champion in season 2006/2007)
- Gwardia Wrocław - men's volleyball team (Polska Liga Siatkówki (PLS) in season 2003/2004)
- Gwardia Wrocław - men's boxing team (1st league in season 2003/2004)
- Polar Wrocław - men's football team (3rd league 2004/2005)
- KS Hefra Gwardia Wrocław - men's volleyball team playing in Polish Volleyball League (Polska Liga Siatkówki, PLS: Seria A in 2003/2004, Seria B in 2004/2005 season).
[edit] Women's professional teams
- ZEC ESV Gwardia Wrocław- women's volleyball team playing in Polish Seria A Women's Volleyball League: 6th place in 2003/2004 season.
- AZS Wrocław - women's football team (1st league in season 2003/2004)
- AZS AWF Wrocław - women's handball team (1st league in season 2003/2004)
- AZS AE Wrocław - women table tennis team (1st league in season 2003/2004)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
In SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs, the SEAL team travels to Wrocław during a bad flooding season, in which the team must use a Zodiac to travel around the city.
[edit] Sources and references
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
- Encyklopedia Wrocławia. Wrocław 2001
- Wrocław jego dzieje kultura. Warszawa 1978
- G. Scheuermann. Das Breslau-Lexikon. Dülmen 1994
- K.Maleczyński, M.Morelowski, A.Ptaszycka, Wrocław. Rozwój urbanistyczny. Warszawa 1956
- W.Długoborski, J.Gierowski, K.Maleczyński, Dzieje Wrocławia do roku 1807., Warszawa 1958
- Microcosm, Portrait of a Central European City, by Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse (Jonathan Cape, 2002) ISBN 0224062433 (ISBN 8324001727 – Polish translation)
- Kulak, Teresa (2006). "Wrocław". Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie. ISBN 97873844728.
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] External links
- WikiSatellite view of Wrocław at WikiMapia
- Municipal website
- Wroclaw Life Travel Guide
- Wrocław Online - Travel Guide
- Breslau: The story of Wrocław's German heritage
- Virtual Wrocław (Polish)
- Wratislaviae Amici (Polish)
| Voivodeships of Poland |  |
|---|---|
| Greater Poland | Kuyavia-Pomerania | Lesser Poland | Lower Silesia | Lublin | Lubusz | Łódź | Masovia | Opole | Podlachia | Pomerania | Silesia | Subcarpathia | Świętokrzyskie | Warmia and Masuria | West Pomerania | |
| Principal cities: Warsaw | Łódź | Kraków | Wrocław | Poznań | Gdańsk | Szczecin | Bydgoszcz | Lublin | Katowice | Białystok | Częstochowa | Gdynia | Toruń | Olsztyn | Radom | Kielce | Rzeszów | Opole | Gorzów Wielkopolski | |
