Brzostek 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 ...

Dębica County __NOTOC__ Dębica County ( pl, powiat dębicki, links=no) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Subcarpathian Voivodeship, south-eastern Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 as a result of the Polish local gov ...

Subcarpathian Voivodeship Subcarpathian Voivodeship or Subcarpathia Province (in pl, Województwo podkarpackie ) is a voivodeship, or province, in the southeastern corner of Poland. Its administrative capital and largest city is Rzeszów. Along with the Marshall, it is ...

, south-eastern

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 populous ...

(historic province of

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 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 Brzostek __NOTOC__ Gmina Brzostek is an urban-rural gmina (administrative district) in Dębica County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. Its seat is the town of Brzostek. (Brzostek gained town status on 1 January 2009 – prior to that the ...

. As of December 2021, the town has a population of 2,760. It lies on the

Wisłoka The Wisłoka is a river in south-eastern Poland, a tributary of the Vistula river, with a length of and a basin area of . The highest elevations reach an elevation of , while the lowest point in the valley of the river Wisłoka lies at an ele ...

river, in the foothills of the

Carpathians The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The ...

, approximately south of

Dębica Dębica (; yi, דעמביץ ''Dembitz'') is a town in southeastern Poland with 44,692 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the capital of Dębica County. Since 1999 it has been situated in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it had previously been in ...

and west of the regional capital

Rzeszów Rzeszów ( , ; la, Resovia; yi, ריישא ''Raisha'')) is the largest city in southeastern Poland. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River in the heartland of the Sandomierz Basin. Rzeszów has been the capital of the Subcarpathian Vo ...

. Brzostek is a local center of education and commerce.

History

Brzostek gained its

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 ...

in 1367, but first documented mentions of the town come from 1123-1125, when a list of possessions of the

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

Abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

Tyniec Tyniec is a historic village in Poland on the Vistula river, since 1973 a part of the city of Kraków (currently in the district of Dębniki). Tyniec is notable for its Benedictine abbey founded by King Casimir the Restorer in 1044. Etymology ...

was created. Among a number of villages specified in the document, there is Brzostek (spelt ''Brestek''). For centuries Brzostek remained a small town, frequently destroyed in numerous wars and conflicts. In 1657 the town was burned by the forces of the Transylvanian prince

George II Rákóczi en, George II Rákóczi, house=Rákóczi, father=, mother=Zsuzsanna Lorántffy, religion=CalvinismGeorge II Rákóczi (30 January 1621 – 7 June 1660), was a Hungarian nobleman, Prince of Transylvania (1648-1660), the eldest son of George I ...

, who crossed into Poland earlier in the year. Following the

partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...

in the late 18th century, Brzostek along with most of the region became part of

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 ...

and remained in Austria until

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 ...

(1914–1918). On 18 February 1846 the Galician peasant revolt started in the town (see

Jakub Szela Jakub Szela (was born 14 July 1787, Smarżowa, in Galicia - died 21 April 1860, Dealul Ederii, in Bukovina, now Romania) was a Polish leader of a peasant uprising against the Polish gentry in Galicia in 1846; directed against manorial property a ...

), and in the second half of the 19th century,

Ignacy Łukasiewicz Jan Józef Ignacy Łukasiewicz (; 8 March 1822 – 7 January 1882) was a Polish pharmacist, engineer, businessman, inventor, and philanthropist. He was one of the most prominent philanthropists in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, crown land o ...

opened his pharmacy here. In 1934 Brzostek lost its town status, as its population was under 3,000, too small to be officially called a town. Its Jewish population was murdered by the Germans in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

, Brzostek itself was 65% destroyed during

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 ...

. It regained the town status on 1 January 2009.Ordinance of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Poland
(in Polish)

Main sights

Among points of interest there are 18th and 19th-century houses in the market square, roadside chapels (18th and 19th centuries), a Classicistic church (1818), and

military cemeteries.

References

External links

* *
History of the Jewish presence in Brzostek
on Virtual Shtetl

produced by Handheldfeatures.com {{Authority control Cities and towns in Podkarpackie Voivodeship Lesser Poland Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Kraków Voivodeship (1919–1939) Holocaust locations in Poland

History

Main sights

See also

References

External links