Wrocław: Encyclopedia - Wrocław

Wrocław

Wrocław, ([:vrɔʦwaf], German Breslau, Czech Vratislav, Latin Wratislavia; many Polish documents in English use the spelling Wroclaw) is the capital of Lower Silesia in southwestern Poland, situated on the Oder River (Odra). As of 2004, the city's population was estimated to be 638,000. It is the principal city of the Lower Silesia region and the administrative seat of the Lower Silesian Voivodship (since 1999), previously of Wrocław Voivodship. The city is also a separate city-county.

Wrocław - City's name

Wrocław was first recorded in Thietmar's chronicle: John, bishop of Wrocław, a newly established Polish diocese, is mentioned in the year 1000 (Johannem Wrotizlaensem) as was later the city itself (as Wortizlawa). The first municipal seal says: Sigillum civitatis Wracislavie, and a simplified city name is given in 1175 as in Wrezlawe.

Early records show that the medieval city name was Wrocisław in Polish and Vratislav in Czech, which means Wrocislaw/Vratislav's town. The Polish name was later phonetically simplified in two stages: Wrocisław->Wrotsław->Wrocław, and this simplified name has been used since the 12th century. The Czech spelling was used in Latin documents, Wratislavia or Vratislavia, but Polish pronunciation was also influential as shown in the spelling of Wracislavia. Later a Germanized version of the city's name was created—Breslau—which was used as the official name during the periods of German influence. For example, in November 2004, the warehouse Feniks (built in 1904) on the city's townsquare (Rynek) showed old pictures of the building. The pictures were described in Polish but retained original names, such as Warenhaus Gebrüder Barasch, Breslau.

The city is named after a person called Vratislaw/Wrocislaw, although it is unclear what, if any, connection exists to a Czech duke called Vratislav I. It is also possible that the city was named after the tribal duke of the Silesians, or after the early owner of the city, called Vratislav.

The name of the city can be an issue for German and Polish nationalists. Among the present Polish inhabitants of the city, especially those born some years after World War II, the former German name "Breslau" is highly unpopular, and they may become offended when that name is used.

Names used in other languages:

• Vratislav (Slovak)
• Vroclav (Slovak, Serbian)
• Breslavia (Italian)
• Vroclavas (Lithuanian)
• Boroszló (Hungarian)

Wrocław - History

Situated at a long existing trading place, a city was first recorded in the 10th century as Vratislavia (Wratislaw) (the origin of its various later names) after Vratislav I. The settlement was conquered by the Polish duke Mieszko I in the 990s. Already a place of some importance, it became the capital of Silesia in 1138, where Silesians had founded a settlement south of the river. During the Mongol invasion in 1241 most of the population of the city was evacuated. The settlement was then sacked and burned by the Mongols, but they had no time to besiege the castle where the rest of the burghers found refuge.

Documents of the time refer to the town by many variants of the name, including Bresslau, Presslau, Breslau and Latin Wratislaw. The restored Wrocław town was given Magdeburg Rights in 1262. The first illustration of the city was published in the Schedelsche Weltchronik in 1493.

Under direct overlordship of the Holy Roman Empire, the emperors granted government positions to members of various ducal and royal dynasties. The city was a member of the Hanseatic League of northern European trading cities. During much of the Middle Ages Wrocław was ruled by its dukes from the Piast dynasty. In 1335, it was incorporated with almost the entirety of Silesia to become the Kingdom of Bohemia and was part of it until the 1740s; from 1526, it was ruled by the Empire's Habsburg dynasty. By this time the inhabitants, although often of Polish ancestory, had become mainly German in speech. The overwhelming majority became Lutheran Protestants during the Reformation, but they were forcibly suppressed during the Catholic Reformation by the Jesuits, who were working with the support of the Habsburg rulers.

After the extinction of local Piast rulers in 1675, the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria inherited Wrocław. They resorted to forceful conversion of the city to back to Catholicism. During the War of the Austrian Succession in the 1740s, Silesia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia's claims were derived from the agreement, rejected by Habsburgs, between the Piast rulers of the Duchy and the Hohenzollerns who secured the Prussian succession after the extinction of the Piasts.

After the demise of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the city remained under Prussian administration and joined Imperial Germany upon its creation in 1871. The kings of Prussia saw to it that Breslau became a major industrial centre, notably of linen and cotton manufacture, more than tripling in population between 1860 and 1910 to over half a million. Its municipal boundaries were greatly extended in 1928.

Many of the city's 10,000 Jews were killed during the Nazi genocide of World War II. When the Red Army approached in February 1945, Breslau was declared a fortress and much of the population was evacuated, although some 200,000 remained. To build fortifications, slave labour was needed to augment civilian workers, and concentration camp prisoners were forced to help.

After a siege of nearly three months, "Festung Breslau" surrendered on May 7, the last major city in eastern Germany to fall. Some 40,000 Breslauers lay dead in the ruins, and the city was almost 70% destroyed. During the siege, the German authorities razed a modern residential district, around the Kaiserstraße (now: Plac Grunwaldzki) in order to construct a military airfield that was supposed to re-supply the city. An unknown number of German civilians and slave labourers died constructing the airfield.

The incoming Red Army engaged in brutal attacks against the surviving civilian population. Unwarranted though such action was, it cannot be seen in isolation from the grander sweep of events that had begun with the Nazi onslaught against the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1941 and the millions of Soviet civilians who died at the hands of the German Army.

Like almost all of Silesia, Breslau was awarded to Poland under the terms of the agreement reached at the Potsdam Conference. Most of the surviving German inhabitants either left voluntarily or were expelled to post-war Germany between 1945 and 1949. However, as with other Lower Silesian cities a considerable German presence remained until the late 1950s. In fact, the last German school in the city was not closed until 1963. Wrocław was resettled by Poles either from the small towns and villages of central Poland or those expelled by the Soviets from territories lost by Poland to the USSR. Many of these were from Lwów (now L'viv, Ukraine).

Gradually the old city was restored to its beauty. Nearly all of the monumental buildings were preserved. Now it is a uniquely European city of present-day Poland, with its architecture echoing that in Austria, Bohemia, or Prussia. Wrocław's Gothic style is originally Silesian; its Baroque style owes much to court builders of Habsburg Austria (Fischer von Erlach, Ch. Tausch); and Wrocław still has a number of buildings by eminent German modernist architects, such as Hans Poelzig or Max Berg, the famous Jahrhunderthalle (Hala Ludowa) by Berg (1911–13) being the most important.

In July 1997, the city was hit by a severe flooding of the Oder River.

Wrocław - Significant events in the 20th century

External links with photo galleries, mostly in Polish

• 1997 - 1997 great flood of Oder River - photo gallery
• 1948 - "Retrieved Country Exhibition"
• 1945 - Festung Breslau (Wrocław Fortress) siege by Soviet Army - photo gallery
• 1938 - "All-German Festival of Sports & Gymnastics" (Internet Explorer only)
• 1937 - 12th "All-German Singing Meeting"
• 1913 - "100th Aniversary of Leipzig Battle Great Exhibition"
• 1907 - 7th "All-German Singing Meeting"
• 1903 - 1903 great flood of Oder river

Wrocław - Historical population

1800: 64,500 inhabitants
1831: 89,500 inhabitants
1850: 114,000 inhabitants
1852: 121,100 inhabitants
1880: 272,900 inhabitants
1900: 422,700 inhabitants
1910: 510,000 inhabitants
1925: 555,200 inhabitants
1933: 625,198 inhabitants
1939: 629,565 inhabitants
1946: 171,000 inhabitants
1956: 400,000 inhabitants
1960: 431,800 inhabitants
1967: 487,700 inhabitants
1970: 526,000 inhabitants
1975: 579,900 inhabitants
1980: 617,700 inhabitants
1990: 640,577 inhabitants
1999: 650,000 inhabitants
2003: 638,000 inhabitants

Wrocław - Administrative division

Wrocław is divided into five boroughs, called dzielnice:

• Fabryczna ("Industrial")
• Krzyki
• Psie Pole ("Dog Field")
• Stare Miasto ("Old Town")
• Śródmieście ("City Center")

Wrocław - Prominent people from Wrocław

• Alois Alzheimer - discoverer of Alzheimer's Disease
• Adolf Anderssen - 19th century chess master
• Max Berg - architect, designer of the Hala Ludowa
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer - religious leader in the resistance movement against Nazism
• Jerzy Grotowski - theatre director and a leading theatrical avant garde figure
• Mirosław Hermaszewski - Polish astronaut
• Ludwik Hirszfeld - microbiologist, co-discovers of the inheritance of Athe BO blood type
• Marek Hłasko - writer
• Gustav Robert Kirchhoff - physicist
• Ferdinand Lassalle - German socialist politician and reformer
• Tadeusz Różewicz - poet and writer
• Wanda Rutkiewicz - one of the most famous woman mountaineers
• Friedrich Schleiermacher - theologian and philosopher
• Angelus Silesius - 17th century German-Polish religious poet
• Edith Stein - German philosopher and Roman Catholic martyr
• Hugo Steinhaus - mathematician

Wrocław - Nobel Prize laureates from Wrocław

listed chronologically, by year of award

• Theodor Mommsen (1902)
• Philipp Lenard (1905)
• Eduard Buchner (1907)
• Paul Ehrlich (1908)
• Gerhart Hauptmann (1912)
• Fritz Haber (1918)
• Friedrich Bergius (1931)
• Otto Stern (1943)
• Max Born (1954)
• Reinhard Selten (1994)

Wrocław - Education

Today's Wrocław has ten state-run universities, including:

• Wrocław University (Uniwersytet Wrocławski)
• Wrocław University of Technology (Politechnika Wrocławska)
• Medical Academy of Wrocław (Wrocławska Akademia Medyczna)
• University School of Physical Education. (Akademia Wychowania Fizycznego),
• Wrocław University of Economics (Akademia Ekonomiczna im. Oskara Langego)
• The Agricultural University of Wrocław (Akademia Rolnicza we Wrocławiu)
• Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (Akademia Sztuk Pięknych we Wrocławiu)
• The Karol Lipiński University of Music (Akademia Muzyczna im. Karola Lipińskiego)
• University School of Theatre (Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Teatralna)
• The Tadeusz Kościuszko Land Forces Military Academy (Wyższa Szkoła Oficerska Wojsk Lądowych)

as well as numerous private institutions of higher education, including

• Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna

Wrocław - Economy and transportation

Wrocław's major industries were traditionally the manufacture of railroad cars and electronics. The city is served by Wrocław International Airport and a river port.

Wrocław - Economy

Wrocław - Major corporations

• Volvo Polska sp. z o.o., Wrocław
• Siemens, Wrocław
• Grupa Lukas, Wrocław
• AB SA, Wrocław
• Polifarb Cieszyn-Wrocław SA, Wrocław
• KOGENERACJA S.A., Wrocław
• Impel SA, Wrocław
• Europejski Fundusz Leasingowy SA, Wrocław
• Telefonia Dialog SA, Wrocław
• Wrozamet SA, Wrocław
• American Restaurants sp. z o.o., Wrocław
• Hutmen SA, Wrocław
• MPEC Wrocław SA, Wrocław
• SAP Polska

Wrocław - Politics

Wrocław - Wrocław constituency

Former members of Parliament (Sejm) elected from Wrocław constituency:

• Jan Chaładaj , SLD-UP
• Janusz Dobrosz, PSL
• Hanna Gucwińska, SLD-UP
• Teresa Jasztal, SLD-UP
• Piotr Kozłowski, Samoobrona
• Janusz Krasoń, SLD-UP
• Marek Muszyński, PiS
• Andrzej Otręba, SLD-UP
• Jacek Protasiewicz, PO
• Grzegorz Schetyna, PO
• Antoni Stryjewski, LPR
• Jan Szymański, SLD-UP
• Kazimierz Ujazdowski, PiS
• Bogdan Zdrojewski, PO

Wrocław - Municipal politics

((yet to be written))

Wrocław - Sports

There are many popular professional sports teams in the Wrocław area. The most popular sport today is probably basketball, thanks to Idea Śląsk Wrocław, the award-winning men's basketball team (former Polish champions, 2nd place in 2004). Amateur sports are played by thousands of Wrocław citizens and also in schools of all levels.

• Era Śląsk Wrocław - (previous names: Deichmann Śląsk Wrocław, Idea Śląsk Wrocław, Zepter Idea Śląsk Wrocław, Zepter Śląsk Wrocław, Śląsk ESKA Wrocław, Śląsk Wrocław, CWKS Wrocław) men's basketball team, former Polish Champion, 2nd place 2004 in Era Basket Liga
• Śląsk Wrocław - men's football team (Polish Championship in Football 1977; Polish Cup winner 1976, 1987; Polish SuperCup winner 1987) (2nd league in season 2005/2006)
• Śląsk Wrocław - men's handball team (1st league in season 2003/2004)
• Atlas Wrocław - men's dirt speedway racing team (1st league in season 2003/2004)
• Gwardia Wrocław - men's volleyball team (Polska Liga Siatkówki (PLS) in season 2003/2004)
• Gwardia Wrocław - men's boxing team (1st league in season 2003/2004)
• Polar Wrocław - men's football team (3rd league 2004/2005)
• KS Hefra Gwardia Wrocław - men's volleyball team playing in Polish Volleyball League (Polska Liga Siatkówki, PLS: Seria A in 2003/2004, Seria B in 2004/2005 season).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Wrocław", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki