Gdańsk Totally Explained

Everything about Gda Sk totally explained

Gdańsk (Polish pronunciation ; ],, ) is the city at the center of the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Poland. It is Poland's principal seaport as well as the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is also historically the largest city of the Kashubian region.
   The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay (of the Baltic Sea), in a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdynia and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the Tricity (Trójmiasto), with a population of over 800,000. the original name of the Motława branch on which the city is situated. Gdańsk and Gdania are considered to be derivations from the Gothic name of the area (Gutiskandja), however this has also been questioned. Like many other Central European cities, Gdańsk has had many different names throughout its history.
   The name Gdańsk is usually, /gəˈdaɪnsk/, or /gəˈdænsk/ in English. The diacritic over the "n" is frequently omitted by non-Poles. In the local Kashubian language it's known as Gduńsk.
   The Germanised version of this name, Danzig, has been used by the German population, as well as in English until the end of World War II. Other former English versions of its name include Dantzig, Dantsic, and Dantzic. The city's Latin name may be given as either Gedania, Gedanum or Dantiscum; the variety of Latin names reflects the mixed influence of the city's Polish, German and Kashubian heritage.
   The name of a settlement was recorded after St. Adalbert's demise in 997 A.D. as urbs Gyddanyzc and later was written as Kdanzk (1148), Gdanzc (1188), Danceke (1228), Gdansk (1236), Danzc (1263), Danczk (1311, 1399, 1410, 1414-1438), Danczik (1399, 1410, 1414), Danczig (1414), Gdansk (1454, 1468, 1484), Gdansk (1590), Gdąnsk (1636) and in Latin documents Gedanum or Dantiscum.

Ceremonial names

On special occasions it's also known as The Royal Polish City of Gdańsk ( Kashubian: Królewsczi Polsczi Gard Gduńsk).
The Kashubians prefer the name: Our Capital City Gdańsk (Nasz Stoleczny Gard Gduńsk) or The Kashubian Capital City Gdańsk (Stoleczny Kaszëbsczi Gard Gduńsk).

History

Foundation and the Middle Ages

According to archaeologists, the Gdańsk stronghold was built in the 980s by Mieszko I of Poland, after a series of wars against the local tribes. In 1997, the city celebrated the millennial anniversary of the year 997 when Saint Adalbert of Prague, baptized the inhabitants of the town on behalf of Boleslaw the Brave of Poland.
   Gdańsk soon became the main centre of a splinter duchy known as Pomerelia, meaning the land by the sea. The most famous local ruler, Swantipolk II, granted an autonomy charter to the town in ca. 1235, which at the time had about 2,000 inhabitants. Eleven years prior, in 1224, the town had already developed an urban charter similar to that of Lübeck which obtained its municipal constitution (Lübisches Stadtrecht) in 1226. The governors of Pomerelia gradually gained more and more power and evolved into semi-independent dukes, and ruled the duchy independently until 1294.
   By 1308 the city had become a flourishing trading port with some 10,000 inhabitants, and on November 13, 1308, was seized by the Teutonic Order. This led to a series of wars between the Order and the Kingdom of Poland, ending with the Treaty of Kalisz (1343) when the Order acknowledged that it would hold Pomerania as an alm from the Polish king. Although it left the legal basis of their possession of the province in some doubt, the agreement permitted the foundation of the municipality in 1343 and the development of increased export of grain (especially wheat), timber, potas, tar, and other goods of forestry from Poland via the Vistula River trading routes.
   While under the control of the Teutonic Order, the city and its trade prospered, German migration increased, and the city became a full member of the Hanseatic League in 1361.
   A new war broke out in 1409, ending with the Battle of Grunwald (1410), and the city came willingly under the control of the Kingdom of Poland. A year later, with the first First Peace of Thorn, it returned to the Teutonic Order. In 1440, the city participated in the foundation of the Prussian Confederation which led to the Thirteen Years' War of independence from the Teutonic Order (1454-1466).
   This intermittent warfare ended on May 25, 1457, when the city received the privileges of an autonomous city within the Kingdom of Poland, granted by King Casimir IV the Jagiellonian. Gaining free access for the first time to Polish markets, the seaport prospered while simultaneously trading with the other Hanseatic cities. After the Second Peace of Thorn (1466) and the incorporation of Royal Prussia by the Kingdom of Poland the warfare between the Polish crown and the Teutonic Order ended permanently, and the city continued to enjoy a large degree of internal autonomy (reconfirmed in 1577). The 16th and 17th centuries were a Golden Age for trade and culture of the city. Beside the German majority, the city was home to a large number of Poles, Jews, and Dutch. In addition, a number of Scotsmen took refuge or immigrated to and received citizenship in the city. During the Protestant Reformation, the German inhabitants adopted Lutheranism.
   The city suffered a slow economic decline due to the wars of the 18th century, when it was taken by the Russians after the Siege of Danzig in 1734. Danzig was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1793, but returned to the status of a free city in 1807-1815 amidst the Napoleonic Wars. Returned to Prussia afterward, the city became the capital of Regierungsbezirk Danzig within the province of West Prussia from 1815. The city's longest serving Regierungspräsident was Robert von Blumenthal, who held office from 1841, through the revolutions of 1848, until 1863. The city became part of the German Empire in 1871.

The inter-war years, and World War II

When Poland regained its independence after World War I with access to the sea as promised by the Allies on the basis of Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points", the Poles hoped the city's harbour would also become part of Poland. However, since a 1919 census determined that the city's population was 98% German, it wasn't placed under Polish sovereignty, but, according to the terms of the Versailles Treaty, became the Free City of Danzig, an independent quasi-state under the auspices of the League of Nations with its external affairs largely under Polish control. This led to a large degree of tension between the city and the surrounding Republic of Poland. The Free City had its own constitution, national anthem, parliament (Volkstag), and government (Senat). It issued its own stamps as well as currency.
   The majority of the Free City of Danzig's population favored reincorporation into Germany. In the early 1930s the local Nazi Party capitalized on these pro-German sentiments and in 1933 garnered 38% of vote in the parliament. Thereafter, the Nazis under Gauleiter Albert Forster achieved dominance in the city government, which was still nominally overseen by the League of Nations' High Commissioner. The Nazis demanded the return of Danzig to Germany along with an exterritorial highway for land-based access to the Third Reich through the area of the Polish Corridor. However, when the German Nazi Government secured Soviet approval for aggression against Poland, a decision was made to launch a full-out offensive regardless of any Polish willingness to negotiate successions. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany attacked Poland, triggering the outbreak of World War II.
   World War II began in Danzig, with an artillery bombardment of Polish positions at Westerplatte by the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, and the landing of German infantry on the peninsula. Polish defenders at Westerplatte resisted for seven days before running out of ammunition. Meanwhile, after a fierce daylong fight, defenders of Polish Post office were shot dead and buried on the spot in the Danizg quarter of Zaspa. To celebrate surrender of Westerplatte, NSDAP organized a night parade on Sep 7th along Adolf-Hitlerstrasse St inadvertently attacked by a Polish hydroplane taking of from Hel Peninsula. The city was officially annexed by Nazi Germany and incorporated into the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia. Most of the Jewish community in Danzig were able to escape from the Nazis shortly before the outbreak of war. Nazi secret police had been observing Polish communities since 1936, compiling information which in 1939 served to prepare lists of Poles to be captured in Operation Tannenberg. On the first day of the war, approximately 1,500 ethnic Poles were arrested, some because of their participation in social and economic life, others because they were activists and members of various Polish organizations. On 2 September 1939, 150 of them were deported to the Stutthof concentration camp some 30 miles from Danzig, and murdered. Many Poles living in Danzig were deported to Stutthof or executed in the Piaśnica forest.
   In 1941, the Nazi Regime ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, eventually causing the fortunes of war to turn against it. As the Soviet Army advanced in 1944, German populations in Central and Eastern Europe took flight, resulting in the beginning of a great population shift. After the final Soviet offensive began in January, 1945, hundreds of thousands of German refugees, many of whom had fled to Danzig on foot from East Prussia (see evacuation of East Prussia), tried to escape through the city's port in a large-scale evacuation involving hundreds of German cargo and passenger ships. Some of the ships were sunk by the Soviets, including the Wilhelm Gustloff after an evacuation was attempted at neighboring Gdynia. In the process, tens of thousands of refugees were killed.
   The city also endured heavy Allied and Soviet bombardment by air. Those who survived and couldn't escape encountered the Soviet Army, which captured the city on March 30, 1945 and largely destroyed it. In line with the decisions made by the Allies at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the city was returned to Poland after 152 years. The remaining German residents of the city who survived the war fled or were expelled to postwar Germany, and the city was repopulated with ethnic Poles, including many from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union who were deported by the Soviets in two major waves from the eastern portion of pre-war Poland.

Contemporary History

The historic old city of Gdańsk, which had suffered large-scale destruction at the hands of the Soviet Army, was rebuilt during the 1950s and 1960s. Boosted by heavy investment in the development of its port and three major shipyards, Gdańsk became the major shipping and industrial center of the Communist People's Republic of Poland.
   As part of German-Polish reconciliation policies driven by West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, German territorial claims on Gdańsk were renounced, and the city's full incorporation into Poland was recognized in the Treaty of Warsaw in 1970. This was confirmed by a reunited Germany in 1990 and 1991.
   In 1970, Gdańsk was the scene of anti-regime demonstrations which led to the downfall of Poland's communist leader Władysław Gomułka. Ten years later the Gdańsk Shipyard was the birthplace of the Solidarity trade union movement, whose opposition to the Communist regime led to the end of Communist Party rule in 1989, and sparked a series of protests that successfully overturned the Communist regimes of the former Soviet bloc. Solidarity's leader, Lech Wałęsa, a native of Gdańsk, became President of Poland in 1990. Gdańsk native Donald Tusk became Prime Minister of Poland in 2007.
   Today Gdańsk is a major shipping port and tourist destination and has been the setting for a number of major open air concerts, including Jean Michel Jarre and David Gilmour. The Rock band Queen are staging a huge rock concert in the Shipyard in October 2008.

Climate

Gdansk enjoys a temperate climate, with cold, cloudy, moderately-severe winters and mild summers with frequent showers and thunderstorms. Average temperatures range from -1.0°C to 17.2°C and rainfall varies from 84.0 mm/month to 210.0 mm/month. In general it's a maritime climate and therefore damp, variable and harsh.
The seasons are clearly differentiated. Spring starts in March and is initially cold and windy, later becoming pleasantly warm and often very sunny. Summer, which begins in June, is predominantly warm but hot at times (with temperature reaching as high as 30-35C at least once per year) with plenty of sunshine interspersed with heavy rain. The average annual hours of sunshine for Gdansk are 1600, similar to other Northern cities. July and August are the hottest months. Autumn comes in September and is at first warm and usually sunny, turning cold, damp and foggy in November. Winter lasts from December to March and includes periods of snow. January and February are the coldest months with the temperature sometimes dropping as low as -15°C.

Economy

The industrial sections of the city are dominated by shipbuilding, petrochemical and chemical industries, and food processing. The share of high-tech sectors such as electronics, telecommunications, IT engineering, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals is on the rise. Amber processing is also an important part of the local economy, as the majority of the world's amber deposits lie along the Baltic coast. The Pomeranian Voivodeship, including Gdańsk, is also a major tourist destination in the summer months, as millions of Poles and European Union citizens flock to the beaches of the Baltic coastline.

Main sights

The city has many fine buildings from the time of the Hanseatic League. Most tourist attractions are located along or near Ulica Długa (Long Street) and Długi Targ (Long Market), a pedestrian thoroughfare surrounded by buildings reconstructed in historical (primarily 17th century) style and flanked at both ends by elaborate city gates. This part of the city is sometimes referred to as the Royal Road as the former path of processions for visiting kings.
Walking from end to end, sites encountered on or near the Royal Way include:

Upland Gate (Brama Wyżynna)
Torture House (Katownia)
Prison Tower (Wieża więzienna)
Golden Gate (Brama Złota)
Long Street (Ulica Długa)
- Uphagen House (Dom Uphagena)
- Main Town Hall (Ratusz Głównego Miasta)
Long Market (Długi Targ)
- Arthur's Court (Dwór Artusa)
- Neptune Fountain (Studnia Neptuna)
- Golden House (Złota kamienica)
Green Gate (Brama Zielona)

Gdańsk has a number of historical churches:

St. Bridget

St. Catherine

St. John

St Mary (Bazylika Mariacka), a municipal church built during the 15th century, is the largest brick church in the world.

St Nicholas' Church

Church of the Holy Trinity The museum ship SS Soldek is anchored on the Motława River.
In the 16th century, Gdańsk hosted Shakespearean theatre on foreign tours, and the Danzig Research Society founded in 1743 was one of the first of its kind. Currently, there's a Fundation Theatrum Gedanensis aimed at rebuilding the Shakespeare theatre at its historical site. It is expected that Gdańsk will have a permanent English-language theatre, as at present it's only an annual event.

Transportation

Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport - an international airport located in Gdańsk;

Port of Gdańsk - a seaport located on the southern coast of Gdańsk Bay within the city;

Szybka Kolej Miejska - an urban transportation service of Tricity;

Obwodnica Trojmiejska - an expressway that bypasses the cities of Gdynia, Sopot and Gdańsk. Train transportation provides good connection with all major Polish cities, and with neighbouring Kashubian Lakes region. The actually constructed A-1 Highway will connect the Port and city of Gdańsk with southern border of the country.
Gdańsk is the starting point of the EuroVelo 9 cycling route which continues southward through Poland, then into the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia before ending at the Adriatic Sea in Pula, Croatia.

Sports

There are many popular professional sports teams in the Gdańsk and Tricity area. Amateur sports are played by thousands of Gdańsk citizens and also in schools of all levels (elementary, secondary, university). One of the most popular sports in Gdańsk is football. The most famous team is Lechia Gdansk. Founded in 1945, they play in the second league. Lechia stadium "MOSIR" is situated on Traugutta Street 29 in Gdańsk, opposite the Medical University of Gdańsk.

Politics and local government

Contemporary Gdańsk is the capital of the province called Pomeranian Voivodeship and is one of the major centres of economic and administrative life in Poland. Many important agencies of the state and local government levels have their main offices here: the Provincial Administration Office, the Provincial Government, the Ministerial Agency of the State Treasury, the Agency for Consumer and Competition Protection, the National Insurance regional office, the Court of Appeal, and the High Administrative Court.

Regional centre

Gdańsk Voivodeship was extended in 1999 to include most of former Słupsk Voivodeship, the western part of Elbląg Voivodeship and Chojnice County from Bydgoszcz Voivodeship to form the new Pomeranian Voivodeship. The area of the region was thus extended from 7,394 km² to 18,293 km² and the population rose from 1,333,800 (1980) to 2,198,000 (2000). By 1998, Tricity constituted an absolute majority of the population; almost half of the inhabitants of the new region live in the centre.

Education and science

There are 14 universities with a total of 60,436 students, including 10,439 graduates as of 2001.

Gdańsk University (Uniwersytet Gdański)

Gdańsk University of Technology (Politechnika Gdańska)

Medical University (Akademia Medyczna)

Academy of Physical Education and Sport of Gdansk (Akademia Wychowania Fizycznego i Sportu im. Jędrzeja Śniadeckiego)

Musical Academy (Akademia Muzyczna im. Stanisława Moniuszki)

Arts Academy (Akademia Sztuk Pięknych) (External Link

)

Instytut Budownictwa Wodnego PAN

Ateneum — Szkoła Wyższa

Gdańska Wyższa Szkoła Humanistyczna

Gdańska Wyższa Szkoła Administracji

Wyższa Szkoła Bankowa

Wyższa Szkoła Społeczno-Ekonomiczna

Wyższa Szkoła Turystyki i Hotelarstwa w Gdańsku

Wyższa Szkoła Zarządzania

Scientific and regional organizations

Gdańsk Scientific Society

Baltic Institute (Instytut Bałtycki), established 1925 in Toruń, since 1946 (?) in Gdańsk

TNOiK - Towarzystwo Naukowe Organizacji i Kierowania (Scientific Society for Organization and Management) O/Gdańsk

IBNGR - Instytut Badań nad Gospodarką Rynkową (The Gdańsk Institute for Market Economics) (External Link

)

Sister cities

Gdańsk is twinned with:

Bremen, Germany, since 1976

Turku, Finland, since 1987

Barcelona, Spain, since 1990

Cleveland, United States, since 1990

Kalmar, Sweden, since 1991

Helsingør, Denmark, since 1992

Marseille, France, since 1992

Rouen, France, since 1992

Kaliningrad, Russia, since 1993

Sefton, United Kingdom, since 1993

St. Petersburg, Russia since 1993

Astana, Kazakhstan, since 1996

Odessa, Ukraine, since 1996

Rotterdam, Netherlands, since 1998

Vilnius, Lithuania, since 1998

Nice, France, since 1999

Bytów, Poland, since 2007

Footnotes

Further Information

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