Pisz (pronounced , previously also ''Jańsbork'', german: Johannisburg) is a historic

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 o ...

in the

Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship or Warmia-Masuria Province or Warmia-Mazury Province (in pl, Województwo warmińsko-mazurskie, is a voivodeship (province) in northeastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Olsztyn. The voivodeship has an ar ...

in northern

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 a population of 19,466 (2016). It is the seat of Pisz County. Pisz is situated at the junction of

Lake Roś Lake Roś ( Polish: ''Jezioro Roś'', German: ''Roschsee'') is a lake in the Masurian Lake District of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship of Poland. This S-shaped glacial lake has an area of 18.9 km2 and a depth of 31.8 metres. The Swięce ...

and the

Pisa River The Pisa (; german: Pissek) is a river in north-eastern Poland with a length of 82 km and a basin area of 4,510 km2.Masuria.

Etymology

The name Pisz originates from the word ''pisa'', meaning 'swamp' in the ancient Prussian language. Johannisburg received the name of the castle in 1645, when it became a city by the decree of

Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg Frederick William (german: Friedrich Wilhelm; 16 February 1620 – 29 April 1688) was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia, from 1640 until his death in 1688. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, h ...

. The local people of Masuria called the castle ''Jańsbork'', and this name remained until 1946.

History

The site of today's Pisz was originally inhabited by the indigenous

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

of Old Prussians. In 1345 the

Teutonic Order The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians on ...

began constructing a castle nearby at the southernmost point of the Johannisburger Heide, or

Piska Forest Puszcza Piska Forest or the Pisz Forest (german: Johannisburger Heide) is the largest forest complex of the Masuria region in northern Poland, adjacent to the Masurian Landscape Park, and the Masurian Lowlands. Formerly known as the Jańsborska ...

, in the Masurian Lake District. The castle was named ''Johannisburg'', after St. John the Baptist. The settlement nearby held a market as early as 1367, but it was not until 1645 that it received its town charter. The town's first mayor was Fryderyk Adam Czerniewski. The official German name of the town was Johannisburg, while the Polish-speaking residents referred to it as ''Jańsbork''. Its early growth owed much to the residents' skill in

beekeeping Beekeeping (or apiculture) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made beehives. Honey bees in the genus ''Apis (insect), Apis'' are the most-commonly-kept species but other honey-producing bees such as ''Melipona'' stingless bees ar ...

, and it was located on trade routes leading to

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

and to the

Vistula The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...

and

Narew The Narew (; be, Нараў, translit=Naraŭ; or ; Sudovian: ''Naura''; Old German: ''Nare''; uk, Нарва, translit=Narva) is a 499-kilometre (310 mi) river primarily in north-eastern Poland, which is also a tributary of the river Vi ...

Rivers.

The town became part of Ducal Prussia in 1525 and remained under Polish suzerainty until 1657. In 1639 Polish King Władysław IV Vasa visited the town. Later on, the town was part of

Brandenburg-Prussia Brandenburg-Prussia (german: Brandenburg-Preußen; ) is the historiographic denomination for the early modern realm of the Brandenburgian Hohenzollerns between 1618 and 1701. Based in the Electorate of Brandenburg, the main branch of the Hohe ...

, and, after that it became part of the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. ...

in 1701 and Germany in 1871. In 1698, King of Poland

Augustus II the Strong Augustus II; german: August der Starke; lt, Augustas II; in Saxony also known as Frederick Augustus I – Friedrich August I (12 May 16701 February 1733), most commonly known as Augustus the Strong, was Elector of Saxony from 1694 as well as K ...

and Elector of Brandenburg Frederick I held a meeting in the local castle. Polish King Stanisław Leszczyński stopped in the town in 1709 and 1734 and in 1813 Tsar

Alexander I of Russia Alexander I (; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first King of Congress Poland from 1815, and the Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 to his death. He was the eldest son of Emperor Paul I and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. The son o ...

stayed here. In 1709/10 only 14 inhabitants survived the

plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pes ...

.
The town began to develop extensively in the 19th century. In 1818 it became the seat of the Landkreis Johannisburg in the province

East Prussia East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label= Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...

. The town's population in 1876 was approximately 3,000. A railway built connecting Allenstein (Olsztyn) and Lyck (Ełk) ran through Johannisburg. Its water supply system and gas works were built in 1907 and its municipal

slaughterhouse A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...

in 1913. The town's industrial development focused on wood processing and

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

. According to the 1900 Imperial German census, Johannisburg's population consisted of 70.2% Masurians. Pisz - Cmentarz Komunalny - ul

As a result of the

treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1 ...

, the 1920 East Prussian plebiscite was organized under the control of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference th ...

, which resulted in 2,940 votes to remain in East Prussia, and therefore Germany, and none for Poland. 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Johannisburg was 70% destroyed by fighting and occupation by the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

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

. At war's end in 1945, it was transferred from German to Polish control according to the

Potsdam Agreement The Potsdam Agreement (german: Potsdamer Abkommen) was the agreement between three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union on 1 August 1945. A product of the Potsdam Conference, it concerned th ...

and officially renamed ''Pisz'' in 1946. The name Pisz comes from the Old Prussian word ''pisa'' ("swamp"), owing to the muddy water from nearby

. The remaining German-speaking part of the town's populace was expelled and replaced with

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in ...

. Little of pre-war Johannisburg survived the warfare aside from its

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

, but much of Pisz has been restored in recent decades. The town is a popular place to begin sailing on the Masurian lakes. Historical sites include the ruins of the Teutonic Knights' Johannisburg castle and the Church of St. John.

Economy

Due to natural resources comprising the reach forestry and shallow deposits of bog iron ore, the industrial traditions of Pisz are connected with wood processing (the sawmill) and metallurgy. There are iron works in Wądołek, as well as the industrial smithies in Wiartl and in Jaśkowo. The wood processing industry has a long tradition in Pisz. The core of the industry is its sawmill, supporting a broadbase plywood industry with a plant called Zakłady Przemysłu Sklejek. About town. Official webpage of Pisz
Pisz is a centre of tourism industry, with boat trips, canoeing and kayaking along the Krutynia River, as well as with popular yachting voyages on the Masurian Lakes known in Polish as ''Kraina Wielkich Jezior''. On the shore of Nidzkie Lake there's the K. I. Gałczyński Museum in Leśniczówka Pranie. There is a museum in the 9th century granary displaying historical artifacts and a notable collection of antlers. There are horse and horse-drawn carriage trips. The town is surrounded by the largest

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

complex of the Masuria region, known as Puszcza Piska (Piska Primeval Forest) with eleven nature reserves.

Notable residents

* Georg Christoph Pisanski (born 1725), historian of Prussia *

Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg Johann David Ludwig Graf Yorck von Wartenburg (born von Yorck; 26 September 1759 – 4 October 1830) was a Prussian '' Generalfeldmarschall'' instrumental in the switching of the Kingdom of Prussia from a French alliance to a Russian allia ...

(1759–1830) town commander * Gustaw Gizewiusz (1810–1848), activist *

Samuel Lublinski Samuel Lublinski (18 February 1868 - 26 December 1910) was a Berlin-based writer, literary historian, critic, and philosopher of religion. He was a pioneer of the socio-historical study of literary movements and a major contributor to the debates ...

(1868–1910) writer, literary historian, critic and philosopher of religion * Günther Strupp (1912–1996), artist *

Marianne Hold Marianne Hold (15 May 1933 – 11 September 1994) was a German movie actress who became popular in the 1950s and 1960s for her numerous roles in the ''Heimatfilm'' genre— romantic comedy films set in rural, especially Alpine, areas. She ser ...

(1929–1994), actress * Zbigniew Włodkowski (born 1961), politician * Marcin Kaczmarek (born 1977), Olympic butterfly swimmer

References

{{Authority control Castles of the Teutonic Knights Cities and towns in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship Pisz County