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- Published: 05 Jun 2011
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- Author: Butrymnet
Coordinates | 12°26′0″N86°53′12″N |
---|---|
Nickname | Floating Garden |
Motto | "Szczecin jest otwarty" ("Szczecin is open") |
Pushpin map | Poland |
Pushpin label position | bottom |
Coordinates region | PL |
Subdivision type | Country |
Subdivision name | |
Subdivision type1 | Voivodeship |
Subdivision name1 | West Pomeranian |
Subdivision type2 | County |
Subdivision name2 | city county |
Leader title | Mayor |
Leader name | Piotr Krzystek |
Established title | Established |
Established date | 8th century |
Established title3 | Town rights |
Established date3 | 1243 |
Area total km2 | 301 |
Population as of | 2009 |
Population total | 406427 |
Population density km2 | auto |
Population metro | 777000 |
Timezone | CET |
Utc offset | +1 |
Timezone dst | CEST |
Utc offset dst | +2 |
Postal code type | Postal code |
Postal code | PL-70-017to 71-871 |
Area code | +48 91 |
Website | http://www.szczecin.pl |
Blank name | Car plates |
Blank info | ZS }} |
Szczecin (; ; ), is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427.
Szczecin is located on the Oder River, south of the Szczecin Lagoon and the Bay of Pomerania. The city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of the Oder and on several large islands between the western and eastern branches of the river. Szczecin borders with the town of Police, the seat of Police County, situated on an estuary of the Oder River.
The city's beginnings were as an 8th century Slavic Pomeranian stronghold. Over the course of its history it has been a part of Poland, existed as an independent Duchy, was ruled by Sweden, Denmark, Brandenburg-Prussia, was part of the Holy Roman Empire, German Empire, Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. It was the residence of the Griffin Dynasty from the 12th until the 17th century.
While the city was ruled by Nazi Germany the Jews, Poles and Rroma were subjected to repression and finally during World War II classified as untermenschen with their fate being slavery and extermination. After Germany was defeated by the Allies in 1945, Szczecin was awarded to the People's Republic of Poland. The city was emptied of its German inhabitants, who either fled before the advancing Soviet Army or were expelled by the Polish government. Poles resettled and rebuilt the war damaged city, which became capital of the new Szczecin Voivodeship. It played an important role in the anti-communist uprisings of 1970 and the rise of Solidarity trade union in the 1980s.
Polish rule ended with Boleslaw's death in 1138. During the Wendish Crusade in 1147, a contingent led by the German margrave Albert the Bear, an enemy of Slavic presence in the region, There, a Polish contingent supplied by Mieszko III the Old joined the crusaders. indicating they already had been Christianized. Ratibor I, Duke of Pomerania, negotiated the disbandement of the crusading forces.
After the Battle of Verchen in 1164, Szczecin duke Bogislaw I became a vassal of the Saxony's Henry the Lion. In 1173, Szczecin castellan Wartislaw II could not resist a Danish attack and became vassal of Denmark. In 1185, Bogislaw again became a Danish vassal. but the fortress was reconstructed and manned with a Danish force in 1190. While the empire restored her superiority over Pomerania in the Battle of Bornhöved in 1227, from various parts of the Holy Roman Empire) settled in the city around St. Jacob's Church, which was donated in 1180 Hohenkrug (now in Szczecin-Struga) was the first village in the Duchy of Pomerania which was clearly recorded as German (villa teutonicorum) in 1173. Ostsiedlung accelerated in Pomerania during the 13th century. Duke Barnim I of Pomerania granted Szczecin a local government charter in 1237, separating the German settlement from the Slavic community settled around the St. Nicholas Church in the neighborhood of Kessin (). In the charter, the Slavs were put under German jurisdiction.
When Barnim granted Szczecin Magdeburg rights in 1243, part of the Slavic settlement was reconstructed The duke had to promise to level the burgh in 1249. Most Slavic inhabitants were resettled to two new suburbia north and south of the town. Last records of Slavs in Stettin are from the 14th century, when a Slavic bath (1350) and bakery are recorded, and within the walls, Slavs lived in a street named Schulzenstrasse. By the end of the century, the remaining Slavs had been assimilated.
In 1249, Barnim I granted town law also the town of Damm (also Altdamm) on the eastern bank of the Oder, which only on 15 October 1939 was merged to neighboring Szczecin and is now the Dąbie, Szczecin neighborhood. This town had been built on the site of a former Pomeranian burg, "Vadam" or "Dambe", which Boleslaw had destroyed during his 1121 campaign. The Jewish Jordan family was granted citizenship in 1325, but none of the 22 Jews allowed to settle in the duchy in 1481 lived in the city, and in 1492, all Jews in the duchy were ordered to convert to Christianity or leave - this order remained effective throughout the rest of the Griffin era. The city prospered due to the participation in the Baltic Sea trade, primarily with herrings, grain and timber; also craftmenship prospered and more than forty guilds were established in the city.
While not as heavily affected by medieval witchhunts as other regions of the empire, there are reports of the burning of three women and one man convicted of witchcraft in 1538.
In 1570, during the reign of Pomeranian duke Johann Friedrich, a congress was held at Stettin ending the Northern Seven Years' War. During the war, Stettin had tended to side with Denmark, while Stralsund tended toward Sweden - as a whole, the Duchy of Pomerania however tried to maintain neutrality. Nevertheless, a Landtag that had met in Stettin in 1563 introduced a sixfold rise of real estate taxes to finance the raising of a mercenary army for the duchy's defense. Bogislaw XIV, who resided in Stettin since 1620, became the sole, and Griffin duke when Philipp Julius died in 1625. Before the Thirty Years' War reached Pomerania, the city as all of the duchy declined economically due to the sinking importance of the Hanseatic League and a conflict between Stettin and Frankfurt (Oder).
Stettin was turned into a major Swedish fortress, which was repeatedly sieged in subsequent wars. Due to a Black Death epidemic during the Great Northern War, the city's population dropped from 6,000 people in 1709 to 4,000 inhabitants in 1711. In 1720, after the Great Northern War, Sweden was forced to cede the city to King Frederick William I of Prussia. Stettin was made the capital city of the Brandenburg-Prussian Pomeranian province, since 1815 reorganized as Province of Pomerania. In 1816, the city had 26,000 inhabitants.
The Prussian administration deprived Stettin of her administrative autonomy rights, abolished guild privileges as well as its status as a staple town, and subsidized manufacturers. The Jewish community had between 1,000 and 1,200 members by 1873 and between 2,800 and 3,000 members by 1927/28. after the Second World War monuments in their memory were built by the Polish authorities.
Until 1873, Stettin remained a fortress. Major industries prospering in Stettin since 1840 were shipbuilding, chemical and food industries and machinery construction. In 1914, before World War I, the Polish community in the city numbered about 3,000 people but also a few local wealthy industrialists and merchants. Among them was Kazimierz Pruszak, director of the Gollnow industrial works and a Polish patriot, who predicted the eventual return of Szczecin to Poland. Cars of the Stoewer automobile company were produced in Stettin from 1899 to 1945. By 1939, the Reichsautobahn Berlin-Stettin was completed.
In the interwar period the Polish minority numbered 2,000 people. A number of Poles were members of the Union of Poles in Germany (ZPN), which was active in the city since 1924, also, a Polish consulate was hosted in the city between 1925 and 1939. On initiative of the consulate a number of Polish institutions were established, e.g. a Polish Scout team and a Polish school. Intensified repressions by the Nazis, The city had become the third-largest German city by area, after Berlin and Hamburg.
As the war started the number of non-Germans in the city increased as slave workers were brought in. The first transports came in 1939 from Bydgoszcz, Toruń and Łódż. They were mainly used in a synthetic silk factory near Szczecin.
Allied air raids in 1944 and heavy fighting between the German and Soviet armies destroyed 65% of Stettin's buildings and almost all of the city centre, the seaport and local industries. Polish Home Army intelligence assisted in pinpointing targets for Allied bombing in the area of Stettin. The city itself was covered by Home Army's structure "Bałtyk" and Polish resistance inflitrated Stettin's naval yards Other activities of the resistance consisted of smuggling people to Sweden
In April 1945 Nazi authorities of the city issued an order of evacuation and most of the city’s German population fled. The Soviet Red Army captured the city on 26 April. Stettin was virtually deserted when it fell, with only approx. 6,000 Germans in the city, when Polish authorities tried to gain control. In the meantime part of the German population had returned, believing it might become part of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany and the Soviet authorities had already appointed the German Communists Erich Spiegel and Erich Wiesner as mayors. Stettin is located mostly west of the Oder river, which was considered to become Poland's new border. This was in accordance with the results of the Potsdam Conference, the Potsdam Agreement between between the victorious Allied Powers, which envisaged the new border to be in "a line running from the Baltic Sea immediately west of Swinemünde, and thence along the Oder River[...]". Because of the returnees, the German population of the town swelled to 84,000 again. However, Stettin and the mouth of the Oder River () became Polish on 5 July 1945, which had been decided in a treaty signed on 26 July 1944 between the Soviet Union and the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN). but excluded the Police (Pölitz) area, the Oder river itself and the Szczecin port, which remained under Soviet administration. Additionally Poles and Ukrainians from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. settled there.
Szczecin was rebuilt and the city's industry was expanded. At the same time, Szczecin became a major Polish industrial centre and an important seaport (particularly for Silesian coal) for Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. Cultural expansion was accompanied by a campaign resulting in the "removal of all German traces." In 1946 Winston Churchill prominently mentioned Szczecin in his Iron Curtain speech: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent".
The 1962 Szczecin military parade led to a road traffic accident in which a tank of the Polish People's Army crushed bystanders, killing seven children and injuring many more. The resultant panic in the crowd led to further injuries in the rush to escape. The incident was covered up for many years by the Polish communist authorities.
to the workers killed during the 1970 anti-communist protests, known as the "Angel of Freedom"]]
The city witnessed anti-communist revolts in 1970. In 1980, one of the four agreements, known as the August Agreements, which led to the first legalization of Solidarity, was signed in Szczecin. Pope John Paul II visited the city on 11 June 1987. The introduction of martial law in December 1981 met with a strike by the dockworkers of Szczecin shipyard, joined by other factories and workplaces in a general strike. All these were suppressed by the authorities. Another wave of strikes in Szczecin broke out in 1988 and 1989, which eventually led to the Round Table Agreement and first semi free elections in Poland.
Since 1999 Szczecin has been the capital of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship.
The city's first recorded name is "Stetin", in the early twelfth century. The German version "Stettin", and the Polish version, "Szczecin" as well as the names of the town's neighbourhoods and oldest districts are of Slavic origins, however the exact words upon which it is based on is subject of ongoing research.
Historian Marian Gumowski (1881–1974) argued, based on his studies of early city stamps and seals, that the earliest name of the town was, in modern Polish spelling, Szczycin.
In 1310, Wartislaw IV, Duke of Pomerania founded the city of Neustettin ("New Stettin", now Szczecinek). For distinction, the older part of the town was called ''Alten Stettin" ("Old Stettin")
Szczecin's architectural style is due to trends popular in the last half of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century, Academic art and Art Nouveau. In many areas built after 1945, especially in the city centre, which had been destroyed due to Allied bombing, social realism is prevalent.
Urban planning of Szczecin is unusual. The city has an abundance of green areas: parks and avenues wide streets with trees planted in the island separating opposite traffic (where often tram tracks are laid); and roundabouts. In that manner, Szczecin's city plan resembles that of Paris, mostly because Szczecin was rebuilt in the 1880s according to a design by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who had redesigned Paris under Napoléon III. This course of designing streets in Szczecin is still used, as many recently built (or modified) city areas include roundabouts and avenues.
During the city's reconstruction in the aftermath of World War II, the communist authorities of Poland wanted the city's architecture to reflect a supposed old Polish "Piast" era. Since no buildings from the that time existed, instead Gothic, as well as Renaissance buildings,were picked as worthy of conservation. The motivation behind this decision was that Renaissance architecture was used by the Griffin dynasty, who had Slavic roots and was viewed to be of Piast extraction by some historians (later the Piast myth was replaced by a local Griffin myth, whereby the Slavic roots of the Griffin dynasty were to justify the post-war Polish presence in Pomerania). This view was manifested e.g. by erecting respective memorials, and the naming of streets and enterprises, while else German traces were replaced by symbols of three main categories: Piasts, Martyrdom of Poles and gratitude to the Soviet and Polish armies. The ruins of the former Griffin residence, initially renamed "Piast Palace", also played a central role in this concept In general, post-Renaissance buildings, especially from the 19th and early 20th centuries were deemed unworthy of conservation until the 1970s,
The Old Town was rebuilt in the late 1990s, consisting of new buildings, some of which were reconstructions of buildings destroyed in World War II.
A portion of the Szczecin Landscape Park, in the forest of Puszcza Bukowa, lies within Szczecin's boundaries.
Dzielnica Śródmieście (City Centre) Centrum, Drzetowo-Grabowo, Łękno, Międzyodrze-Wyspa Pucka, Niebuszewo-Bolinko, Nowe Miasto, Stare Miasto, Śródmieście Północ, Śródmieście-Zachód, Turzyn.
Dzielnica Północ (North) Bukowo, Golęcino-Gocław, Niebuszewo, Skolwin, Stołczyn, Warszewo, Żelechowa.
Dzielnica Zachód (West) Głębokie-Pilchowo, Gumieńce, Krzekowo-Bezrzecze, os. Arkońskie-Niemierzyn, Osów, Pogodno, Pomorzany, Świerczewo, os. Zawadzkiego-Klonowica.
Dzielnica Prawobrzeże (Right-Bank) Bukowe-Klęskowo, Dąbie, Majowe-Kijewo, Płonia-Śmierdnica-Jezierzyce, Podjuchy, os. Słoneczne, Wielgowo-Sławociesze, Załom, Zdroje, Żydowce-Klucz.
Szczecin has three shipyards (Stocznia Remontowa Gryfia, Stocznia Pomerania, Stocznia Szczecińska). Stocznia Szczecińska is the biggest shipyard in Poland. It has a fishing industry and a steel mill. It is served by Szczecin-Goleniów "Solidarność" Airport and by the Port of Szczecin, third biggest port of Poland. It is also home to several major companies. Among them is the major food producer Drobimex, Polish Steamship Company, producer of construction materials Komfort, Bosman brewery and Cefarm drug factory. It also houses several of the new business firms in the IT sector.
The A6 motorway (recently upgraded) serves as the southern bypass of the city, and connects to the German A11 autobahn (portions of which are currently undergoing upgrade), from where one can reach Berlin in about 90 minutes (about 150 km). Road connections with the rest of Poland are of lower quality (no motorways), though the Express Road S3 that is currently under construction will begin to improve the situation after its stretch from Szczecin to Gorzów Wielkopolski is opened around 2010. Construction of Express Roads S6 and S10 which are to run east from Szczecin has also started, though these roads will not be fully completed until about 2015.
Szczecin has good railway connections with the rest of Poland, but it is connected by only two single track, non-electrified lines with Germany to the west (high quality double-track lines were degraded after 1945). Because of this, the rail connection between Berlin and Szczecin is much slower and less convenient than one would expect between two European cities of that size and proximity. Plans have been made to restore the double track on the Berlin-Szczecin main line with complete electrification and other upgrades to allow running, but these have not been funded yet.
Szczecin is served by Szczecin-Goleniów "Solidarność" Airport which is 45 km northeast of the city.
Over the long course of its history Szczecin has been a place of birth and of residence for many famous individuals, including Empress Catherine the Great, the mathematician Hermann Günther Grassmann, and the poet Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński.
Category:Port cities and towns in Poland Category:Port cities and towns of the Baltic Sea Szczecin Szczecin
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