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EFE

Agencia EFE, S.A. is a Spanish international news agency, the major Spanish-language multimedia news agency and the world's fourth largest wire service after the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. EFE was created in 1939 by Ramón Serrano Súñer, then Francoist faction's Interior Minister.

Agencia EFE is a news agency that covers all areas of information in the news media of the press, radio, television and Internet. It distributes around three million news items per year, thanks to its 3,000 journalists from 60 nationalities, operating 24 hours per day from more than 180 cities in 120 countries and with four editorial desks in three continents: Madrid, Bogotá, Cairo (Arabic), and Rio de Janeiro (Portuguese).

Employees in Spain are represented by several labor unions. EFE has about 40 employees in the United States who voted on 29 September 2005 to be represented by the News Media Guild. Workers ratified a first labor contract in December 2006, marking the first time the company had ever reached such an agreement outside Spain.

The agency organized the second News Agencies World Congress (NAWC) in 2007.

Background
The agency dates back to 1865, when the «Correspondents Center» was created – the first news agency in Spain – and promoted by journalist Nilo María Fabra. In 1870 a cooperation agreement was signed with the French agency Havas. With this agreement, the "Corresponsales Center" reserved the distribution rights in Spain of Havas' international news.

In 1919 the Fabra news agency was created, when Havas became part of the shareholding of the "Correspondents Center". Havas withdrew from the shareholding in 1926 at the same time that the Central Bank (a private entity), Santander Bank and Hispanic-American Bank entered into the partnership (these three banks merged at the end of the 20th century into Banco Santander Central Hispano).

Foundation and early years
EFE was officially founded in the city of Burgos in 1939. The city of Burgos was the headquarters of dictator Francisco Franco. Its founder, Interior Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer, brother-in-law of Franco asked journalist Vicente Gallego (first director of the extinct Ya newspaper) to initiate the project.

On January 3, 1939, the Marquis of Torrehoyos Celedonio de Noriega Ruiz and journalist Luis Amato de Ibarrola – both legal representatives of the Fabra agency – declared before the notary José María Hortelano, that they have agreed to set up a commercial company of an anonymous nature, with the name of Agencia EFE S.A. The Fabra agency contributed with its rights and its name. In this way, the new agency could be admitted to the Club of the Allied Agencies, constituted at that time by some thirty agencies and whose statutes stipulated that only one agency per country could be a member of the association. In addition to the acquisition of Fabra Agency shares by the new agency, technical and human resources from the defunct Faro and Febus agencies were incorporated.

Controversy over the origin of the name
On the grounds of the denomination "EFE" there is controversy. Contrary to some popular belief, it is not an acronym. The former president and director of the agency Luis María Anson said in an article published in the Ya newspaper that the name of EFE (pronunciation of letter F in Spanish) was due to the participation of the old agencies Fabra, Febus and Faro in the new agency.

However, Ramón Serrano Suñer acknowledged in a letter sent to Antonio Herrero Losada, director of the news agency Europa Press, that the EFE agency was named in this way because "F was the initial letter of Falange y de Fe (Falange and of Faith), which was the combat newspaper of the Falange". He also added that "there was no mention that it was also a reason for the name of EFE that this letter was Franco's initial. This would come later."

Herrero Losada, linked to the Fabra agency, denied Ansón recalling that since 1938, in the middle of a civil war, EFE was transmitting news to the media on the Francoist side, where editors of the Fabra agency were being persecuted for their activity. Previously, and another one of those mentioned, Febus, continued his informative service in the republican sector. For his part, José Antonio Giménez Arnáu assured that it was he who provided Serrano Suñer with the idea of creating the agency and drafted its statutes, that EFE had nothing to do with the initial of the Falange or Franco, since according to some sources it occupied the building of the Spanish Falange Editorial (Editorial Falange Española), from whose initials it took the name, and that it had a proof that will only be known after its death something that happened three years after the controversy without any revelation.

First headquarters and services
The first headquarters of Agencia EFE was installed on a floor of a modern building of six heights, inaugurated the previous year, which currently corresponds to number 10 -the 9th in the old numbering- of Victoria Street, Burgos. Its first President was Celedonio Noriega, Marquis of Torrehoyos and its first Managing Director Vicente Gállego Castro.

In 1940, EFE moved its headquarters to a house at number 5 on Ayala Street in Madrid and opened a delegation in Barcelona. The same year Jesús Pabón replaced Noriega as president and four years later, in 1944, the then-Deputy-Director Pedro Gómez Aparicio replaced Vicente Gállego in the direction of the agency.

In 1946, the Comtelsa economic service was created in collaboration, at 50%, with the British agency Reuters. It is known that, at least since this same year, Federico Vélez González, famous and prestigious photographer from Burgos, has been working as a graphic correspondent.

In 1951, EFE installed its first telephotography receiver. In 1958 Gómez Aparicio was replaced in his position by Manuel Aznar Zubigaray, who left office 2 years later. The direction was assumed by the president and the executives of the company for 3 years, until in 1963 the journalist and correspondent abroad, Carlos Sentís, was appointed Managing Director.

1960s to 1980s: Internationalization
In 1965 the Buenos Aires delegation opened, the first delegation for the Americas and the next year started the foreign informative service to distribute news through Ibero-America and more delegations were open in other South American countries. In 1967, Miguel Mateu Pla was appointed EFE President. In September of the following year Manuel Aznar took care of the presidency and in 1969 Alexander Armesto was appointed Managing Director.

In 1968, EFE acquired the Fiel news agency and in 1969 started small news services in English and French. In 1972, EFE joined forces with several Central American media to create the Central American News Agency (ACAN), based in Panama. Its expansion through the Americas took Agencia EFE in 1979 to enter like a full member in the Inter American Press Association.

In February 1976, José María Alfaro Polanco was named president of EFE and in September the presidency was assumed by Luis María Anson, who was also Director-General. That same year the first Stylebook of Agencia EFE for the homogeneous writing of the information services of all the world is published, under the direction and advising of the professor and academic Fernando Lázaro Carreter.

In 1977, EFE moved its headquarters to number 32 Espronceda Street, Madrid. That same year, all the information services of the agency went on to use the name EFE, which until then was reserved for international information, so that the division of Cifra, Cifra-Gráfica and Alfil disappeared. That same year, the EFE Journalism Awards were also created, which in 1983 were replaced by the King of Spain Awards.

In 1981, EFE and the Institute for Ibero-American Cooperation created the Department of Urgent Spanish (DEU) with the participation of philologists and prominent academics of the language, with the mission of ensuring the correct use of Spanish in its information services. In 1983, journalist Ricardo Utrilla was appointed President and CEO and an agreement was signed with the US agency UPI to promote the Radio department. The services "Great Signatures" and "End of Century Chronicles" were also created to distribute articles of outstanding intellectuals in Spain and Latin America.

In 1984, EFE formally joined the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), the first European telephotography agency, with 20% of the company's capital. In 1986, EFE changed its logo and journalist Alfonso Sobrado Palomares was appointed Chairman and CEO (President-Director-General).

In 1988, the EFE Data service was launched, the first Spanish news data bank, and in March of that same year the EFE Foundation was created to promote research, development and study of information and technology, as well as the granting of training scholarships for students in any of the branches of Information Sciences. In 1989, EFE began distributing its information services to its customers via satellites. This same year the 50th anniversary of the Agencia EFE was celebrated with an itinerant graphic exhibition called Ephemerides. The Press Association of Madrid awarded the Rodríguez Santamaría Award to EFE for its work.

1990s and 21st century
Since the 1990s, subsidiaries were created for specific topics. In 1990, the subsidiaries Efeagro (food industry) and Efecom (business) were created, in 1994 Euroefe (EU news - Euractiv) was created and in 2010 Efeverde (environment). In 2013, Efefuturo (science and technology), Efesalud (health), Efe-empresas (business), Efemotor (transport) and Efetur (tourism) were launched. Among them, Efeverde stands out as the most awarded subsidiary for its informative transparency. Efeverde has its own guide for environmental journalists and was one of the first subsidiaries to establish a broad presence in social networks. Since 2011 it has also Android, iPhone and iPad apps.

Achievement awards were also established. In 1990 EFE gave the first Silver Ball Award to the best Ibero-American football player and in 1998 together with UNICEF, they created the Ibero-American Communication Awards for the Rights of Children and Adolescents. In 2004, the Don Quixote Journalism Award was created, which is presented at the same time as the King of Spain Award.

In 1995, EFE was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities in recognition of its work, independence and neutrality. It shared the award with the philosopher José Luis López Aranguren. In 1996, Miguel Ángel Gozalo was named President-Director-General of EFE.

In 1998, the agency's photo library began to function as a digital photographic archive. In 2000, the commercialization and digitization of graphic and press archives began and the Intranet "Entre Nosotros" (Among us) was created. In 2003, the International Graphic Service (SGI) was launched in partnership with EPA and the Multimedia Coordination Unit was inaugurated in Madrid.

In 2001, a service was launched in Portuguese for Brazil. Likewise, that year EFE was transferred from the Directorate-General for State Property of the Ministry of the Treasury to the public holding SEPI. In 2002, an editing center was created in Miami that facilitates the adaptation of the information content to the American market.

In 2004, Álex Grijelmo was named president of EFE, the journalist of the Arturo Larena agency won the National Environment Award in the form of Journalism. That same year the subsidiary ACAN-EFE (the service for Central America) was integrated into EFE.

In 2006, EFE changed its logo and the first Statute of the EFE Editorial Board was approved. In 2007, the Americas Editorial Board moved from Miami to Bogotá, aimed at product integration. In 2008, the EFE-Galicia news service in Galician was launched from Santiago de Compostela.

In March 2012, journalist José Antonio Vera Gil was appointed the new president of EFE to replace Álex Grijelmo.

In 2014, the agency moved to a new headquarters, inaugurated by the Prince and Princess of Asturias, in the Burgos Avenue of the city of Madrid. That year, the 75th anniversary of the agency took place. The Kings inaugurated the great commemorative exhibition of the 75th anniversary of EFE. On the occasion of this commemoration were held more than 30 traveling exhibitions in Spain and the Americas and the Congresses of the European News Agencies (EANA) and Mobile Information and News Data Services (MINDS) in Madrid, as well as the News Agencies of the Mediterranean (AMAN) in Alicante. Seminars were also given in El Escorial and Santander.

In 2015, Fundéu celebrated the 10th anniversary of its foundation. EFE increased its participation in the European Pressphoto Agency up to 49.9%. EFEAgro celebrated 25 years of its existence. It was held an exhibition of EFE in Buenos Aires and Caracas during the 50 years of EFE in the Americas. The 3rd anniversary of EFEsalud was also celebrated in 2015.

In 2016, an exposition was held in Lima for the 50 years of EFE in Peru. The EFE Museum was inaugurated by the Acting Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy. In July, the news agency and its president were awarded with the Eisenhower Award. In 2017, the EFE-EPA multimedia service in English for Asia began to function. The News 4 Europe line was put into service with EFE, EPA and ten other European news agencies.

In 2018, the State General Budget recognized for the first time the budget of EFE as a Service of General Economic Interest, increasing the public endowment of the agency. In July, journalist Fernando Garea was named the new president of EFE to replace José Antonio Vera Gil.

Urgent Spanish Department
In 1980 the Department of Urgent Spanish was created to combine criteria and norms, as well as to avoid linguistic dispersion and the indiscriminate use of neologisms in Spanish. The department is made up of linguists and philologists together with the Style Advisory Council, composed of members of the Spanish Royal Academy, professors of Philology and journalists. Its main tool is the Urgent Spanish Manual (MEU), the Agencia EFE style manual, which is a very popular Spanish user manual. It began to be published in 1976.

In 2005, the Urgent Spanish Department was replaced by the Urgent Spanish Foundation, commonly known as Fundéu BBVA.

title: EFE


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Between you and I

"Between you and I" is an English phrase that has drawn considerable interest from linguists, grammarians, and stylists. It is commonly used by style guides as a convenient label for a construction where the nominative/subjective form of pronouns is used for two pronouns joined by and in circumstances where the accusative/oblique case would be used for a single pronoun, typically following a preposition, but also as the object of a transitive verb. One frequently cited use of the phrase occurs in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1596–98). According to many style guides, the Shakespearian character who used the phrase should have written "between you and me". Use of this common construction has been described as "a grammatical error of unsurpassable grossness", although whether it is (or was) in fact an error is a matter of debate.

Use in literature
"Between you and I" occurs in act 3, scene 2, of The Merchant of Venice, in a letter written in prose by Antonio, the titular character, to his friend Bassanio: "Sweet Bassanio, ... all debts are cleared between you and I if I might but see you at my death."

Writer and critic Henry Hitchings points to usage in William Congreve's The Double Dealer (1693) and in Mark Twain's letters. Otto Jespersen found similar examples ("pronouns or nouns plus I after a preposition", in Robert J. Menner's words) in Ben Jonson, John Bunyan, Charles Dickens, and Graham Greene, and Menner adds Noah Webster, Samuel Pepys, Thomas Middleton, and others. Writer Constance Hale notes that Ernest Hemingway frequently used pronouns this way: "Gertrude Stein and me are just like brothers."

Various critics have commented on Shakespeare's line. American writer Russell Baker, in his "Observer" column in The New York Times, considered it a grammatical error—"grammatically, of course, Shakespeare was wrong". He said Shakespeare probably "slipped accidentally": "My guess is that he was writing along rapidly, maybe at the end of the day when he was tired, was wishing he'd never come up with this Merchant of Venice idea, and eager to get over to the Mermaid Tavern for a beer with Jonson and Burbage". Menner, in a 1937 article in American Speech, says that "it is evident that the phrase you and I was often felt to be grammatically indivisible, perhaps of frequency, and that we "cannot even be sure that 'between you and I' was originally hypercorrect in the Elizabethan age"; Menner does not say whether he believes the usage to be correct or incorrect.

Others do not accuse Shakespeare of grammatical incorrectness: sociologist Robert Nisbet criticizes "word snobs" who condemn the phrase, and lexicographer and OED editor Robert Burchfield states that what is incorrect for us was not necessarily incorrect for Shakespeare: "grammatical assumptions were different then", a view shared by philologist and grammarian Henry Sweet. However, Bryan A. Garner, who writes on usage and (especially legal) language, writes that even if the phrase was not incorrect for Shakespeare, it is and should be considered incorrect today, and cites linguist Randolph Quirk: "It is true that Shakespeare used both ['between you and I' as well as 'between you and me'], but that did not make it any more correct".

Incorrectness and hypercorrection
The term hypercorrection, in this context, refers to grammatically incorrect usage, and is typically committed by speakers (or writers) who "overcorrect" what they think is a mistake, and thereby commit an error. Kenneth G. Wilson, author of The Columbia Guide to Standard American English (1993), says hypercorrections are "the new mistakes we make in the effort to avoid old ones", and cites "between you and I" as an example—better, he says, to say "between the two of us".

For the phrase to be considered an example of hypercorrection, it has to be considered grammatically incorrect in the first place. Grammarians and writers on style who judge the phrase this way include Paul Brians, the Oxford Dictionaries, and Grammar Girl: "it's just a rule that pronouns following prepositions in those phrases are always in the objective case." A BBC survey from the early 2000s found that listeners ranked "between you and I" first in "most annoying grammar mistakes". But many grammarians and linguists, including Steven Pinker, consider the phrase grammatically acceptable.

Supposed causes
The cause for this particular error is given by such authorities as a kind of trauma deriving from incorrect usage caused by "you" being both nominative and oblique, and the awareness of the possible incorrectness of "me": "People make this mistake because they know it's not correct to say, for example, 'John and me went to the shops'. They know that the correct sentence would be 'John and I went to the shops'. But they then mistakenly assume that the words 'and me' should be replaced by 'and I' in all cases." In The Language Wars (2011), Henry Hitchings provides a similar explanation, adding that for many speakers "you and I" seem to belong together, which is noted also by Kenneth Wilson. That the problem typically occurs when two pronouns are used together is widely recognized: "these problems rarely arise when the pronoun [I] stands alone". James Cochrane, author of Between You and I: A Little Book of Bad English (2004), gives a similar explanation—in this case, "people"'s feeling some unease with a sentence like "Me and Bill went out for beers"; Cochrane does not, however, mark it as a hypercorrection, and suggests the phrase only came about "in the last twenty or so years" —linguist J. K. Chambers, however, points out that the usage is not "a change in progress".

J. K. Chambers investigated the phrase (as well as the closely related "with you and I") in an analysis of the role of education in the grammaticality of English speakers, in this case from Canada. Data from ninth-graders and their parents indicated little regional variation, but a significant variation between children and their parents, showing children were more likely to pick the "correct" pronoun or, in technical terms, to show "accusative case concord with conjoined pronouns". Chambers's explanation is that the children are likely to have had better education than their parents, and a study from 2008 of seven regions across Canada likewise showed that concord increased as the level of education increased. Chambers investigates a number of explanations offered, and accepts as one reason that the mistake occurs because of the considerable distance between the preposition and the second pronoun.

Hypercorrection, contextual acceptability
More complex explanations than "trauma" or "unease" are provided by linguists and sociolinguists. Without expanding on the topic, Henry Hitchings considers the phrase a very specific, class-oriented kind of hypercorrection, which he calls "hyperurbanism", which "involves avoiding what is believed to be a 'low' mistake and using a supposedly classier word or pronunciation, although in fact the result is nothing of the sort". A similar reason is given by Bryan Garner (pace Chambers), who says "this grammatical error is committed almost exclusively by educated speakers trying a little too hard to sound refined but stumbling badly", and says the phrase is "appallingly common". The notion that educated people are prone to this error is shared by Grammar Girl, who says that Jessica Simpson can therefore be forgiven (for the 2006 song "Between You and I"). According to legal scholar Patricia J. Williams, however, members of "the real upper class" recognize it immediately as substandard; she comments that such usage easily marks one as belonging to a lower class. Sociolinguist Gerard van Herk discusses "between you and I" and similar phrases with pronoun errors (which are all incorrect according to prescriptive linguists) in the context of social mobility.

One of the most notable linguists to accept the grammaticality of "between you and I" is Steven Pinker, even though he still calls it a "hyper-corrected solecism". Pinker's argument, in short, is that individual elements in coordinates need not have the same number as the coordinate itself: "she and Jennifer are" has two singular coordinates, though the coordination itself is plural. The same, Pinker argues in The Language Instinct (1994), applies to case, citing a famous phrase used by Bill Clinton and criticized by William Safire: "So just because [Al Gore and I] is an object that requires object case, it does not mean that [I] is an object that requires object case. By the logic of grammar, the pronoun is free to have any case it wants". Writer Ben Yagoda, impressed by this argument, divides his thinking on the phrase's grammaticality in a pre-Pinker and a post-Pinker period, and Peter Brodie, in a special issue of The English Journal devoted to grammar and usage, is likewise persuaded: "he also reminds us that these rules are generally dictated by snobbery and conceived as mere shibboleths". While David D. Mulroy, in The War Against Grammar (2003), finds Pinker's argument not entirely persuasive, he says "these are matters on which reasonable people can disagree".

According to linguist Joshua Fishman the phrase is, in some circles, "considered to be perfectly OK even in print", while others accept it "only in some contexts", and yet others never accept it at all. Richard Redfern cites many examples of what is considered incorrect pronoun usage, many of which do not follow the "preposition + you and I" construction: "for he and I", "between he and Mr. Bittman". He argues that the "error" is widespread (Elizabeth II even committing it), and that it should become acceptable usage: "The rule asks native speakers of English to stifle their instinctive way of expressing themselves".

In its treatment of "coordinate nominatives" used where the accusative (oblique) case would be used in non-coordinate constructions, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language differentiates different levels of acceptance, depending on the pronouns used and their position in the coordinate construction. Thus, a construction like "without you or I knowing anything about it" is "so common in speech and used by so broad a range of speakers that it has to be recognised as a variety of Standard English", while examples like "they've awarded he and his brother certificates of merit" and "... return the key to you or she" are classified as grammatically incorrect hypercorrection.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Between you and I


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East India (disambiguation)

East India is a region of India consisting of the states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha.

East India may also refer to:

 * East Indies, a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as South Asia and Southeast Asia
 * East India Company, an English joint-stock company founded in 1600
 * East India Docks, a small group of docks in the Blackwall area of East London
 * East India DLR station, a railway station in East London

East Indian(s) may refer to:

 * Bombay East Indians, a Marathi-Konkani ethnoreligious group in Mumbai, India.
 * East Indian language is the dialect of Marathi-Konkani, spoken by East Indians people in Mumbai, India
 * Indian Americans, residents of the United States descended from migrants from India
 * Indo-Canadians, residents of Canada descended from migrants from India
 * Indo-Caribbeans, residents of Caribbean countries descended from migrants from India

title: East India (disambiguation)


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Martín Fierro

Martín Fierro, also known as El Gaucho Martín Fierro, is a 2,316-line epic poem by the Argentine writer José Hernández. The poem was originally published in two parts, El Gaucho Martín Fierro (1872) and La Vuelta de Martín Fierro (1879). The poem supplied a historical link to the gauchos' contribution to the national development of Argentina, for the gaucho had played a major role in Argentina's independence from Spain.

The poem, written in a Spanish that evokes rural Argentina, is widely seen as the pinnacle of the genre of "gauchesque" poetry (poems centered on the life of the gaucho, written in a style known as payadas) and a touchstone of Argentine national identity. It has appeared in hundreds of editions and has been translated into over 70 languages.

Martín Fierro has earned major praise and commentaries from Leopoldo Lugones, Miguel de Unamuno, Jorge Luis Borges (see also Borges on Martín Fierro) and Rafael Squirru, among others. The Martín Fierro Award, named after the poem, is the most respected award for Argentine television and radio programs.

El Gaucho Martín Fierro
In El Gaucho Martín Fierro, the eponymous protagonist is an impoverished Gaucho named Martín Fierro who has been drafted to serve at a border fort, defending the Argentine inner frontier against the native people. His life of poverty on the pampas is somewhat romanticized; his military experiences are not. He deserts and tries to return to his home, but discovers that his house, farm, and family are gone. He deliberately provokes an affair of honor by insulting a black woman in a bar. In the knife duel that ensues, he kills her male companion. The narration of another knife fight suggests, by its lack of detail, that it is one of many. Fierro becomes an outlaw pursued by the police militia. In a battle with them, he acquires a companion: Sergeant Cruz, inspired by Fierro's bravery in resistance, defects and joins him mid-battle. The two set out to live among the natives, hoping to find a better life there.

La Vuelta de Martín Fierro
In La Vuelta de Martín Fierro (released in 1879), we discover that their hope of a better life is promptly and bitterly disappointed. They are taken for spies; the cacique (chieftain) saves their lives, but they are effectively prisoners of the natives. In this context Hernández presents another, and very unsentimentalized, version of rural life. The poem narrates an epidemic, the horrible, expiatory attempts at cure, and the fatal wrath upon those, including a young "Christian" boy, suspected of bringing the plague. Both Cruz and the cacique die of the disease. Shortly afterward, at Cruz's grave, Fierro hears the anguished cries of a woman. He follows and encounters a criolla weeping over the body of her dead son, her hands tied with the boy's entrails. She had been accused of witchcraft. Fierro fights and wins a brutal battle with her captor and travels with her back towards civilization.

After Fierro leaves the woman at the first ranch they see, he goes on to an encounter that raises the story from the level of the mildly naturalistic to the mythic. He encounters his two surviving sons (one has been a prisoner, the other the ward of the vile and wily Vizcacha), and the son of Cruz (who has become a gambler). He has a night-long payada (singing duel) with a black payador (singer), who turns out to be the younger brother of the man Fierro murdered in a duel. At the end, Fierro speaks of changing his name and living in peace, but it is not entirely clear that the duel has been avoided (Borges wrote a short story (El Fin) in which this possibility is played out).

Style and structure
Like his predecessors in "gauchesque" poetry, Hernández sticks to the eight-syllable line of the payadas, the rural ballads. However, Hernández also uses a rhyming six-line stanza ("like the six strings of a guitar", said Lugones) with a novel invention. The first line is kept "free" and unrhymed, allowing Hernández to present a "thesis" to the stanza without having to worry about the last word being part of the rhyme scheme. Lines two, three and six rhyme together while lines four and five constitute an independent rhyming group. The first verse of the poem illustrates this structure of six eight-syllable lines. (Note that, in Spanish prosody, vowels from adjacent words are considered to conjoin and form a single syllable, as marked here with a diagonal slash /, and verses ending in a stressed syllable behave as if they had an additional syllable at the end, marked with (+) .)

1  A-      quí     me      pon-    go/a    can-    tar     (+)      Aquí me pongo a cantar 2  al      com-    pás     de      la      vi-     güe-    la,      Al compás de la vigüela 3  que/al  hom-    bre     que     lo      des-    ve-     la       Que al hombre que lo desvela 4  u-      na      pe-     na/es-  tror-   di-     na-     ria,     Una pena estrordinaria, 5  co-     mo      la/a-   ve      so-     li-     ta-     ria      Como la ave solitaria 6  con     el      can-    tar     se      con-    sue-    la. Con el cantar se consuela.

Unlike his predecessors, Hernández, who had himself spent half his life alongside the gauchos in the pampas, in the regular army brigades that took part in Argentina's civil wars and more years engaged in the border wars, does not seek out every rural colloquialism under the sun. He hews much closer to the actual payadores, using a mildly archaic style and giving a sense of place more through phonetic spellings than through choice of words. At times - especially in the payadas within the larger poem - he rises to a particularly stark and powerful poetry, taking on romantic and even metaphysical themes. In La Vuelta de Martín Fierro, at the time Fierro is returning to the "Christian" world, he talks of his notoriety, apparently, in an echo of a plot point in the second book of Don Quixote, as a result of the fame of El Gaucho Martín Fierro.

The style of the poem shifts several times along the way. Nominally, Martín Fierro is a first-person narrator, but the distance between his voice and that of Hernández varies at different points in the poem. The poem moves from a sentimental and romantic evocation of rural life to a brutal work of protest against military conscription and garrison life at the border forts; then it becomes an extended outlaw ballad of the life of a violent knife-fighting gaucho matrero; then it becomes a story of captivity among the Indians, followed finally by bringing its protagonist face-to-face with a series of human echoes of his past. This last set of encounters is so improbable that some commentators suggest that the episode with the black payador is actually a figment of Fierro's imagination.

Critical and popular reception
Martín Fierro was an immediate popular success; it was also generally well received by the critics, although it required more than a generation for the work to be accorded the status of a classic.

Borges, who describes the work as more of a "verse novel" than an "epic", points out that this is partly because it is such an accurate evocation of its own time that it took some distance before its greatness could become apparent.

The popular success of the work is unquestionable: at the time of the publication of the second part of the poem, the first part already had 48,000 copies in print in Argentina and Uruguay, almost unimaginable for that time. It was sold not only in bookstores but in pulperías (rural bars), and was frequently read aloud as a public entertainment.

The poem received its canonization during a series of lectures by Leopoldo Lugones in 1913 (published as El payador in 1916), where the eminent Argentine poet crowned the Martín Fierro the epic of Argentina, comparable to Dante's Divine Comedy for Italy or Cervantes's Don Quixote for Spain. Ricardo Rojas went way beyond Lugones, claiming the poem to deal, at least metaphorically, with almost every issue of Argentine history, even though, as Borges remarks, most of these aspects are notable in the poem mostly for their absence.

Previously in 1894, the Spanish poet and critic Miguel de Unamuno tried, indirectly, to claim the work for Spain, calling it the "most Spanish" of Latin American literature. Eleuterio Tiscornia brought to the work a critical approach akin to European philology which seems, on the surface, incommensurate with the work in question (see Borges and Ezequiel Martínez Estrada's short-sighted attack on Tiscornia). However today, the scholarly approach of Tiscornia and others, such as Francisco Castro and Santiago Lugones, have helped make the poem accessible to those far from the Argentine context.

Among more contemporary critics, Calixto Oyuela tried to bring the focus back from the national to the individual, a critique similar to Martínez Estrada's; he emphasized that this is the story of a particular man, a gaucho in the last days of the open range; he sees the book as a meditation on origins, a protest and a lament for a disappearing way of life. In Folletos Lenguaraces, Vicente Rossi goes beyond Oyuela to pick up where Borges left off, by seeing Fierro as an "orillero", basically a hoodlum.

Borges, in his book-length collection of essays El "Martín Fierro", professes himself a great admirer of the work. "Argentine literature", he writes, "[...] includes at least one great book, Martín Fierro"—but emphasizes that its aesthetic merits should not be seen as corresponding to the merits of its protagonist. In particular, he characterizes as "unfortunate" that the Argentines read the story of Fierro forcing a duel of honor upon a man and ultimately killing him "with indulgence or admiration, rather than with horror".

Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño wrote in his essay Derivas de la pesada: "poetically Martín Fierro is not a marvel. But as a novel it is alive, full of significances to explore". He also stated that it was a "novel about liberty and filth, not about education and good manners" and that "it is a story about valour, not a story about intelligence and much less about morals."

In popular culture
In the 1920s, Borges and other avant-garde Argentine writers embracing "art for art's sake" published a magazine called Martín Fierro; they are often referred to collectively as the grupo Martín Fierro ("Martín Fierro group"), although at the time they were better known as the Florida group.

In 1952 director Jacques Tourneur made Way of a Gaucho in Argentina for 20th Century Fox. The story about an orphan gaucho called Martín Peñalosa, who has deserted from the army and becomes the leader of a rebel group, follows the legend of Martín Fierro in many ways, although the film is based upon a book by Herbert Childs and a screenplay by Philip Dunne. In 2009 the film classic was finally released first time on DVD, but at the moment only in Spain, where the title of the film is Martín, el Gaucho.

Martín Fierro Awards are the most prominent awards for Argentine radio and television. It is granted by APTRA, the Association of Argentine Television and Radio Journalists.

Leopoldo Torre Nilsson's classic Argentine film Martín Fierro (1968) is based on the poem. Fernando Solanas' 1972 Los Hijos de Fierro (The Sons of Martín Fierro) is another Argentine classic film.

In 1972, Billiken magazine published comic books written by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and drawn by Carlos Roume.

In Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow, a group of Argentine anarchists led by Francisco Squalidozzi collaborate with a German filmmaker, Gerhardt von Göll, to create a film version of Martín Fierro.

Songs named after the poem have been released by the Argentine singer/songwriter Juana Molina on her album Segundo and by the German band the Magic I.D. on their album till my breath gives out.

In 2017, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara published the novel Las aventuras de la China Iron, which reclaims the story of China Iron, Martín Fierro's abandoned wife, who is unnamed in the original epic poem.

title: Martín Fierro


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Pyskowice

Pyskowice (Peiskretscham) is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Outer city of the Metropolis GZM – metropolis with the population of 2 million. Located in the Silesian Highlands.

It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship since its formation in 1999, previously it was in Katowice Voivodeship. Pyskowice is one of the towns of the 2.7 million conurbation – Katowice urban area and within a greater Katowice-Ostrava metropolitan area populated by about 5,294,000 people. The population of the town is 18,432 (2019). It borders Gliwice, one of the largest cities of the metropolitan area, in the south.

History
The name of the town comes from the Old Polish male name Pysk. The oldest known mention of Pyskowice comes from a document of Bishop of Wrocław Tomasz from 1256. It was granted town rights in 1260 by Duke Władysław Opolski. The town was part of fragmented Piast-ruled Poland. It remained part of various Polish-ruled duchies, including Bytom, Cieszyn, Oświęcim and Opole, until 1532 when it was incorporated to the Bohemian (Czech) Crown. In 1645, along with the Duchy of Opole, it came back under Polish rule under the House of Vasa.

It was annexed by Prussia in the 18th century, and from 1871 it was also part of Germany until 1945. In 1842, the town had a population of 3,322, mostly Polish by nationality, and Catholic by confession. Despite Prussian rule, church services were still held mainly in Polish at the time, with German services held only every fourth Sunday. In the 1921 Upper Silesia plebiscite, 73.6% of the residents voted to remain in Germany, while in the present-day district (then separate village) of Dzierżno 67.5% voted to rejoin Poland, which just regained independence following the First World War.

During the Second World War, the Germans established and operated the E578 and E749 forced labour subcamps of the Stalag VIII-B/344 prisoner-of-war camp in the town, and the E110 and E709 subcamps in the present-day district of Dzierżno. Canadian and British prisoners of war had to work there for their German captors. The Germans also operated an additional forced labour camp for Jewish men in 1942–1944. In January 1945, as the Soviet armies resumed their offensive, the prisoners based in Pyskowice were marched westward in the so-called Long March or Death March. Some died from the bitter cold and exhaustion. Eventually the survivors were liberated by American troops in April or May 1945. After the war, the town became again part of Poland under its restored historic name.

In 1984, town limits were expanded by including Mikuszowina as a new district.

Transport
Polish National roads 40 and 94, and the Voivodeship road 901 run through the town, and the A1 and A4 motorways run nearby, within the metropolitan area.

There is a railway station in Pyskowice.

Culture
There is a railway museum (Skansen Taboru Kolejowego) in Pyskowice.

Sports
The local football club is Czarni Pyskowice. It competes in the lower leagues.

Notable people

 * Abraham Lewysohn (1805–1860), rabbi
 * Georg Radziej (1895–1972), Wehrmacht general
 * Agata Buzek (born 1976), actress
 * C-BooL (born 1981), DJ and record producer
 * Rafał Szombierski (born 1982), speedway rider
 * Grzegorz Kasprzik (born 1983), footballer

Twin towns – sister cities
Pyskowice is twinned with:
 * 🇺🇦 Chervonohrad, Ukraine
 * 🇩🇪 Flörsheim am Main, Germany
 * 🇫🇷 La Ricamarie, France

title: Pyskowice


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Trzebinia

Trzebinia (טשעבין Tchebin) is a town in Chrzanów County, Lesser Poland, Poland with an Orlen oil refinery and a major rail junction of the Kraków - Katowice line, with connections to Oświęcim and Spytkowice. The town became part of Lesser Poland Voivodeship after being part of Katowice Voivodeship (1975–1998). With population of 20,175 (Dec. 31, 2010), Trzebinia is an important industrial center. The town lies in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, 269 to 407 m above sea level. Trzebinia is a rail and road hub, and lies at a junction of the A4 Motorway and National Road Nr. 79. The distance to John Paul II International Airport Kraków-Balice is 30 km.

History
History of Trzebinia dates back to the late Middle Ages. In 1325, the settlement already had a church, which was mentioned in 1470 by Jan Długosz. Until the early 15th century, Trzebinia was a royal village, then it passed into the hands of local noble families. At that time, zinc and lead deposits were discovered here. Trzebinia, however, still remained a village, or rather a mining settlement, which from 1569 until 1802 belonged to the Schilhra Trzebiński family, Abdank coat of arms. Administratively Trzebinia was located in the Kraków Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown. In 1772, in the First Partition of Poland, it was annexed by the Austria and made part of Galicia. It was regained by Poles in the Austro-Polish War of 1809 and included within the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw. After the duchy's dissolution, the town was part of the Free City of Kraków from 1815 to 1846, and then it was reannexed by the Austrian Empire. In the 19th century the area of Trzebinia went through the period of industrialization. In 1804-1843, five coal mines, two zinc mills and a glass factory were opened here. On September 6, 1817, the village received its town charter, and in the second half of the 19th century, further coal mines were opened here, as well as a calamine mine. In the early 20th century, Trzebinia had oil refinery, power plant, and cement mill. In 1903, the Salvatorians settled here, who in 1908 began construction of a church.

World War II
On September 1, 1939, the first day of the German invasion of Poland and World War II, Trzebinia was bombed by the Luftwaffe. On September 5, 1939, invading Wehrmacht soldiers mass murdered 97 people in the town. The town was then occupied by Germany, and on October 9, 1939, it was directly annexed into Nazi Germany; the border with the General Government was a few kilometers east, near Dulowa.

During the war, two forced labor subcamps of the Stalag VIII-B/344 prisoner-of-war camp were located within the present-day town limits of Trzebinia: the E738 subcamp in Trzebinia and the E565 subcamp in Siersza Wodna (then a separate village, now incorporated into Trzebinia). In the E565 subcamp, British and other Commonwealth prisoners of war were imprisoned and forced to work in a coal mine, and their living accommodation was in wooden huts by the river. More Stalag VIII-B/344 POWs were transferred in January 1944 from Otmuchów in Lower Silesia to the E738 subcamp at the Trzebinia oil refinery. All 45 members of the detachment were from Commonwealth countries. A document at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum confirming arrival of POW Work Detachment E738 at Trzebinia is dated 25 February 1944. In 1944, the Germans sent kidnapped Polish children from Trzebinia to the Potulice concentration camp.

In August 1944, the E738 subcamp of Stalag VIII-B/344 was replaced by a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The Germans sent the British POWs back to Stalag VIII-B/344, and replaced them with hundreds of new prisoners, mostly from German-occupied Poland and Hungary. It was one of the largest subcamps of the Auschwitz III-Monowitz concentration camp and provided forced labor for a nearby oil refinery. In August 1944, the refinery at Trzebinia was bombed by the United States Air Force. Due to the high death rate among the prisoners, the SS established a crematorium in the subcamp. In January 1945, as the Red Army resumed its offensive and advanced from the east, the prisoners were marched to Rybnik in the so-called Death March. Many of them died from the bitter cold and exhaustion. From Rybnik the Germans deported them to the Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. On January 23, 1945, the Germans retreated.

Recent history
Until 1975, the town remained in Kraków Voivodeship. In 1961, the settlement of Wodna was incorporated into Trzebinia, and in 1969, after joining with the settlement of Siersza, the town was named Trzebinia-Siersza. In 1977, the name was changed to Trzebinia. The name Siersza Wodna survives as the name of a freight railway station.

Economy
Trzebina is home to the Siersza Power Station, a large oil refinery, Rafineria Trzebinia, which belongs to PKN Orlen and cement plant Gorka Cement (a part of Mapei). In 1957-1958 Mining Company Trzebionka was founded, and in 1962, Siersza II Power Plant began operating. Liquidated: zinc and lead mine - ZG Trzebionka, coal mine - KWK Siersza, metallurgical plants - ZM Trzebinia.

Sports
The town is home to sports club Miejski Klub Sportowy Trzebinia–Siersza, founded in 2000.

Notable people from Trzebinia

 * Antonina Hoffmann, actress
 * Dov Berish Weidenfeld, rabbi

title: Trzebinia


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Czechowice-Dziedzice

Czechowice-Dziedzice (Czechowitz-Dzieditz / Czechowitz-Dziedzitz, Czechowice-Dziydzice), known until 1958 as Czechowice, is a town in Bielsko County, Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland. The town has 35,684 inhabitants, as of December 2021. It lies on the northeastern edge of the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia. It is a large rail junction with four stations, located at the intersection of two major lines – east-west (Trzebinia – Zebrzydowice), and north–south (Katowice – Bielsko-Biala).

History
The area inhabited by the Golensizi tribe probably became part of Poland under Mieszko I of Poland, but the first certain historical mentions pertaining to the region appeared much later. The village of Czechowice was first mentioned in a Latin document of the Diocese of Wrocław called Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis from around 1305 as two settlements: "Item in Chothowitz theutonico fertones Item in Chothowitz polonico decima more polonico, valet I) marcam"

Chotowitz theutonico (German Czechowice) was presumably established under German rights (iure theuthonico) on the ground of the older Chotowitz polonico, which was continuously ruling itself under Polish traditional rights (iure polonico). The declared size of a tithe paid by villagers was also suggesting that it was an old and quite developed community. It belonged then to the Duchy of Cieszyn, formed in 1290 within fragmented Piast-ruled Poland. In 1327 the duchy passed under the suzerainty of the Kingdom of Bohemia as a fee, although it remained ruled by the Polish Piast dynasty until 1653, when it passed to the House of Habsburg. In 1430 the village was first mentioned under the current name of Czechowice rather than Chatowice. Dziedzice were first mentioned in 1465. The other medieval village that was later absorbed by Czechowice was Żebracz, first mentioned in 1443.

The village of Czechowice became a seat of a Catholic parish, mentioned in the register of Peter's Pence payment from 1447 among 50 parishes of Teschen deanery as Czechowicz. In the time of Protestant Reformation, the parish of Czechowice stayed Roman Catholic, conversely to the nearby town of Bielsko and the rest of the Duchy of Cieszyn.

19th and 20th centuries

After Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire, a modern municipal division was introduced in the re-established Austrian Silesia. The villages as two separate municipalities were subscribed to the political and legal district of Bielsko. In 1855, a local line of the important Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway was opened to traffic with a station in Dziedzice. This led to a rapid industrialization of Dziedzice and Czechowice, especially in the late 19th century. At that time, Czechowice and Dziedzice became strong centers of the Polish national movement in stark contrast to German-dominated town of Bielsko, whose inhabitants used to call the area of Czechowice and Dziedzice verfluchte polnische Winkel (cursed Polish corner). Polish school, pedagogical, sports and other organizations were established here.

According to the censuses conducted in 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910, the population of Czechowice grew from 2804 in 1880 to 7056 in 1910 with a dwindling majority being native Polish-speakers (from 96.6% in 1880 to 86.7% in 1910) accompanied by a growing German-speaking minority (from 95 or 3.4% in 1880 to 611 or 8.9% in 1910) and Czech-speaking (from 33 or 1.1% in 1890 to 290 or 4.3% in 1910), in terms of religion in 1910 majority were Roman Catholics (94.1%), followed by Protestants (231 or 3.3%), Jews (176 or 2.5%) and 9 people adhering to yet another faith. Whereas, in case of Dziedzice, the population of the municipality grew from 1011 in 1880 to 2436 in 1910 with a majority being native Polish-speakers (between 748 or 78% in 1880 and 1994 or 85.1% in 1910, at most 938 or 92.1% in 1890) accompanied by a German-speaking minority (189 or 19.7% in 1880, then at most 266 or 11.4% in 1910) and Czech-speaking (at most 81 or 3.5% in 1910), in terms of religion in 1910 majority were Roman Catholics (88.6%), followed by Jews (185 or 7.6%) and Protestants (93 or 3.8%). After World War I, fall of Austria-Hungary, the reestablishment of independent Poland, the Polish–Czechoslovak War and the division of Cieszyn Silesia in 1920, Czechowice and Dziedzice became a part of Poland. In the interwar period, the industry continued to expand. New factories were founded, which produced machines, bicycles, matches, paper, cables etc. New culture centers, amateur theaters, cinemas, choirs and sports clubs were founded. In 1924, the Freedom Monument (Pomnik Wolności) was unveiled, financed by voluntary contributions. Patriotic celebrations take place at the monument.

Czechowice and Dziedzice were annexed by Nazi Germany at the beginning of World War II in September 1939. The local population was subjected to deportations for forced labor into Germany and to concentration camps, expropriations, street round-ups, death sentences and public executions (see Nazi crimes against the Polish nation). Polish social and political life, as well as Polish education were being destroyed. In 1942, the Germans established two forced labor camps in the town: one for Poles (Polenlager) and one for Jewish men. During the Oil Campaign of World War II, the oil refinery at Czechowice was bombed on August 20, 1944. In 1944, the occupiers established the Tschechowitz I & II subcamps of Auschwitz in Czechowice-Dziedzice, which provided forced labor for the SOCONY-Vacuum oil plant and housed over 600 prisoners. In 1945, German occupation ended and Czechowice and Dziedzice were restored to Poland.

In 1951, Dziedzice were merged with Czechowice, concurrently the expanded gmina was given town rights. However, the name of the new town was Czechowice, which disappointed the citizens of Dziedzice. After complaints in 1958, the town was given the name of Czechowice-Dziedzice.

From 1975 to 1998, it was located in the Katowice Voivodeship, and since 1999 in Silesian Voivodeship.

In 1993, a new Freedom Monument was erected in place of the former, destroyed by the Germans in 1939.

Landmarks
Among the town's landmarks are the Rococo Kotuliński Palace, the Baroque Saint Catherine Church and the Gothic Revival Saint Mary of Help church.

Sports
The local football team is MRKS Czechowice-Dziedzice. It competes in the lower leagues.

Twin towns – sister cities
See twin towns of Gmina Czechowice-Dziedzice.

Notable people

 * Piotr Beczała (born 1966), operatic tenor
 * Łukasz Piszczek (born 1985), footballer

title: Czechowice-Dziedzice


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Pszczyna

Pszczyna (Pleß, Pština) is a town in southern Poland, population 25,823 (2019), and is the seat of a local gmina (commune) and district.

Pszczyna is situated in Silesia Province and was previously part of Katowice Province from 1975 until 1998 administrative reforms.

Etymology
There are several different theories of the origins of the name Pszczyna. Ezechiel Zivier (1868–1925) hypothesized that the land was first owned by Pleszko (alternatively Leszko, or possibly Leszek, Duke of Racibórz). Polish scholar Aleksander Brückner in turn explained the name based on its old spelling Plszczyna, from the ancient Polish word pło or pleso meaning a lake, making Plszczyna a place by a lake. Brückner's derivation, suggesting a marshy lakeside, based on Proto-Slavic plszczyna, is generally accepted in literature. Yet another explanation has been put forward by Prof. Jan Miodek of Wrocław University, who derives the town's name from the name of a nearby river, now known as Pszczynka. Miodek claims, firstly, that the town owes its name to the river, not vice versa (as the -ka suffix in the present name of the river would indicate), and secondly, that the original name of the river, Blszczyna, derives from Proto-Slavic blskati, to glisten. The oldest recorded versions of the town's name (Plisschyn, Plisczyna, Plyssczyna, Blissczyna, Blyssczyna, Plesna, Pssczyna) exclude none of the above derivations, except perhaps the Leszko/Leszek one, which seems far fetched. Neither does the German name Pleß shed any light, as it simply reflects the Polish name at the time of the beginning of German settlement.

Middle Ages and early Modern period
The oldest settlement evolved around a small gord and wooden church in what was later known as Stara Wieś. The modern town (around Market Square) was probably founded in the second half of the 13th century. The first reference in sources to the place dates from 1303. The main trading route between Kievan Rus and the Moravian Gate ran through Pszczyna in the early Middle Ages, and the small settlement probably provided protective measures for merchants on the ford (surrounded by marshlands) of the small Pszczynka river.

The land around Pszczyna was historically part of Lesser Poland. Casimir II the Just ceded the land to Mieszko Plątonogi, another Piast duke, of the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz, about 1177. Mieszko Plątonogi was succeeded by other dukes from the Opole-Racibórz line: Casimir I of Opole, Mieszko II the Fat, his brother Władysław Opolski, his two sons - Casimir of Bytom and Bolko I of Opole, and finally Leszek of Racibórz, who was the last to preserve the Duchy's independence. In 1327, he was forced to acknowledge sovereignty of John, King of Bohemia. After Leszek died childless in 1336, his lands passed down to his brother-in-law, Nicholas II, Duke of Opava (Mikołaj II), of the Czech Premyslid royal dynasty.

Mikołaj II, his son John I, Duke of Opava-Ratibor, and his grandson John II, Duke of Opava-Ratibor (Jan II Żelazny) ruled the land for seven decades. In 1407, John II separated the area that is modern-day Pleß from his duchy as a wittum for his new wife, Helena of Lithuania (Helena Korybutówna, niece of Władysław II Jagiełło, the king of Poland). The boundaries outlined by John II survived well into the 20th century. The contemporary land (powiat) of Pleß is only about half the size it was during the Middle Ages.

In 1433, Pleß was attacked by the Hussites, who laid siege to the castle but were eventually repulsed. Helena of Lithuania outlived John II, and reigned until 1449. The land was inherited by her son, Nicholas V, Duke of Krnov and then his widow, Barbara Rockenberg, daughter of a wealthy Kraków merchant. She was expelled by her stepson, John IV, who assumed power in the years 1462–1465. His rights were in turn disputed by his brother, Wenceslaus III, Duke of Rybnik. Aggressive policies caused a conflict between Wenceslaus III and the King of Hungary and Bohemia, Matthias Corvinus. Matthias overran the land and held the duke in captivity until his death. Casimir II, Duke of Cieszyn, the last of the local Piast dynasty bloodline, received the land in 1480 as a dowry of his wife, Joanna. Casimir II sold it to a Hungarian noble Elek Thurzó (Aleksy Thurzo) in 1517. Two years later, Louis II, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia instituted the "Free State of Pszczyna", with its ruler responsible not to him but directly to the Holy Roman Emperor. The new state was expanded to include fifty villages and four towns (including Bieruń, Mysłowice, and Mikołów), and was sworn allegiance by another 27 vassal villages.

The Thurzo family were in close relations with Polish King Sigismund I the Old. Queen Bona Sforza stayed for a night on her way to her wedding to Sigismund in Kraków in (1518). Thurzo possessions were diminished over time (stripped of Mysłowice in 1536) and eventually the land of Pleß was purchased by Balthasar von Promnitz, bishop of Wrocław, under a special provision that the land should be further divided.

Late Modern period

Pleß was ravaged and pillaged during the Thirty Years' War. During the War of the Austrian Succession, the Kingdom of Prussia clashed with Austria for Silesia and Frederick The Great, the king of Prussia, seized most of Silesia in the First Silesian War of 1741–1742. The town was pillaged again during the Seven Years' War. Shortly afterwards, the last Promnitz gave the land to his nephew, Frederic Erdmann.

Erdmann's line, the Anhalts, held Pleß until the middle of the 19th century, when it passed to Hans Heinrich X of the powerful Hochberg family who held extensive lands around present-day Wałbrzych. The Hochbergs reached great prominence and wealth in the 19th century.

From 1816 to 1922, the town was the seat of Kreis Pleß.

During the Polish January Uprising in 1863 Poles smuggled large amounts of gunpowder through the town to the Russian Partition of Poland. From 1871 Pleß was part of Germany, however, at the beginning of the 20th century, over 80 percent of the district's population spoke Polish; during the 1910 census 86 percent declared as Polish speakers, though in the town itself the percentage of Polish speakers was 33. When World War I erupted, the Hochbergs lent the estate to the German state for military purposes. The German chief of staff held his headquarters at the castle of Pleß, often visited by Emperor Wilhelm II himself.

After the war ended, the newly established Second Polish Republic and the German Weimar Republic struggled for control of the region. Prince Hans Heinrich XV favored the creation of an independent Silesian Republic or at least an independent Upper Silesia. The latter was supported by the Union of Upper Silesians (1919–1924), which he financed. With the outbreak of the Silesian Uprising, the Hochbergs sided firmly with the German cause and made the estate available to German paramilitary organizations, including for a prison for the Polish insurgents. Hans Heinrich XV supplied units at his own expense, commanded by his son, Hans Heinrich XVII; they took part in the bitter struggles for Góra Świętej Anny in 1921. Earlier that year a plebiscite was held to determine the future of the region. In Kreis Pleß 53 thousands voted for Poland and 18 thousands for Germany. By contrast, voting in the town of Pleß gave victory to Germany, with 2843 over 910. In view of the plebiscite results and in consequence of the Third Silesian Uprising the Versailles Treaty gave the land of Pleß to the Second Polish Republic. On May 29, 1922, the Polish army officially entered the city and the Polish administration took over, with Jan Figna becoming the first Polish mayor.

World War II

During the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II, fighting occurred in the surroundings of Pszczyna, which can be seen by observing the leftovers of concrete strongholds around the town. In that area, the Battle of Pszczyna took place on September 1–2, 1939, where German forces breached main Polish defensive lines protecting the Silesian area. On September 4, in the local park, the German Freikorps murdered 14 Poles who had taken part in the defense of nearby Katowice (13 boy scouts and one school teacher). They were buried in the nearby forest in an unmarked mass grave. Poles arrested during the Intelligenzaktion, aimed at the extermination of the Polish intelligentsia, were imprisoned in a local court prison, and then deported to concentration camps.

From November 1942 to April 1943, the Germans operated a forced labour subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp in the present-day district of Stara Wieś.

In the final stages of the war, in January 1945, the Nazi Germans murdered many prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who tried to escape during a death march. Between the end of January and beginning of February 1945, the war storm came through Pszczyna with no serious damage to the city. Unfortunately, the wooden historic church of Saint Jadwiga burned down in 1939. The city was liberated on February 10, 1945.

After 1945
Unlike the rest of Upper Silesia, Pszczyna never experienced rapid industrialization. The ELWO factory was expanded and a new creamery and mill were founded. This, however, helped to preserve the historic old town and the palace located in the city center.

Population
In 2010 Pszczyna had a population of 25,415.

Jews in Pszczyna

The Jewish community was small before the edict of 1780 granting Jews the right to settle in Silesian towns to the east of river Oder. By 1787, the Jewish population had grown to 85 people. Regulations passed by Frederick William III in 1812 proclaimed Jews to be full citizens of the state. As their numbers grew, Jews called for a synagogue to perform their religious duties. A wooden synagogue was built in 1834 and, eventually, a bricked structure in 1852. The synagogue has survived into the 21st century but nothing of historical value remains of the interior: during World War II it was used as a cinema.

The community's educational needs were also met with the establishment of a cheder (Jewish school) in 1812. From 1820, Jews were allowed to attend Protestant and Catholic schools. A new, joint Protestant and Jewish school was established in 1873 and became a municipal school in 1893.

The Jewish community reached its highest peak in 1885, numbering 341 members. Markus Brann, Jewish theologian and historian and future lecturer at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, was active in Pszczyna during that period. The number of Jews had dropped significantly when Poland took control of the city in 1922, as most of the Jews identifying themselves as Germans had left for Germany.

Only scarce evidence of the town's former Jewish presence has been left – the cemetery, the former residence of the Jewish community and the synagogue. The cemetery in Pszczyna, on Katowicka Street, was founded in 1814. The last reported burial took place in 1937. During World War II the cemetery was not destroyed. The oldest tombstone was discovered in June 2009. It belongs to Gitel Gutmann, who died on September 10, 1814. The cemetery is in the permanent custody of Sławomir Pastuszka, who provides information both on the cemetery and on the local Jewish community. On May 8, 2012, it was reported that the Jewish cemetery had been vandalized. Nineteen tombstones, some of which date back to the early 19th century, were damaged in the old part of the cemetery. The local community contributed to the restoration of 150 graves of historical value.

Protestants in Pszczyna
Lutheranism was introduced to Pszczyna in 1568 by Duke Karol Promnitz. In a course of next 20 years, Lutheranism spread among the local population. A Protestant minister came to the county in 1569, followed by opening of the first Protestant school. During the counter-reformation in 1649 celebrations of Protestant religious service were confined to the Castle of Pszczyna.

From 1709 on Erdmann Promnitz received permission for building a Protestant church. Along with church, a Protestant school had been reintroduced. The church burned down in 1905 and was rebuilt two years later. It is still in operation and serves as the central point for the Protestant community, which numbers 1500 members.

Topography
Pszczyna is situated on sandy plains ascending into the east. The land is slightly hilly, but with no large relative elevations. The highest points are less than 260 m above sea level.

Climate
As Pszczyna is in a moderate climatic zone, the climate is directly influenced by a clash of oceanic and continental air masses. While the former usually takes the upper hand, the temperature does not vary widely. Severe or long winters are rare. The warm tropical air coming through the Moravian Gate (a depression between the Sudetes and Carpathian mountains) contributes to this.

The average annual temperature is 7 - 8 °C. The hottest month is July (15 °C average) and the coldest is January (-1 °C average).

R. Gumiński researched the climate in the land around Pszczyna. He defined three distinguished sub-climatic provinces – the western "podsudecka", the eastern "tarnowska", and the northern "kielecko-czestochowska". The eastern part offers the most favorable environment for plants and vegetation, with over 220 days of growing season and 770 mm of precipitation. Pszczyna gets the least rainfall in winter months and the highest level in July. Snowfall begins in the middle of November, lingers for 50–70 days, and generally does not exceed a depth of 15 cm.

Slight westerly winds are dominant, averaging 2 - 3 km/h. The period of windless weather appears regularly, caused by the cover of, and the dry down-slope foehn winds arriving from, the Beskid Śląski mountain range.

Goczałkowice Reservoir, by far the largest reservoir in southern Poland, gives the climate in Pszczyna an even more distinctive imprint by moderating winters and summers.

Land use
The total area of 174 km2 includes 95 km2 of farmland (68 km2 of arable land, 1.5 km2 of orchards, 16 km2 of meadows, 9 km2 of pasture) and 51 km2 of forest grounds (50 km2 of forests, 1.6 km2 of tree-planted and shrub-planted land).

Sports
The local football club is MKS Iskra Pszczyna. It competes in the lower leagues.

Notable people

 * Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) composer, once a kapellmeister in the city
 * Frederick Ferdinand, Duke of Anhalt-Köthen (1769–1830), Prussian general
 * Louis, Prince of Anhalt-Pless (1783–1841)
 * August Kiß (1802–1865), sculptor
 * Wilhelm Engerth (1814–1884), architect
 * Max Friedländer (1829–1872), Jewish journalist who founded the Viennese newspaper the Neue Freie Presse
 * Hans Heinrich XV (1861–1938), Prince of Pless and local businessman
 * Karl Hoefer (1862–1939), Prussian general
 * Daisy, Princess of Pless (1873–1943)
 * Otto Lasch (1893–1971), Wehrmacht general
 * Max Liebling (1845–1927), concert pianist, composer, and conductor
 * Bruno Chrobek (1895–1942) Wehrmacht general
 * Johnny Friedlaender (1912–1992), Jewish artist
 * Tomasz Tomczykiewicz (1961–2015), politician
 * Przemysław Pitry (born 1981), footballer and manager
 * Alicja Janosz (born 1985), singer, winner of the 2002 Polish Idol contest
 * Joanna Worek (born 1986), Polish-Czech chess player

Twin towns and sister cities
See twin towns of Gmina Pszczyna.

title: Pszczyna


text:
Czerwionka-Leszczyny

Czerwionka-Leszczyny (Czerwionka-Leschczin) is a town in Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland. It is the only town in Rybnik county (which is separate from Rybnik city) and the seat of the larger Czerwionka-Leszczyny municipality which also includes 6 villages. Czerwionka-Leszczyny was created by a merger of two towns (Czerwionka and Leszczyny) and two villages (Czuchów and Dębieńsko), which to this day maintain their separate identities. As of December 2021, the town has a population of 27,683.

A former mining town, it has transformed into a commuter town for the nearby cities of Rybnik, Gliwice and Katowice.

Pre-industrial age
People have settled in the area of Czerwionka-Leszczyny as early as 8th century BC, as evidenced by a Bronze Age bracelet that was found in Czerwionka and is currently stored in a museum in Gliwice. The first written sources mentioning Leszczyny, Liber Fundationis Episcopus Wratislaviensis (book proclaiming the foundation of the Wrocław diocese), dates back to 1305. In 1420, a parish was founded in Dębieńsko, and in 1447 Leszczyny parish is mentioned for the first time. In the middle ages, the area of modern Czerwionka-Leszczyny belonged to the Kingdom of Poland, next Polish Duchy of Racibórz as a result of the division of Poland into districts in the Middle Ages, and since 1327 was under Czech patronage and became a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Since 1526, the area of Czerwionka-Leszczyny belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy. Following the Silesian Wars, Prussia conquered these territories in 1742. In 1818, a new administrative division placed the area of modern Czerwionka-Leszczyny in Rybnik county.

Early industrial age
The exploration of natural resources in Czerwionka-Leszczyny area started in the 17th century. In 1788 the first test shaft were created to confirm hard coal reserves, and in 1792 the owner of Czerwionka and Dębieńsko, baron von Wilczek, secured a permit for the first mine, Neues Glück (New luck). In 1806, coal mine Ciossek and in 1807 coal mine Marianne were opened by count Węgierski. In 1813 Neues Glück was merged with nearby Anton shaft to create Antons Glück (Anthony's luck) coal mine, which since 1823 produced 14,000 tonnes of coal annually. By 1850, around 25 other small shafts and mines were opened in the area. These establishments were selling coals locally, to nearby small-scale zinc smelters and ironworks.

Dębieńsko Coal Mine
In 1856, Czerwionka and Leszczyny gained railway connection to Rybnik and Katowice, which opened the area to cheaper iron, zinc and steel, undercutting the local industry. However, rapidly growing demand for coal in the Upper Silesian Industrial Region led to establishment of the Dubensko (later Dębieńsko) coal mine. In 1896, Vereinigte Königs- und Laurahütte corporation (owner of steelworks in Chorzów) bought rights to coal fields in Czerwionka area and opened the mine in on November 2, 1898. Three shafts were built and later deepened in 1899-1900, which allowed the mine to increase coal production from 4,010 tonnes in 1899 to 492,478 tonnes in 1912. In 1910, a dam with electricity generators has been built on the nearby Bierawka river to create a reservoir for the mine's use, and in 1913 a cocking facility has been built next to the mine.

The Dębieńsko Coal Mine has been a catalyst for a rapid population growth in Czerwionka and nearby villages. The coal mine built two housing estates for miners. First, the so-called Staro Kolonia (Old Colony) close to the mine, with director's villa, 14 8-family houses and a police station has been constructed along with the mine. Later, as the demand for workers could not be met by local population, a newer and larger housing estate called Familoki, with 96 houses of different sizes and shapes, have been constructed between 1902-1916. That later estate is now a tourist attraction and is under conservatorship.

After World War I
Following World War I, the area of modern Czerwionka-Leszczyny, along with all of Upper Silesia, found itself between Germany and newly-formed Poland. Under The Treaty of Versailles agreement, Upper Silesia was supposed to vote in a plebiscite whether it wants to stay in Germany or join Poland. The voting took place on March 20, 1921, and in the Czerwionka-Leszczyny area, the majority voted for Poland. The results per locality are shown in the table below Following the plebiscite and a disadvantageous division of Upper Silesia from the Polish point of view, local Poles started the Third Silesian Uprising, after which the Entente powers granted Poland more territory than previously planned, including all of modern Czerwionka-Leszczyny. The area belonged to the autonomous Silesian Voivodeship in the interwar period. In 1930s, the Great Depression took a heavy toll on the local mining industry, with as much as 25% if miners being on forced unpaid leave. The harsh economic conditions caused many people to involve in bootleg mining.

World War II
Following the German invasion of Poland, Czerwionka-Leszczyny was annexed into the Third Reich. While some locals, particularly members of the local intelligentsia such as teachers, clerks and clergy were rounded up and shoot or sent to concentration camps for their pro-Polish stance during the interwar period, most of the population enjoyed relative peace compared to other parts of Poland. In 1940, after expulsion of ethnic Poles to the General Government, the nazis introduced the Deutsche Volksliste, a classification of desirability of the population in occupied western Poland. It divided people into four classes (1. Volksdeutcher - ethnic German, active in German minority before the war; 2. Deutschstämmige - ethnic German not active in German minority; 3. Eingedeutschte - native populations, considered by the nazis to be partially polonized Germans; 4. Rückgedeutschte - fully polonized Germans or Poles who were deemed racially worthy or collaborated with the Reich). In Czerwionka-Leszczyny area, as in most of Upper Silesia, the vast majority were classified as category 3 and given conditional, 10-year German citizenship.

At the end of World War II, in late January 1945, one of the Death Marches from Auschwitz led through Leszczyny, where hundreds of prisoners were killed by the SS men: 447 near the train station and 288 in a field nearby.

After World War II
Czerwionka-Leszczyny area has been liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945. In the months immediately after the liberation, the Soviet military command and new Polish communist leadership deported many men to Donetsk Coal Area, Kazakhstan and Siberia to work as slave labor for the USSR, while others were incarcerated and often killed in camps such as Zgoda because the new government considered Silesians to be German.

In September 1945 the new communist government made coal the most strategic natural resource to the country, which heavily influenced development of the Upper Silesian region, including Czerwionka-Leszczyny, in the subsequent decades through massive investment into coal mining industry and scaling up productions and employment. In the early 1950s the construction of a large mining estate started in Leszczyny, pulling people from all across Poland to work in coal industry, and in the 1960s similar estates started to pop up in Czerwionka. This new influx of Poles caused an ethnic conflict with native Silesians in the 1960s and 70s, as natives saw new migrants as causing crime and public disorder, while the migrants considered migrants to be German and therefore not welcomed in Poland. In the 1970s and 1980s, many native Silesians emigrated to Germany through the family reunification scheme organized by both countries.

Growing population was reflected by changes in administrative status: in 1962 Czerwionka, Leszczyny and Czuchów were merged into a town under the name Czerwionka-Leszczyny. In 1975, the name of the town was changed to only Leszczyny for political reasons (Leszczyny was majority-Polish, while Czerwionka was majority-Silesian and had a history of voting for Germany in the plebiscite), and in 1977 Dębieńsko was annexed by the town, creating the modern-day Czerwionka-Leszczyny. Following the collapse of communism, in 1992 the name was changed back to Czerwionka-Leszczyny.

1990s and 21st century
After the collapse of communism and return to the market economy, coal mining suffered from insufficient demand and rising costs against a government-regulated coal price, causing losses. Various restructuring programs in the 1990s alleviated the issue only partially, and by the end of 1990s it was clear the industry needs downsizing. The government of Jerzy Buzek adopted a plan which aimed at reducing employment in the industry through buy-outs and ultimately closing mines. In 1999, a list of mines to be closed was published, including Dębieńsko, and production ended on October 25, 2000. At the time of the closure, 2,400 people were employed at the mine, or which 1,300 were granted various forms of social welfare such as early retirement or buy-outs.

Since then, the town has re-oriented itself as a commuter town for nearby larger cities of Rybnik, Gliwice, Katowice and Żory.

Geography
is a town in Silesia in southern Poland, on the Bierawka River (tributary of the Oder), located on Silesian Highlands, about 50 km (31 mi) north of the Silesian Beskids. It is an outer suburb of Metropolis GZM, with a population of over 3 million, and a suburb of Rybnik, both making Katowice-Ostrava metropolitan area with a population of 4,676,983 people.

Demographics
Czerwionka-Leszczyny's population peaked in 1998 with 30,343 inhabitants and since then has been declining slowly. However, the population of the broader municipality has been on a steady rise, offsetting population loss within town limits. As of 2020, 27,888 people lived in the town, of which 4,648 (16.7%) were 14 or younger, 18,814 (67.5%) were 15-64, and 4,426 (15.8%) were 65 or older. This makes Czerwionka-Leszczyny relatively young compared to Poland as a whole, as countrywide only 15.4% of the population is 14 or younger while 18.6% is 65 or older.

In 2019, 308 babies were born in Czerwionka-Leszczyny while 336 people died, a natural loss of 28 people. This represents a shift in natural change patterns as in prior years, Czerwionka-Leszczyny noted natural increases: +6 in 2018, +70 in 2017, +41 in 2016. In 2019, 203 people moved to Czerwionka-Leszczyny from elsewhere in Poland and 4 moved from abroad, while 377 people moved away from Czerwionka-Leszczyny to elsewhere in Poland and 5 moved abroad. In total, the town lost 175 people to migration - a sharp increase from a loss of 56 in 2018, 64 in 2017 and 31 in 2016.

In 2019, neighborhood populations were as follows:

Economy
Since 1898, the town's main employer was the Dębieńsko coal mine, which was closed up in 2000, causing substantial job loss and unemployment. Employment in Czerwionka-Leszczyny municipality (the town and the surrounding villages) decreases from 8,434 in 1995 to 5,082 in 2000, achieving a low of just 3,784 in 2003. In Czerwionka-Leszczyny proper, it was 7,592, 3,971 and 3,111, respectively. Since then, the municipality succeeded in attracting outside investment and employment increased to 5,037 in 2019. As most of new investments are green fields, most of that growth happened in the rural part of the municipality, and the town itself had only 3,257 jobs as of 2019. Commuting has also helped ease the pressure on the job market. In 2006, 3,655 people from the town commuted to other localities for work (while 681 commuted to work in Czerwionka-Leszczyny). In 2016, these numbers have increased to 4,664 and 1,048, respectively.

Both new investments and increase in commuting resulted in dramatic decline in unemployment. In 2003 (earliest available data), there were 2,384 registered unemployed people in the municipality of Czerwionka-Leszczyny. In 2019, only 546 remained in that status.

Twin towns – sister cities
See twin towns of Gmina Czerwionka-Leszczyny.

title: Czerwionka-Leszczyny


text:
Rydułtowy

Rydułtowy (Rydultau) is a town in southern Poland, in the Wodzisław County of the Silesian Voivodeship. Rydułtowy is in the south-western part of the Silesian Highland, on the Rybnik Plateau, in the Oświęcim-Racibórz Valley.

A mining town, Rydułtowy has been closely bound with the 200-year-old "Rydułtowy-Anna" coal mine.

History
Rydułtowy was first mentioned in a document of the Diocese of Wrocław from 1228 as Rudolphi Willa, when it was part of the Duchy of Racibórz of fragmented Piast-ruled Poland.

In 1861, Rydułtowy Dolne had an entirely Polish population of 1,066, while Rydułtowy Górne had 360 inhabitants. In the late 19th century, the main occupation of the population was farming and coal mining. In 1923, the first Polish scout troop of Rydułtowy was founded. Rydułtowy Dolne and Rydułtowy Górne were merged in 1926.

Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, Rydułtowy was occupied by Germany until 1945. Many local Polish scouts were killed during the war, and some teachers from Rydułtowy were among Polish teachers murdered by the Germans in concentration camps as part of the Intelligenzaktion (see Nazi crimes against the Polish nation). The Germans operated five forced labour camps in Rydułtowy, including a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The prisoners of the camps were initially Poles from nearby settlements, and then also French, English and Soviet prisoners of war. Over 1,000 mostly Jewish prisoners were held in the subcamp of Auschwitz. Prisoners unable to continue labour were sent back to Auschwitz and gassed there, while over 50 prisoners died in the subcamp itself, also by suicide. In January 1945, the Germans evacuated the prisoners on foot to Wodzisław Śląski, and then deported them to the Mauthausen concentration camp.

In 1951, Rydułtowy was granted town rights, and the neighboring settlement of Pietrzkowice was included within town limits as a new district.

Landmarks

 * Housing in the Charles's building settlement
 * Municipal Hospital buildings "Rydułtowy" ZOZ (health care service)
 * Penitential cross
 * Railway station
 * Rail tunnel
 * Scales building KWK "Rydułtowy" (coal mine)
 * St. Hyacinth's Church
 * St. George's Church

Sports
The local football team is Naprzód Rydułtowy. It competes in the lower leagues.

Twin towns – sister cities
Rydułtowy is twinned with:
 * Hvidovre, Denmark
 * 🇨🇿 Orlová, Czech Republic
 * 🇩🇪 Reken, Germany

title: Rydułtowy


text:
Łaziska Górne

Łaziska Górne (Ober Lazisk, Gōrne Łaziska) is a town in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Outer town of the Metropolis GZM – metropolis with the population of 2 million. Located in the Silesian Highlands.

It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship since its formation in 1999, previously in Katowice Voivodeship, and before then, of the Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship. Łaziska is one of the towns of the 2,7 million conurbation - Katowice urban area and within a greater Katowice-Ostrava metropolitan area populated by about 5,294,000 people. The population of the town is 22,298 (2019).

History
Łaziska is historically subdivided into three parts: Łaziska Dolne (Lower Łaziska), Łaziska Średnie (middle Łaziska) and Łaziska Górne (upper Łaziska). All of them are now part of the town, which was named only after the last one. The oldest settlement was located in what is now Łaziska Średnie. The village Łaziska was first mentioned in 1287 as villa Lasiszka, although the document could have been a falsificate. The second in seniority was Łaziska Dolne, and the youngest Łaziska Górne.

It was part of medieval Piast-ruled Poland, and then passed under Bohemian (Czech) suzerainty. During the political upheaval caused by Matthias Corvinus the land around Pszczyna was overtaken by Casimir II, Duke of Cieszyn, who sold it in 1517 to the Hungarian magnates of the Thurzó family, forming the Pless state country. In the accompanying sales document issued on 21 February 1517 the two villages were mentioned as Lazyska Dolny and Lazyska Horny. Łaziska Średnie was, in contrary to Łaziska Dolne and Łaziska Górne, a private village until 1814.

The Kingdom of Bohemia in 1526 became part of the Habsburg monarchy. In the War of the Austrian Succession most of Silesia was conquered by the Kingdom of Prussia, including the three sister settlements, and from 1871 all were part of Germany. In 1913, the Polish choir "Echo" was founded in Łaziska Górne, as one of the oldest in the region, and then it operated despite repressions from the German authorities, before the temporary suspension of activities during World War I. In 1918 the war ended and Poland regained independence, and after the subsequent Polish Silesian Uprisings, which were also fought in Łaziska, all three settlements were reintegrated with Poland.

Already on September 2–3, 1939, in the beginning of the German invasion of Poland and World War II, German troops committed massacres of Poles in Łaziska Górne, Łaziska Dolne and Łaziska Średnie, killing 26, 17 and 19 people, respectively (see Nazi crimes against the Polish nation). On September 6, 1939, the Freikorps murdered seven more Poles in Łaziska Górne. Among the victims of the massacres were former insurgents of the Silesian Uprisings, activists, miners, craftsmen, workers, a teacher, local official, farmer, and also teenagers and women. The town was then occupied by Germany until 1945. Seven Polish policemen who were either born or served in Łaziska were murdered by the Russians in Tver in April–May 1940 during the large Katyn massacre. The Germans established and operated a forced labour camp for Jews in Łaziska Górne, and the E393 forced labour subcamp of the Stalag VIII-B/344 prisoner-of-war camp in Łaziska Średnie.

In 1951, Łaziska Górne was granted town rights, and in 1973 Łaziska Dolne and Łaziska Średnie were included within its town limits as new districts.

Industry

 * Łaziska Power Station
 * Bolesław Śmiały Coal Mine
 * Łaziska Steel Mill
 * Wilk Elektronik S.A. (computer memory)

Sports
Polonia Łaziska Górne sports club is based in the town, with football, volleyball and bowling sections.

Twin towns – sister cities
Łaziska Górne is twinned with:
 * 🇨🇿 Fulnek, Czech Republic
 * 🇸🇰 Vrútky, Slovakia

title: Łaziska Górne


text:
Bieruń

Bieruń (Berun, Bieruń) is a town in Upper Silesia, in southern Poland, seat of the Bieruń-Lędziny County in the Silesian Voivodeship. It is located about 25 km south of Katowice.

Geography
It is located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Gostynia river, a tributary of the Vistula. It is located in the southern part of the Metropolis GZM - metropolis with a population of about 2 million. Bieruń is one of the towns of the 2.7 million conurbation – the Katowice urban area, and within the greater Katowice-Ostrava metropolitan area populated by about 5,294,000 people. The population of the town itself is 19,334 (December 2021). Bieruń includes dzielnicas Bieruń Stary, Bieruń Nowy, Ściernie, Jajosty, Bijasowice and Czarnuchowice and is bordered with Lędziny, Tychy, Chełm Śląski, Bojszowy and Oświęcim.

History
The territory became part of the emerging Polish state in the 10th century. Following the fragmentation of Poland, it formed part of various Piast-ruled provincial duchies of Poland, incl. Opole and Racibórz. Bieruń Stary was the location of a motte-and-bailey castle from the 13th–14th century, which is now an archaeological site. In the 14th century, it passed under Bohemian rule. The settlement of Berouna was first mentioned in a 1376 deed. The name is most probably related to the, similarly spelled, Slavic deity Perun, remains of its cultic place still present at nearby Lędziny. John II, the Přemyslid duke of Racibórz granted it town privileges in 1387. Later on, it returned to the Polish dukes of the Piast dynasty as part of the united Duchy of Opole and Racibórz. After the extinction of the Opole line of the Piasts, in 1532, Bieruń was incorporated by the Habsburg monarchy.

With most of Silesia, it was conquered by Prussia in the First Silesian War of 1740–42 and afterwards incorporated into the Silesia Province. In the mid-19th century, the town's population was predominantly Catholic by confession. On 18 June 1845, a fire destroyed large areas of the town; King Frederick William IV of Prussia personally donated 9000 talers for its reconstruction. Cigarette and munitions factories were set up in the town in the mid-19th century. It became part of the German Empire in 1871 under the Germanized name Berun. In Polish it was known as both Bieruń and Beruń. Seven annual fairs were held in the town in the late 19th century. Located near the border with Lesser Poland and Austrian Silesia, Berun until 1919 was the most southeasterly town of Germany.

After the restoration of independent Poland in 1918, the Third Silesian Uprising of 1921 and the subsequent Upper Silesia plebiscite (in which 1,427 or 82.1% of residents in Bieruń Stary and 292 or 58.4% of residents in Bieruń Nowy voted for Poland), Bieruń was reintegrated with Poland, within which it formed part of the Silesian Voivodeship.

Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was occupied by Germany until 1945. After the war it was administratively part of the Katowice Voivodeship until 1998. From 1975 until 1991 it was a district of the neighbouring Tychy municipality.

Sports
The local football clubs are Unia Bieruń and Piast Bieruń. Both compete in the lower leagues.

Twin towns - sister cities
Bieruń is twinned with:
 * 🇩🇪 Gundelfingen, Germany, since 1997
 * 🇫🇷 Meung-sur-Loire, France since 2008
 * 🇨🇿 Moravský Beroun, Czech Republic, since 1992
 * 🇺🇦 Ostroh, Ukraine, since 2005

title: Bieruń


text:
José Hernández

José Hernández may refer to:

Arts and entertainment

 * José Hernández (writer) (1834–1886), Argentine writer
 * Pepe Hern (José Hernández Bethencourth, 1927–2009), American actor
 * José Hernández, American singer (born 1940), better known as Little Joe
 * José Hernández (painter) (1944–2013), Spanish painter
 * José Hernández (musician) (born 1958), Mexican musician
 * Chef Pepín (José Hernández), Cuban-born, American TV cook

Politicians

 * José Conrado Hernández (1849–1932), Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico
 * José Manuel Hernández (1853–1921), Venezuelan caudillo, army general and politician
 * José Alarcón Hernández (born 1945), Mexican politician
 * José María Hernández (1959–2015), Spanish politician

Science and academia

 * José Gregorio Hernández (1864–1919), Venezuelan physician
 * José M. Hernández (born 1962), American astronaut

Association football

 * Cheche Hernández (born 1956), Colombian football manager
 * José Hernández (footballer, born 1961), Venezuelan football manager and former footballer
 * José Alberto Hernández (born 1977), Mexican football midfielder
 * José Hernández (footballer, born 1994), Mexican football midfielder
 * José Romario Hernández (born 1994), Mexican football winger
 * José Antonio Hernández (born 1995), Mexican football midfielder
 * José Hernández (footballer, born 1996), Mexican football midfielder
 * José Hernández (footballer, born 1997), Venezuelan football left-back for La Equidad
 * José Santiago Hernández (born 1997), Mexican football goalkeeper
 * José Hernández (soccer, born 2000), Canadian soccer forward

Baseball

 * José Hernández (infielder) (born 1969), Puerto Rican baseball player
 * José Hernández (pitcher) (born 1997), Dominican baseball player
 * Cheo Hernández (José Hernández, 1894–?), Negro leagues pitcher

Other sports

 * José Hernández (boxer) (born 1976), Mexican professional boxer
 * José Carlos Hernández (born 1978), Spanish long-distance runner
 * José Hernández (handballer) (born 1979), Cuban handball player
 * José Hernández-Fernández (born 1990), Dominican Republic tennis player
 * José Tito Hernández (born 1995), Colombian road cyclist

Other uses

 * José Hernández (Buenos Aires Underground), a metro station in Buenos Aires

title: José Hernández