Hajnówka is a town and a powiat seat in the Podlaskie Voivodeship in eastern Poland, with a population of 21,442 inhabitants as of 2014.Gmina miejska Hajnówka bialystok.stat.gov.pl It is the capital of Hajnówka County. The town is also notable for its proximity to the Białowieża Forest, the biggest primaeval forest in Europe. Through Hajnówka flows the river Leśna Prawa. It is one of the centres of Orthodox faith and a notable centre of Belarusian culture in Poland. Belarusians constituted 26.4% of the town's population in 2002.
It is one of five Polish/Belarusian bilingual gminas in Podlaskie Voivodeship regulated by the Act of 6 January 2005 on National and Ethnic Minorities and on the Regional Languages, which permits certain gminas with significant linguistic minorities to introduce a second, auxiliary language to be used in official contexts alongside Polish.Dz. U. z 2005 r. Nr 17, poz. 141
History For a more detailed history of Białowieża and the area see: Białowieża Forest
In 1589, the constitution "Ordinato o prowentach królch" divided the royal estates into state and table estates. The Białowieża Forest became part of the table estates, designated for the maintenance of the royal court, and was therefore particularly protected. A settlement was established in these areas by the , Haynym Heyno, who was granted the forest in the 18th century by King Augustus II of Saxony (after the river of the same name, a left tributary of the Leśna River). Today, it is a road dividing the Dubiny lands from the lands of the villages of Postołowo, Sawiny Gród, and Lipiny. This ranger's name soon changed to Hajnowski Bór, and then to Hajnowszczyzna. Hajnowszczyzna gained greater importance during the reign of Antoni Tyzenhauz, when around 1775 the Białowieża Forest was divided into 13 guards, with the headquarters of one of them (the Hajnówka guard) located within the present-day city. However, the forest protection (it was most probably the first forest reserve in the world) prevented the area from economical growth and so the village was limited to a number of wooden huts at the western end of the forest. It mostly shared the history of other similar settlements in the area, including Białowieża itself.
After the Third Partition of Poland the area was annexed by Kingdom of Prussia and Russian Empire in 1795 (the border of the partitioning powers, Prussian and Russian, ran on the territory of today's town). In 1807, the Duchy of Warsaw was created, but Hajnówka and its surrounding territories (Belostok Oblast) was handed over in full to the Russian Empire. After the fall of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1815, Hajnówka remained in the hands of Tsarist Russia. The Russian authorities abolished the forest protection, but the development of the area did not start. As most of the foresters, who worked in the forest, took part in the November Uprising of 1831 against Russia (500 out of 502 in total), their positions were abolished and the people were exiled to Siberia. The protection of the forest was affected. The village, as a matter of fact, ceased its existence. Protection was reintroduced in 1860 and the village was repopulated with Russian officials. In 1888 it became property of the tsarist family.
The village of Hajnówka, along with the forest range (), belonged to the Dubiny State Estate at the time. The 1878 plan of Belovezhsky-Alexandrovski Volost, Pruzhansky Uyezd, Grodno Governorate, clearly shows the current streets of Hajnówka: Stefana Batorego, Lipowa Street, which intersects it and merges with today's Krzywa Street, Wincentego Kolodzieja, and Warszawska Street, leading south towards Kleszczele. From the east, it led to the village of Lipiny. The housing estates along these streets, as well as Kozi Przeskok and Mazury, are the oldest districts of the city. At that time, however, there was no present-day 3 Maja Street or direct road to Bielsk Podlaski. There was also no railway line. The road connection between Hajnówka and Bielsk ran through , Nowe Berezowo, Dubicze Osoczne and Orli. The property of the Hajnówka Forest Guard was located on present-day Bartorego Street. The city's spatial layout was determined and developed by the industrial plants that established their presence, primarily during the German occupation during World War I. Between 1894 and 1906 the village was connected with the world by a railroad linking Bielsk Podlaski and Siedlce with Wołkowysk. Hajnówka became a minor transport junction and in 1900 a road was built between Białowieża and Bielsk Podlaski.
World War I During World War I, in 1915, the area was captured by the German Empire. Protection of the forest was ceased. The new authorities started large-scale industrial exploitation of the area's nature resources. Because of its nodal position, Hajnówka became a seat of two lumber-mills, wood spirit distillery and a major train station for of narrow gauge railways were built across the forest. The actual center of the Hajnówka settlement was located on Targowa Street (modern Wierobieja Street). After the Germans built a cinema and a Military officers' club on what is now 3 Maja Street between 1915 and 1919, the town center moved to this street. The Germans also established Turpentine Works "Terebenthen" which was owned before the war by Porowski brothers and Paweł Godlewski.
Interwar period and World War II
After regaining independence and the formation of the Second Polish Republic, Hajnówka began to develop, becoming a district town and a significant center of the timber industry on a European scale.
The Hajnówka Forest Railway Plant () was a company that exploited forests in and around Hajnówka. It operates as part of Przedsiębiorstwo Produkcyjno-Usługowe "Las" sp. z o.o. in Hajnówka, which specializes in forest management and timber harvesting. This area was surrounded by forest on the north, east, and south sides, and on the west it bordered the ZDLP (State Forest Timber Plants Bathing Area).
In 1919, during the early stages of the Polish-Bolshevik War, the area was handed over to Poland by the local Ober-Ost commander. The predatory exploitation of the forest was put to an end and all German-built factories in the area became nationalised. After the war, some of them were rented by the Polish government under a contract to the British company . However, in the late 1920s the contract was cancelled and the wood processing plants came back under state control, while the Terbenthen factory was sold to a private owner. Since then, the economic growth started and the village started to grow too. Hard work, but also decent salaries in wood processing plants attracted many settlers from various parts of Poland. The initial conglomerate of wooden huts, barracks, tents and narrow, wood-paved streets turned into a town.
A Catholic church was built for the local population and soon the factories and the state financed three schools, a boarding school of timber industry, a post office, two cinemas and a bank appeared here. Jewish inhabitants built a synagogue and in 1925 the Orthodox Christians organised a chapel dedicated to the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in a private home. As of 1921, the population was 80.9% Polish and 13.8% Belarusian. Also, the soldiers of the Belarusian division of general Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz were interned there after the war and finally were allowed to settle in the area, which added Belarusians and Russians to the ethnic mixture.
In 1924, a fire broke out in the barracks at the sawmill, which led to the establishment of fire departments in industrial plants. In 1927, the Volunteer Fire Department was established. The State School of Timber Industry was established in 1924. By the end of the 1930s the four factories of Hajnówka had 1,947 workers altogether and were significantly expanded. The state financed construction of several hundred small houses for the workers and the town grew up rapidly. Czworaki district was constructed in that period for workers of the timber industry (later on some parts of the district the was constructed. Also, the town attracted many notable Polish architects of the epoch to build new buildings in modernist style.
World War II
Hajnówka was not located on the strategic line of German military operations. There was no significant concentration of troops in the area on either side. In the first half of September, only individual infantry and mounted soldiers, or small groups from dispersed units, encountered each other in Hajnówka. From approximately September 7th to 9th, a permanent machine gun position with a two-man crew existed on the roof of one of the industrial buildings of the Chemical Factory. A few days later, an anti-aircraft gun appeared in Hajnówka, positioned by the river, within the former Hajnówka Forest District. It stood in the bushes, roughly where the Orlen gas station now stands, in an area overgrown with bushes at the time.
The Germans entered Hajnówka on September 17th. In the afternoon of that critical day, an armoured unit approached Hajnówka from the direction of Bielsk Podlaski, in accordance with familiar German tactics. It consisted of light tanks with a two-man crew, armed with a machine gun and a cannon. These tanks moved along the road and entered Hajnówka on 3 Maja Street. Just ahead of them, the remnants of scattered Polish units retreated towards the Białowieża Forest. These units did not engage in open combat with the advancing Germans, but merely provided covering fire to ensure a safe withdrawal. The Polish unit was noticed by the Germans after Corporal Bolesław Bierwiaczonek destroyed one tank and held up a column of German soldiers at the entrance to the city. Meanwhile The Polish soldiers and their gun were moving along Lipowa Street on the route to the forest were spotted by another German tank traveling along 3 Maja Street from the direction of the railway viaduct but they managed to destroy it as well on the intersection with Lipowa street. Bierwiaczonek and other soldiers retreated along Lipowa Street toward the village of Lipiny. However, near Lipiny, they came under fire from both artillery and pursuing Germans, leaving Bierwiaczonek severely wounded. After retreating into the forest, he died and was buried in the village of .
Soviet occupation
Before noon of the same day, the first Red Army personnel appeared in Hajnówka. They were political officers, armed only with handguns. On the same day, the first meeting with Russian participation took place in Hajnówka, organized in Rezerwistów Square. The next day, regular Red Army units entered Hajnówka. A few days after the entrance of the Soviet occupation, a group of German soldiers arrived at Hajnowka with aim of exhuming and removal the bodies of German citizens buried here from the most distant periods, up to the present day, where their graves were the only ones known.
Soviet military units were deployed and stationed in Hajnówka in various locations: the former Hajnówka and Leśna Forest offices, the then-vacant square of the current , the so-called Majdan, in front of the Warszawska railway crossing, on both sides of present-day Piłsudskiego Street, on the former Hajnówka Forest District and the adjacent, then-vacant square of the High School, and on the grounds of a military unit in the forest (today no. 2186) and in the village of Górne (incorporated to Hajnówka in 1952). There were no suitable facilities for military deployment there. Therefore, the soldiers were quartered in groups of 10-12 in the homes of private village residents. Military equipment and so-called economic resources were located in a field outside the village, where only makeshift wooden sheds had been constructed. Daily military classes and exercises were also held there.