Warsaw Citadel

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Entrance gate on the east side, today admission for visitors to the non-military part of the fortress
Two-tier caponier on the southern tip of the citadel
Symbolic cemetery for political prisoners executed here

The Warsaw Citadel (Polish: "Cytadela Warszawska", also called "Cytadela Aleksandrowska"; Russian: "Александровская цитадель") is a fortress from the 19th century in Warsaw . It was established at a time when the Russian Empire , which ruled Poland, had just dissolved the autonomous Congress of Poland as a result of the November Uprising. The citadel thus served as a bulwark of the Russian occupying power against the independence efforts of the Poles and as a component ( reduit ) of the planned fortress Warsaw and thus also as part of a large-scale fortification ( fortress Greater Warsaw ) against the western great powers Prussia and Austria . The citadel is one of the best preserved structures of its kind in Europe.

history

After the suppression of the Polish uprising in November 1830/31 and the abolition of the Kingdom of Poland by the Russian rulers, in violation of the resolutions of the Congress of Vienna , the Russian Tsar Nicholas I had the huge facility built from 1832. The Russian major general and military engineer Iwan Dehn directed the construction work.

The fortress was built on the elevated embankment on the west bank of the Vistula, directly adjacent to the Warsaw New Town . The area known then as now as Żoliborz was already settled. In the 16th century there was a farm "Fawory" (after the district was first named) and a 17th century was Konvikt the Piarists built. There was also the Alexander barracks used by Russian troops, formerly the accommodation of the Polish Guard of the Crown on foot (Polish: "Gwardia Piesza Koronna"). On March 13, 1832, Tsar Nicholas I decided to convert the existing barracks into a citadel. Nine of the buildings used in the barracks (called: pavilions), the older Ordens Konvikt, a baroque castle-like building (on Alea Gwardii) and a church were not demolished but integrated into the new citadel. 15,000 residents were relocated.

The construction work began on May 31, 1832, the foundation stone was laid by the Russian Marshal Ivan Fyodorowitsch Paskewitsch , Prince of Warsaw and governor of the Tsar in the Russian province later known as Vistula . The construction work was officially completed on May 4, 1834 for the birthday of the Russian Tsarevich Alexander II , who arrived for the opening ceremony. In fact, construction continued until 1874 when the fortress was completed. Up to 2,000 workers were employed in the main construction phase. The total cost of construction was around 10 million rubles, the equivalent of about 10 tons of gold. This sum had to be raised in full by the city of Warsaw and the predecessor institution of today's Polish National Bank - as a punishment for the Polish uprising in the winter of 1830/31.

Even if the citadel was supposed to assume an important defensive function in the western part of the Russian Empire, the time of its construction and its location (with a direct line of fire on Warsaw's old and new towns) was an element of intimidation and suppression of the Polish independence movement of the 19th century. From the beginning, the citadel was not only used to station Russian troops (around 5,000 men in peacetime , the garrison strength was increased to 16,000 soldiers during the January uprising ), but also to a considerable extent as a prison for political prisoners. Prison buildings were built around the X. Pavilion , which has been preserved to this day and is used as a museum . Hundreds of prisoners were executed in the citadel as well as on the slopes on the bank of the Vistula. A symbolic cemetery is dedicated to their memory today.

The citadel was also the seat of the court martial as a result of the uprising of 1863/64, during the trial of members of the “Great Proletariat” and during the revolution from 1905 to 1907 . After the citadel was taken over by Polish troops in 1918, the prisons were closed and terrain and existing buildings were used for military purposes (barracks, camps, infantry training grounds). The German Wehrmacht was stationed here during the Second World War ; the citadel also served as a prison and execution site again. During the Warsaw Uprising , the German garrison troops were able to prevent Polish Home Army units from merging with those in the north of the city. On January 17, 1945, the 6th anti-tank regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division named after Jan Henryk Dąbrowski recaptured the fortress.

The listed citadel is one of the best preserved fortresses in Poland from the 19th century. On the inner site, however, only a little of the original buildings remained, including today's execution gate (Polish: "Brama Straceń") next to the X pavilion , which was originally probably the entrance to the Vistula-side artillery firing, later used as an execution site and in 1933 a memorial and three buildings on Karol Levittoux Street.

Model of the citadel around 1850. In the foreground, the battery position “Nadbrzeżna” reaching as far as the Vistula. The three-wing building on the right is the Xth Pavilion.
Representation of the still existing fortification structure of the citadel in 2007

Structure of the plant

The architect of the fortress, Iwan Dehn, used the blueprint for the Antwerp fortress as the basis for his design of the citadel . The Warsaw Citadel was built in the shape of a pentagon and made of brick. The complex extends over an area of ​​36 hectares and originally had three classical entrance gates: "Wrota Konstantynowskie" (later called "Brama Żoliborska"), "Wrota Michajłowskie" (later called "Brama Bielańska") and "Wrota Iwanowskie" (later called " Brama Straceń “called) on the river side.

The citadel had three bastions on the western flank and 2 half-bastions each in the north and south of the fortress, one full caponier on the southern half-bastion, two half caponiers on the east flank on the Vistula embankment and another eight half capons (two opposite each other) on the west flank, of which at least two free-standing curtains were in front. Some of these parts of the fortress were not built until the 1850s.

In 1835 the "Fort Śliwickiego" was built as a bridgehead on the opposite (eastward) side of the Vistula. In addition, the citadel was reinforced from 1857 by five forward forts in the west. These forts ("Siergieja", "Gieorgija", "Pawła", "Aleksieja", "Władimira") were connected to the citadel by underground posts . The postern of the forts “Gieorgija” and “Władimira” are partially preserved. In addition, the battery position in the east of the plant has been strengthened.

With the exception of the east side, the entire citadel was surrounded by a dry moat. A Carnot wall was built on the inside of the ditch . The wall and moat are well preserved to this day. Rails for a narrow-gauge railway were laid on the trench bridge built at the “Wrota Konstantynowskie” . In the 1880s a fourth gate was built, "Wrota Aleksandrowskie" (later called "Brama Nowomiejska").

The citadel's firepower was enormous. In 1837 there were 217 cannons of various calibres in the facility, in 1843 there were 247, and from 1863 the number rose to 555. The range of the weapons was around 1,500 meters, so they could have attacked the entire old and new city of Warsaw.

Others

On December 15, 2008, the Warsaw Army Museum , previously housed in the city center, announced an international architecture tender for a new building in the citadel. In line with the successful concept of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, the new building will be equipped with multimedia equipment and has been under construction since 2018. It is expected to cost 480 million zlotys. The new museum in the citadel will be able to exhibit 20,000 exhibits (only around 2,000 pieces of the inventory can be shown in the previous museum rooms). The exhibition building for the Museum of the History of Poland has also been under construction on the Citadel since 2018 .

In 1937 Fritz Peter Buch made the film "The Warsaw Citadel". Werner Hinz played the role of the Polish patriot in the fight against the Russian occupiers.

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b c Pearls in Warsaw City Guide: Warsaw Citadel, Alexander Citadel ( Memento from May 28, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) on the Warsaw City Council website
  2. ↑ A partially mounted Guard unit of the first Republic of Poland , inter alia, to guard the Royal Castle was used
  3. ↑ The expression Congress Poland can no longer be used after the suppression of the November uprising and the abolition of the sovereign rights of the former Kingdom of Poland
  4. ↑ according to Poland, Baedeker Allianz travel guide , Verlag Karl Baedeker, ISBN 3-87504-542-4 , Ostfildern 1993, p. 408f.
  5. ↑ This defensive position, named after the French fortress engineer Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot , is a covered and crenellated wall with embrasures for trench warfare with small arms
  6. ↑ according to Article by Paul-Richard Gromnitza in: The city of Warsaw is investing billions in a new museum landscape ( Memento from November 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) at de-pl.info
  7. ↑ according to Article 400 milionów złotych pochłonie nowe Muzeum Wojska Polskiego ( Memento of September 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) at Tvnwarszawa.pl (in Polish)
  8. ↑ according to Internet Movie Database

literature

  • Reinhold Vetter, Between Wisła / Vistula, Bug and Karpaty / Carpathian Mountains , in: Poland. History, art and landscape of an old European cultural nation , DuMont Art Travel Guide, 3rd edition, ISBN 3-7701-2023-X , DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1991, p. 149

Web links

Commons : Citadel Warsaw  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 52.7 ″  N , 20 ° 59 ′ 58 ″  E