District of Silesia
The district of Silesia ( Polish powiat śląski , also powiat oświęcimski - Auschwitz district ) was a district of the Krakow Voivodeship in the Polish-Lithuanian aristocratic republic . It had an area of 2629 km². The district was exceptional in the voivodeship, sometimes it was not even mentioned in the lists of the districts, but continued to be referred to as two separate duchies. This was particularly emphasized in the second half of the 17th and the first of the 18th century by the local families who showed separatist tendencies.
history
The circle was created in 1564 through the unification of the areas of the Duchy of Auschwitz and the Duchy of Zator by two Sejm resolutions in Piotrków Trybunalski (March 26, 1563) and Warsaw (February 25, 1564). As a result, the area lost its state independence, although the title of the Polish king and some legal peculiarities remained in the period of the Polish-Lithuanian aristocratic republic , e. B. Polish became the official language there, while Latin was still used as such in the rest of Poland. Both Auschwitz and Zator remained administrative seats of the district. Other towns in the district were initially Wadowice , Żywiec and Kęty . Only in Kęty lived more than 1000 inhabitants in the 16th century. In the 16th century there were 188 villages, 8 of them with over 400 ( Kozy , Lipnik , Osiek , Pisarzowice , Polanka , Przeciszów , Stryszów and Wieprz ) and 30 with over 200 inhabitants. The border of the circle did not exactly coincide with the border of the medieval duchies - e.g. For example, some localities north of the Vistula were connected, while the former exclave around Krzęcin was gradually excluded. In 1617 the city of Zebrzydów was founded on the edge of the former Radwanite Corridor , now Kalwaria Zebrzydowska . In 1723 the city of Biała, now part of Bielsko-Biała , was established in the middle of a German-speaking island . In 1767 Andrychów was granted town charter - this increased the number of towns to seven. From the 16th century numerous new villages in the mountains, especially in the Saybusch region , were founded by Wallachians .
The majority of the population was Roman Catholic, but at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries the district became an important center of the Polish Reformation . At that time there were about 10-15 thousand people of different faiths who took over 29 percent of the church buildings. During episcopal visitations, Protestants were found to be present in 34 Roman Catholic parishes (out of around 76). There were 27 Protestant (23 Reformed, 3 Lutheran, 1 mixed) parishes, which was the highest number in the voivodeship. Compared to the other centers of Protestantism in the voivodship, the numerous conversions of the peasant population and the low influence of the Polish brothers were exceptional . The largest Jewish community lived in Oświęcim (Auschwitz) from the late 16th century onwards, and most likely a kehillah , the first synagogue and a Jewish school were built at that time . In the years 1747–1749, 2,462 Jews lived in the Auschwitz deanery.
In the late 18th century, the district had about 165 thousand inhabitants.
In the course of the First Partition of Poland , the area south of the Vistula (i.e. without a few villages in the district on the northern bank) was militarily occupied by Habsburg troops under the direction of Richard d'Alton in May and June 1772 without resistance. The Habsburgs registered their claims to the former Bohemian duchy and the Archduchess Maria Theresa dubbed the title of Queen of Bohemia, among other things, as Duchess of Auschwitz-Zator , but the next year the Wieliczka (Polish cyrkuł wielicki ) in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria , which included the districts of Biala, Saybusch and Myślenice. In 1775 the number of district districts was greatly reduced and the area was located in the Zator district, from 1780 Kęty. The Josephine reform of the administration in 1782 made the area subject to the Myślenice District, whose seat was moved to the city of Wadowice in 1819. The area of the district of Silesia or the Duchy of Auschwitz-Zator made about 3/4 of the district of Wadowice .
literature
- Radosław Truś (2008). Beskid Mały: przewodnik. Oficyna Wydawnicza "Rewasz". P. 35. ISBN 978-83-89188-77-9 .
- Henryk Rutkowski (editor), Krzysztof Chłapkowski: Województwo krakowskie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku; Cz. 2, Komentarz, indeksy . Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 2008 (Polish, online ).
- Przemysław Stanko: Monografia Gminy Wilkowice . Wydawnictwo Prasa Beskidzka, Wilkowice 2014, ISBN 978-83-940833-0-4 (Polish).
- Andrzej Nowakowski: Integracja księstwa oświęcimskiego z Królestwem Polskim (1454-1564) i późniejsze losy ziemi oświęcimskiej w kontekście Wadowic [Integration of Oświęcimskiego z Królestwem Polskim (1454-1564) principality according to its recent timescim (Auschwitz) 1454] principality with Polish (= Wadoviana: przegląd historyczno-kulturalny ). 2018, ISSN 1505-0181 , p. 166–207 (Polish, online [PDF]).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Województwo krakowskie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, 2008, p. 68
- ↑ A. Nowakowski, 2018, p. 192.
- ↑ P. Stanko, 2014, p. 88.
- ↑ Województwo krakowskie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, 2008, pp. 71–75
- ↑ Województwo krakowskie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, 2008, pp. 78, 82
- ↑ a b Krzysztof Koźbiał: Wadowice na tle osad starostwa zatorskiego: zarys dziejów do 1772 roku . 1999, p. 17 (Polish, online [PDF]).
- ↑ Województwo krakowskie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, 2008, p. 57
- ^ Rafał Malik: Oświęcim. Characterystyka układu lokacyjnego miasta oraz jego rozwój przestrzenny w okresie średniowiecza . Kraków 1994.
- ↑ Marian Surdacki: Stosunki wyznaniowe w diecezji krakowskiej w połowie XVIII wieku na podstawie wizytacj i tabel biskupa AS Załuskiego . 1983, p. 115, 128, 132 (Polish, online ).
- ↑ January Nepomucen Gątkowski: Rys dziejów księstwa oświęcimskiego i zatorskiego . Lwów 1867 (Polish).