Gąsawa is a town in Żnin County,

Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship * Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship is one of the 16 voivodeships (provinces) in Poland. * Kuyavian-Pomeranian is one of 13 Polish constituency of the European Parliament. * Kuyavian-Pomeranian Regional Assembly is the regional legislature of t ...

, in north-central Poland. It is the seat of the

gmina The gmina (Polish: , plural ''gminy'' ) is the basic unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a municipality. , there were 2,479 gminy throughout the country, encompassing over 43,000 villages. 940 gminy include cities and tow ...

(administrative district) called Gmina Gąsawa. It lies approximately south of Żnin and south-west of Bydgoszcz. It is situated on the western shore of the Gąsawskie Lake in the region of Pałuki.

History

The oldest known mention of the village comes from the Bull of Gniezno from 1136, when it was part of Piast-ruled

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. It is famous as the place of the assassination of Leszek I the White, High Duke of Poland (November 23, 1227). Gąsawa received town rights in 1388 from King

Władysław II Jagiełło Jogaila (; 1 June 1434), later Władysław II Jagiełło (),Other names include (; ) (see also Names and titles of Władysław II Jagiełło) was Grand Duke of Lithuania beginning in 1377 and starting in 1386, becoming King of Poland as well. ...

and lost them in 1934. The town name appears as "Gonzawa", "Gonsawa", or "Gassawa" in certain older documents. It was a private church town, administratively located in the Gniezno County in the Kalisz Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1600 Gąsawa hosted the Lubrański Academy () which temporarily moved out of plague-stricken

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

. In the late 18th-century Partitions of Poland it was annexed by Prussia. In 1807 it was regained by Poles and included within the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw. Following the duchy's dissolution in 1815, it was reannexed by Prussia, and from 1871 it also formed part of Germany. Following

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, in 1918, Poland regained independence and the Greater Poland uprising against Germany broke out, during which the Poles regained control of Gąsawa. Following the joint German-Soviet

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

, which started

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 September 1939, it was occupied by Germany until 1945. The Germans renamed it to ''Gerlingen'' to erase traces of Polish origin. In 1940, the occupiers carried out expulsions of Poles, particularly owners of larger farms, which were then handed over to German colonists as part of the '' Lebensraum'' policy, while the Poles were deported to the

General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...

in the more eastern part of German-occupied Poland.

Sights

The main tourist attraction in Gąsawa is the 17th century wooden St. Nicolas Church with a unique collection of multi-layered mural paintings, the earliest from the 17th century, and the most recent from 1807. The church itself, a larch construction with a slate roof, was in such a bad state around 1850 that local officials asked the regional Prussian government to allow the church to be dismantled and build a new one instead. The response gave permission to only overhaul the building. Existing wall paintings were covered with a layer of reed and ordinary plaster, and forgotten for some 150 years. At the local parish cemetery there are graves of fallen Polish insurgents of the Greater Poland uprising (1918–1919).

References

{{Authority control Cities and towns in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Populated lakeshore places in Poland Żnin County Tourist attractions in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship