Czernina is a village (former

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

) in the administrative district of Gmina Góra, 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-east of Góra, 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

The oldest known mention of the village comes from 1284, when it was part of fragmented

Piast The House of Piast was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented Polish monarch was Duke Mieszko I (–992). The Piasts' royal rule in Poland ended in 1370 with the death of King Casimir III the Great. Branches of ...

-ruled Poland. In the ''

Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis (, 'Book of endowments of the Bishopric of Wrocław') is a Latin manuscript catalog of documents compiled in the later 13th or in the early 14th century. It lists towns and villages obliged to pay a tithe to the Bishopric of Wrocław. As a pr ...

'' from ca. 1305 it was mentioned under its Old Polish name ''Czirnina''. Its name is of Polish origin. In the 14th century Czernina became a private village owned by Polish nobleman Jan of Wierzbna coat of arms, who also founded the nearby town of

Rydzyna Rydzyna (pronounced ) is a historic town in western Poland, located in the southern part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship, 10 km south of Leszno, in the Leszno County, close to the main Poznań - Wrocław highway Expressway S5 (Poland), S5. ...

. Later on, the village was also part of Bohemia (Czechia),

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

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. In 1937, during a massive Nazi campaign of renaming of placenames, the village was renamed to ''Lesten'' to erase traces of Polish origin. After the defeat of Germany in

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, the village became again part of Poland and its historic name was restored.

Transport

The Polish S5 highway runs nearby, east of the village.

Notable people

* (1810–1877), Polish pastor and religious writer, opponent of

Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In l ...

References

Villages in Góra County Former populated places in Lower Silesian Voivodeship {{Góra-geo-stub