Łękanów is a village in the administrative district of

Gmina Niechlów __NOTOC__ Gmina Niechlów is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Góra County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. Its seat is the village of Niechlów, which lies approximately west of Góra and north-west of the region ...

, within

Góra County __NOTOC__ Góra County () 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, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in ...

Lower Silesian Voivodeship Lower Silesian Voivodeship (, ) in southwestern Poland, is one of the 16 Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeships (provinces) into which Poland is divided. It covers an area of and has a total population of 2,899,986. It is one of the wealthiest ...

, in western Poland. It lies approximately north-west of

Góra Góra (, ) is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in western Poland. It is the administrative seat both of Góra County and of the smaller district (gmina) called Gmina Góra. Geography The town is located within the historic Lower Silesia re ...

, and north-west of the regional capital

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

History and landmarks

From the 14th century, the village has been known under various names, which included ''Lankanow'' and ''Lanka''. In the 18th century, it was annexed by

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

, and from 1871 it was part of the

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

, within which, as ''Lanken'' it was administratively located in the

Province of Lower Silesia The Province of Lower Silesia (; Silesian German: ''Provinz Niederschläsing''; ; ) was a province of the Free State of Prussia from 1919 to 1945. Between 1938 and 1941 it was reunited with Upper Silesia as the Province of Silesia. The capita ...

and was property of Counts of Schlabrendorf, who had a majorat in the palace of Seppau (

Szczepów Szczepów is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Żukowice, within Głogów County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in western Poland. It lies approximately west of Żukowice, west of Głogów, and north-west of the regional capital ...

), some 20 kilometers away. Between 1860 and 1945 the village served as an auxiliary residence of the counts, who had a manor house built at the western outskirts of the village. After the defeat of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, in 1945, borders shifted and the region became again part of Poland, although with a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

-installed communist regime. The name was changed to Łękanów and the Schlabrendorfs were expropriated. The manor was divided and parts of it were given to a collective farm run by the state. By the time communism collapsed in 1989, the manor house and outbuildings had been heavily transformed, with the manor house turned into apartments for collective farm staff. A state-owned agency which owned the remnants of the manor—more than six hectares of land and buildings—sold it in 2013 to a private owner who plans to restore the manor house to its 19th-century shape, renovate the outbuildings as well as rebuild ruined structures to house a hotel. Part of the property, in particular an 18th-century granary, will house a nonprofit cultural institution. The manor in its entirety is a listed heritage site.

References

Villages in Góra County {{Góra-geo-stub