Koprzywnica is a town in

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 lo ...

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 ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, with 2,546 inhabitants (2004). Koprzywnica lies on the Koprzywianka river, in

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 ...

. It is one of the oldest urban centers of the province, located along the ''

Tarnobrzeg Tarnobrzeg is a city in south-eastern Poland (historic Lesser Poland), on the east bank of the river Vistula, with 49,419 inhabitants, as of 31 December 2009. Situated in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (Polish: ''Województwo podkarpackie'') since ...

Route'' of historic Lesser Polish Way of St. James, and on the National Road Nr. 79, which goes from

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

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 Pr ...

History

The settlement of Koprzywnica existed already at the beginning of the 12th century, and at that time was called ''Pokrzywnica''. In 1185, Prince

Casimir II the Just Casimir II the Just ( pl, Kazimierz II Sprawiedliwy; 28 October 1138 – 5 May 1194) was a Lesser Polish Duke of Wiślica from 1166–1173, and of Sandomierz after 1173. He became ruler over the Polish Seniorate Province at Kraków and thereby ...

brought here the

Cistercians The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

, and in the same year, local nobleman Mikołaj Bogoria Skotnicki of Bogorya coat of arms presented Koprzywnica to the monks, together with several villages in the area. By order of the Duke of Sandomierz,

Bolesław V the Chaste Bolesław V the Chaste ( pl, Bolesław Wstydliwy; 21 June 1226 – 7 December 1279) was Duke of Sandomierz in Lesser Poland from 1232 and High Duke of Poland from 1243 until his death, as the last male representative of the Lesser Polish branch ...

, Koprzywnica was granted town rights (see

Magdeburg Rights Magdeburg rights (german: Magdeburger Recht; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within ...

), on December 8, 1268. Due to the presence of the Cistercians, Koprzywnica prospered, and from the 14th to the 17th century it was among medium-sized towns of Lesser Poland. In 1606, it was one of the centers of a

rokosz A rokosz () originally was a gathering of all the Polish ''szlachta'' (nobility), not merely of deputies, for a ''sejm''. The term was introduced to the Polish language from Hungary, where analogous gatherings took place at a field called Rákos ...

(armed rebellion) of the

nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteri ...

against King

Zygmunt III Waza Sigismund III Vasa ( pl, Zygmunt III Waza, lt, Žygimantas Vaza; 20 June 1566 – 30 April 1632 N.S.) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1587 to 1632 and, as Sigismund, King of Sweden and Grand Duke of Finland from 1592 to ...

, organized by Mikołaj Zebrzydowski. In 1655–1660 Koprzywnica was destroyed during the Swedish invasion of Poland. The town never recovered from the losses, and in 1869 Russian authorities of

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 ...

reduced it to the status of a village. Koprzywnica became a town again on January 1, 2001.

The Holocaust

Koprzywnica's ghetto was liquidated by German occupiers on 31 October 1942, when 1,800 Jews from the ghetto were transported by a

Holocaust train Holocaust trains were railway transports run by the ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'' national railway system under the control of Nazi Germany and its allies, for the purpose of forcible deportation of the Jews, as well as other victims of the Holocaus ...

to the

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The cam ...

and gassed to death, including expellees from Radom and Vienna.The statistical data compiled on the basis o
"Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland"
by ''

Virtual Shtetl The Virtual Shtetl ( pl, Wirtualny Sztetl) is a bilingual Polish-English portal of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, devoted to the Jewish history of Poland. History The Virtual Shtetl website was officially launched on June ...

'' Museum of the History of the Polish Jews , as well a
"Getta Żydowskie," by ''Gedeon''
and "Ghetto List" by Michael Peters a

. Some figures might require further confirmation due to their comparative range.

Points of interest

Among notable points of interest in Koprzywnica are: * Cistercian church of St. Florian (13th century, destroyed in the Mongol invasion of Poland in 1241, rebuilt and remodeled in the 15th and 18th centuries) * Eastern wing of the former Cistercian monastery (13th century) * Market square with St. Mary of Rosary church (1470)

References

History of Koprzywnica at virtual shtetl
{{Authority control Cities and towns in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship Sandomierz County Sandomierz Voivodeship Radom Governorate Kielce Voivodeship (1919–1939) Holocaust locations in Poland