Łęczyca
| Łęczyca | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Basic data | |||
| State : | Poland | ||
| Voivodeship : | Łódź | ||
| Powiat : | Łęczyca | ||
| Area : | 8.90 km² | ||
| Geographic location : | 52 ° 3 ′ N , 19 ° 12 ′ E | ||
| Residents : | 14,016 (Jun. 30, 2019) |
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| Postal code : | 99-100 | ||
| Telephone code : | (+48) 24 | ||
| License plate : | ELE | ||
| Economy and Transport | |||
| Street : | Gdansk - Katowice | ||
| Kutno - Łódź | |||
| Rail route : | Railway line Łódź – Kutno | ||
| Next international airport : | Łódź | ||
| Gmina | |||
| Gminatype: | Borough | ||
| Surface: | 8.90 km² | ||
| Residents: | 14,016 (Jun. 30, 2019) |
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| Population density : | 1575 inhabitants / km² | ||
| Community number ( GUS ): | 1004011 | ||
| Administration (as of 2017) | |||
| Mayor : | Krzysztof Lipiński (suspended) | ||
| Address: | ul.Konopnickiej 14 99-100 Łęczyca |
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| Website : | www.leczyca.info.pl | ||
Łęczyca [ wɛnˈtʃɨtsa ] (German Lenczyca or Lentschitza , 1939-1945 Lentschütz , Latin Lancicia ) is a district town with about 15,000 inhabitants in central Poland ( Łódź Voivodeship ) and is located on the Bzura River 40 kilometers north of Łódź and 130 kilometers west of Warsaw , right on the border the Wielkopolska and Mazovian lowlands .
history
Łęczyca is located in the swampy Bzura lowlands on the old bed of the river, which here takes a sharp bend to the east. The area around Łęczyca was settled as early as the 6th century, but the settlement at that time was not on the area of today's town, but near a ducal castle (the remains of which, called the Schwedenschanze , have been preserved to this day) on the site of the village of Tum east of today's city, which was surrounded by large swamps. Łęczyca was most likely the capital of a pagan tribal principality at that time . After the introduction of Christianity under Mieszko I , the city became the seat of one of seven castellanias that formed the Polish state. Boleslaw I. donated to the early 11th century in Łęczyca a Benedictine - Abbey .
After the death of Duke Bolesław III. Wrymouth divided Poland into many small principalities; the nominal capital Cracow was far from central Poland and was fiercely contested by feuds between princes . The ecclesiastical authorities therefore chose Łęczyca as the venue for the synods , which always took place in summer (a total of 30 up to the 17th century). The first Polish Synod and Sejm took place in Łęczyca in 1180. The city can therefore rightly claim to have been Poland's summer capital.
In 1263 the Duchy of Łęczyca split into two small states, the principalities of Łęczyca and Sieradz . In 1267 Łęczyca received city rights from Duke Leszek II the Black . The city flourished only under Leszek's nephew, the last Piast king , Casimir III. the great one who built the strong castle and city wall that still exists today. King Władysław II Jagiełło also promoted the city and made it the site of the Sejm meetings . From 1339 the Stadtz was the seat of the Łęczyca Voivodeship.
The town's decline was brought about by the Swedish invasion of King Karl X. Gustav : the town and the castle burned down. After that, Łęczyca sank into an agricultural town. As a result of the second partition of Poland , the city came to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1793 and was expanded into a fortress , the voivodeship was dissolved and never re-established. After the start of the Wielkopolska Uprising , the Prussian garrison withdrew without a fight on November 7, 1806 and Łęczyca fell to the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807 .
Łęczyca experienced a modest upswing in the first years of Congress Poland , whose government wanted to make the city a center of the textile industry and encouraged many experts ( weavers and other craftsmen) from Silesia to settle in the city. However, for unknown reasons (probably because of the unhealthy climate, as the large swamps that surrounded the city were only drained around 1900), Łęczyca never became a larger industrial town like the neighboring town of Zgierz , but remained a town of farmers and traders. Of the approximately 9,000 inhabitants that the city had in 1914, one third each were Poles, Germans (including Evangelicals of Polish origin who were considered German by the Russian authorities) and Jews. Captured by German troops of the 9th Army in December 1914, Łęczyca was briefly the headquarters of the commander of this army, Field Marshal August von Mackensen . Mackensen's adjutant , Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski, had little good news to say about the hygienic conditions in the city at that time : “The town was incredibly dirty, the streets were filled with rubbish. As the only Polish-speaking officer, I took over the local commandant's business for a few days and forced the entire population, including the wealthy Jewish ones, to clean up the dirt in person. It was a long time before we got to the bottom of the pavement, and the streets were so damp that I had to have planks laid so that people could get into the houses reasonably dry feet. The sanitary conditions in the city and in the whole area of the 9th Army were appalling. There was dysentery , typhus and peeling ” .
Even in World War II , the city was the scene of acts of war. B. the great battle of the Bzura in early September 1939.
During the German occupation 1939-1945 the city was incorporated into the Wartheland and was the nominal capital of the Lentschütz district , but the district authorities were located in Ozorków . After the expulsion of the local Jews were in the city and the circle many German families from the Baltic States and from Volhynia settled (for which the NS built Agencies of around 1941 a modern residential area near the train station), of which many graves in the evangelical Cemetery witness. In 1945, after the end of the war, there were only about 30 Protestant people of German origin in the city, around 1980 only five. The beautiful wooden Protestant church, built around 1850, was demolished around 1980 because it was dilapidated.
In the 1950s, tentative attempts to establish industry in the city began. The result was that a newly opened cellulose factory completely contaminated the river Bzura, and the stench in the city was unbearable. Adequate cleaning systems were only used around 1980.
Around 1960, deposits of poor quality iron ore were discovered on the former marshland opposite the Protestant cemetery , which were exploited for about 20 years. The former “Royal City of Łęczyca”, as it proudly calls itself today, was to become a “Socialist Miners and Steelworks Town”. For these miners, prefabricated buildings were built , which was probably the only construction activity in the city since 1941, with the exception of the party house of the KP on the Ring (from 1952). Mining was finally stopped after about 20 years, but there are still traces of environmental degradation today: even the cemetery was undermined.
politics
coat of arms
The city coat of arms of Łęczyca shows a red city wall with three towers, which stands on a green meadow. In the central tower, a black-clad trumpeter blows a golden horn. Two black ravens sit on the golden crown of the side towers .
Attractions
- Castle (Gothic, 14th – 16th centuries);
- Collegiate Church in Tum ( Romanesque , 1161), the largest Romanesque church in Poland;
- St. Bernard Church and Monastery, Baroque , 1630;
- City parish church of St. Andrew the Apostle, Gothic and Baroque, founded in 1432;
- Former Dominican church with monastery, Gothic, 13th century (prison since 1806);
- Evangelical cemetery (founded around 1825), with German soldiers' graves from the First World War as well as graves of German settlers from the time of the Wartheland;
- Catholic cemetery, with graves of German and Russian soldiers from the First World War and graves (632) of Polish soldiers from 1939.
sons and daughters of the town
- Michał Pacholski (* 1985), politician, member of the Sejm.
Łęczyca Rural Commune
The rural community Łęczyca, to which the city itself does not belong, has an area of 150.6 km², on which 8537 people live (as of June 30, 2019).
literature
- Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski, Sixty Years of Politics and Society , 1–2, Berlin 1936
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b population. Size and Structure by Territorial Division. As of June 30, 2019. Główny Urząd Statystyczny (GUS) (PDF files; 0.99 MiB), accessed December 24, 2019 .
- ↑ Eduard Mühle : Sacral foundations of dukes and greats in Piastic Poland. Research historical contexts and medieval connections. In: Eduard Mühle (Hrsg.): Monarchical and noble sacral foundations in medieval Poland. (= Michael Borgolte (Ed.): Stiftungsgeschichten. Vol. 9.) Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-05-005926-6 , pp. 7–36, here p. 15 and p. 27