Kalisz

Mediaeval seal of the city of Kalisz

Archaeological excavations have uncovered early mediaeval settlement from the Piast dynasty period, c. 9th–12th centuries.[3] Modern Kalisz was most likely founded in the 9th century as a provincial capital castellany and a minor fort. In 1106 Bolesław III Wrymouth captured the town and made it a part of his feudal domain. Between 1253 and 1260 the town was incorporated according to the German town law called the Środa Śląska Law (after Środa Śląska in Silesia), a local variation of the Magdeburg Law, and soon started to grow. One of the richest towns of Greater Poland, during the feudal fragmentation of Poland it formed a separate duchy ruled by a local branch of the Piast dynasty. After Poland was reunited, the town became a notable centre of weaving and wood products, as well as one of the cultural centres of Greater Poland. There are also records of Khalyzian settlements from 1139.

In 1282 the city laws were confirmed by Przemysł II of Poland, and in 1314 it was made the capital of the Kalisz Voivodeship by king Władysław I the Elbow-high. Located roughly in the centre of Poland (as its borders stood in that era), Kalisz was a notable centre of trade. Because of its strategic location, King Casimir III the Great signed a peace treaty with the Teutonic Order there in 1343. As a royal city, Kalisz managed to defend many of its initial privileges, and in 1426 a new town hall was built. The Polish king Mieszko III the Old was buried in Kalisz.[2]

Polish King Sigismund II Augustus confirms the old privileges of Kalisz, 1552

In 1574 the Jesuits came to Kalisz and in 1584 opened a Jesuit College, which became one of the most notable centres of education in Poland; around this time, however, the importance of Kalisz began to decline somewhat, its place being taken by nearby Poznań.

The economic development of the area was aided by a large number of Protestant Czech Brothers, who settled in and around Kalisz after being expelled from Bohemia in 1620.

In the 18th century, one of two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town at that time, and Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland often traveled that route.[4] In 1792, a fire destroyed much of the city centre. The following year, in the second partition of Poland, the Kingdom of Prussia absorbed the city, called "Kalisch" in German. In 1801, Wojciech Bogusławski set up one of the first permanent theatre troupes in Kalisz.

In 1807, Kalisz became a provincial capital within the Duchy of Warsaw. During Napoleon's invasion of Russia, following Yorck's Convention of Tauroggen of 1812, von Stein's Treaty of Kalisz was signed between Russia and Prussia in 1813, confirming that Prussia now was on the side of the Allies.

Kalisz Tribunal and Courthouse

After the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, Kalisz became a provincial capital of Congress Poland and then the capital of a province of the Russian Empire. Prussia and Russia held joint military exercises near the town in 1835. The proximity to the Prussian border accelerated economic development of the city and Kalisz ("Калиш" in Russian Cyrillic) started to attract many settlers, not only from other regions of Poland and other provinces of the Russian Empire, but also from German states. In 1902, a new railway linked Kalisz to Warsaw and Łódź.

Rynek (Market Square)

With the outbreak of World War I, the proximity of the border proved disastrous for Kalisz; it was one of the first cities destroyed in 1914. Between 2 and 22 August, Kalisz was shelled and then burned to the ground by German forces under Major Hermann Preusker, even though Russian troops had retreated from the city without defending it and German troops – many of them ethnic Poles – had initially been welcomed peaceably. Eight hundred men were arrested and then several of them slaughtered, while the city was set on fire and the remaining inhabitants were expelled. Out of roughly 68,000 citizens in 1914, only 5,000 remained in Kalisz a year later. By the end of the Great War, however, much of the city centre had been more or less rebuilt and many of the former inhabitants had been allowed to return.[5]

After the war Kalisz became part of the newly independent Poland.[6] On December 13, 1918, the First Border Battalion, composed of volunteers from Kalisz and Ostrów Wielkopolski, was sworn in Kalisz, before joining the ongoing Greater Poland uprising (1918–19) against Germany.[6] The reconstruction continued and in 1925 a new city hall was opened. In 1939 the population of Kalisz was approximately 89,000.

Execution of a Polish priest by the Germans in 1939

After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the proximity of the border once again proved disastrous. Kalisz was captured by the Wehrmacht after Polish resistance,[7] and the city was annexed by Germany. In revenge for resistance, the Wehrmacht carried out massacres of Polish defenders, who were executed both in the city and in the nearby settlement of Winiary (today a district of Kalisz).[7] Over 1,000 people were arrested as hostages.[7] Numerous Poles were arrested and murdered during the Intelligenzaktion aimed at annihilation of the Polish intelligentsia. Around 750 Poles from Kalisz, Ostrów Wielkopolski and other nearby settlements were imprisoned in the Kalisz prison from September 1939 to March 1940, and most were murdered in large massacres in the Winiary forest.[8] In November 1939, the Einsatzgruppe VI murdered 41 Poles at the local Jewish cemetery, among the victims was pre-war Polish mayor of Kalisz, Ignacy Bujnicki.[9] In April and May 1940, many Poles arrested in the region, especially teachers, were imprisoned in the local prison, and afterwards deported to the Mauthausen and Dachau concentration camps, where they were murdered.[10]

Memorial at the site of a massacre of 150 Poles in Winiary

In Kalisz, the Germans established a Germanisation camp for Polish children taken away from their parents (Gaukinderheim).[11] The children were given new German names and surnames, and were punished for any use of the Polish language, even with death (e.g. a 14-year-old boy Zygmunt Światłowski was murdered).[11] After their stay in the camp, the children were deported to Germany, only some returned to Poland after the war, while the fate of many remains unknown to this day.[11]

By the end of World War II approximately 30,000 local Jews had been murdered, and 20,000 local Catholics (Poles) were either murdered or expelled to the German-occupied territories (General Government) or to Germany as slave workers. In 1945 the population of the city was 43,000 – approximately half the pre-war figure.

Following the war, Jewish Holocaust survivors returned to the city, by 1946 numbering some 500. By the late 1940s only some 100 remained, and those few who stayed blended into Polish society.[12]

In 1975, after Edward Gierek's reform of the administrative division of Poland, Kalisz again became the capital of a province – Kalisz Voivodeship; the province was abolished in 1998, however, and since then Kalisz has been the county seat of a separate powiat within the Greater Poland Voivodeship. In 1991 the city festival was inaugurated on 11 June to commemorate the confirmation of the incorporation of the city in 1282. In 1992, Kalisz became the seat of a separate diocese of the Catholic Church.[2] In 1997 Kalisz was visited by Pope John Paul II.[2]

Kalisz is twinned with:[13]