Bardo (Powiat Ząbkowicki)

Bardo
	Bardo
	Bardo
Basic data
State :	Poland
Voivodeship :	Lower Silesia
Powiat :	Ząbkowice Śląskie
Gmina :	Bardo
Area :	4.71 km²
Geographic location :	50 ° 31 ′ N , 16 ° 44 ′ E Coordinates: 50 ° 31 ′ 0 ″ N , 16 ° 44 ′ 0 ″ E
Height :	492 m npm
Residents :	2562 (June 30, 2019)
Postal code :	57-256
Telephone code :	(+48) 74
License plate :	DZA, DKL
Economy and Transport
Street :	Kłodzko - Nysa
Rail route :	Kamieniec Ząbkowicki – Kłodzko
Next international airport :	Wroclaw
administration
Website :	www.bardo.pl
	; ;

Bardo [ ˈbardɔ ] (also Bardo Śląskie ; German Wartha ) is a town in the powiat Ząbkowicki in the Polish Voivodeship of Lower Silesia . It is the seat of the town-and-country municipality of the same name . It is also one of the most famous Marian pilgrimage sites in Silesia .

Geographical location

Wartha south-southwest of Frankenstein and northeast of Glatz on a map from 1905.

Remains of the Wartha Castle

View over the place

The city is located in Lower Silesia on the Wartha pass ( Przełęcz Bardzka ) on the Glatzer Neisse , which enters Silesia from the Glatzer Kessel through the Wartha Mountains ( Góry Bardzkie ), ten kilometers southwest of the district town of Ząbkowice Śląskie ( Frankenstein ).

Neighboring towns are Brzeźnica ( Briesnitz ) in the north, Potworów ( Riegersdorf ) and Przyłęk ( Frankenberg ) in the northeast, Piasek ( Sand ) in the east, Janowiec ( Johnsbach ), Dzbanów ( Banau ), Ożary ( Hemmersdorf ) and Laskówka ( Gierichswalde ) in the southeast, Boguszyn ( Friedrichswartha ) and Dębowina ( Eichau ) in the southwest and Morzyszów ( Morischau ) and Opolnica ( Giersdorf ) in the west. To the southwest is the 459 m high Wachberg ( Strażnik ).

history

View over the place with the pilgrimage church "Mariä Visitation"

The city is located on an old trade and military route that led from Prague via Glatz , Nimptsch and Breslau to Gnesen . It was secured by strong castles and was used by Bishop Otto von Bamberg in 1124 when he moved to Pomerania to Christianize .

The Wartha Castle secured the Wartha pass and the breakthrough of the Glatzer Neisse at the transition from the Glatzer Land to Silesia. It played a special strategic role in the disputes between Bohemia and Poland over supremacy in Silesia that had been going on since the 10th century . In 1096 it was destroyed and taken by the Bohemian Duke Břetislav II and in 1128 it was still in Bohemian possession. In 1155 Wartha was already the seat of a Polish castellan and belonged to the Duchy of Silesia . After its division in 1248 it came to the Duchy of Breslau , from 1278 to the Duchy of Schweidnitz and from 1321 to the newly founded Duchy of Münsterberg . In 1334 Wartha was first referred to as a city. Together with the Duchy of Münsterberg it came under Bohemian fiefdom in 1336, which Bolko II recognized in the Treaty of Straubing in the same year.

In 1711 a fire destroyed large parts of the city. After the First Silesian War , Wartha, like almost all of Silesia, fell to Prussia in 1742 . The manorial rule over Wartha belonged to the Kamenz monastery and to a smaller part of the city of Frankenstein until the secularization in 1810 . After the reorganization of Prussia, Wartha belonged to the province of Silesia from 1815 and from 1818 was incorporated into the Frankenstein district in Silesia , with which it remained connected until 1945.

In addition to the pilgrimage business, the bakery and peppercup trade associated with it, as well as tourism, which developed with the connection to the railway line Wroclaw - Glatz from 1874, were of economic importance . The Ursuline Monastery of St. Angelika was built in 1916, and between 1935 and 1938 the monastery of the Wroclaw Sisters of Mary above the city. During the Second World War , this served initially as a resettlement camp, then as the Adolf Hitler School. In 1939 the number of inhabitants was 1,736.

After the end of World War II , in 1945, like almost all of Silesia, Wartha was placed under Polish administration by the Soviet occupying forces and was given the Polish place name Bardo Śląskie . The German population was subsequently expelled by the local Polish administrative authority . Some of the Polish new settlers came from the areas east of the Curzon Line that had fallen to the Soviet Union as part of the “ West displacement of Poland ” .

Due to the decrease in the number of inhabitants, the village lost its city rights in 1945. In 1954 it was elevated to a city-like settlement. After cellulose and paper mills were put into operation, the population increased again, so that the town was regained city rights in 1969.

From 1975 to 1998 it belonged to the Wałbrzych Voivodeship (German Waldenburg ).

Marian pilgrimage

Lithograph from 1897

As early as the second half of the 12th century there was a chapel in Wartha, which the Wroclaw Bishop Siroslaus II donated to the Knights of St. John in 1189 . Bishop Laurentius handed it over to the newly founded Kamenz monastery of the Augustinian canons in 1210 , from which it came to the Kamenz Cistercians in 1247. The Marian patronage of the chapel is documented for the year 1299. The miraculous image , venerated to this day, is a 42 cm high seated Madonna made of linden wood, which was also created in the 13th century. It is said to be the oldest representation of the Virgin Mary in Silesia. The Marian pilgrimage mentioned around the middle of the 15th century was supervised by the Cistercians, who elevated Wartha to a provost's office .

Around 1315 the so-called Bohemian Church was built, which was destroyed in the Hussite Wars and rebuilt in 1436 and after the Thirty Years War . In addition, the so-called German church was built between 1408 and 1411, which was rebuilt after the destruction by the Hussites in 1440 and rebuilt again in 1665. The Baroque pilgrimage church “Mariä Heimsuchung” was built on the site of these older churches between 1686 and 1704 under Abbot Augustin Neudeck and inaugurated on September 28, 1704 by Wroclaw Auxiliary Bishop Franz Engelbert Barbo von Waxenstein .

The pilgrims came not only from the Kamenz colleges, but also from Silesia, Moravia and Bohemia. The number of annual pilgrims was 170,000, and the Redemptorists took care of them from 1900 onwards. From 1905 they built the so-called Rosary Hill, on which many chapels with depictions of individual scenes from the rosary were built. Another part of the pilgrimage is the Marienkapelle, which was built on the summit of the 584 m high Warthaer Berg between 1617 and 1619.

After the annexation by the People's Republic of Poland in 1945, the importance of pilgrimages declined during communist rule. Nevertheless, the miraculous image was crowned on July 3, 1966 by the then Wroclaw Auxiliary Bishop Bolesław Kominek on July 3, 1966 . After the political change of 1989, the pilgrimage could develop freely again; today it again plays an important role in the religious life of Silesia.