The following article details the history of Toruń, a city in Kuyavian–Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland.
Early history The first settlement in the vicinity of Toruń is dated by archaeologists to 1100 BC (Lusatian culture).Hypothetical reconstruction of a Lusatian culture settlement, built using bronze age tools: Wola Radziszowska, Poland , part of a study by scientists from the Jagiellonian University’s Institute Of Archaeology. During early medieval times, in the 7th through 13th centuries, it was the location of an old Slavonic settlement,Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN Warsaw 1976 at a ford in the Vistula river. In the 10th century it became part of the emerging Polish state ruled by the Piast dynasty.
Teutonic Order In spring 1231 the Teutonic Knights crossed the river Vistula at the height of Nieszawa and established a fortress. On 28 December 1233, the Teutonic Knights Hermann von Salza and Hermann Balk,"Krzyżacy – założyciele Torunia" (Teutonic Knights — the founders of Thorn). (Internet Archive) Urząd Miasta Torunia. "The foundation charter for Thorn was signed on 28th December 1233 by the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Herman von Salza and the National Master for Prussia and the Slavonic Lands Herman Balka. In that way Thorn was founded by the Teutonic Order and managed by the Knights until 1454." Retrieved June 16, 2013. signed the foundation charters for Toruń (Thorn) and Chełmno. The original document was lost in 1244. The set of rights in general is known as Kulm law. In 1236, due to frequent flooding, Max Töppen Historisch-comparative Geographie von Preussen: Nach den Quellen, namentlich auch archivalischen, J. Perthes, 1858; PDF it was relocated to the present site of the Old Town. In 1239 Franciscan friars settled in the city, followed in 1263 by Dominicans. In 1264 the adjacent New Town was founded predominantly to house Toruń's growing population of craftsmen and artisans. In 1280, the city (or as it was then, both cities) joined the mercantile Hanseatic League, and thus became an important medieval trade centre.
During the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War, in 1410, the townspeople expelled the Teutonic Knights from the city, welcomed Polish troops and recognized Polish rule. Polish King Władysław II Jagiełło granted Toruń new privileges.Potkowski, p. 62 After the First Peace of Thorn was signed in the city in February 1411, the city fell back to the Teutonic Order. In 1411 the city left the Hanseatic League. In the 1420s, King Władysław II Jagiełło built the Dybów Castle, located in present-day left-bank Toruń, which he visited numerous times. During the next big Polish–Teutonic War, the Dybów Castle was occupied by the Teutonic Knights from 1431 to 1435. The city refused to pay taxes to the Teutonic Knights, not wanting to finance their war against Poland.
In 1440, the gentry of Thorn co-founded the anti-Teutonic Prussian Confederation. The local city council together with the city council of Chełmno and the knights of the Chełmno Land were the official representatives of the Confederation. From 1452, talks between the Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon and the burghers of the Confederation were held in the Dybów Castle. The Confederation rose against the Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights in 1454 and its delegation submitted a petition to Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon asking him to regain power over the region as the rightful ruler. An act of incorporation was signed in Kraków (6 March 1454), recognizing the region, including Thorn, as partF. Kiryk, J. Ryś, Wielka Historia polski, t. II, 1320-1506, Kraków 1997, p. 160-161 of the Polish Kingdom. Those events led to the Thirteen Years' War. The local mayor pledged allegiance to the Polish King during the incorporation in March 1454 in Kraków, and then on 8 May 1454, an official ceremony was held in Thorn, during which the nobility, knights, landowners, mayors and local officials from Chełmno Land, including Thorn, again solemnly swore allegiance to the Polish King and the Kingdom of Poland. Since 1454, the city was authorized by King Casimir IV to mint Polish coins. After almost 200 years, the New and Old Towns amalgamated in 1454. The Poles systematically destroyed the Teutonic castle because they didn't want the Knights, or anyone else, returning to take over. During the war, Casimir IV often stayed at the Dybów Castle,Grzeszkiewicz-Kotlewska, p. 19-20 and Thorn financially supported the Polish Army. The Thirteen Years' War ended in October 1466 with the Second Peace of Thorn, in which the Teutonic Order renounced any claims to the city and recognized it as part of Poland. It was administratively located in the Chełmno Voivodeship of Royal Prussia.
Autonomous city under the Polish Crown
The Polish King granted the city great privileges, similar to those of Danzig. In 1473 astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was born and in 1501 Polish King John I Albert died in Thorn; his heart was buried in Thorn's St. John's Church. In 1506 Toruń became a royal city of Poland. In 1528, the royal mint started operating in Thorn. In 1568 a gymnasium was founded, which after 1594 became one of the leading schools of northern Poland for the centuries to come. A city of great wealth and influence, it enjoyed voting rights during the royal election period.Polska Encyklopedia Szlachecka, t. I, Warsaw 1935, p. 42. It was also one of four largest cities of Poland.Maria Bogucka, Miasto i mieszczanin w społeczeństwie Polski nowożytnej XVI-XVIII w., Warsaw 2009 Sejms of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were held in Toruń in 1576 and 1626.Władysław Konopczyński, Chronologia sejmów polskich 1493-1793.
In 1557, during the Protestant Reformation, the city adopted Protestantism, while most Polish cities remained Roman Catholic. Despite the Union of Lublin of 1569, which reduced Royal Prussia's autonomy, Thorn retained its status as an autonomous city state under the Polish Crown. Under Mayor Henryk Stroband (1586–1609), the city became centralized. Administrative power passed into the hands of the city council. In 1595 Jesuits arrived to promote the Counter-Reformation, taking control of St. John's Church. The Protestant city officials tried to limit the influx of Catholics into the city, as Catholics (Jesuits and Dominican friars) already controlled most of the churches, leaving only St. Mary's to Protestant citizens. In 1645, at a time when religious conflicts occurred in many other European countries and the disastrous Thirty Years' War was fought west of Poland, in Thorn, on the initiative of King Władysław IV Vasa, a three-month congress of European Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists was held, known as Colloquium Charitativum, an important event in the history of interreligious dialogue.
In 1677 the Prussian historian and educator Christoph Hartknoch was invited to be director of the Thorn Gymnasium, a post which he held until his death in 1687. Hartknoch wrote histories of Prussia and the cities of the province of Royal Prussia.
During the Great Northern War (1700–21), the city was besieged by Swedish troops. The restoration of Augustus the Strong as King of Poland was prepared in the town in the Treaty of Thorn (1709) by Russian Tsar Peter the Great. In the second half of the 17th century, tensions between Catholics and Protestants grew, similarly to religious wars throughout Europe in the previous century. In the early 18th century about 50 percent of the populace, especially the gentry and middle class, were German-speaking Protestants, while the other 50 percent were Polish speaking Roman Catholics. Protestant influence was subsequently pushed back after the Tumult of Thorn of 1724.
In September 1711, Francis II Rákóczi, Hungarian national hero who found refuge in Poland after the fall of the Rákóczi's War of Independence against Austria, stopped in the city during his travel from Jarosław to Danzig.
Kingdom of Prussia In 1793 the Kingdom of Prussia annexed the city in the Second Partition of Poland. In 1807 Napoleon conquered part of the territory and made the city part of the newly formed Polish Duchy of Warsaw. Toruń served as the temporary capital of the duchy in April and May 1809. In 1809 Thorn was successfully defended by the Poles against the Austrians. Prussia re-annexed the city after Napoleon's defeat in 1814. Pan Tadeusz, epic poem by Adam Mickiewicz, was first printed in Thorn in 1858. In 1870 French prisoners of war taken during the Franco-Prussian War were directed to build a chain of forts surrounding the town. The following year the city, along with the rest of Prussia, became part of the new German Empire.
Thorn was part of the area subject to Prussian and later German attempts to Germanise the province. Toruń became a centre of resistance to Germanization and Kulturkampf by Poles, who established a Polish-language newspaper, Gazeta Toruńska. In 1875 a Polish Scientific Society was established, and in 1884 a secret organization dedicated to the restoration of Poland. During Prussian and German rule, especially in the second half of the 19th century, the German authorities promoted ethnic German settlement in the city by falsifying census results. To diminish the number of Poles, one method involved counting all bilingual Poles who spoke German as Germans. Additionally, German soldiers stationed in the city were included in census figures as citizens for propaganda purposes."Toruń dwóch narodów." Gazeta Miejska Nr 1 (44) z 13 stycznia 2000, Urzad Miasta Torunia (Toruń City Council). In order to achieve German majority over Polish population in Toruń, German authorities helped settle large numbers of German officials, workers and craftsmen by legal and administrative means.Lidia Kuchtówna, "Wielkie dni małej sceny," Teatr Narodowy na Pomorzu. Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1972, pp. 13 - 204 The number of Germans decreased from 27,509 in 1910 to 2,255 in 1926 and further to 2,057 in 1934.
Interwar Poland In 1918, Poland regained independence, and according to the Treaty of Versailles following World War I in 1919, Toruń was re-assigned to Poland. It became the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship.
In 1925, the Baltic Institute was established in the city, and worked on documenting Polish heritage and history in Pomerania. In general, the interwar period was a time of significant urban development in Toruń. Major investments were completed in areas such as transportation (new streets, tramway lines and the Piłsudski Bridge), residential development (many new houses, particularly in Bydgoskie Przedmieście suburb) and public buildings. Following the bridge's construction, in 1938 the nearby town of Podgórz, on the left bank of the Vistula, was incorporated into Toruń.
In 1934 the Polish government abrogated the German-Polish treaty of protection of national minorities which was concluded as part of the Versailles treaties restoring the region and city to Poland.Minderheitenschutzvertrag zwischen den Alliierten und Assoziierten Hauptmächten und Polen
The Jewish community in Toruń was very active before World War II. Just before the Nazi German invasion of Poland, Jews supported the Polish government fund-raising for Air Defence (Dz.U.R.P.Nr 26, poz. 176) much more generously than average Torunians.
World War II
The German army entered the city on 7 September 1939, during the invasion of Poland, which started World War II. Afterwards, the German Einsatzkommando 16 entered the city to commit various crimes against Poles. annexed the city, and administered it as part of Danzig-West Prussia. Poles were classified as Untermenschen by German authorities, with their fate being slave-labor, executions, expulsions and deportations to concentration camps. In October 1939 the new regional gauleiter, Albert Forster, announced in the city that in a few years, not a word of Polish will be spoken here.