Posted on 11.04.2012 and completed on 14.05.2013 and on 25.07.2013The legend attributes the
Warsaw name to a fisherman Wars and his wife Sawa, a mermaid who lived in the
Vistula River and who Wars fell in love with. Nice legend, but actually Warsz was a 12th/13th century nobleman who owned a village located at the site of today's Mariensztat neighbourhood. Unlike other old cities of Poland, such
Krakow or
Poznan, Warsaw is a relatively young city, which really became important in 1596, when
King Sigismund III Vasa moved the court from Kraków to Warsaw. So the capital of Mazovia became the capital of the
Polish Crown, and of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, primarly due to its central location between the Commonwealth's capitals of Kraków and
Vilnius. This location was the city's luck, but, given the troubled history of Poland, it has also brought it a lot of misfortune, being pillaged and burned several times.
The largest catastrophe suffered by the city was also the latest, during the WWII. Germans planned destruction of the Polish capital before the start of war, what they did after the
Warsaw Uprising (1 August – 2 October 1944), under express orders of Hitler. Monuments and government buildings were blown up by
Verbrennungs und Vernichtungskommando (Burning and Destruction Detachments), so that about 85% of the city had been destroyed, including the historic Old Town and the Royal Castle. By January 1945, about 85% of the buildings had been destroyed: 10% as a result of the
September 1939 campaign and other combat, 15% during the earlier
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943), 25% during the Warsaw Uprising, and 35% due to systematic German actions after the Uprising.
In terms of population, the situation was even more terrible. In the Uprising, ca. 170,000 people died, from among which only 16,000 were insurgents, and after that all the civilians (ca. 650,000) were deported to the transit camp in Pruszków (
Durchgangslager Pruszków). In general, during the German occupation (1939–1945) ca. 700,000 people died in Warsaw, i.e. more than all Americans and British. Thus, if the city had reached 1,300,000 inhabitants in 1939, at the end of 1945 had only 422,000 inhabitants.
After WWII, the Warsaw's Old Town (
Stare Miasto), bounded by
Wybrzeże Gdańskie, along the bank of the Vistula, and by
Grodzka,
Mostowa and
Podwale Streets, was meticulously rebuilt. As many of the original bricks were reused as possible. The rubble was sifted for reusable decorative elements, which were reinserted into their original places.
Bernardo Bellotto's 18th-century vedute, as well as pre-WWII architecture students' drawings, were used as essential sources in the reconstruction effort. The heart of the area is the Old Town Market Place (
Rynek Starego Miasta), which dates back to the end of the 13th century. The houses around it represented the Gothic style until the great fire of 1607, after which they were rebuilt in late-
Renaissance style and eventually in late-
Baroque style by
Tylman Gamerski in 1701.
Besides the market itself, with its restaurants, cafés and shops, in the first postcard also appear (at the bottom, from left to right):
●
Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and of St. Joseph, commonly known as the Carmelite Church (
Kościół Karmelitów) - a Roman Catholic church built in 1692-1701 to the plan of Józef Szymon Bellotti, best known for its
Neoclassical-style façade, erected by
Karol Stanisław Radziwiłł, who commissioned the Hungarian architect Efraim Szreger. It was one of the few buildings only slightly damaged during the WWII.
●
Church of Our Lady Queen of the Polish Crown (
Katedra Polowa Wojska Polskiego) - built in the early 17th century, completely destroyed during the war with
Sweden (1655-1660), and reconstructed in baroque style between 1660 and 1681. Restored in the years 1923-1933, destroyed again in 1944, and rebuilt after WWII, since 1991 was officially commissioned as the Polish Army field cathedral.
●
Castle Square (
Plac Zamkowy) - On the square is a column of
King Sigismund III Vasa from 1644, the oldest and symbolic monument of the city (a work of Clemente Molli). On the right you can see the
Royal Castle, the official residence of the Polish monarchs from 1526 to 1795, burned by the Germans in 1939 and then completely destroyed. The rebuilding of the Royal Castle complex will have been finalized in 1995. It can be also seen in the third and fourth postcard.
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