Byczyna (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

: ''Bicina'', ''Bicinium''; german: Pitschen) is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares ...

Kluczbork County __NOTOC__ Kluczbork County ( pl, powiat kluczborski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government ( powiat) in Opole Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local gove ...

Opole Voivodeship Opole Voivodeship, or Opole Province ( pl, województwo opolskie ), is the smallest and least populated voivodeship (province) of Poland. The province's name derives from that of the region's capital and largest city, Opole. It is part of Upper S ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

, with 3,490 inhabitants as of December 2021.

History

The town of Byczyna was first mention in 1054 when it temporarily served as the capital of the Bishopric of Wrocław. Its name is of Polish origin. It was part of

and during its fragmentation period it was part of the duchies of

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is spli ...

Głogów Głogów (; german: Glogau, links=no, rarely , cs, Hlohov, szl, Głogōw) is a city in western Poland. It is the county seat of Głogów County, in Lower Silesian Voivodeship (since 1999), and was previously in Legnica Voivodeship (1975–1998 ...

and

Namysłów Namysłów (pronounced , german: Namslau) is a historic town in southern Poland, within Opole Voivodeship. Located along the Widawa River, it is the capital of Namysłów County. Its population was 16,551 in 2019. History The town began to deve ...

, before it was again under direct rule of Polish King

Casimir III the Great Casimir III the Great ( pl, Kazimierz III Wielki; 30 April 1310 – 5 November 1370) reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He also later became King of Ruthenia in 1340, and fought to retain the title in the Galicia-Volhynia Wars. He w ...

from 1341 to 1348. It was granted

town rights Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the traditio ...

before 1268. In 1356 it passed to the

Czech Crown Lands The Lands of the Bohemian Crown were a number of incorporated states in Central Europe during the medieval and early modern periods connected by feudal relations under the Bohemian kings. The crown lands primarily consisted of the Kingdom of B ...

, and it soon returned under the rule of local Polish dukes of the

Piast dynasty The House of Piast was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented Polish monarch was Duke Mieszko I (c. 930–992). The Piasts' royal rule in Poland ended in 1370 with the death of king Casimir III the Great. Branc ...

, as part of the duchies of

Świdnica Świdnica (; german: Schweidnitz; cs, Svídnice; szl, Świdńica) is a city in south-western Poland in the region of Silesia. As of 2019, it has a population of 57,014 inhabitants. It lies in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, being the seventh larges ...

Opole Opole (; german: Oppeln ; szl, Ôpole) ; * Silesian: ** Silesian PLS alphabet: ''Ôpole'' ** Steuer's Silesian alphabet: ''Uopole'' * Silesian German: ''Uppeln'' * Czech: ''Opolí'' * Latin: ''Oppelia'', ''Oppolia'', ''Opulia'' is a city lo ...

Brzeg Brzeg (; Latin: ''Alta Ripa'', German language, German: ''Brieg'', Silesian German: ''Brigg'', , ) is a town in southwestern Poland with 34,778 inhabitants (December 2021) and the capital of Brzeg County. It is situated in Silesia in the Opole V ...

Oleśnica Oleśnica (pronounced ; german: Oels; szl, Ôleśnica) is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland, within the Wrocław metropolitan area. It is the administrative seat of Oleśnica County and also of the rural district o ...

, again Brzeg, Opole and finally

Legnica Legnica (Polish: ; german: Liegnitz, szl, Lignica, cz, Lehnice, la, Lignitium) is a city in southwestern Poland, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the Kaczawa River (left tributary of the Oder) and the Czarna Woda. Between 1 June 19 ...

until 1675. Afterwards it was incorporated into the Habsburg-ruled Czech Kingdom. It was a border town, located near Poland. Zamoyski pod Byczyna 2

The Battle of Byczyna took place nearby between

Maximilian III, Archduke of Austria Maximilian III of Austria, briefly known as Maximilian of Poland during his claim for the throne (12 October 1558 – 2 November 1618), was the Archduke of Further Austria from 1612 until his death. Biography Born in Wiener Neustadt, Maximilian ...

, who was elected as king of Poland, and

Sigismund III Vasa Sigismund III Vasa ( pl, Zygmunt III Waza, lt, Žygimantas Vaza; 20 June 1566 – 30 April 1632 Adoption of the Gregorian calendar, N.S.) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1587 to 1632 and, as Sigismund, King of Sweden and ...

who also was elected as king, on January 24, 1588. Maximilian was defeated. He surrendered and went to imprisonment. The German

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

Gustav FreytagGustav Freytag in his Memories mentions border violations against Pitschen farmers
/ref> reports in his memories about yearly border violations at Byczyna. During the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battl ...

the town was occupied by the

Saxons The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country ( Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the No ...

in 1633 and Swedes in 1646. In the 16th century, a Polish school was established, which flourished in the 17th century, and from 1657 to 1661 its rector was Byczyna-born Polish scholar and translator

John Herbinius John Herbinius (1632–1676) was a German writer and naturalist especially known for examining and explaining the principles of Cataracts in rivers. Biography He was born at Bitschen in the Duchy of Brieg in 1632. He studied at the University ...

. After the

Prussian Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

annexation in 1742, Byczyna, under the Germanized name ''Pitschen'', entered a period of

Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In ling ...

, and the local school slowly diminished. In 1757 the town suffered the largest fire in its history. Despite those circumstances, in the 19th century, the town was still largely inhabited by Poles. After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and the rebirth of independent Poland, Germany introduced a number of restrictions, including a

state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...

, to hinder the self-organization of local Poles. In the interwar period the town remained part of Germany. In September 1939, Germany, invaded Poland also from ''Pitschen'', sparking

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. After the defeat of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in 1945, Byczyna was reintegrated with Poland.

Notable people

*, medieval Polish writer, author or co-author of the 14th-century Polish chronicle ''Chronica principum Poloniae'' * Eliasz Kreczmar (von Löven), physician and astronomer, married Maria Cunitz * Maria Cunitz (1610–1664), astronomer, died at Pitschem * Jan Herbinius (1627–1679), Polish scholar and translator *

Adam Quasius Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as ...

(1673–1736), theologian and Deacon at St. Elisabeth Church in

Wrocław Wrocław (; , . german: Breslau, , also known by other names) is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, roughly ...

* Piotr Steinkeller (1799–1854), industrialist, "Polish King of Zinc", exploited local ore deposits *

Jan Dzierżon Johann Dzierzon, or Jan Dzierżon or Dzierżoń , also John Dzierzon (16 January 1811 – 26 October 1906), was a Polish apiarist who discovered the phenomenon of parthenogenesis in bees. Dzierzon came from a Polish family in Silesia. Trained i ...

(1811–1906), pioneering Polish apiarist, attended school in Byczyna *

Martin Kutta Martin Wilhelm Kutta (; 3 November 1867 – 25 December 1944) was a German mathematician. Kutta was born in Pitschen, Upper Silesia (today Byczyna, Poland). He attended the University of Breslau from 1885 to 1890, and continued his studies in ...

(1867–1944), mathematician

Twin towns – sister cities

See twin towns of Gmina Byczyna.

Gallery

File:Byczyna, Brama Polska, XV-XVI.JPG, Medieval town walls with the Eastern (or "Polish") Tower File:SM Byczyna Baszta Niemiecka 2018 (1).jpg, Western (or "German") Tower File:Byczyna Ratusz.jpg,

Byczyna Town Hall Byczyna Town Hall is a town hall built in the Baroque and Classical architectural style in Byczyna, Poland. In later years the building was modernised, during World War II the building was destroyed and subsequently rebuilt. The current tenants ...

File:Kościół par. p.w. Św. Trójcy w Byczynie.JPG, Baroque Holy Trinity church File:EvangelicChurch ByczynaPOL.jpg, The Saint Nicolaus evangelic church

References

External links

Map of Silesia 1600, Pitzen north of Creiteberg in Ducatus Bregensis

Jewish Community in Byczyna
on Virtual Shtetl {{Authority control Cities in Silesia Cities and towns in Opole Voivodeship Kluczbork County