Szówsko is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in the administrative district of Gmina Wiązownica, within

Jarosław County __NOTOC__ Jarosław County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Subcarpathian Voivodeship, south-eastern Poland, on the border with Ukraine. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish loc ...

Subcarpathian Voivodeship Subcarpathian Voivodeship is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship, or province, in the southeastern corner of Poland. Its administrative capital and largest city is Rzeszów. Along with the Marshal, it is governed by the Subcarpathian Regional As ...

, in south-eastern Poland. It lies approximately north-east of

Jarosław Jarosław (; , ; ; ) is a town in southeastern Poland, situated on the San (river), San River. The town had 35,475 inhabitants in 2023. It is the capital of Jarosław County in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship. History Jarosław is located in the ...

and east of the regional capital

Rzeszów Rzeszów ( , ) is the largest city in southeastern Poland. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River in the heartland of the Sandomierz Basin. Rzeszów is the capital of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship and the county seat, seat of Rzeszów C ...

Name

There are two etymologies that are hypothesized for the name Szówsko. The first being from the term " szuwary". Szówsko is situated on the eastern bank of the

San River The San (; ''Sian''; ) is a river in southeastern Poland and western Ukraine. It is a tributary of the river Vistula. With a length of , the San is the 6th-longest Polish river. It has a basin area of 16,877 km2, of which 14,426 k ...

and the area was affected greatly through the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

. With these floods, the area was covered with rushes of coastal reed plants, known as szuwary in Polish. The second hypothesis is derived from the word "suszyć" - or dry. The inhabitants of the area were obliged to deliver dried meat (suszyć) and fruits to

History

One of the first mentions of Szówsko in official documents was when King Władysław Jagiełło granted a castle, Jarosław, and the surrounding villages to Jan of Tarnów on 27 November 1387. Later, in 1473, King Kazimierz Jagiellończyk approved the first Jarosław estate to Rafał Ordynacja Jarosławska of Lviv. Rafal received several villages with Szówsko named fifth behind Tuczempach, Korzenica, Laszkach and Radawa. On 1 June 1523, a church was established in Jarosław, for which the inhabitants of Szówsko were tithe. Over the following years, Szówsko would pay land tax to the collectors of Przemyśl. With the climate changing and the forests shrinking, around 1860, the San River underwent a major change, become a small river, its waters far below its steep banks. Through the 1800s, the Czartoryski family developed much of Szówsko with farm buildings, a distillery and a cheese factory. It wasn't until 1936 that the Czartoryski estate was parceled out, bought mostly by local peasants. Włodzimierz Alfons Czartoryski was the last owner of the Szówsko industrial estate before it was confiscated by communist decree of naturalization on 3 January 1946.

References

Villages in Jarosław County {{Jarosław-geo-stub