Ostroróg (german: Scharfenort) is a town in

Szamotuły County __NOTOC__ Szamotuły County ( pl, powiat szamotulski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Greater Poland Voivodeship, west-central Poland. It came into existence on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish lo ...

Greater Poland Voivodeship Greater Poland Voivodeship ( pl, Województwo wielkopolskie; ), also known as Wielkopolska Voivodeship, Wielkopolska Province, or Greater Poland Province, is a voivodeship, or province, in west-central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 ...

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 1,993 inhabitants (2004).

History

Ostroróg was first mentioned in 1383. 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 tradition ...

before 1412. There was a hospital in the town from 1472. The town's location was confirmed by the Polish king Sigismund I the Old in 1546. Ostroróg was a

private town A private town is a town owned by a private person or a family. History of Private Towns in Poland In the history of Poland, private towns (''miasta prywatne'') were towns within the lands owned by magnates, bishops, knights, princes, etc. ...

of Poland, until 1624 owned by the Ostroróg family. Jan Ostroróg, Polish

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

political writer and statesman, was born there in 1436. Jakub Ostroróg also owned property here in the 16th century. Between the 16th and 17th centuries it was an important centre of Polish Protestants. After 1624, it often changed owners, it was the property of Potocki, Rej, Górski, Radziwiłł, Zaleski, Malechowski,

Sapieha The House of Sapieha (; be, Сапега, ''Sapieha''; lt, Sapiega) is a Polish-Lithuanian noble and magnate family of Lithuanian and Ruthenian origin,Энцыклапедыя ВКЛ. Т.2, арт. "Сапегі" descending from the med ...

and Kwilecki families. After the Partitions of Poland it was annexed by

Prussia 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 ...

. It briefly returned to Polish rule in the years 1807-1815 as part of the

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 ...

, after which it was annexed again by Prussia, initially as part of the autonomous

Grand Duchy of Poznan The Grand Duchy of Posen (german: Großherzogtum Posen; pl, Wielkie Księstwo Poznańskie) was part of the Kingdom of Prussia, created from territories annexed by Prussia after the Partitions of Poland, and formally established following the ...

. During the Greater Poland Uprising, the town was taken over by its inhabitants, and as a result it returned to Poland, after the country regained independence in 1918.

Notable people

* Jan Ostroróg (1436–1501), Polish

political writer and statesman * Andrzej Węgierski (1600–1649), Polish Calvinist historian, preacher and poet

References

Cities and towns in Greater Poland Voivodeship Szamotuły County {{GreaterPoland-geo-stub