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About Warsaw
Warsaw became one of the principal cities in Poland comparatively late in history, but its central position favored rapid development, which even the many wars could not prevent. A mermaid (Syrena) holding a sword above her head in one hand and a shield in the other is the city's symbol. According to the legend, Warsaw was founded when the Mermaid ordered two fishermen Wars and Sawa, to form a city. The history of Warsaw goes back to the late 13thcentury and the early 14thcentury although the first record of its existence dates back to the 10th- 11thcentury.In the 14thcentury Prince I the Old (1374 - 1429) proclaimed Warsaw to be the capital of the Mazovian Principality and this fact influenced the development of the town. In the second half of the 15thcentury the town was surrounded by a double ring of fortified walls with towers and a deep moat. The turn of the 15thand 16thcentury was a period of its great economic development. In the 1596 King Sigismundus III Vasa changed the capital of Poland from Cracow to Warsaw. The Swedish invasion in the mid - 17thcentury interrupted the city's development. The cultural heritage was totally destroyed. Under the reign of the last Polish King, Stanislaw August Poniatowski (second half of the 18thcentury), the second "Golden Age" of Warsaw flourished. In 1791 the May 3rdConstitution was proclaimed, the first legal act of its kind in Europe and the second in the world. After the third partition in 1795 Poland was erased from Europe's map for a period of 123 years. The loss of independence made Warsaw the center of the struggle for national and social liberation. Its population actively supported the November (1830) and January (1863) Uprisings. On the 11thNovember 1918 Poland regained independence. The years between the first and the second World Wars were a period for development of education, science and culture. On the 1st September 1939 the Second World War broke out. It was the most terrifying period in the history of this town. After the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 the town was almost completely destroyed - 85% of its buildings were in ruins. Warsaw, the capital of Poland is a phenomenon on the European scale. It has been destroyed many times, burnt down and razed to the ground but it has always revived itself stronger and more beautiful. This fact should be remembered when one visits Warsaw. |
