Miedzianka (german: Kupferberg) is a village (former

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 ...

) in the administrative district of

Gmina Janowice Wielkie __NOTOC__ Gmina Janowice Wielkie is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Jelenia Góra County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. Its seat is the village of Janowice Wielkie, which lies approximately east of Jelenia Góra a ...

, within

Jelenia Góra County __NOTOC__ Karkonosze County ( pl, powiat karkonoski; german: Riesengebirgslandkreis) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, ...

Lower Silesian Voivodeship Lower Silesian Voivodeship, or Lower Silesia Province, in southwestern Poland, is one of the 16 voivodeships (provinces) into which Poland is divided. The voivodeship was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Wrocław, Legnica, Wałbrz ...

, in south-western Poland. It lies approximately east of

Jelenia Góra Jelenia Góra (pron. ; Polish: ; german: Hirschberg im Riesengebirge; Exonym: ''Deer Mountain''; szl, Jelyniŏ Gōra) is a historic city in southwestern Poland, within the historical region of Lower Silesia. Jelenia Góra is situated in the Low ...

, and west of the regional capital

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

and has a population of a little over eighty.

History

The settlement's history begins in the 14th century, then known as Kupferberg, was split from Waltersdorf (Mniszków). It grew as a

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

mining town, and received

city 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 tradition ...

in 1519. For a time, it was home to about 160 mining excavations and several metallurgical facilities, but this boom came to a halt by the end of the 16th century, as techniques proved insufficient for further exploitation. Around the 17th century the mining sector in Kupferberg began to grow again, under the patronage of a new owner, the count von Promnitz of

Pszczyna Pszczyna (german: Pleß, cs, Pština) is a town in southern Poland with 25,823 inhabitants (2019), and a seat of a local gmina (commune). It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship, and was a part of the Katowice Voivodeship from 1975 until adm ...

. The city suffered several fires, in 1637, 1643, 1728 and 1824. In the early 18th century Kupferberg housed a regional mining office. In addition to mining, the town also had a renowned brewery, and from the mid-19th century, it became a popular tourist destination, known as the second most highly located town in the

Sudeten Mountains The Sudetes ( ; pl, Sudety; german: Sudeten; cs, Krkonošsko-jesenická subprovincie), commonly known as the Sudeten Mountains, is a geomorphological subprovince in Central Europe, shared by Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. They consis ...

. Renamed Miedzianka, it became a site of a secret

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

mining operation, as Soviet experts expected to develop a

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

mine there. From 1949 to the 1950s about 600 tons of uranium were sent from Miedzianka to the USSR. Extensive and wanton mining caused much damage to the town, and when the uranium deposits proved to be insufficient for continued exploitation, the local economy collapsed amid the government's attempts to hide the uranium excavation. The mine was publicly labelled as a "paper factory"; Polish and Soviet troops and secret police guarded the mine, and the miners who could not keep the secret were executed. In the late 1960s, a planned destruction of Miedzianka began, with demolitions of selected buildings, and a ban on repairs of remaining ones. Around 1972, most inhabitants were resettled to the town of

. , the town of Miedzianka had only about 80 inhabitants.

References

External links

Gallery of photos
{{Authority control Villages in Karkonosze County Former populated places in Lower Silesian Voivodeship

History

References

Further reading

External links