Klimontów is a

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

Sandomierz County __NOTOC__ Sandomierz County ( pl, powiat sandomierski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, south-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish loc ...

Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship The Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, also known as the Świętokrzyskie Province, and the Holy Cross Voivodeship ( pl, województwo świętokrzyskie ) is a voivodeship (province) of Poland situated in southeastern part of the country, in the histo ...

, in south-central Poland. It is the seat of the

gmina The gmina (Polish: , plural ''gminy'' , from German ''Gemeinde'' meaning ''commune'') is the principal unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a municipality. , there were 2,477 gminas throughout the country, encompassing over 4 ...

(administrative district) called

Gmina Klimontów __NOTOC__ Gmina Klimontów is an urban-rural gmina (administrative district) in Sandomierz County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland. Its seat is the town of Klimontów, which lies approximately west of Sandomierz and south-e ...

. It lies on the

European route E371 The E 371 is part of the United Nations international E-road network. Approximately long, it runs from Radom, Poland south to Prešov, Slovakia.Lesser Polish Way The Lesser Poland Way is one of the Polish routes of the Way of St. James, a medieval pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. It runs from Sandomierz to Kraków through the Lesser Poland Voivodeship and the Świętokrzyskie Voivo ...

, approximately west of

Sandomierz Sandomierz (pronounced: ; la, Sandomiria) is a historic town in south-eastern Poland with 23,863 inhabitants (as of 2017), situated on the Vistula River in the Sandomierz Basin. It has been part of Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship (Holy Cross Provi ...

and south-east of the regional capital

Kielce Kielce (, yi, קעלץ, Keltz) is a city in southern Poland, and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the bank ...

. The village has a population of 2,000. Klimontów belongs to historic

Lesser Poland Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name Małopolska ( la, Polonia Minor), is a historical region situated in southern and south-eastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Kraków. Throughout centuries, Lesser Poland developed a s ...

History

Miasto prywatne Klimontow i jego koscioly 1911 (87554792)

The origins of Klimontów date back to the 13th century, when it was founded as village by

Klement of Ruszcza {{Infobox noble, name=Klement of Ruszcza, native name=, image=, caption=, succession=Voivode of Kraków, title=Voivode, reign=1241, 1243-1252, coronation=, predecessor= Włodzimierz of Cracow, successor= Klemens Latoszyński, spouse=?, issue=* Wi ...

. On January 2, 1604, thanks to efforts of Jan Zbigniew Ossolinski, it got a town charter. Administratively, it was located in the

Sandomierz Voivodeship Sandomierz Voivodeship ( pl, Województwo Sandomierskie, la, Palatinatus Sandomirensis) was a unit of administration and local government in Poland from the 14th century to the partitions of Poland in 1772–1795. It was part of the Lesser Poland ...

in the Lesser Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1613 the town was granted a permission to organize 3

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Types Variations of fairs incl ...

s a year, and two years later, the construction of a Dominican abbey was completed. In 1643-1646, a collegiate church was built, with financial support of Jerzy Ossolinski. By 1663, Klimontów had 24 houses and 530 inhabitants, including 129

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. Following the

Third Partition of Poland The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Polish ...

, in 1795, it was annexed by

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. It was regained by Poles following the Austro-Polish War of 1809 and included within the short-lived

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw ( pl, Księstwo Warszawskie, french: Duché de Varsovie, german: Herzogtum Warschau), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during ...

, and after its dissolution in 1815, it became part of Russian-controlled

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...

. In 1827, the population was 1,314. Like several other locations in northern Lesser Poland, Klimontów lost its town charter after the

January Uprising The January Uprising ( pl, powstanie styczniowe; lt, 1863 metų sukilimas; ua, Січневе повстання; russian: Польское восстание; ) was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at ...

, in 1870. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, in 1914 and 1915, there were bloody battles in the region between Austrian and Russian troops. Fallen Austrian soldiers were buried at a local parish cemetery. Following the war, in 1918, Poland regained independence and control of the settlement. It had 6,000 inhabitants in 1921, but in 1939 it dropped to 4,500. Following the joint German-Soviet

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

, which started

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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in September 1939, Klimontów was occupied by Germany. From 1941 to 1944, the occupiers operated a

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

camp in the settlement. After the German atrocities and extermination of the Jewish population, the number of inhabitants fell to 2,200 by 1946. On January 1, 2020, town rights were restored.

Sights

Among points of interest there are:

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

collegiate church of St. Joseph (1643-1646), St. Jack church (1617-1620), Dominican abbey (1620-1623), neo-classicistic synagogue (1851), and Roman Catholic cemetery (1843).

Culture

Klimontów was the birthplace of poet

Bruno Jasieński Bruno Jasieński , born Wiktor Bruno Zysman (17 July 1901 – 17 September 1938), was a Polish poet, novelist, playwright, Catastrophist, and leader of the Polish Futurist movement in the interwar period.Dr Feliks TomaszewskiBruno Jasieński. Biog ...

. Since 2002 the Brunonalia festival, named after Jasieński, is held every summer in Klimontów.

History

Sights

Culture

References

See also