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Przemysl travel guide

about Przemysl

Przemyśl (pronounce: [ 'pʃεmiɕl]) is a town in south-eastern Poland with 68,900 inhabitants (1995). Since 1999 it is situated in the Subcarpathian Voivodship, previously the town was the capital of Przemyśl Voivodship.

Przemyśl owes its long and rich history to the advantages of its geographic location. The city is the key to the Przemyśl Gate, an area connecting mountainous and lowland regions, with easy communication and fertile soil. It also lies on the navigable San river. Important trade routes passed through Przemyśl and ensured the city's importance.

Przemysl history

The city of Przemyśl appears to have been founded as early as the 8th century. One explanation, possibly legendary, was that the city was founded by a Duke from what would become central Poland, named Przemyśl. The area afterwards became a part of the Great Moravian state. Archeological remains testify to the presence of the Greek Catholic/Greek Orthodox population in the city as early as the 9th century. The Przemyśl area then became a site of contention between Poland, Ruthenia and Hungary at least since the 9th century. The oldest widely-acceped historical mention of Przemyśl comes from 981 and concerns this rivalry.

Between 11th and 12th century the city was a capital of one of the Ruthenian principalities. It became part of the Polish kingdom in the 2nd half of the 13th century. Around this time it obtained Magdeburg law city rights, confirmed in 1389 by king Władysław Jagiełło.

The city prospered as an important trade centre during the Renaissance period. Similarily to the nearby Lwów, the city's population consisted of a great number of nationalities, including Poles, Ruthenians, Jews, Germans, Czechs and Armenians. The prosperity came to an end in the middle of the 17th century, due to wartime destruction during the Deluge and general decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at this time. This decline lasted for over a hundred years and only at the end of the 18th century the city's population recovered former levels.

In 1772, as a consequence of the First Partition of Poland, Przemyśl became part of the Austrian empire. In 1861 railway connections from Przemyśl to Kraków and Lwów were built. In the middle of the 19th century, due to the growing conflict between Austria and Russia over the Balkans, the strategic location of Przemyśl near the border with the Russian empire was recognised by Austria. During the Crimean War, when tensions between Russia and Austria were high, the city was turned into a fortified camp, surrounded by a ring of forts 15 km in circumference, containing 30 fortification works.

With the technological progress in artillery during the second half of the 19th century, these fortifications rapidly became obsolete. The longer range of rifled artillery necessitated the construction of larger fortresses with forts designed to resist the newly available guns. To achieve this, between the years 1888 and 1914 Przemyśl was turned into a 1st class fortress, the third largest in Europe out of about 200 that were built in this period. Around the city, in a circle of circumference 45 km, 44 forts of various sizes were built. The older fortifications were modernised to provide the fortress with an internal defence ring. The fortress was designed to accommodate 85 000 soldiers and 956 cannons of all sorts.

In August 1914 at the start of the First World War, the Russian armies defeated the Austro-Hungarian army in the opening engagements and advanced rapidly into Galicia. The Przemyśl fortress fulfilled its mission very effectively, helping to stop a 300 000 men strong Russian army advancing towards the Carpathian Passes, as well as Kraków and Silesia. The first siege was lifted by a temporary Austro-Hungarian advance. However, the Russian army pushed forward again and initiated a second siege of Przemyśl fortress in October, 1914. This time relief attempts were unsuccessful. Due to lack of food and exhaustion of its defenders, the fortress surrendered on March 22, 1915. The Russians captured 126,000 prisoners and 700 big guns. Before surrendering, a complete destruction of all fortifications was carried out.

The Russians did not stay in Przemyśl long. A renewed offensive of the Central Powers recaptured the destroyed fortress on June 3, 1915. During the fighting around Przemyśl, both sides lost up to 115,000 killed, wounded and missing.

In November 1918 Przemyśl became a part of newly independent Poland. In the years 1918-1939 the city's 50,000 population consisted of a mixture of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews.

After the invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, the border between these two occupiers run through the middle of the city along the San river until June, 1941. In the post-war territorial settlement, the new border between Poland and the Soviet Union placed Przemyśl in Poland, but just barely. The border now ran only a few kilometers to the east of the city, cutting it off from much of its economic hinterland. Furthermore, due to the murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust and the post-war explusion of Ukrainians, the city's population became overwhelmingly Polish.

As a result of all these disasters the growth of the city in the years after 1945 was stunted. Only after 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the independence of Ukraine and progress in opening the Polish-Ukrainian border, did the city's prospects improve.

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Przemysl, Poland".

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