Księże (, , ) is a

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

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 ...

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 ...

, located in the south-eastern part of the city. It was established in the territory of the former

Krzyki Krzyki (; ) is a former borough of Wrocław, Poland located in the southern part of the city. On March 21, 1991, the newly created City Office of Wrocław assumed many of the functions previously carried out within the borough. The name, though ...

district. The district includes the area of the former villages of Księże Małe, Księże Wielkie, Świątniki, Opatowice, Bierdzany and the settlement of Nowy Dom incorporated within city limits on April 1, 1928.

Name

The settlement of Księże Wielkie was first recorded in the mid-12th century under the Latin names of ''Chenese'', ''Kenese'', ''Sansin'', and ''Czanschin majus''. The names ''Czanschin minus'' and ''paruum Czanschyn'' were used to refer to Księże Małe in the 14th century. The names of the settlements come from the same root as the modern-day Polish word książę''' ('prince'), resulting from the fact that the settlements belonged to the prince. Therefore, the original Polish name was ''Knięże'', which later became ''Księżno'' and eventually ''Księże''. The phonetically

Germanized 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 ...

names of the settlements were ''Klein Tschansch'' and ''Groß Tschansch'', which were later changed to ''Klein'' and ''Groß Ohlewiesen'' ('

Oława Oława (, , ) is a historic town in south-western Poland with 33,029 inhabitants (2019). It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, within the Wrocław metropolitan area. It is the seat of Oława County and of the smaller administrative distri ...

meadows') during the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

era, in order to remove traces of their Polish origin. For two years after the war, due to misconstruction of medieval records, the settlements of Tschansch were renamed to ''Mały Ciążyn'' and ''Wielki Ciążyn''. The name was later reverted to ''Księże''. The previous name ''Ciążyn'' remains to be used as a proper name of the wastewater catchment plant in the district.

History

Works on the modernist neighborhood in Tschansch began in 1924 with the creation of a master plan for Breslau at the City Development Office under the direction of Fritz Behrendt in cooperation with Heinrich Knipping. The final urban planning assumptions for Klein and Groß Tschansch were made in January 1925, followed by the final design of the settlement in Klein Tschansch on April 26, 1928. In 1991, after reforms in the administrative division of Wrocław, Księże became one of the city's 48 districts. The district was heavily affected by the

1997 Central European flood The 1997 Central European flood or the 1997 Oder Flood of the Oder and Morava (river), Morava river basins in July 1997 affected Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany, taking the lives of 114 people and causing material damages estimated at $4. ...

References

{{Districts of Wrocław Districts of Wrocław