Biała Krakowska

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Overview (north is left, south is right)
             Biala border in 1890              Biala border after the incorporation of Lipnik in 1925              Today's districts of Bielsko-Biała east of the river Biała (blue)

Biała , in the interwar period Biała Krakowska , ( German Biala , 1940–1945 Bielitz-Ost ; Czech Bělá ) is a former city that today covers an area of ​​some districts (Osiedla) within Bielsko-Biała in the Silesian Voivodeship in Poland , extends.

As Biała Krakowska only one part of the city is called today, which until 1925 represented the western part of Lipnik (Kunzendorf) .

geography

Biała is located on the right bank of the river of the same name , at the mouth of the Niwka (Au brook) .

In 1900 the town of Biała (with the suburb of Biała ) had an area of ​​50 ha , after the incorporation of Lipnik with the village of Leszczyny in 1925, 2125 ha.

The majority of the old city lies within the present-day district of Biała Wschód (Biała-East), the districts of Biała Śródmieście (Biała city center; with the town hall), Biała Krakowska , Biała Północ (Biala-North) also bear the name of Biała .

history

Coat of arms of Biała

Biała was founded in the second half of the 16th century as a village (hamlet), most likely founded by the mayor of Lipnik (Walenty Krzyszko), in the Silesian district of the Kraków Voivodeship in the aristocratic republic of Poland-Lithuania , where Lutheran craftsmen came from around 1560 western, overpopulated neighboring town of Bielsko / Bielitz, belonging to the Silesian Duchy of Teschen . In 1564 the settlement of 13 craftsmen (with families) along the old “Polish Way” (later the Old Lane , today's Łukowa Street) was first mentioned in a document, which since 1584 has been called Biala. In 1613 the community became administratively independent of Lipnik for the first time.

Courtyard in Lipnik, symbol of dependence on the starosts, later the monastery of St. Hildegard in Biala

Mainly as a result of the Habsburg Counter-Reformation in Silesia in the 17th century, the place grew, and numerous Lutherans from the Bielitz rulership moved to the other bank of the Bialka, because the Counter-Reformation in Poland was even more moderate. At the end of the 17th century the village still had completely wooden buildings, but already had the character of a small town. Ethnically, Biala was half German and half Polish, there was already a Roman Catholic minority, and the first evidence of the presence of a Jew in Biala dates from 1697. Here, too, the cloth makers (as in Bielitz) were the most important craft. The newly formed guild was granted its privilege by the owner of the Lipnik manor, Johann Franz Lubowiecki, in 1667. This year Lubowiecki founded in Lipnik on the border with Biala contention juridika (later suburban Biala ) in the vicinity of Lipniker Hofs (seat of Star East ) from the year 1596th

Wojska Polskiego Square, Biala's first market square

As early as 1670, Biala was mentioned as a city , which demonstrates the intent of the residents. The aristocratic owners (starosts) of Lipnik made it difficult to grant city rights for decades. Officially, however, the place received the Kulm town charter in 1723 by the Polish King Augustus the Strong . At that time the first market square was built (today Wojska Polskiego Square). With an area of ​​only 12.5 hectares, 300 inhabitants and around 40 houses, the new town was one of the smallest in Poland.

Kosciol Opatrznosci Bozej Bielsko-Biala 25112005.jpg
Biala kosciol ewangelicki.jpg


The oldest churches in Biala: Providenzkirche (1760–1769; left), Martin Luther Church (1782–1788; right)

In 1708 Jesuits settled in order to convert the predominantly Lutheran place to the Catholic faith, since then the active Counter-Reformation began. A Roman Catholic chapel was built at that time and converted into a church between 1760 and 1769. After the First Silesian War , the city gained in importance and developed rapidly, especially in the years 1755 to 1768 under the administration of the Brühl family (in June 1755 the office of the Starost von Lipnik was bought by Heinrich von Brühl ). In 1765 the Jews were expelled. In 1769 the city with about 1500 inhabitants in 200 houses became the seat of the Generality of the Confederation of Bar ("the first Polish national uprising").

1772 to 1918

Biala in the early 19th century

As a result of the first partition of Poland , Biala came to Austria in 1772 and became part of Galicia , formally after the title of the Habsburgs in the Duchy of Auschwitz - Zator , which was temporarily separated from Galicia from 1818 and 1820–1850 and assigned to Austrian Silesia , in at the time it was a formal member of the German Confederation , although before 1772 it was under Poland and not the Holy Roman Empire .

11 Listopada Street

In 1780 the construction of a imperial road from Vienna to Lemberg through Biala began with the second bridge over the Bialka, which made Biala the gateway to Galicia , among others. a. at the time of the Josephine colonization . This also meant a wave of immigration from the German-speaking area that can be observed in the sources, while the Polish language and culture were on the decline. Wiener Strasse, now 11 Listopada Strasse, became the new urban axis. The old market square became too small and the New Ring ( Franzensplatz from 1890 , today Wolności Square) was built. The numerous new buildings were brick, in contrast to the majority of Galician cities of similar size. Emperor Joseph II issued his tolerance patent in 1781 , as a result of which a Protestant congregation was officially established in Biala in 1782 . Between 1782 and 1788 the first Lutheran church in Galicia was built in Biala. The percentage of Lutherans fell systematically, but their political influence in the city remained disproportionately large. Biala was also one of the most important centers of this denomination in Galicia, from 1871 to 1885 and again from 1897 to 1918 the seat of the Evangelical Superintendent of A. B. Galicia was located there .

In 1784 the customs on the Bialka were lifted. In 1789 the emperor finally released the city from the manorial rule of the Starosts of Lipnik and in 1799 elevated it to the status of a royal free city . With the elimination of the border on the Bialka, Biala and Bielitz merged more and more. In 1810, the first factory in Biala was opened by Joachim Adler, which brought industrialization and demographic growth. After Troppau, the two cities became the largest conurbation in Austria-Silesia around 1815 , as well as the third center of the Austrian textile industry alongside Brno and Liberec .

The revolution of 1848/1849 initiated an important German national movement in Biala headed by Rudolf Theodor Seeliger , a liberal Protestant. For the first time it was called for the city to be detached from Galicia in order to annex it to Austrian Silesia. In the following generations of German national residents it was more or less officially postulated several times (e.g. in 1879 and 1916). Before the "de non tolerandis Judeis" law was abolished in 1849, numerous Jews settled illegally in Biala. In 1865 the Jewish community Biała-Lipnik (based in Lipnik, from 1902 in Biala) was established. Strikingly, there were more Orthodox Jews in Biala than in Bielitz, similar to Galicia. In 1889 the synagogue in Lipnik was opened for the liberal Jews.

After Galicia had received a special status under Polish administration in 1867, a district authority Biala was established . A small group of Polish officials and intellectuals from other regions came to the city and enlivened the Polish national movement with Edward Stiasny at its head. However, because of the census male suffrage, Germans made up at least 50% of the district council members. Polish council members only gained a slim majority in 1909. The MPs from Biala (including Antoni Seidler , Franz Strzygowski , Rudolf Bukowski , Johann Rosner , Franz Stanislaus Strzygowski , Karol Hempel ) were often the only German nationalities in the Galician state parliament. In 1898 the first Polish elementary school was established in Biala. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, problems between the different nationalities increased and the predominantly Polish administration of Galicia began to Polonize the place , while the city administration, on the contrary, tried to Germanize (e.g. all names of the streets) . The linguistic relationships in Biala (and Lipnik) were more complicated at that time than in Bielitz, which was almost exclusively culturally German. About 1/3 of the inhabitants were consciously national German, 1/3 Polish, the rest, mainly of Slavic origin, declared their colloquial language or nationality alternately. According to the Austrian population censuses from 1880 to 1910, the German language as the declared colloquial language of the residents oscillated between around 70 and 80 percent. The Poles assimilated into German culture in Biala, such as B. Erwin Hanslik , who was born in a Polish family . In 1909 he published the book Biala, a German city in Galicia: Geographical investigation of the city problem . With the industrialization also began z. B. Workers' Strikes. In April 1890, 11 people were killed by the gendarmerie. The following general strike in May is considered to be the first of the great socialist uprisings in Galicia. Stanisław Stojałowski , a radical and controversial Polish priest, worked there from 1900 , whose activity is immortalized today in the name of Stojałowski Street, opened in 1974, as the new main artery of the city.

The new town hall in Biala

In the years 1895 to 1897 the new town hall was built as the tallest representative large building in the city.

From 1918

In 1918, after the end of the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Biała came to Poland. The city remained the seat of a district administration in the Krakow Voivodeship (1920-1939) . In 1921, Biała had 431 buildings with 7746 inhabitants, of which 4619 were Polish, 2134 (27.5%) German, 913 Jews, according to religion, the majority were Roman Catholic (5627), 1363 people were Jewish, 716 were Lutherans. At that time the city, known colloquially and also in letters from the Warsaw administration as Biała Galicyjska ( Galician Biala ), had an area of ​​1.22 km 2 and needed more land to develop further. The German councilors only wanted to connect the urbanized western part of Lipnik, more inhabited by Germans and Jews, with Leszczyny, if possible without the village part of Lipnik, which was populated by the Polish proletariat . On April 24, 1925, however, the whole of Lipnik was incorporated into Leszczyny and the city was renamed to Biała Krakowska (about Krakauer Biala ) in August (the name was subsequently used by the city administration), although the renaming was not formally confirmed until February 28, 1937 has been. In 1927 the annexation of Straconka to the city was prepared, as well as the annexation of the city to the Silesian Voivodeship (1920–1939) and even the merger with the Silesian Bielsko under the name Biała-Bielsko (and not Bielsko -Biała to emphasize the more Polish city ), but none of these projects were completed.

On September 3, 1939, German troops reached Bielsko and Biała, largely inhabited by Germans, so there was no fighting. In December 1939 the still independent Biala town had 31,023 inhabitants, of which 9,923 ethnic Germans , 13,500 Poles, 2,890 Schlonsaken (later third category of the German people's list ). The majority of the population was Roman Catholic (23,113); 2,200 Lutherans and 4,660 Jews also lived in the city. 21,554 of the residents were resident , 9,469 immigrated after 1918. In 1940 Biala was incorporated into Bielitz-Ost for the first time as Bielitz-Ost , the capital of the district of Bielitz with over 54,000 inhabitants . Most of the Jewish residents were killed by 1944.

The Red Army reached Biala on February 11, 1945. After the Second World War, which resulted in the flight and expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe from 1945–1950 , the German-speaking population of Biala perished.

After the war, the prefabricated housing estates Grunwaldzkie and Śródmiejskie were built.

Web links

Commons : Biała Krakowska  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rada Miejska w Bielsku-Białej: Program rewitalizacji obszarów miejskich w Bielsku-Białej na lata 2007-2013. (PDF) December 7, 2007, pp. 9–10 , accessed on May 21, 2015 (Polish).
  2. ↑ Ludwig Patryn (Ed.): Community encyclopedia of the kingdoms and countries represented in the Reichsrat, edited on the basis of the results of the census of December 31, 1900, XII. Galicia . Vienna 1907 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Bielsko-Biała, Monografia miasta, 2011, Volume IV, p. 216.
  4. ↑ a b Bielsko-Biała. Monografia miasta, Volume II, p. 26.
  5. ↑ Bielsko-Biała. Monografia miasta, Volume II, pp. 74, 83.
  6. ↑ Bielsko-Biała. Monografia miasta, Volume II, p. 667.
  7. ↑ Most historians cite April 6, 1818 as the beginning of membership, when the German Confederation recognized the border shift. The actual, legally binding imperial patent was not issued until March 2, 1820. A patent dated October 29, 1850 rejoined Galicia outside the German Confederation. see. Andrzej Nowakowski: Terytoria oświęcimsko-zatorskie w Związku Niemieckim. Zarys prawno-historyczny. In: Przegląd Historyczny 76/4 (1985), pp. 783-793 , here: p. 787.
  8. ↑ Bielsko-Biała. Monografia miasta, Volume II, p. 211.
  9. ↑ G. Wnętrzak, 2014, p. 184
  10. ↑ G. Wnętrzak, 2014, pp. 227–229
  11. ↑ G. Wnętrzak, 2014, p. 169
  12. ↑ Główny Urząd Statystyczny: Skorowidz miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. Województwo krakowskie i Śląsk Cieszyński . Warszawa 1925, p. 3 [PDF: 14] (Polish, Woj.krakowskie i Sląsk Cieszynski miejscowości.pdf ).
  13. ↑ Bielsko-Biała, Monografia miasta, 2011, Volume IV, p. 218.
  14. ↑ Bielsko-Biała, Monografia miasta, 2011, Volume IV, pp. 217–218.
  15. ↑ Bielsko-Biała, Monografia miasta, 2011, Volume IV, p. 376.
  16. ↑ Bielsko-Biała, Monografia miasta, 2011, Volume IV, p. 359.

literature

  • Jerzy Polak, Piotr Kenig: Bielsko-Biała. Monografia miasta . Biała od zarania do zakończenia I wojny światowej (1918). 2nd Edition. tape II. . Wydział Kultury i Sztuki Urzędu Miejskiego w Bielsku-Białej, Bielsko-Biała 2011, ISBN 978-83-60136-36-2 (Polish).
  • Ryszard Kaczmarek: Bielsko-Biała. Monografia miasta . Bielsko-Biała w latach 1918–2009. 2nd Edition. tape IV. . Wydział Kultury i Sztuki Urzędu Miejskiego w Bielsku-Białej, Bielsko-Biała 2011, ISBN 978-83-60136-46-1 (Polish).
  • Grzegorz Wnętrzak: Stosunki polityczne i narodowościowe na pograniczu Śląska Cieszyńskiego i Galicji zachodniej w latach 1897–1920 [Political and national relations in the border area of ​​Teschner Silesia and Western Galicia in the years 1897–1920] . Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, Toruń 2014, ISBN 978-83-7780-882-5 (Polish).

Coordinates: 49 ° 49 '  N , 19 ° 3'  E