Piotrków Trybunalski


Piotrków Trybunalski is a city in central Poland with 73,090 inhabitants. It is situated in the Łódź Voivodeship, and was previously the capital of the Piotrków Voivodeship. It is the capital of Piotrków County.

Etymology and other names

According to tradition, but not confirmed by historical sources, Piotrków was founded by Piotr Włostowic, a powerful 12th century magnate from Silesia. The name of the city comes from the Polish version of the name Peter, in a diminutive form. Trybunalski indicates that tribunal sessions were held in the town. The town has been known in Yiddish as פּעטריקעװ or Petrikev, in German as Petrikau, and in Russian as Петроков or Petrokov.

Location, demographics and statistics

Piotrków Trybunalski is situated in the middle-west part of the Łódź Uplands. The population of the city is approximately 80,000 and its area is nearly. The landscape of the Piotrków region and its geological structure was formed during the glaciation of 180,000–128,000 years ago. There are hardly any forests on the Piotrków Plains.
Two rivers cross the region, the Wolbórka and the Luciąża, which with their tributaries flow into the Pilica River and belong to the catchment area of the Vistula River. The watershed of Poland's two main rivers, the Vistula and the Oder, runs along the meridional line three km west of Piotrków. Two small rivers, the Strawa and the Strawka flow through the city, and it is between their valleys that the first settlement of Piotrków was founded in the early Middle Ages. Recently two more rivers have been included within the boundary of the city area - the Wierzejka, which in the western part of the city forms a reservoir, and the Śrutowy Dołek to the south of Piotrków.
The city is above sea level. The average temperature during the year is about, the coldest month is January, the warmest is July. Yearly rainfall is from. The sandy soil of the region is not fertile.

History

Pre-modern history

In the early Middle Ages the Piotrków region was part of the province of Łęczyca ruled by the Piast dynasty. In c1264 it became part of a separate principality. The foundation of the city and its development were connected with its geographical position and the advantageous arrangement of the roads linking the provinces of Poland in Piast times. At first, a market town and a place of the princes' tribunals, Piotrków became an administrative centre, and in later centuries it also became an important political centre in Poland. The first record of Piotrków is in a document issued in 1217 by the Prince of Kraków, Leszek I the White, where there is a mention of the prince's tribunal held "in Petrecoue". Mediaeval Piotrków was a trading place on the trade routes from Pomerania to Russia and Hungary, and later from Masovia to Silesia.
During the 13th century, apart from the tribunals, Polish provincial princes made Piotrków the seat of some assemblies of the Sieradz knights, which according to historical sources were held in 1233, in 1241, and in 1291. It might have been during the 1291 assembly that the Prince of Sieradz, Władysław I the Elbow-high, granted Piotrków civic rights, because in documents from the beginning of the 14th century he mentions "civitate nostra Petricouiensi".
The first certificate of foundation and the other documents were burnt in a great fire which destroyed the city around 1400. The privileges and rights were re-granted by King Władysław II Jagiełło in 1404. The city walls were built during the reign of King Casimir III, and after the great fire, they were rebuilt at the beginning of the 15th century. During the reign of Casimir III, many expelled German Jews from the Holy Roman Empire migrated to the town, which grew to have one of the largest Jewish settlements in the kingdom.
Between 1354 and 1567 the city held general assemblies of Polish knights, and general or elective meetings of the Polish Sejm. It was in the city of Piotrków that the Polish Parliament was given its final structure with the division into an Upper House and Lower Chamber in 1493. King John I Albert published his "Piotrków privilege" on May 26, 1493, which expanded the privileges of the szlachta at the expense of the bourgeoisie and the peasantry.
Piotrków became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. When the seat of the Parliament was moved to Warsaw, the town became the seat of the highest court of Poland, the Crown Tribunal, and trials were held there from 1578–1793; the highest Lithuanian court was held in Grodno. Piotrków's Jewish population was expelled in 1578 and only allowed back a century later. The town became a post station in 1684. Around 1705, German settlers arrived in the town's vicinity and founded villages; they largely retained their customs and language until 1945.
While the importance of Piotrków in the political life of the country had contributed to its development in the 16th century, the city declined in the 17th and 18th centuries, due to fires, epidemics, wars against Sweden, and finally the Partitions of Poland.
The first official inventory of important buildings in Poland, A General View of the Nature of Ancient Monuments in the Kingdom of Poland, led by Kazimierz Stronczynski from 1844–55, describes the Great Synagogue as one of Poland's architecturally notable buildings.

Modern history

In 1793, the Kingdom of Prussia annexed the town in the Second Partition of Poland and administered it as part of the Province of South Prussia. During the Napoleonic Wars, Piotrków became part of the Duchy of Warsaw and was a district seat in the Kalisz Department. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Piotrków became part of Congress Poland, a puppet state of the Russian Empire. The town was made the seat of an oblast.
When the Warsaw-Vienna railway was built in 1846, there was a slight increase in the economic and industrial development of Piotrków. In 1867 the Russian authorities formed the Oblast of Piotrków, which included Łódź, Częstochowa, and the coal fields of Dąbrowa Górnicza and Sosnowiec. According to the Russian census of 1897, out of the total population of 30,800, Jews constituted 9,500. The province had the best developed industry of all of Congress Poland until 1914. Many Poles demonstrated and went on strike during the 1905 Russian Revolution.
During World War I, Piotrków was occupied by Austria-Hungary. From 1915–16, it was a centre for Polish patriotic activity. The city was a seat of the Military Department of the National Committee, and a headquarters for the Polish Legions, which were voluntary troops organized by Józef Piłsudski, Władysław Sikorski and others to fight against Russia. Piotrków was made part of the Second Polish Republic following the defeat of the Central Powers in the war.
In the interwar period, Piotrków was the capital of Piotrków County in the Łódź Voivodeship, and lost its previous importance. In 1938 the town had 51,000 inhabitants, including 25,000 Jews and 1,500 Germans. The town had a large Jewish settlement and until the Holocaust a thriving Hebrew printing and publishing industry.

World War II

During the invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II, Piotrków was the setting for fierce fighting between the Polish 19th Infantry Division and the 16th Panzer Corps of the German Wehrmacht on September 5, 1939. The town was occupied by Nazi Germany for the following six years.
As early as October 1939 Piotrków became the site of the first Jewish ghetto of World War II set up in occupied Poland. Approximately 25,000 people from Piotrków and the nearby towns and villages were imprisoned there. During the Holocaust 22,000 were sent to the Nazi Treblinka extermination camp, while 3,000 were imprisoned in other Nazi concentration camps.
From the first months of the war, Piotrków was a centre for underground resistance. From the spring of 1940, it was the seat of the district headquarters of the Armia Krajowa, or Home Army. In the summer of 1944, the 25th Infantry Regiment of the Home Army was formed in the district; it was the largest military unit of the Łódź Voivodship, and fought against the Germans until November 1944. In the city and district, there were also other partisan groups: the Military Troops, People's Guard and People's Army, Peasants' Battalions, the National Military Organization and the National Armed Forces.
On January 18, 1945, the Soviet Red Army entered the city, dislodging the German troops. Anti-communist partisans continued to fight in the vicinity in the following years. From 1949–70, Piotrków was built into an industrial centre.
Piotrków was a district capital in the Łódź Voivodeship, until 1975. Then, following the changes in the administrative division of the country, the city became the capital of the new Piotrków Voivodeship, thus regaining the status of an important administrative, educational and cultural centre of Poland. In 1999, the Piotrków Voivodship was dissolved and Piotrków became the capital of Piotrków County within the Łódź Voivodship.

Economy

Piotrków, thanks to its location, is known as the second largest "logistic centre" after Warsaw. There is a high concentration of warehouses and distribution centres around the city. The biggest distribution centres are:
In Piotrków are also located:
and many small and medium textile processing factories.

Transport

Piotrków lies almost in the centre of Poland.
It has a train station on the line from Warsaw to Częstochowa. Direct trains go among others to Cracow, Zakopane, Katowice, Bielsko-Biała, Wrocław, Łódź, Poznań, Szczecin, Świnoujście, Gdynia, Olsztyn and Białystok.

Roads

One expressway and two national roads cross Piotrków:
There is a small airfield for light passenger aircraft in Piotrków. The nearest airport is Łódź Władysław Reymont Airport in Łódź. Two large international airports are Warsaw Frédéric Chopin Airport about from Piotrków and Katowice International Airport about from Piotrków.

Educational institutions

Piotrków Trybunalski/Skierniewice constituency

Members of Parliament elected by the Piotrków/Skierniewice constituency

Twin towns – sister cities

Piotrków Trybunalski is twinned with:

  • – Mosonmagyaróvár, Hungary
  • – Marijampolė, Lithuania
  • – Vienne, Isère, France
  • – Neath Port Talbot, Wales
  • - Ness Ziona, Israel
    • Piotrków Trybunalski is also partnered with: