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Żagań

Żagań (French and Sagan, Zahań, Saganum) is a town in western Poland, on the Bóbr river, with 25,731 inhabitants (2019). The town is the capital of Żagań County in the historic region of Silesia. Previously in the Zielona Góra Voivodeship (1975–1998), Żagań has been in the Lubusz Voivodeship since 1999.

The town hosts the Polish 11th Armoured Cavalry Division. An American Armored Brigade Combat Team is constantly rotated through the town under Operation Atlantic Resolve.

Etymology
The town's name probably means "place of the burnt forest" (Polish: żegać, żagiew): probably referring to the burning of primeval forest by early settlers. If this is correct, it is consistent with the names of nearby places: Żary, Zgorzelec, Pożarów.

Geography
Żagań is located roughly halfway between Cottbus and Wrocław, approximately 100 meters above sea level and at the centre of the Żagań administrative district. It is about 100 km north of the Polish border with the Czech Republic, and approximately 40 km to the east of Poland's border with Germany. The rural district of Żagań surrounds the town on its northern, eastern and southern sides. Iłowa lies to the south-west and the rural district of Żary is to the north-west. The Rivers Bóbr and Kwisa meet up just outside the town on its south-eastern side.

Polish Piast dynasty
The area formed part of Poland after the creation of the state in the 10th century. Żagań was founded in the 12th century by Polish monarch Bolesław IV the Curly near an old settlement of the same name, which name was then changed to Stary Żagań ("Old Żagań"). The name comes from the Old Polish word zagon. It was first mentioned in a 1202 deed, when it belonged to the Duchy of Silesia under the rule of the Piast duke Henry I the Bearded, within fragmented Poland. In 1251, it became part of the newly created Duchy of Głogów under Henry's grandson Konrad I. Duke Konrad I granted Żagań town rights between 1248 and 1260. The town developed wealth from development of mining, and attracted German settlers from the west.

After Konrad's death in 1274, his heirs again divided the duchy and the castle of Żagań became the residence of his youngest son Przemko of Ścinawa, Duke of Żagań from 1278, who established a monastery of the Augustinian Canons here. Thus the Duchy of Żagań came into the existence. In 1284, he swapped his estates for the Duchy of Ścinawa and was succeeded by his elder brother Konrad II the Hunchback. When Konrad II died in 1304, all the former Głogów estates were reunified under his surviving brother Henry III.

In 1309, Henry III of Głogów was succeeded by his eldest son Henry IV the Faithful, who in 1321 again had to divide the duchy with his younger brothers. He ceded Głogów to Przemko II and retired to Żagań, which again became the capital of a duchy in its own right. In 1329, all the sons of Henry III of Głogów became vassals of John of Luxembourg, the King of Bohemia - with the exception of Przemko II who died suddenly two years later. When in 1393 Henry VI the Elder, grandson of Henry IV, died without issue, the estates were again reunified with Głogów until in 1412 Jan I, the eldest son of Duke Henry VIII the Sparrow, became the sole ruler of the Żagań duchy.

Saxon, Habsburg and Prussian rule
After a fierce battle for the inheritance, Jan II the Mad, son of Jan I, finally sold it to Duke Albert III of Saxony from the House of Wettin, thus ending the centuries-long Piast rule.

In 1549, Elector Maurice of Saxony ceded Sagan to the Bohemian king Ferdinand I of Habsburg. Emperor Ferdinand II of Habsburg allotted the fief to Albrecht von Wallenstein, his supreme commander in the Thirty Years' War in 1627. It then passed to the illustrious Bohemian family of Lobkowicz, who had the Baroque Żagań Palace erected. One of two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town in the 18th century and Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland traveled that route numerous times. After the First Silesian War of 1742, Żagań became part of Prussia. It was part of the Province of Silesia of Prussia and after 1871 Germany. In the 19th century Żagań was still a significant Polish center.

In 1786, the fief was purchased by Peter von Biron, Duke of Courland, and in 1843, it passed to his daughter Dorothea, the wife of Edmond de Talleyrand, a nephew of the great French diplomat Talleyrand, who spent her retirement years at Sagan. A patent of King Frederick William IV of Prussia on 6 January 1845 invested her as Duchess of Sagan; and Napoleon III recognized the title in France, in favour of her son Louis.

Second World War
The double title (a prince and a duc) both Prussian and French, served to render the duc de Sagan a neutral party during the Second World War: his Château de Valençay provided a safe haven for treasures of the Louvre during the German occupation of France.

During the war, the Germans operated two prisoner-of-war camps and a forced labour camp in the town, all intended for prisoners of various nationalities. Sagan was occupied by Soviet troops during the third week of February 1945, following several days of savage fighting.

Prisoner of war camps and The Great Escape
As early as 1939, soon after invading Poland, Nazi Germany established a system of prisoner of war (POW) camps in Sagan. In total, the Mannschafts-Stammlager Stalag VIIIC and its subsidiaries held over 300,000 prisoners from some 30 different countries. It is estimated that around 120,000 of them died of hunger, disease and maltreatment. Later, in 1942, an additional camp was set up for Allied pilots, called Stalag Luft III.

In March 1942, the town became the location of the Stalag Luft III camp for captured airmen (Kriegsgefangenen Stammlager der Luftwaffe 3 Sagan). It was the site of the most courageous escape resulting in the killing of 50 prisoners including the following Polish flight officers: Major Antoni Kiewnarski; Lieutenant Stanisław Król; and navigation Lieutenants Włodzimierz Kolanowski, Jerzy Mondschein, Kazimierz Pawluk and Paweł Tobolski. This episode of history was the subject of the 1963 film The Great Escape, starring Steve McQueen. It was the biggest and the most deadly escape of officer aircrew captured by Nazi Germany during the entire war. The number of prisoners attempting the escape was 200, of whom 76 managed to leave the camp; 73 were caught and 50 executed on Hitler's orders. Just three successfully escaped, one to Gibraltar and two to Sweden. All three reunited in England.

There were only a few other, similar escapes from German POW camps during the Second World War. A slightly smaller one on March 6, 1943, from Oflag XXI-B in Szubin, involved 43 British officers. On September 19–20, 1943, an escape from the Oflag VI B in Dössel near Wartburg involved 47 Polish officers. A day later 67 French officers escaped from Edelbach in Austria. Another involved 54 French soldiers on December 18, 1943, from Marlag near Hamburg.

Modern Poland
After Nazi Germany's defeat, the town became again part of Poland as the result of the border changes decided at the Potsdam Conference. The totality of the town's population was expelled, and the town was repopulated by Poles, many displaced from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union.

Clearing the rubble began in 1947, and was followed by the establishment of small enterprises, factories and schools. During the 1970s, a "new town" quarter was built, and by 1983, the historic baronial château ("Żagań Palace") had been fully rebuilt.

For many years regiments of the Soviet Air Forces flew from the town's airbase (Żagań-Tomaszowo?). In 1992 the 42nd Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment finally left and was disbanded after a brief stay at Szprotawa.

In the years 1967–1971 a museum dedicated to the history of prisoners of war of the Stalag VIII-C camp was established. In 2011, the former Augustinian monastery complex with the church of the Assumption was designated a Historic Monument of Poland. In 2013, the first Polish monument of Wojtek the Bear, soldier of the Polish II Corps during World War II, was unveiled in Żagań.

Sights and monuments

 * Baroque ducal palace.
 * Palace park.
 * Post-Augustinian Monastery Complex with the church of the Assumption, one of the burial sites of the Piast dynasty, named one of Poland's official national Historic Monuments (Pomnik historii), as designated on March 11, 2011. Its listing is maintained by the National Heritage Board of Poland.
 * Post-franciscan monastery with the Saints Peter and Paul church.
 * Town hall.
 * Museum of the World War II POW camp.
 * Monument of Wojtek the Bear, soldier of the II Corps of the Polish Army during World War II.
 * Post-evangelical Church Tower.
 * Medieval town walls.

Sports
Żagań is home to sports' clubs
 * Czarni Żagań – football club, now plays in the lower leagues, 1964–65 Polish Cup runner-up
 * WKS Sobieski Żagań – volleyball club, now plays in II liga (3rd tier)
 * KS Bóbr Żagań – volleyball and rugby club
 * UKS Orzeł Żagań – youth unihockey club

Roads running through Żagań
Voivodeship road 296

Voivodeship road 295

National road 12

Important roads running near Żagań
National road 27

National road 18

Motorway A18 / E 36

Motorway A4 / E 40

Expressway S3 / E 65

Notable people

 * Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), German astronomer, mathematician and astrologer, lived in Sagan in 1628–1630
 * Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583–1634), duke of Sagan from 1627 to 1634
 * Johann Ignaz von Felbiger (1724–1788), educational reformer, abbot of the Order of. St. Augustine in Sagan
 * Peter von Biron (1724–1800), duke of Sagan from 1786 to 1800
 * Louis XVIII (1755–1824), future king of France. He spent several months in 1793 in Sagan.
 * Stendhal (1783–1842), French writer, spent several months in 1813 in Sagan
 * Dorothea de Talleyrand-Périgord (1793–1862), princess of Sagan from 1844 to 1862
 * Adolf Engler (1844–1930), German botanist
 * Reinhold Röhricht (1842–1905), German historian, studied at the Gymnasium in Sagan in 1852–1862
 * Wolfgang Paalen (1905–1959), Austrian painter and art philosopher, member of the Surrealist Group, spent part of his childhood in his father's castle St. Rochusburg near Sagan from 1913 to 1928
 * Bronisława Wajs (1908–1987), Polish-Romani classic poet. She lived in Żagań in the '50s.
 * Hans-Jürgen Steinmann (1929–2008), novelist
 * Wolfgang Samuel (born 1935), German child refugee, author, U.S. Air Force pilot
 * Ilse Kokula (born 1944), educator, author, LGBT activist
 * Mariusz Jurasik (born 1976), handball player
 * Łukasz Garguła (born 1981), footballer
 * Konrad Michalak (born 1997), footballer.

Twin towns – sister cities
Żagań is twinned with:

 * Duns, Scotland, United Kingdom
 * 🇩🇪 Netphen, Germany
 * 🇩🇪 Ortrand, Germany
 * 🇫🇷 Saint-Omer, France
 * 🇩🇪 Teltow, Germany
 * 🇮🇹 Grumo Nevano, Italy

Notable facts

 * Johannes Kepler started writing the early science fiction Somnium (novel) before his death in 1630.
 * In 1769, one of the first lightning rods in Europe was installed on the Church of the Assumption in the local Augustinian monastery.

title: Żagań


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Nowa Sól

Nowa Sól is a city on the Oder River in Lubusz Voivodeship, western Poland. It is the capital of Nowa Sól County and had a population of 38,763 (2019).

History
The territory became part of the emerging Polish state in the 10th century, and following the country's fragmentation it formed part of the Duchy of Głogów since 1251, ruled by the Piast and Jagiellonian dynasties, including future Polish Kings John I Albert and Sigismund I the Old. The first mention of the settlement in the region of modern Nowa Sól dates back to the 14th century. The Latin book Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis (Polish: Księga uposażeń biskupstwa wrocławskiego) records two Slavic Polish settlements of Stare Żabno mentioned as Sczhabna antiqua and Nowe Żabno as Sczhabna nova. The former is currently a suburb of Nowa Sól and the latter still exists as a village. In 1506, the territory was incorporated into the Kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Holy Roman Empire.

In order to break Silesia's dependency on salt from Poland, Emperor Ferdinand I founded the demesne land Zum Neuen Saltze in 1563. The sea salt, originally from La Rochelle and the Iberian coast, was transported from Hamburg and Stettin (Szczecin) along the navigable Oder. A flood in 1573 led to the relocation of the salt refinery to the nearby village of Modritz (Modrzyca); the office of the administrator is now the town hall. The settlement was documented as Neusalzburg ("New Salzburg") in 1585 and later as Neusalz ("New Salt"). A trading harbor was built on the Oder in 1592. The Protestant Church of St. Michael, built from 1591 to 1597, was converted to Roman Catholicism in 1654.

The entrance of Dutch and English merchants in the Baltic Sea at the end of the 16th century led to difficulties in the supply of unrefined salt. The unprofitable enterprise was also hampered by tolls on the Oder imposed by the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Salt refining in Neusalz nearly collapsed during the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), while recovery was hampered by the salt trade of Brandenburg and Poland afterwards. As the rulers of Swedish Pomerania, Sweden prevented salt from reaching the town from Stettin in 1710. Three years later Neusalz became an outpost for salt from Magdeburg and Halle.

Neusalz developed into one of the largest ports on the Silesian Oder and handled the majority of salt traffic on the river. It was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1742 according to the Treaty of Breslau. When King Frederick II of Prussia granted Neusalz town rights on 9 October 1743 and initiated plans to expand the town, it had 97 houses. A colony of the Moravian Church was founded in 1744. After the Battle of Kunersdorf, Neusalz was plundered on 24 September 1759. Forty houses were burnt down, as was the Moravian community, which was restored in 1763.

Neusalz was administered within Landkreis Freystadt i. Niederschles. in Prussian Silesia after the Napoleonic Wars. The modern industrial development began in the 19th century when new factories, especially linen factories and steelworks, were opened. Neusalz was first connected to the Silesian railway in 1871, the same year the town became part of the German Empire during the unification of Germany. Expansion and modernization of the harbor began on 11 October 1897. Neusalz became part of the Prussian Province of Lower Silesia in 1919. A wooden bridge across the Oder, originally built in 1870, was rebuilt using reinforced concrete in 1932.

During World War II the town was the site of a forced labor subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, whose prisoners were Jewish women from occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany. German troops destroyed the concrete bridge on 9 February 1945, but the Soviet Red Army entered Neusalz on 13/14 February 1945. A number of buildings burnt down, including the Catholic Church.

Nowa Sól was rebuilt as an industrial and administrative center, superseding nearby Kożuchów. From 1975 to 1998 it was in the Zielona Gora Voivodeship, after which it became part of the Lubusz Voivodeship. The town is featured in the documentary 5000 Miles, about a family from Wisconsin in the United States wishing to adopt a Polish child.

Sports
The city's professional sports club is volleyball team Astra Nowa Sól, which competes in the I liga (2nd tier).

Notable people

 * Christian David Gebauer (1777–1831), painter
 * Gustav A. Schneebeli (1853–1923), politician
 * Otto Jaekel (1863–1929), paleontologist
 * Walter Thor (1870–1929), German painter and illustrator
 * Alfred Saalwächter (1883–1945), General Admiral executed for war crimes
 * Friedrich Zehm (1923–2007), German classical composer
 * Natias Neutert (born 1941), German artist
 * Seweryn Krajewski (born 1947), musician
 * Janusz Liberkowski (born 1953), winner of the first season of American Inventor
 * Józef Młynarczyk (born 1953), footballer
 * Bogdan Bojko (born 1959), politician
 * Waldemar Zboralski (born 1960), gay rights activist
 * Marcin Oleksy (born 1987), footballer, 2022 FIFA Puskás Award
 * Adam Stefanow (born 1994), snooker player

Twin towns – sister cities
Nowa Sól is twinned with:

 * 🇩🇪 Achim, Germany
 * 🇮🇹 Fresagrandinaria, Italy
 * 🇩🇪 Püttlingen, Germany
 * 🇫🇷 Saint-Michel-sur-Orge, France
 * 🇩🇪 Senftenberg, Germany
 * 🇭🇺 Veszprém, Hungary
 * 🇨🇿 Žamberk, Czech Republic

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

title: Nowa Sól


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Żary

Żary (, Sorau, Žarow, ) is a town in western Poland with 37,502 inhabitants (2019), situated in the Lubusz Voivodeship since 1999. It is the administrative seat of the Żary County and of the Gmina Żary within the county, though the town is not part of the gmina (commune).

Żary is located in the east of the historic Lower Lusatia region, in the borderland with the Silesian lowlands and Greater Poland, roughly outlined by the Bóbr and Oder rivers. The city is one of the biggest economic and tourist centers in the southern Lubuskie region and the largest town in the Polish part of Lusatia, and is also referred as its unofficial capital. The city, whose history dates back more than 1000 years, features many historic sites.

History
The beginnings of settlement in the Żary area date back to prehistoric times. The name “Zara”, deriving most likely from a small, independent West Slavic tribe, appeared for the first time in 1007 in the chronicles of Thietmar of Merseburg, after Duke Bolesław I Chrobry of Poland had conquered the Żary land along with Lusatia. Regained by Emperor Conrad II in 1031. In the early 13th century it was part of the Duchy of Silesia within fragmented Piast-ruled Poland. Lost by Poland, the town was chartered on the Magdeburg law by the Wettin margrave Henry III of Meissen about 1260. It covered the following three areas: a trade settlement on the “Salt Trail” running from Leipzig to Wrocław, a fortified town erected among bogs (in the area of the later castle), and a Franciscan settlement established in 1274.

The city was under the domain of the Polish Silesian Piasts until Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV in 1364 purchased Lower Lusatia and incorporated it into the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. In 1635 the town became part of the Electorate of Saxony per the Peace of Prague. The Saxon Electors also served as Kings of Poland in 1697–1706 and 1709–1763 and of the two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town at that time. Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland visited Sorau many times, including in 1705, 1718, 1730, 1748 and 1763. The royal cabinet minister Erdmann II of Promnitz built a new Baroque palace in the town.

After the 1815 Congress of Vienna, Sorau fell to the Kingdom of Prussia, which in 1871 was united with other German states into the German Empire. The town's prominent families included the Dewins, Packs, Bibersteins and Promnitzs, whose residence was the castle-palace complex.

Near the end of World War II, Soviet Red Army troops conquered the town on 13 February 1945. After the war, British and American representatives at the Potsdam Conference of July–August 1945 were initially unwilling to agree to Polish administration being extended as far west as Stalin demanded. After some negotiations, both the Soviet and Polish representatives indicated that they would be willing to concede a frontier along the historic Lusatian border with Silesia at the Oder-Bóbr-Kwisa rivers, which would have left Sorau in German territory. However, ultimately the town was transferred to Poland under extensive border changes promulgated at the conference. The German residents of Sorau were expelled, and the town was gradually repopulated by Poles, incl. those displaced from former Eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union.

Initially, from 1945 it was administratively located in the Lower Silesian/Wrocław Voivodeship, then from 1950 to 1975 in the "larger" Zielona Góra Voivodeship, and from 1975 to 1998, in the "smaller" Zielona Góra Voivodeship.

Economy
For several centuries the town was a center of a “free state”. Its residents grew wealthy through trade and craftsmanship. As early as the 14th century the town featured guilds of clothiers, dry-goods merchants, brewers, cobblers, and dyers. In the 19th century the town had become a powerful industrial center. The local textile factories, employing 50% of all area people working in industry, played a particular role in the city's economy.

During World War II a branch of the Focke-Wulf aircraft factory was moved to the town. In April 1944, after a bombing raid of the Allies, some buildings of the Old Town were reduced to a heap of rubble.

Today Żary, which is a county seat, features headquarters of many offices and institutions, used by residents of this part of the region, including the Tax Office, Social Insurance Institution, Employment Office, 8 bank branches, insurance companies, high schools, and the Lusatian Higher School of the Humanities.

Żary's border area location has a significant influence on its economic growth. In the proximity of the city (20–40 km) there are Polish-German border crossings in Olszyna, Łęknica, Przewóz, and Zasieki as well as a railroad checkpoint in Forst. Żary is also an attractive tourist destination.

Transport
Two main national roads, no. 12 and 27 intersect in Żary. They run together on a stretch of the city bypass. Two of the three sections of the city bypass that have been opened have significantly improved the traffic in the city. Construction of the bypass was subsidized by the Phare Fund. Presently, work continues on the last section of the bypass, which will be completed in 2005.

In the proximity of the city runs the international European route E36 from Berlin to Bolesławiec, which soon will be transformed into the A18 autostrada. On this road, near the border with Germany, 25 km from Żary, in nearby Olszyna there is one of the biggest cargo terminals in the country. Construction of the A18 and A4 highways is underway and should be completed by the end of 2010. The E36 on the German side is known as the Bundesautobahn 15 highway, providing a quick access to Berlin via a network of motorways. The international airports in Berlin are about 160 - 185 km away, about a one-and-a-half-hour drive away.

Inter-City trains travel from Berlin and Hamburg via Żary to Kraków. In a relatively short distance from Żary there are smaller airports in Babimost near Zielona Góra as well as in the German town of Rothenburg (about 15 km from the border crossing at Przewóz).

In Żary there are two telecommunication companies, having a great effect on the quality of provided service. The city has also good coverage of wireless service providers. It also has a fiber optic network that offers quick Internet access.

Roads running through Żary
Voivodeship road 287

National road 27

National road 12

Important roads running near Żary
Voivodeship road 350

National road 32

National road 112

National road 115

National road 156

Motorway 15 / E 36

Motorway A18 / E 36

Motorway A4 / E 40

Expressway S3 / E 65

Historical sites
Despite significant war damage, many interesting architectural historic sites have been preserved in Żary, including its medieval municipal urban arrangement.

 * In the northwest part of the city there is the Dewins-Packs-Bibersteins' Castle, a huge, 13th century structure, reconstructed later in the Renaissance style. It neighbors on the Baroque Promnitzs' Palace, which was designed by Swiss architect Giovanni Simonetti. Both residences, purchased by a private investor, continue to wait for renovation. They are surrounded by the remains of an old geometrical park, with a garden palace and the Blue Gate dating from 1708.
 * The Gothic Sacred Heart Church towers above the Old Town. The church, which obtained its principal shape in the 15th century, remembers the times when the city was chartered; fragments of the wall in the northern wing date from the 13th century. Initially it was a Roman Catholic church, then a Protestant Lutheran church from 1524 to 1945, when it became a Roman Catholic church again. The Baroque Promnitz Chapel near the eastern wall was added in 1670–1672. In the vicinity of the church we can find a Gothic rectory and a Gothic-Renaissance building of the old commissariat. Today it houses a museum.
 * The garrison Church under the invocation of the Elevation of the Holy Cross build in the turn of the 14th/15th centuries; originally the church of Grey Friars
 * Church under the invocation of St. Peter and Paul (13th century) located in the former cemetery
 * One of the main treasures of the Market Square is the newly renovated Town Hall dating from the turn of the 14th century, featuring a beautiful Renaissance portal. There are also tenement houses that surround the Market Square and some at Bolesława Chrobrego Street, which is a major commercial thoroughfare of the city. The oldest buildings date from the 17th century.
 * The remains of the medieval fortifications of the city are fragments of walls, two defense towers (the taller one of the 14th/15th centuries, with ashlars made from meadow ore, has become a “landmark” of Żary), and a stone belfry from the turn of the 14th century.
 * The Blue Gate build in 1708
 * One of the tourist and natural attractions of the area is the “Green Forest” located near the southern border of the city, featuring the highest altitude in the Lubuski Region (227 m above sea level).

Municipal projects

The Żary calendar of events includes many cultural festivals: in April the International Music Festival “Eurosilesia”, in the beginning of June the city celebrates with pomp the Festival of Żary, in August there is the International Plein-air Painting and Sculpture Event, the International Festival of Street Theaters, in October the Vienna Music Festival, and in December the Telemann Youth Festival. For six years rock music concerts called “Woodstock Stop Festival” have been organized in Żary.

Żary invites to its new complex of indoor swimming pools called “Wodnik”, featuring state-of-the-art fitness equipment. Other places in the city that offer pleasant atmosphere during meetings include myriad restaurants, cafes, and pubs. On the first Saturday of every month a flea market is held in the pedestrian precinct in Żary and the Exhibition Salon is located in the Żary pedestrian precinct near the Town Hall.

Thanks to an annual growth of revenues from local taxes and quick privatization of the municipal property, the community was able to finance several large-scale investment projects. The city has a sewage treatment plant with throughput of 15,000 cu. m per day, and a municipal landfill that meets the requirements of European standards. In 1998 a new water treatment plant was opened. Work continues on expansion of gas grid, heat distribution system, and water-sewage hookups.

In 2000 a large section of the bypass and a complex of indoor swimming pools were opened. Modernization of local roads is underway. In 2005 the last section of the bypass will be opened. Preparations continue on the revitalization of the Old Town of Żary. The pavement of the market square will soon be renovated. The projects of development of the town's pedestrian zone, park and the former military area.

The communication arrangement of the town is being modernized and expenses are being appropriated for the educational infrastructure. The construction of the sports and showroom is underway and junior high schools and primary schools are being redecorated. The community has benefited significantly from the funds of the European Union such as Phare CBC and Interreg.

Education
There is one institution of higher education based in Żary:
 * Łużycka Wyższa Szkoła Humanistyczna

Sport

 * Promień Żary – men's football team, 3rd league
 * Unia Kunice – men's football team, 3rd league
 * MLKS AGROS Żary – sports club; athletics and wrestling sections
 * MKS Sokół Żary – women's volleyball (former 1st league) team

Cuisine
The officially protected traditional food from Żary is kiełbasa żarska, a local type of kiełbasa (as designated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland).

Notable people

 * Basil Faber (1520–1576), Lutheran theologian
 * Johann Crüger (1598–1662), German composer of Lutheran hymns
 * Erdmann Neumeister (1671–1756), Preacher of Erdmann II Promnitz
 * Christoph Friedrich Richter (1676–1711), German hymnwriter and entomologist
 * Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767), German composer
 * Friedrich von Wendt (1738–1818), German physician
 * Christoph Christian Sturm (1740–1786), German preacher and author
 * Gustav Fechner (1801–1887), German experimental psychologist, philosopher and physicist
 * Ernst Kummer (1810–1893), German mathematician
 * Maximilian Gritzner (1829–1902), German expert on heraldry
 * Willy Jähde (1908–2002), Wehrmacht officer
 * Friedrich Schoenfelder (1916–2011), German actor
 * Tadeusz Ślusarski (1950–1998), Olympic gold and silver medalist in pole vault
 * Józef Tracz (born 1964), wrestler (Greco-Roman style) who won three Olympic medals
 * Mariusz Liberda (born 1976), footballer
 * Andrzej Niedzielan (born 1979), footballer
 * Sebastian Dudek (born 1980), footballer
 * Andrzej Tychowski (born 1981), retired footballer
 * Mateusz Lis (born 1997), footballer

International relations
Żary is part of the Spree-Nysa-Bóbr Euroregion – a voluntary association of townships on both sides of the border. Apart from its twin towns, the city also develops relations with the borderland towns of Forst and Spremberg. In 2003 the 1st Level State Music School of Żary signed a cooperation agreement with a conservatory from Magdeburg. These are the only music schools named after composer G.P. Telemann.

Twin towns – sister cities
Żary is twinned with:
 * 🇭🇺 Gárdony, Hungary (2009)
 * 🇫🇷 Longuyon, France (2004)
 * 🇩🇪 Weißwasser, Germany (1996)

title: Żary


text:
Gaucho

A gaucho or gaúcho  is a skilled horseman, reputed to be brave and unruly. The figure of the gaucho is a folk symbol of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, the southern part of Bolivia, and the south of Chilean Patagonia. Gauchos became greatly admired and renowned in legend, folklore, and literature and became an important part of their regional cultural tradition. Beginning late in the 19th century, after the heyday of the gauchos, they were celebrated by South American writers.

According to the Diccionario de la lengua española, in its historical sense a gaucho was a "mestizo who, in the 18th and 19th centuries, inhabited Argentina, Uruguay, and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, and was a migratory horseman, and adept in cattle work". In Argentina and Uruguay today, gaucho can refer to any "country person, experienced in traditional livestock farming". Because historical gauchos were reputed to be brave, if unruly, the word is also applied metaphorically to mean "noble, brave and generous", but also "one who is skillful in subtle tricks, crafty". In Portuguese the word gaúcho means "an inhabitant of the plains of Rio Grande do Sul or the Pampas of Argentina of European and indigenous American descent who devotes himself to lassoing and raising cattle and horses"; gaúcho has also acquired a metonymic signification in Brazil, meaning anyone, even an urban dweller, who is a citizen of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Etymology
Many explanations have been proposed, but no-one really knows how the word "gaucho" originated. Already in 1933 an author counted 36 different theories; more recently, over fifty. They can proliferate because "there is no documentation of any sort that will fix its origin to any time, place or language".

Resemblance theories
Most seem to have been conjured up by finding a word that looks something like gaucho and guessing that it changed to its present form, perhaps without awareness that there are sound laws that describe how languages and words really evolve over time. The etymologist Joan Corominas said most of these theories were "not worthy of discussion". Of the following explanations, Rona said that only #5, #8 and #9 might be taken seriously.

The dialect frontier theory
A different approach is to consider that the word might have originated north of the Río de la Plata, where the indigenous languages were quite different and there is a Portuguese influence. Two facts that any theory could usefully account for are:
 * The word actually exists in two forms: Port. gaúcho and Sp. gaucho, both long attested.
 * Gauchos are first mentioned by name in the Spanish colonial records for present-day Uruguay, often in connection with smuggling to Brazil (see below, Origins). Thus Azara wrote (around 1784):"There is in that land, and particularly around Montevideo and Maldonado, another class of people, most appropriately called gauchos or gauderios. Commonly all are criminals escaped from the jails of Spain and Brazil, or they belong to the number of those who, because of their atrocities, have had to flee to the wilderness... When the gaucho has some necessity or caprice to satisfy, he steals a few horses or cows, takes them to Brazil where he sells them and where he gets whatever it is he needs."

Hence the Uruguayan sociolinguist José Pedro Rona thought the origin of the word was to be sought "on the frontier zone between Spanish and Portuguese, which goes from northern Uruguay to the Argentine province of Corrientes and the Brazilian area between them".

Rona, himself born on a language frontier in pre-Holocaust Europe, was a pioneer of the concept of linguistic borders, and studied the dialects of northern Uruguay where Portuguese and Spanish intermingle. Rona thought that, of the two forms — gaúcho and gaucho — the former probably came first, because it was linguistically more natural for gaúcho to evolve by accent-shift to gáucho, than the other way round. Thus the problem came down to explaining the origin of gaúcho.

As to that, Rona thought that gaúcho originated in northern Uruguay, and came from garrucho, a derisive word possibly of Charrua origin, which meant something like "old indian" or "contemptible person", and is actually found in the historical record. However in the Portuguese-based dialects of northern Uruguay the phoneme /rr/ is not easily pronounced, and so is rendered as /h/ (sounding rather like English h). Thus garrucho would be rendered as gahucho, and indeed the French naturalist Augustin Saint-Hilaire, travelling in Uruguay during the Artigas insurgency, wrote in his diary (16 October 1820):"Ces hommes sans religion et sans morale, le plus part indiens ou métis, que les Portugais désignaient sous le nom de 'Garruchos ou Gahuchos'. (Those men without religion or morals, mostly indians or half-breeds, that the Portuguese call Garruchos or Gahuchos)." The native Spanish-speakers of these borderlands, however, could not process the phoneme /h/, and would render it as a null, thus gaúcho. In sum, according to this theory, gaúcho originated in the Uruguay-Brazil dialect borderlands, deriving from a derisive indigenous word garrucho, then in Spanish lands evolved by accent-shift to gaucho.

History
The historical "gaucho" is elusive, because there has been more than one kind. Mythologisation has obscured the topic.

Origins
Itinerant horsemen, hunting wild cattle on the pampas, originated as a social class during the 17th century. "The great natural abundance of the pampa", wrote Richard W. Slatta, "with its plethora of cattle, horses, ostriches, and other wild game, meant that a skilled horseman and hunter could live without permanent employment by selling hides, feathers, pelts, and eating free beef. This pampean largess shaped the gaucho's independent, migratory existence and his aversion to a sedentary regimen'."

The original gaucho was typically descended from unions between Iberian men and Amerindian women, although he might also have African ancestry. A DNA analysis study of rural inhabitants of Rio Grande do Sul, who style themselves gaúchos, has claimed to discern, not only Amerindian (Charrúa and Guaraní) ancestry in the female line but, in the male line, a higher proportion of Spanish ancestry than is usual in Brazil. However, gauchos were a social class, not an ethnic group.

Gauchos are first mentioned by name in the 18th century records of the Spanish colonial authorities who administered the Banda Oriental (present-day Uruguay). For them, he is an outlaw, cattle thief, robber and smuggler. Félix de Azara (1790) said gauchos were "the dregs of the Rio de la Plata and of Brazil". Summarised one scholar: "Fundamentally [the gaucho of the time] was a colonial bootlegger whose business was contraband trade in cattle hides. His work was highly illegal; his character lamentably reprehensible; his social standing exceedingly low.

"Gaucho" was an insult; yet it was possible to use the word to refer, without animosity, to country people in general. Furthermore the gaucho's skills, though useful in banditry or smuggling, were just as useful for serving in the frontier police. The Spanish administration recruited its antismuggling Cuerpo de Blandengues from among the outlaws themselves. The Uruguayan patriot José Gervasio Artigas made precisely that career transition.

Wars of emancipation; independence
The gaucho was a born cavalryman, and his bravery in the patriot cause in the wars of independence, especially under Artigas and Martín Miguel de Güemes, earned admiration and improved his image. The Spanish general García Gamba, who fought against Güemes in Salta, said:"The gauchos were men that knew the country, well mounted and armed... They approached the troop with such confidence, relaxation, and coolness that they caused great admiration among the European military men, who were seeing for the first time these extraordinary horsemen whose excellent qualities for guerilla warfare and swift surprise they had to endure on many occasions." Knowing "gaucho" to be an insult, the Spanish hurled it at the patriot militias; Güemes, however, picked it up as a badge of honour, referring to his troops as "my gauchos".

Visitors to the newly emergent Argentina and Uruguay perceived that a "gaucho" was a country person or herdsman: seldom was there a pejorative significance. Emeric Essex Vidal, the first artist to paint gauchos, noted their mobility (1820): "They never conceive any attachment either for the soil or for a master: however well he may pay, and however kindly he may treat them, they leave him at any moment when they take it into their heads, most frequently without even bidding him adieu, or at most saying, 'I am going, because I have been with you long enough'. * * * They are extremely hospitable; they furnish any traveller that applies to them with lodging and food, and scarcely ever think of inquiring who he is, or whither he is going, even though he may remain with them for several months."

Vidal also painted visiting gauchos from up-country Tucumán. ("Their features are particularly Spanish, uncrossed by that mixture observable in the citizens of Buenos Ayres"). They are not horsemen: they are oxcart drivers, and may or may not have called themselves gauchos in their home province.

Charles Darwin observed life on the pampas for six months and reflected in his diary (1833):"The Gauchos, or countrymen, are very superior to those who reside in the towns. The Gaucho is invariably most obliging, polite, and hospitable: I did not meet with even one instance of rudeness or inhospitality. He is modest, both respecting himself and country, but at the same time a spirited, bold fellow. On the other hand, many robberies are committed, and there is much bloodshed: the habit of constantly wearing the knife is the chief cause of the latter. It is lamentable to hear how many lives are lost in trifling quarrels. In fighting, each party tries to mark the face of his adversary by slashing his nose or eyes; as is often attested by deep and horrid-looking scars. Robberies are a natural consequence of universal gambling, much drinking, and extreme indolence. At Mercedes I asked two men why they did not work. One gravely said the days were too long; the other that he was too poor. The number of horses and the profusion of food are the destruction of all industry."

Argentina

As cattle estates grew bigger the freely wandering gaucho became a nuisance to landed proprietors, except when his casual labour was wanted e.g. at branding. Furthermore his services were needed in the armies that were fighting on the Indian frontiers, or in the frequent civil wars.

Hence in Argentina, vagrancy laws required rural workers to carry employment documents. Some restrictions on the gaucho's freedom of movement were imposed under Spanish Viceroy Sobremonte, but they were greatly intensified under Bernardino Rivadavia, and were enforced more vigorously still under Juan Manuel de Rosas. Those who did not carry the documentation could be sentenced to years in the military. From 1822 to 1873 even internal passports were required.

According to Marxist and other scholars the gaucho became "proletarianized", preferring life as a salaried peon on an estancia to forced enlistment, irregular pay and harsh discipline. However, some resisted. "In words and deeds, soldiers contested the state's disciplinary model", frequently deserting. Deserters often fled to the Indian frontier, or even took refuge with the Indians themselves. José Hernández described the bitter fate of just such a gaucho protagonist in his poem Martín Fierro (1872), a great popular success in the countryside. One estimate was that renegade gauchos comprised half of all Indian raiding parties.

Lucio Victorio Mansilla (1877) thought he could discern two types of gaucho in the soldiers under his command: The paisano gaucho (country worker) has a home, a fixed abode, work habits, respect for authority, on whose side he will always be, even against his better feelings.

But the gaucho neto (out-and-out gaucho) is the typical wandering criollo, here today, there tomorrow; gambler, quarreler, enemy of discipline; who flees military service when it is his turn, takes refuge among the Indians if he knifes someone, or joins the montonera (armed rabble) if it shows up.

The first has the instincts of civilization; he imitates the man of the cities in his dress, in his customs. The second loves tradition; he hates foreigners; his luxury is his spurs, his flash gear, his leather sash, his facón (dagger-sword). The first takes off his poncho to go into town, the second goes there flaunting his trappings. The first is a cultivator, oxcart driver, cattle drover, herdsman, a peon. The second hires himself out for cattle branding. The first has been a soldier several times. The second was once part of a squadron and as soon as he saw his chance he deserted.

The first is always federal, the second is no longer anything. The first still believes in something; the second believes in nothing. He has suffered more than the city slicker, and so has been disillusioned quicker. He votes, because the Commander or the Mayor tells him to, and with that universal suffrage is achieved. If he has a claim, he drops it because he thinks it is frankly a waste of time. In a word, the first is a useful man for industry and work — the second is a dangerous inhabitant anywhere. If he resorts to the courts, it is because he has the instinct to believe that they will do him justice out of fear – and there are examples, if they don't do it he takes revenge — he wounds or kills. The former makes up the Argentine social mass; the second is disappearing.

Already in 1845 a local dialect dictionary, by a knowledgeable compiler, gave "gaucho" as meaning any kind of rural worker, including one who cultivated the soil. To refer to the wandering sort, one had to specify further. Documentary research has shown the great majority of rural workers in Buenos Aires province were not herdsmen, but cultivators or shepherds. Thus, the gaucho that survives in today's popular imagination — the galloping horseman — was not typical.

Brazil and Uruguay
Gauchos north of the Río de la Plata were similar to their Argentine counterparts; however there were some differences, particularly in the region straddling Brazil and Uruguay.

The Portuguese Crown, in order to conquer southern Brazil — it was disputed with the Spanish Empire — distributed vast tracts of land to a few hundred families. Labour in this region was scarce, so great landowners acquired it by allowing a social class, called agregados, to settle on their land with their own animals. Values were martial and paternalistic, for the territory went back and forth between Portugal and Spain. "Thus, the social pyramid of the borderland was divided into rough thirds: at the top, Portuguese landowners and their families; then the agregados, whose racial origins varied; and, at the bottom, the enslaved Africans whose large numbers distinguish the Brazilian borderland from similar ranching areas in the Rio de la Plata."

Brazilian inheritance laws compelled landowners to leave their lands in equal shares to their sons and daughters, and since they were numerous, and those laws were hard to evade, great landholdings fractured in a few generations. There were not the huge cattle estates of Buenos Aires province where, as an extreme example, the Anchorena family owned 958,000 hectare in 1864.

Unlike Argentina, cattlemen in Rio Grande do Sul did not have vagrancy laws to tie gaúchos to their ranches. However, slavery was legal in Brazil; in Rio Grande do Sul it existed until 1884; and perhaps a majority of permanent ranch workers were enslaved. Thus many horse-riding campeiros (cowboys) were black slaves. They enjoyed sharply better living conditions than the slaves who worked in the brutal xarqueadas (beef-salting plants). John Charles Chasteen explained why: "Ranching requires mounted workers who are not easily supervised and have ample opportunities to escape. To hold on to their slaves, estancieiros considered the dictates of humanity the most economical policy. They could easily afford it."

Land-hungry Rio Grande cattlemen bought up estates cheaply in neighbouring Uruguay until they owned about 30% of that country, which they ranched with their slaves and cattle. The border area was fluid, bilingual and lawless. Though slavery was abolished in Uruguay in 1846, and there were laws against human trafficking, weak governments poorly enforced those laws. Often Brazilian ranchers simply ignored them, even crossing and re-crossing the border with their slaves and cattle. An 1851 extradition treaty required Uruguay to return fugitive Brazilian slaves.

Governments found it hard to establish a monopoly of violence in the border area. In the Federalist Revolution of 1893 gaúcho-manned armies led by elite families fought each other with exceptional barbarity. Powerful Brazilian-Uruguayan families, like the Saraivas, led mounted insurrections in both countries, even in the 20th century. In the satirical cartoon (1904) Aparicio Saravia says it is time for "another little revolution": they have been at peace long enough and are starting to look ridiculous. This time, however, his mobile, lance-wielding horsemen were put down, and decisively, by Uruguayan troops armed with Mauser rifles and Krupp cannon, efficiently deployed by telegraph and rail.

European immigration; fencing the pampa
It was official government policy, enshrined in the Argentine Constitution of 1853, to encourage European immigration. The purpose, which was not concealed, was to supplant the "lower races" of the sparsely populated interior, including gauchos, whom the elite believed to be hopelessly backward. Famously, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Argentina's second elected president, had written (in Facundo: Civilización y Barbarie) that gauchos, although audacious and skilled in country lore, were brutal, feckless, lived indolently in squalor, and — by upholding the caudillos (provincial strongmen) — were obstacles to national unity. The population was so thinly spread it was impossible to educate. They were barbarians, inimical to progress. Juan Bautista Alberdi, deviser of the Constitution, held that "to govern is to populate".

Once political stability was achieved the results were dramatic. From around 1875 a flood of immigrants altered the country's ethnic composition. In 1914, 40% of Argentina's residents were foreign-born. Today, Italian surnames are more common than Spanish.

Barbed wire, cheap from 1876, fenced the pampa "and thus eliminated the need for gaucho cowboys". Gauchos were forced off the land, drifting into rural towns to look for work, though a few were retained as peon labourers. Cunninghame Graham, after whom a Buenos Aires street is named, and who had lived as a gaucho in the 1870s, returned in 1914 to "his first love, Argentina" and found it had greatly changed. "Progress, which he constantly lambasted, had rendered the gaucho virtually extinct".

Wote S. Samuel Trifilo (1964): "The gaucho of today working on the pampas of Argentina is no more a real gaucho than is our own present-day cowboy the cowboy of the Wild West; both have gone forever."

Two-thirds of Uruguay lies south of the Río Negro, and this part was fenced most intensively in the decade 1870-1880. The gaucho was marginalised and was frequently driven to live in pueblos de ratas (rural slums, literally rat towns).

North of the Río Negro mobile gauchos survived rather longer. A Scottish anthropologist in the central region (1882) saw many of them as unsettled. European immigration to the countryside was smaller. The central government failed to consolidate its power over the countryside, and gaucho-manned armies continued to defy it until 1904. The turbulent gaucho leaders e.g. the Saravias had connections with the cattlemen over the Brazilian border, where there was much less European immigration; Wire fences did not become common in the borderland until the close of the 19th century.

The revolutionary battles in Brazil ended by 1930 under the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas, who disarmed the private gaúcho armies and prohibited the carrying of guns in public.

Argentina
In the 20th century urban intellectuals promoted the gaucho as the Argentine national icon; it was a reaction to massive European immigration and a rapidly changing way of life. "This new glorification of the once-despised plainsman came at moment when the gaucho had all but disappeared from the pampa." Jeane DeLaney has argued that the immigrant was being scapegoated for the problems of modernity; thus, the sentiment was antimodernistic, with a xenophobic, nationalistic edge.

Writers variously reflecting this tendency included José María Ramos Mejía, Manuel Gálvez, Rafael Obligado, José Ingenieros, Miguel Cané, and above all Leopoldo Lugones and Ricardo Güiraldes. Their answer was to go back to values that could be attributed to the old-time gaucho. However, the gaucho they chose was not the one who cultivated the land, but the one who galloped across it.

For Lugones (1913), to discern a people's true character, one had to read its epic poetry; and Martín Fierro was the Argentine epic poem par excellence. Far from being a barbarian, the gaucho was the hero who did what the Spanish Empire could not — civilise the pampa by subjugating the Indian. To be a gaucho demanded "composure, courage, ingenuity, meditation, sobriety, vigour; all this made him a free man". But in that case, asked Lugones, why did the gaucho disappear? Because, together with his virtues, he had inherited two defects from his Indian and Spanish ancestors: laziness and pessimism. "That he vanished is good for the country, because his Indian blood contained an inferior element."

Lugones' lectures, where he canonised Martín Fierro with its quarreling gaucho protagonist, had official support: the president of the Republic and his cabinet attended them, as did prominent members of the traditional ruling classes.

However, wrote a Mexican scholar, in exalting this gaucho Lugones and others were not recreating a real historical character, they were weaving a nationalist myth, for political purposes. Jorge Luis Borges thought their choice of gaucho was a poor role model for Argentines."The icon of the man on horseback is secretly pathetic. Under Attila, scourge of God, under Genghis Khan, under Timurlane, he destroys and founds vast realms, but these are fleeting. It is from the cultivator we get the word 'culture'; from cities, 'civilisation'; but this horseman is a passing storm... In this regard Capelle observes that the Greeks, the Romans, the Germans were tillers of the soil."

Wrote musicologist Melanie Plesch:"The invention of national types, as is well known, involves a fair amount of idealization and fantasy, but the Argentine case presents an idiosyncratic feature: the mythical gaucho seems to have been drawn as an inverted image of the immigrant. Thus, the immigrant's rapacity was contrasted with the gaucho's disinterestedness, stoicism and spiritual bohemianism, characteristics that had previously been conceptualized as his proverbial laziness and lack of industry. For instance, playing on the guitar, which had previously been regarded as a symptom of idleness, was now seen as an expression of the gaucho's soul."

The iconic gaucho gained traction in popular culture because he appealed to diverse social groups: displaced rural workers; European immigrants anxious to assimilate; traditional ruling classes wanting to affirm their own legitimacy. At a time when the elite was extolling Argentina as a "white" country, a fourth group, those who possessed dark skins, felt validated by the gaucho's elevation, seeing that his non-white ancestry was too well known to be concealed.

Political factions have competed to appropriate the gaucho icon and interpret him their way. In a review of Ezequiel Adamovsky's ''El gaucho indómito. De Martín Fierro a Perón, el emblema imposible de una nación desgarrada'' (The indomitable gaucho: from Martín Fierro to Perón, the impossible emblem of a torn nation), Raanan Rein wrote:"The Argentine military dictatorship used the figure of the gaucho in its propaganda to promote the 1978 FIFA world cup games and the image of Argentina as a peaceful and orderly country. At the same time, the Montoneros guerrilla group used the figure of the gaucho as a symbol of a rebel tradition since the early days of the country’s independence. This is just one example of the use and abuse for political purposes of the mythical contradictory figure of the gaucho, an integral part of the Argentine national identity."

Today a popular movement celebrates gaucho culture.

Brazil
In Rio Grande do Sul the gaúcho has been mythified too, not in reaction to massive immigration as in Argentina, but to give the state a regional identity. The main celebration is the Semana Farroupilha, a week of festivities, mass horseback parades, churrasco, rodeos and dances. It refers to the Ragamuffin War (1835–45), an elite-led separatist war against the Brazilian Empire; politicians have reinterpreted it as democratic movement. Hence, wrote Luciano Bornholdt,"the myth of the gaúcho was carefully constructed, and he was portrayed not as a poor herder, living a dangerous and dirty life, but as something much more appealing: he was praised as free, yet honest and loyal to his patron, a skilled man, even a hero in the official accounts of regional wars."

The Movimento Tradicionalista Gaúcho (MTG) has an active participation of two million people, and claims to be the largest popular culture movement in the Western world. Essentially urban, rooted in nostalgia for rural life, the MTG fosters gaúcho culture. There are 2,000 Centres for Gaúcho Traditions, not only in the state, but elsewhere, even Los Angeles and Osaka, Japan. Gaúcho products include television and radio programs, articles, books, dance halls, performers, records, theme restaurants, and clothing. The movement was founded by intellectuals, apparently sons of downwardly mobile small landowners who had moved to the cities to study. Since gaúcho culture was seen as male, only later were women invited to participate. Though the real gaúchos of history lived in the Campanha (plains region), some of the first to join were of German or Italian ethnicity from outside that area, a social class who had idealised the gaúcho rancher as a type superior to themselves.

Horsemanship
For many, an essential attribute of a gaucho is that he is a skilled horseman. Scottish physician and botanist David Christison noted in 1882, "He has taken his first lessons in riding before he is well able to walk". Without a horse the gaucho himself felt unmanned. During the wars of the 19th century in the Southern Cone, the cavalries on all sides were composed almost entirely of gauchos. In Argentina, gaucho armies such as that of Martín Miguel de Güemes, slowed Spanish advances. Furthermore, many caudillos relied on gaucho armies to control the Argentine provinces.

The naturalist William Henry Hudson, who was born on the Pampas of Buenos Aires province, recorded that the gauchos of his childhood used to say that a man without a horse was a man without legs. He described meeting a blind gaucho who was obliged to beg for his food yet behaved with dignity and went about on horseback. Richard W. Slatta, the author of a scholarly work about gauchos, notes that the gaucho used horses to collect, mark, drive or tame cattle, to draw fishing nets, to hunt ostriches, to snare partridges, to draw well water, and even—with the help of his friends—to ride to his own burial.

By reputation the quintessential gaucho caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas could throw his hat on the ground and scoop it up while galloping his horse, without touching the saddle with his hand. For the gaucho, the horse was absolutely essential to his survival for, said Hudson: "he must every day traverse vast distances, see quickly, judge rapidly, be ready at all times to encounter hunger and fatigue, violent changes of temperature, great and sudden perils".

A popular copla was:

It was the gaucho's passion to own all his steeds in matching colours. Hudson recalled: "The gaucho, from the poorest worker on horseback to the largest owner of lands and cattle, has, or had in those days, a fancy for having all his riding-horses of one colour. Every man as a rule had his tropilla — his own half a dozen or a dozen or more saddle-horses, and he would have them all as nearly alike as possible, so that one man had chestnuts, another browns, bays, silver- or iron-greys, duns, fawns, cream-noses, or blacks, or whites, or piebalds."

The caudillo Chacho Peñaloza described the low point of his life as "In Chile − and on foot!" (En Chile y a pie.)

Extreme equestrianship
Richard W. Slatta collected instances of extreme equestrian sports practised by 19th century gauchos. To perform these required and developed skills and courage that helped gauchos to survive on the pampas.

 * Crowding. Two men would spur their horses to shove against each other, each man's object being to drive his opponent to a particular place.  In a variant, they raced along a narrow track; if one man could crowd the other off it, he won.
 * Cinchada. An equestrian tug-of-war, tail to tail; the rope was tied to their saddles.  "This contest grew out of the need for mounts strong enough to pull against a wild, lassoed steer".
 * Pechando. Two horsemen galloping at full speed charged each other head on.  The shock of the collision tumbled the men and perhaps the horses.  The object was to recover and charge again and again until prevented by exhaustion or injury.  "Pechando provided an opportunity for a gaucho to exhibit his courage and indifference to death or injury."
 * Jumping the bar. A bar was placed above a corral gate with just enough headroom for a horse to pass.  A gaucho galloped through, and as he did, he jumped over the bar and landed back in the saddle.
 * Maroma. A variant in which the gaucho jumped from the bar onto the back of a racing wild horse or wild steer.  He had to stay on until the horse was broken or the steer was killed.
 * Recado. The horseman galloped across the pampa while he undid his recado (a multi-layered saddle), dropping the pieces as he went.  He had to go back, snatch up the pieces and reassemble his saddle, all the time riding at full speed.
 * Pialar, a particularly dangerous sport. One man galloped through a group of gauchos who lassoed his  horse's legs.  This threw the horse, but the man had to land on his feet holding the reins.  This skill was useful for survival because the pampa was riddled with vizcacha burrows that threw horses; loss of one's mount was probable death for a solitary rider.

Gauchos routinely maltreated their horses since these were plentiful. Even a poor gaucho usually had a tropilla of perhaps a dozen. Most of those sports were banned by the elite.

 * La sortija. Carrying a lance, a galloping horseman had to impale a small ring dangling from a thread.  Introduced from Spain, this sport is still practised in Spanish-speaking countries.
 * Pato. A  game resembling  rugby football on horseback, but ranging over miles of terrain.  Banned in its original form, pato was gentrified and is now Argentina's national sport.

The higher skills were lost as the gaucho was marginalised, wrote Slatta:"Writing in the early 1920s, [a visitor] observed that the old gaucho equestrian practices had disappeared. No riders now performed the daring and dangerous maroma or pialar. [He] found that the ranch peon on the modern estancia could not 'sit a really bad horse'. He had lost the finely honed riding skills that allowed his gaucho predecessor to stay on virtually any mount."

Culture
The gaucho plays an important symbolic role in the nationalist feelings of this region, especially that of Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The epic poem Martín Fierro by José Hernández (considered by some the national epic of Argentina) used the gaucho as a symbol against corruption and of Argentine national tradition, pitted against Europeanising tendencies. Martín Fierro, the hero of the poem, is drafted into the Argentine military for a border war, deserts, and becomes an outlaw and fugitive. The image of the free gaucho is often contrasted to the slaves who worked the northern Brazilian lands. Further literary descriptions are found in Ricardo Güiraldes' Don Segundo Sombra.

Gauchos were generally reputed to be strong, honest, silent types, but proud and capable of violence when provoked. The gaucho tendency to violence over petty matters is also recognized as a typical trait. Gauchos' use of the facón—a large knife generally tucked into the rear of the gaucho's sash—is legendary, often associated with considerable bloodletting. Historically, the facón was typically the only eating instrument that a gaucho carried.

The gaucho diet was composed almost entirely of beef while on the range, supplemented by mate, an herbal infusion made from the leaves of yerba mate, a type of holly rich in caffeine and nutrients. The water for mate was heated short of boiling on a stove in a kettle, and traditionally served in a hollowed-out gourd and sipped through a metal straw called a bombilla.

Gauchos dressed and wielded tools quite distinct from North American cowboys. In addition to the lariat, gauchos used bolas or boleadoras (boleadeiras in Portuguese)—three leather-bound rocks tied together with leather straps. The typical gaucho outfit would include a poncho, which doubled as a saddle blanket and as sleeping gear; a facón (dagger); a leather whip called a rebenque; and loose-fitting trousers called bombachas or a poncho or blanket wrapped around the loins like a diaper called a chiripá, belted with a sash called a faja. A leather belt, sometimes decorated with coins and elaborate buckles, is often worn over the sash. During winters, gauchos wore heavy wool ponchos to protect against cold.

Their tasks were to move the cattle between grazing fields, or to market sites such as the port of Buenos Aires. The yerra consists of branding the animal with the owner's sign. The taming of animals was another of their usual activities. Taming was a trade especially appreciated throughout Argentina and competitions to domesticate wild foal remained in force at festivals. The majority of gauchos were illiterate and considered as countrymen.

Analogies
The gaucho in some respects resembled members of other nineteenth century rural, horse-based cultures such as the North American cowboy (vaquero in Spanish), huaso of Central Chile, the Peruvian chalan or morochuco, the Venezuelan and Colombian llanero, the Ecuadorian chagra, the Hawaiian paniolo, the Mexican charro, and the Portuguese campino.

In popular culture

 * Martín Fierro is a 2,316-line epic poem by the Argentine writer José Hernández on the life of the eponymous gaucho.
 * Martín Fierro 1968 Argentine film based upon José Hernández's poem Martín Fierro.
 * Way of a Gaucho 1952 film starring Gene Tierney and Rory Calhoun.
 * The Gaucho was a 1927 film starring Douglas Fairbanks.
 * La Guerra Gaucha was a 1942 Argentine film set during the Gaucho war against Spanish royalists in Salta, northern Argentina, in 1817. It is considered a classic of Argentine cinema.
 * The third segment of Disney's 1942 animated feature package film, Saludos Amigos, is titled "El Gaucho Goofy", where American cowboy Goofy gets taken mysteriously to the Argentine Pampas to learn the ways of the native gaucho.
 * Gaucho is the name of the 1980 album by American jazz fusion band Steely Dan, which featured a song by the same name.
 * Gauchos of El Dorado was a 1941 American Western Three Mesquiteers B-movie directed by Lester Orlebeck.
 * Inodoro Pereyra by Roberto Fontanarrosa is an Argentinean humor comics series about a gaucho.
 * Gaucho is the name of a song by the Dave Matthews Band on the 2012 album Away From the World.
 * The Gaucho is the University of California Santa Barbara mascot.
 * The Jewish Gauchos is a 1910 novel by Alberto Gerchunoff about Jewish gauchos in Argentina. It was adapted into a film, Los Gauchos judíos, in 1975.
 * Gaucho culture is often referred to by Borges

title: Gaucho


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Mohawk Valley

The Mohawk Valley region of the U.S. state of New York is the area surrounding the Mohawk River, sandwiched between the Adirondack Mountains and Catskill Mountains, northwest of the Capital District. As of the 2010 United States Census, the region's counties have a combined population of 622,133 people. In addition to the Mohawk River valley, the region contains portions of other major watersheds such as the Susquehanna River.

The region is a suburban and rural area surrounding the industrialized cities of Schenectady, Utica and Rome, along with other smaller commercial centers. The 5,882 sqmi area is an important agricultural center and encompasses the heavily forested wilderness areas just to the north that are part of New York's Adirondack Park.

The Mohawk Valley is part of a natural passageway connecting the Atlantic Ocean, by way of the Hudson Valley, with the interior of North America. Native American Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy lived in the region. In the 17th century, Dutch, French and English immigrants —and in the 18th century German, Irish and Scottish—settled the area. Following the rapid industrialization of the mid-19th century, Italians and Welsh People settled in the valley.

During the 18th Century, the Mohawk Valley was a frontier of great political, military, and economic importance. Colonists— such as Phillip Schuyler, Nicholas Herkimer, William Johnson—trading with the Iroquois set the stage for commercial and military competition between European nations, leading to the French and Indian Wars and the American Revolution. Almost 100 battles of the American Revolution were fought in New York State, including the Battle of Oriskany, Battle of Saratoga and defense of Fort Stanwix. During the war, a series of raids against valley residents took place led by John Johnson. These raids were collectively known as the "Burning of the Valleys".

In 1825, the Erie Canal was completed as the first commercial connection between the American East and West.

Strategic importance
During the French and Indian War, the Mohawk River Valley was of prime strategic importance; to the British, it provided a corridor to the Great Lakes from which to threaten New France directly, while to the French it provided a corridor to the Hudson Valley and on to the heart of British North America. In addition, many settlements of the Mohawk, Britain's crucial Indian ally at the time of the war, were located in or near the valley.

At the beginning of the war, the major British stronghold in the Mohawk corridor was Fort Oswego, located on Lake Ontario. The French captured and destroyed the fort after a short siege in 1756, and the Mohawk Valley lay open to French advance as a result. Although the French did not directly exploit this avenue of attack, its impact swayed some of the Iroquois tribes to the French side.

Mohawks of Mohawk Valley
The original inhabitants of the Mohawk Valley can be traced back 10,000 plus years and included Algonquian people that later relocated from the newly established Fort Orange Dutch trading post region as early as 1624, as the name implies, the inhabitants were and remained Mohawks. The name Mohawk Valley has its origins in the years 1614 and 1624-25 following the settlement by Dutch traders who established a trading post in the Valley, the Mohawk tribe became alliances and targets during the Indian Wars. The Mohawks of Mohawk Valley call themselves Kanien'keha'ka, and "People of the Flint" in part due to their creation story of a powerful flinted arrow. Among other things, the traditional use of Mohawk Valley flint as Toolmaking Flint is only one attribution to the Mohawk Valley People of the Flint name.

Counties

 * Schoharie
 * Montgomery
 * Fulton
 * Herkimer
 * Oneida
 * Otsego

Schoharie County is sometimes considered to be part of the Mohawk Valley because the Schoharie Creek, primarily located in Schoharie County, is a major tributary that empties into the Mohawk River at Fort Hunter in Montgomery County. Furthermore, the northern border of Schoharie County with Montgomery County is very close to the Mohawk River.

Schenectady, Albany, and Saratoga counties are also sometimes considered to be part of the Mohawk Valley because the Mohawk River Flows through those 3 counties, the Mohawk River also ends at the Hudson River where Albany, Saratoga, and Rensselaer counties meet as a delta.

Schoharie, Montgomery, Fulton, Saratoga, Schenectady, and Albany counties are the only 6 counties within the Mohawk Valley to be part of the Capital District, Albany County is also considered part of the Hudson Valley.

Major cities, towns, and villages

 * Montgomery County
 * Amsterdam
 * Canajoharie
 * Fonda
 * Fort Plain
 * Fultonville
 * Nelliston
 * Palatine Bridge
 * St. Johnsville

 * Fulton County
 * Gloversville
 * Johnstown

 * Herkimer County
 * Frankfort
 * Herkimer
 * Ilion
 * Little Falls
 * Mohawk

 * Oneida County
 * Sherrill
 * Rome
 * Utica

 * Otsego County
 * Cooperstown
 * Oneonta

 * Schoharie County
 * Middleburgh
 * Schoharie
 * Cobleskill

 * Schenectady County
 * Schenectady
 * Rotterdam
 * Niskayuna
 * Glenville
 * Scotia

 * Saratoga County
 * Saratoga Springs
 * Mechanicville
 * Ballston Spa
 * Waterford
 * Clifton Park
 * Halfmoon
 * Stillwater
 * Malta
 * Schuylerville
 * Wilton
 * South Glens Falls
 * Corinth

 * Albany County
 * Albany
 * Cohoes
 * Watervliet
 * Colonie
 * Menands
 * Green Island
 * Voorheesville
 * Guilderland
 * Bethlehem
 * Ravena

Popular culture

 * Drums Along the Mohawk (1936), an historical novel written by Walter D. Edmonds, is set in the Mohawk Valley near Deerfield during the American Revolutionary War. It was very carefully researched and portrayed the complexity of the times. The 1939 film of the same name, directed by John Ford, has been criticized for “[abandoning] the historical complexity of the original for the mythic simplification of an all-American Western.”
 * The Mohawk Valley is an important site in the video game Assassin's Creed III published by Ubisoft. The game takes place during the Revolutionary War era and features an assassin tasked with playing a role in the history of early America.

title: Mohawk Valley


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Talk:AmigaCD32

This page needs to be merged with Commodore Amiga CD32. --Imran 03:25, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

name
Shouldn't there be a space between Amiga and CD32? -Slo-mo 08:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, there should be a space between them. - ADSR6581 12:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:AmigaCD32


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Hrubieszów

Hrubieszów (Грубешів; הרוביעשאָוו, or רובשוב ) is a town in southeastern Poland, with a population of around 18,212 (2016). It is the capital of Hrubieszów County within the Lublin Voivodeship.

Throughout history, the town's culture and architecture was strongly shaped by its Polish Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Jewish inhabitants. Almost all of the Jewish community of the town, however, were murdered in the Holocaust. Hrubieszów is also the birthplace of Polish writer, novelist and author of popular books Bolesław Prus, and entrepreneur and Holocaust survivor Henry Orenstein.

History

The area formed part of the Cherven Cities, a territory which was included within the emerging Polish state in the 10th century by its first historic ruler Mieszko I. It was invaded and annexed from Poland by Kievan Rus' in 981, and afterwards it changed possession several times between Poland and Rus', and even fell to the Mongol Empire in the mid-13th century. The origins of the town go back to the early Middle Ages, when a defensive gord existed on the Huczwa river island. It was first mentioned in 1254, as a hunting settlement located among forests.

In 1366, the area, along with Hrubieszów, then called Rubieszów, was eventually recaptured by King Casimir III the Great, and reintegrated with the Kingdom of Poland. Sometime in the late 14th century, a wooden castle was built here, as a residence of a local governor. Probably in 1400 Rubieszów received a town charter from Polish king Władysław II Jagiełło, who visited it in 1411, 1413 and 1430. A castle and church were later added. King Casimir IV Jagiellon ordered the construction of a route from Lublin to Lwów passing through Rubieszów. The town was destroyed several times by Crimean Tatars, who raided this area in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, and by the rebellious Cossacks.

After the First Partition of Poland in 1772, Hrubieszów was annexed by Austria. In 1800, Stanisław Staszic founded the Hrubieszów Agricultural Society, the first cooperative organization in Europe, which existed until 1945. The name of the town was changed in 1802 from Rubieszów to Hrubieszów. Following the Austro-Polish War of 1809 the town became part of the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw, then in 1815 it became part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland, within the Lublin Governorate. In 1909, its population was 15,000. In the final weeks of World War I, in November 1918, a newly formed Polish unit from Chełm liberated the town. It was integrated with reborn Poland, within which it was administratively part of the Lublin Voivodeship. In 1919, the 4th Polish Rifles Regiment was based in Hrubieszów, before relocating to Bełz.

During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II, the German army entered the town on 15 September 1939. Ten days later the Germans withdrew and the Soviet army occupied the town, but after a fortnight returned it to the Germans, in accordance with a new Soviet-German agreement. During the German occupation, the region witnessed the Zamość Uprising. Many inhabitants, including almost all of the 7,000 Jewish residents, were murdered in the Holocaust. In 1944, the German occupation ended, and the town was restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s.

After World War II, what remained of the town's Ukrainian population was expelled to the Soviet Union. In May 1946, the town was the site of the largest joint action by the partisans of the Polish anti-communist Freedom and Independence movement and those of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

Between 1975 and 1998, the town was administratively part of the Zamość Voivodeship.

Jewish community
The Jewish population numbered 709 in 1765, 3,276 in 1856, 5,352 (out of 10,636) in 1897, in 1921, there were 5679, and probably around 7500 in 1939.

During World War II, the German army immediately organized a series of "aktions" after it invaded the town on 15 September 1939. Over 2,000 Jews, having experienced the Nazi German terror, left with the withdrawing Soviet army, which shortly occupied the town after 25 September 1939. On 2 December 1939, 1,000 Jews from Hrubieszów and 1,100 from Chełm were led on a death march to the Bug River. Hundreds were murdered along the way, survivors were forced to try to swim across the Bug to the USSR, but the Soviets did not permit them to enter. The survivors returned to Hrubieszów. In August 1940, German police arrested about 800 Jews and deported 600 to a forced labor camp where about half died. Sometime between the summer of 1940 and June 1942, an occupation ghetto was formed. Both local Jews and those forced to move to Hrubieszów were confined to a fixed area. By April 1942, there were more than 5800 Jews in the ghetto.

In June 1942, around 3,000 Jews from the ghetto were rounded up, some were killed in the town, and most were sent to the Sobibor extermination camp where they were all killed. The second deportation from Hrubieszów took place on 28 October 1942, when 2,500 Jews were deported to Sobibor and killed. Around 400 who resisted were executed at the Jewish cemetery and the last 160 Jews were sent to a forced labor camp in Budzyń. About 140 of Hrubieszów 's Jews are thought to have survived. They were mostly those who had fled to Soviet controlled territory at the beginning of the war.

Jewish resistance
In the summer of 1941, Julek (Joel/Jakób) Brandt, a leader of the Zionist youth movement Betar from Chorzów who was a relative of the chairman of the Hrubieszów Judenrat (Jewish Council) Samuel Brandt, arranged for several hundred members of the Betar youth movement in the Warsaw Ghetto to work on local farms and estates, including one in Dłużniów and Werbkowice. Before the war, the estate in Dłużniów had belonged to Maks Glazermann, a Jewish engineer from Lwów who was left to run the property. Among those sent to Dłużniów was a young woman from Warsaw named Hanka Tauber. Her account of what went on there was recorded in the ghetto diary of Abraham Lewin.

Most of the Betar youth were killed in the spring of 1942 and in subsequent months together with the local Jewish population. A small number, however, managed to return to the ghetto and later took part in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Julek Brandt escaped from a transport heading for the Sobibor extermination camp. He was denounced by locals who tuned him over to the Gestapo in Hrubieszów. There he was put to work by Gestapo Obersturmbannführer Ebner, who named him chief of a small work camp on Jatkowa Street. At the end of 1942 or the beginning of 1943, Brandt was executed by Ebner.

Transport
National road 74 runs through the town, continuing to the road border crossing with Ukraine at Zosin-Ustyluh located about 20km to the east. In 2015 the road was rerouted to a newly built bypass avoiding the town centre. A wide gauge Hrubieszów–Sławków Południowy LHS railway runs through the town. A normal gauge railway runs parallel to it, which carries two pairs of PKP Intercity trains, first through southern Poland to Jelenia Góra and second through northern-central Poland to Piła. Lublin Airport is the closest international airport, located about 120 km away by road.

Heritage sights and monuments
Hrubieszów boasts a number of monuments:
 * Birthplace of writer Bolesław Prus
 * An outdoor sculpture of Bolesław Prus
 * Saint Nicholas Catholic Church (17th-century)
 * Orthodox church with 13 cupolas (1875)
 * Madonna of Ceaseless Help Catholic Church (1903-5).
 * Du Château manor complex, housing a regional museum.
 * Madonna of Sokal Catholic Church.
 * Jewish cemeteries (Old and New)

Sports
Unia Hrubieszów sports club is based in Hrubieszów, with football, athletics and weightlifting sections.

Notable people
Notable residents of Hrubieszów have included:

 * Abraham Stern 1762-1842, inventor
 * Yosef Almogi (1910–1991), member of the Israeli Knesset
 * Bolesław Leśmian (1877–1937), poet
 * Henry Orenstein (born 1923), toymaker, poker player, author, and entrepreneur
 * Bolesław Prus (1847–1912), novelist
 * Milton Rokeach (1918–1988), psychologist

Others with ancestry from the city include:

 * David Mamet (born 1947), American playwright
 * Zalman Shazar (1889–1974), third President of Israel

title: Hrubieszów


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Biłgoraj

Biłgoraj (בילגאריי, Bilgoray, Білґорай) is a town in south-eastern Poland with 25,838 inhabitants as of December 2021. Since 1999 it has been situated in Lublin Voivodeship; it was previously located in Zamość Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is located south of Lublin and it is also the capital of Biłgoraj County. Historically, the town belongs to Lesser Poland, and is located in southeastern corner of the province, near the border with another historic land, Red Ruthenia. Biłgoraj is surrounded by a forest, with three rivers flowing through it.

Etymology
The name of the town probably comes from a hill called Biely Goraj, on which Biłgoraj was founded in the 16th century.

Geography
Biłgoraj lies in northern part of Sandomierz Basin, near Roztocze. The town is surrounded by Solska Forest, 20 km from Roztocze National Park. An average July temperature in Biłgoraj is 18 C, an average January temperature -2.8 C. The town is crossed by four small rivers: Biała Łada, Czarna Łada, Osa and Próchnica. Biłgoraj lies on the elevations ranging from 184 to 212 meters above sea level. The area of the town is 20 km2, of which forests covers 9%. Built-up area stretches along eastern bank of the Biała Łada, for 5 km (north–south) and 3 km (west–east).

From the 16th century until 1918
The area of current Biłgoraj was covered by dense forests and swamps, where establishment of human settlements was difficult. In the first half of the 16th century, local noble family of Gorajski built first settlements in this sparsely populated corner of Lesser Poland. At that time, the villages of Gromada, Dąbrowica and Olendrów were founded.

The town of Biłgoraj was officially established in 1570 by Adam Gorajski, and incorporated by King Stefan Batory at Lviv on September 10, 1578. Its main market square was placed on the hill called Bialy Goraj. The town, surrounded by rivers, held a strategic position and was easy to defend. Biłgoraj quickly grew, due to a busy merchant road from Jarosław to Lublin. Biłgoraj town was surrounded by a defensive wall with watchtowers, although the town's further growth extended into suburbs. A bridge was built over the Biala Lada. Until 1693 Biłgoraj remained in the hands of the Gorajski family. Throughout the 18th century, it belonged either to the Szczuka family or the Potocki family. Most houses in Biłgoraj were made of wood, which resulted in several fires. Furthermore, the wars of the mid-17th century destroyed the town twice; first in 1648, when the town was burned by the Cossacks of Bohdan Khmelnytsky; then in 1655, by the Swedes during the deluge.

Biłgoraj was an important center of the Bar Confederation, and in the area of the town several skirmishes took place between the Poles and the Russians. After the Partition of Poland, Biłgoraj was annexed by the Austrian Empire, and in 1809 it became part of Duchy of Warsaw (since 1815, Russian-controlled Congress Kingdom). In the late 18th century its population was 3,000; and grew to 6,000 by 1865. At that time, it was the third biggest town of Lublin Governorate, after Lublin and Hrubieszów.

In 1806 following the Partitions, Biłgoraj – which was still privately owned and on the verge of bankruptcy – was purchased by the local entrepreneur named Stanisław Nowakowski, who built for himself a palace in Biłgoraj's district of Roznowka, modelled after Warsaw's famous Łazienki Palace. The town remained in the hands of the Nowakowski family until 1850, when it was sold to the Tsarist official Nikolay Platonov (Mikołaj Płatonow), and in 1864 appropriated by the government as the seat of a county. During the January Uprising, several skirmishes took place Biłgoraj and its vicinity.

1918 to 1939
In 1918 Biłgoraj returned to newly created Second Polish Republic. Its population in 1921 reached 5,600. In 1928, electrification reached the town, but Biłgoraj nevertheless remained poor and underdeveloped, where most houses were constructed of wood. Historically, the town was a center of a large Jewish community, whose population in 1931 reached 4,596.

WWII and The Holocaust
On September 11, 1939, a unit of German-minority Fifth column agents set fire to the town, which destroyed most of it. A few days later Nazi German troops entered the town and immediately organized anti-Jewish pogroms. Furthermore, the Luftwaffe bombed Biłgoraj twice (September 8 and 14). On September 15–16, 1939 units of Kraków Army and Lublin Army retreating towards Tomaszow Lubelski, fought the Wehrmacht in the Battle of Biłgoraj. The Germans tried to capture the towns several times, but they did not manage to do so until September 17, after yet another fire. On September 28, units of the Red Army entered Biłgoraj, but they retreated after a few weeks, and the town became part of the Nazi-ruled General Government. On June 25, 1940, a ghetto was established.

During the German occupation, Biłgoraj was an important center of the resistance. Local units of the Home Army and other clandestine organizations took part in the Zamość Uprising. Germans knew well that Solska Forest was filled with Polish fighters, and the Poles frequently attacked German units in Biłgoraj. The most famous incident of this kind took place on September 24, 1943, when a Home Army unit under Tadeusz Sztumberk-Rychter attacked Biłgoraj's prison, releasing 72 inmates, including Ludwik Ehrlich.

There was also Jewish partisan resistance in the Bilgoraj area. On August 17 and August 26, 1943, two other clashes are recorded: one in the village of Podgranicznik, 30 km. northwest of Krasnystaw, in which two Jews were killed; and another in the village of Poreba, 26 km. east of Bilgoraj, between a large partisan unit and the Nazi German Truppenzpolizei.

Six transports to Belzec gas chambers took place from Bilgoraj: 500 Jews in April, 1942; 1,000 Jews in May, 1942; 1,200 Jews in August, 1942; 5,000 Jews in September, 1942; 500 Jews in October, 1942; and 2,000 Jews in November, 1942. On Jan. 15, 1943, the last 27 survivors who had remained in hiding were shot. Very few of the Jewish partisans from Bilgoraj survived the war due to great efforts by the Nazi Germans to hunt them down in the woods.

Most of Biłgoraj's Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Only around 50 Jews survived the war. The Germans left Biłgoraj on July 24, 1944. During the war, 80% of the town was destroyed, and it lost 50% of its population.

Post-war
After 1945 Biłgoraj was rebuilt, becoming by 1975 a regional industrial center. The town was a part of the Lublin Voivodeship from 1945 to 1975, Zamość Voivodeship from 1975 to 1998, and once again in Lublin Voivodeship since 1999.

Districts
Biłgoraj is divided into twelve districts:
 * I. Śródmieście
 * 1. Dist. Przemysłowa
 * II. Nadstawna
 * III. Roztocze
 * 2. Dist. Łąkowa I
 * 3. Dist. Łąkowa II
 * IV. Bojary
 * 4. Dist. Bojary
 * V. Rapy
 * VI. Sitarska - Kępy
 * 5. Dist. Sitarska I
 * 6. Dist. Sitarska II
 * 7. Dist. Sportowa
 * 8. Dist. Kępy
 * VII. Ogrody
 * VIII. Piaski
 * 9. Dist. Prusa
 * 10. Dist. Leśnik
 * IX. Puszcza Solska
 * 11. Dist. Sienkiewicza
 * 12. Dist. Krzeszowska
 * 13. Dist. Południe
 * X. Rożnówka
 * 14. Dist. Wioska Dziecięca
 * XI. Bagienna
 * 15. Dist. Bagienna
 * XII. Batorego

Historic places and buildings

 * Stanisław Nowakowski's Park – an old park in the town affectionately nicknamed Małpi Gaj (English: Monkey Marsh). It is a last relic of a Nowakowski's palace. The park was designed as a garden in the 17th century. The original gate to the town still stands there. The old garden keeper's cottage also survives to this day. The same cannot be said about the small villa which stood deep in the park, but now has been completely vandalised.
 * Polish Baroque Church of the Assumption of Mary from the early 17th century. The building is located on Trzeciego Maja Street, next to Plac Wolności (Market Square).
 * Church of the St. George on Tadeusz Kościuszko Street, not very large building from the 19th century, former Eastern Orthodox church.
 * Mary Magdalene church in Puszcza Solska district. Built in the beginning of the 1920s, surrounded by monumental objects of franciscan monastery, small bell tower and Mary Magdalene Chapel (all from the 17th century).
 * Zagroda Sitarska museum – open-air museum on Nadstawna Street, built in the beginning of the 19th century. The main building is wooden home, with exhibition of traditional making sieves industry. All objects of museum are surrounded by neighbouring multi-family buildings.

Transport
Biłgoraj is located away from main Polish roads. It is a junction of two voivodeship roads - road nr. 835 (north–south, from Lublin to Przemyśl), and road nr. 858 (east–west, from Zamość to Nisko). Nearest national road nr. 74 (Zamość - Stalowa Wola) goes 17 km north of the town. Biłgoraj has a rail station on a secondary-importance line from Zamość to Stalowa Wola, through the town also goes the Broad Gauge Metallurgy Line. Nearest airport, Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport, is located 110 km to the south.

Industry
In Biłgoraj are located a headquarter and main factories of Black Red White, leading furniture manufacturer in Poland. The town is also known as a center of wine industry (Ambra company bottling plants are located in village Wola Duża, 4 km east of the city), knitting (mainly thanks to Mewa factory) and production of cardboard packaging, wooden doors and windows.

Local folklore
Biłgoraj is an important center of local folklore, with highly developed folk art, regional clothes and customs. This is due to the town's location, among forests, where communication with other communities was limited. There are several “Biłgoraj-style” houses, and in the area numerous wayside shrines can be found. Biłgoraj's folklore was used by Grzegorz Ciechowski in his songs written as Grzegorz z Ciechowa. Until the 19th century, famous green Biłgoraj beer was produced in the town. Furthermore, for centuries Biłgoraj was a major national center of sieve makers. The town has a Regional Museum and an Open-air museum Zagroda Sitarska. Due to its proximity to Roztocze National Park, it is visited by a number of tourists. It also has a Baroque church of Holy Trinity (17th century) and 12 different monuments.

Twin towns - sister cities
Biłgoraj is twinned with:
 * 🇮🇱 Coat of arms of Afula.svg Afula in Israel
 * 🇨🇿 Bílina město znak.png Bílina in Czech Republic
 * 🇩🇪 Wappen Crailsheim.svg Crailsheim in Germany
 * 🇱🇹 Kelmes-herbas.svg Kelmė in Lithuania
 * 🇸🇰 Coat of Arms of Stropkov.svg Stropkov in Slovakia
 * 🇺🇦 Novovolynsk in Ukraine

Former twin towns:
 * 🇧🇾 Kruhlaye in Belarus

Cooperation with Kruhlaye was ended due to Belarusian involvement in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Notable residents

 * Shmuel Atzmon-Wircer (born 1929), creator of Yiddishpiel Theatre in Israel
 * Konrad Bartoszewski (1914–1987), writer, commander of a partisan unit during World War II
 * Isaac Bashevis Singer (1903–1991), Jewish-American novelist and Nobel Prize winner who lived in Biłgoraj as a child. Biłgoraj and the surrounding villages are featured in many of his stories and novels
 * Israel Joshua Singer (1893–1944), Polish-Jewish novelist and brother of Isaac Bashevis Singer
 * Justyna Bąk (born 1974), former 3000 meters steeplechase world record holder
 * Shmuel Ben-Artzi (1914–2011), Israeli writer, poet and educator, and the father in-law of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
 * Michał Chodara (born 1986), handball player
 * Edward Drescher (1912–1977), physician, surgeon
 * Joanna Kaczor (born 1984), volleyball player
 * Marzena Karpińska (born 1988), weightlifter
 * Harry Keitel, father of actor Harvey Keitel
 * Stefan Knapp (1921–1996), painter
 * Janusz Palikot (born 1964), politician and businessman
 * Mordechai Rokeach (1902–1949), known as Mordechai of Bilgoray, Rav of Biłgoraj before World War II
 * Maria Śliwka (1935–1997), volleyball player
 * Roman Tokarczyk (born 1942), lawyer, philosopher
 * Kazimierz Węgrzyn (born 1967), footballer

title: Biłgoraj


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Tomaszów Lubelski

Tomaszów Lubelski is a town in south-eastern Poland with 19,365 inhabitants (2017). Situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, near Roztocze National Park, it is the capital of Tomaszów Lubelski County.

History
The town was founded at the end of the 16th century by Jan Zamoyski as Jelitowo. It is known by its current name since 1613 when it was renamed after Zamoyski's son, Tomasz. It obtained its city charter in 1621. It was administratively located in the Bełz Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province of Poland. The area around the city saw serious fighting in 1914 during World War I.

On September 17–26, 1939, during the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland which started World War II, the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski was fought between Poland and Germany. The town was bombed by the Germans and eventually found itself under German occupation. The town's Jewish community, which numbered over 5,600 in 1939 at the start of the war, was persecuted by the occupiers in the Holocaust. The Nazi Germans first placed the Jews in a ghetto established in the town, then exterminated them in 1942 at Bełżec extermination camp located a few km. south of the town. The Jewish community ceased to exist.

In 1975–1998, the town was administratively located in the Zamość Voivodeship.

Education
In the town there are two faculties of Catholic University of Lublin (Legal and Economic Sciences). It has two high schools (Bartosz Głowacki High School and Władysław Sikorski High School), three technical colleges, two gymnasiums and two primary schools.

Culture
International Folk Festival Roztocze is a popular annual music festival organized since 1990. Since 2008 the town council organizes reconstructions of Battle of Tomaszów.

Sports
Tomaszów is the home for the football team Tomasovia.

Media
There are two main newspapers published weekly in Tomaszów Lubelski. First of them, ReWizje Tomaszowskie, is financed by the town council. Second of them, Tygodnik Tomaszowski, belongs to a private company.

Twin towns
Tomaszów Lubelski is twinned with:

 * 🇱🇹 Grigiškės, Lithuania
 * 🇺🇦 Kivertsi, Ukraine
 * 🇺🇦 Zhovkva, Ukraine

Notable people

 * Mordechai Yosef Leiner (1801–1854), Hasidic thinker
 * Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, (1787–1859), Hasidic thinker
 * Joanna Pacuła (born 1957), actress
 * Leon Pinsker (1821–1891), Zionist activist
 * Zygmunt Sochan (1909–1998), footballer and member of the Polish resistance movement in World War II
 * Monika Skinder (born 2001), cross-country skier
 * Marek Zub (born 1964), football manager
 * Wojciech Żukowski (born 1964), member of the parliament, Law and Justice

title: Tomaszów Lubelski