Olesnica
Encyclopedia
Oleśnica o is a town
Town
A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 in the Trzebnickie Hills
Trzebnickie Hills
The Trzebnickie Hills are a mountain range in southwestern Poland, named after the town of Trzebnica on the northern slope.The range is located in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It lies north of the regional capital Wrocław, between the Oder and Widawa Rivers to the southwest and the Barycz River...

 in southwestern Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 with 36,951 inhabitants (2006). It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship
Lower Silesian Voivodeship
Lower Silesian Voivodeship, or Lower Silesia Province , is one of the 16 voivodeships into which Poland is currently divided. It lies in southwestern Poland...

 (from 1975–1998 it was in the former Wrocław Voivodeship). It is the seat of Oleśnica County
Olesnica County
Oleśnica County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It was created on January 1, 1999 as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. The county covers an area of...

, and also of the rural district of Gmina Oleśnica
Gmina Olesnica, Lower Silesian Voivodeship
Gmina Oleśnica is a rural gmina in Oleśnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. Its seat is the town of Oleśnica, although the town is not part of the territory of the gmina....

 (although it is not part of the territory of the latter, the town being an urban gmina
Gmina
The gmina is the principal unit of administrative division of Poland at its lowest uniform level. It is often translated as "commune" or "municipality." As of 2010 there were 2,479 gminas throughout the country...

 in its own right).

The city has been part of an important trade route
Trade route
A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a single trade route contains long distance arteries which may further be connected to several smaller networks of commercial...

 between Wrocław and the Greater Poland
Greater Poland
Greater Poland or Great Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska is a historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief city is Poznań.The boundaries of Greater Poland have varied somewhat throughout history...

 region, and had close ties with Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

. It was the site of an important printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...

 and gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

. From the 13th century, it had a coin mint
Mint (coin)
A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins for currency.The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins. One difference is that the history of the mint is usually closely tied to the political situation of an era...

.

Name

The town's name comes from the world Olcha(Alder
Alder
Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...

), in the past it was named Olesznica. Olcha is a slavic word for this common plant and tree

History

The ducal castle with a nearby trading settlement was first mentioned in 1189. In the 13th century, the area was settled by Germans
Ostsiedlung
Ostsiedlung , also called German eastward expansion, was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from modern day western and central Germany into less-populated regions and countries of eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia...

. On 22 February 1255, the village received city rights
German town law
German town law or German municipal concerns concerns town privileges used by many cities, towns, and villages throughout Central and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages.- Town law in Germany :...

 (Civitatem nostram Olesnicz) from Henryk III the White
Henryk III the White
Henry III the White was a Duke of Wrocław from 1248 until his death .He was the third son of Henry II the Pious, Duke of Wrocław, by his wife Anna, daughter of King Ottokar I of Bohemia....

, son of Henry II the Pious. From 1320 it was the capital of the Duchy of Oleśnica and the seat of Konrad of Oleśnica. After the 1492 death of Konrad Biały Młodszy, last of the local Piast dynasty
Piast dynasty
The Piast dynasty was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. It began with the semi-legendary Piast Kołodziej . The first historical ruler was Duke Mieszko I . The Piasts' royal rule in Poland ended in 1370 with the death of king Casimir the Great...

, the duchy was sold to the Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

n Poděbrady
George of Podebrady
George of Kunštát and Poděbrady , also known as Poděbrad or Podiebrad , was King of Bohemia...

 dynasty. In 1647 was inherited by the Dukes of Württemberg
Rulers of Württemberg
This is a list of the rulers of the German state of Württemberg, originally a county and eventually a kingdom until the ruling dynasty was overthrown in 1918.- Counts of Württemberg to 1495 :* Konrad I 1089–1122...

, and in the 18th century by the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Brunswick-Lüneburg
The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg , or more properly Duchy of Brunswick and Lüneburg, was an historical ducal state from the late Middle Ages until the late Early Modern era within the North-Western domains of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, in what is now northern Germany...

.

As Oels, the city was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

 in 1742 during the First Silesian War and administered within the Province of Silesia
Province of Silesia
The Province of Silesia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1815 to 1919.-Geography:The territory comprised the bulk of the former Bohemian crown land of Silesia and the County of Kladsko, which King Frederick the Great had conquered from the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy in the 18th...

. Following administrative reform in 1807 during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

, Oels became the seat of Landkreis Oels. The city became part of the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

 in 1871 during the Prussian-led unification of Germany
Unification of Germany
The formal unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871 at the Versailles Palace's Hall of Mirrors in France. Princes of the German states gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm of Prussia as Emperor Wilhelm of the German...

.

After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Oels was included within the Province of Lower Silesia
Province of Lower Silesia
The Province of Lower Silesia was a province of the Free State of Prussia from 1919 to 1945. Between 1938 and 1941 it was reunited with Upper Silesia as the Silesia Province. The capital of Lower Silesia was Breslau...

. It was heavily damaged by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 in 1945 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, having approximately 60-80% of its buildings destroyed. The city was placed in Poland's borders after the Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...

 and its official name became Oleśnica. The remaining German-speaking population was subsequently expelled
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...

 and resettled with Poles
Recovered Territories
Recovered or Regained Territories was an official term used by the People's Republic of Poland to describe those parts of pre-war Germany that became part of Poland after World War II...

 many of whom were expelled from Eastern Poland
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...

 annexed in 1945 by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

.

Notable residents

  • Antoni Cieszyński
    Antoni Cieszynski
    Antoni Cieszyński was a Polish physician, dentist and surgeon.Antoni was professor and head of the Institute of Stomatology at the Lviv University...

     (1882-1941), surgeon
  • Abraham von Franckenberg
    Abraham von Franckenberg
    Abraham von Franckenberg was a German mystic, author, poet and hymn-writer.- Life :Abraham von Franckenberg was born in 1593 into an old Silesian noble family in Ludwigsdorf bei Oels...

     (1593-1652), mystic born nearby
  • Julius Hübner
    Julius Hübner
    Rudolf Julius Benno Hübner was a German historical painter of the Düsseldorf school. He was also known as a poet and the father of Emil Hübner, a distinguished classical scholar.- Life :...

     (1806-1882), painter
  • Sigmar Polke
    Sigmar Polke
    Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer.Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matter and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s, when he produced abstract works created by chance through chemical reactions between paint...

     (1941-2010), artist
  • Piotr Czech
    Piotr Czech
    Piotr Czech is an American football placekicker who is currently a free agent. He was signed by the Baltimore Ravens as an undrafted free agent in 2008. He played college football at Wagner College....

     (born 1986), kicker for Pittsburgh Steelers
    Pittsburgh Steelers
    The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...

  • Wojciech Bartnik
    Wojciech Bartnik
    Wojciech Bartnik was a southpaw boxer from Poland, who won a Light Heavyweight Bronze medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics.-Amateur career:*1992 – Bronze Medal at the Barcelona Olympic Games...

     (born 1967), boxer, olympic bronze medalist

Twin cities

Oleśnica is twinned
Town twinning
Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...

 with: Chrudim
Chrudim
Chrudim is a city in eastern Bohemia, in the Pardubice region of the Czech Republic.The oldest archaeological findings which provide first signs of the settlement in this area date back to the 5th millennium BC. Various cultures succeeded one on another in the territory of today’s town of Chrudim...

 (Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

) Warendorf
Warendorf
Warendorf is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and capital of Warendorf District.The town is best known today for its well-preserved medieval town centre, for horse-riding, and the opportunities it provides for cycling...

 (Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

)

External links

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