Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital of Poland and its largest city. It is located on the Vistula River roughly 370 kilometers (229.9 mi) from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2006 was estimated at 1,700,536, with a metropolitan area of approximately 2,900,000 to 3,000,000 people. The city area is 516.9 square kilometers (199.6 sq mi), with an agglomeration of 6,100.43 square kilometers (2,355.4 sq mi) (Warsaw Metro Area - Obszar Metropolitalny Warszawy). Warsaw is the 7th biggest city in the European Union.

History

The first fortified settlements on the site of today's Warsaw were Bródno (9th/10th century) and Jazdów (12th/13th century). After Jazdów was raided in 1281 by Boleslaus II, the Duke of Płock, a new similar settlement was lodged on the grounds of a small fishing village called Warszowa. In the beginning of the 14th century it became one of the seats of the Dukes of Masovia, in 1413 becoming the capital of Masovia. Upon the extinction of the local ducal line, the duchy was reincorporated into the Polish Crown in 1526. In 1529 Warsaw for the first time became the seat of the General Sejm, permanent since 1569. In 1573 Warsaw gave its name to the Warsaw Confederation, an agreement by the Polish gentry to tolerate different religious faiths in the Kingdom of Poland.

Due to its central location between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's capitals of Vilnius and Kraków, Warsaw became the capital of the Commonwealth and at the same time of the Polish Crown in 1596, when King Sigismund III Vasa moved the capital from Kraków. Warsaw remained the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia to become the capital of the province of New East Prussia. Liberated by Napoleon's army in 1807, Warsaw was made the capital of the newly created Duchy of Warsaw. Following the decisions of the Congress of Vienna of 1815, Warsaw became the centre of the Polish Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy under a personal union with Imperial Russia. The Royal University of Warsaw was established in 1816. Following the repeated violations of the Polish constitution by the Russians, the 1830 November Uprising broke out. However, the Polish-Russian war of 1831 ended in the uprising's defeat and in the curtailment of the Kingdom's autonomy. On 27 February 1861 a Warsaw crowd protesting the Russian rule over Poland was fired upon by the Russian troops. Five people were killed. The Underground Polish National Government resided in Warsaw during January Uprising in 1863-1864.

Warsaw flourished in the late nineteenth century under Mayor Sokrates Starynkiewicz (1875–1892), a Russian-born general appointed by Tsar Alexander III. Under Starynkiewicz Warsaw saw its first water and sewer systems designed and built by the English engineer William Lindley and his son, William Heerlein Lindley, as well as the expansion and modernization of trams, street lighting and gas works.

Warsaw became the capital of the newly independent Poland again in 1918. In the course of the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920, the huge Battle of Warsaw was fought on the Eastern outskirts of the city in which the capital was successfully defended and the Red Army defeated.

Warsaw has been devastated many times in its history. Having suffered dreadful damage during the Swedish and Prussian wars of 1655–1656, it was again assaulted in 1794, when the Russian army massacred the population of the right-bank suburb of Praga. A large part of it was destroyed during the Second World War. The city would be rebuilt in the following decades.

During the Second World War central Poland, including Warsaw, came under the rule of the General Government, a Nazi colonial administration. In the course of the Invasion of Poland, Warsaw was severely bombed, and in the course of the Siege of Warsaw approximately 10 to 15% of its buildings were destroyed.

Warsaw became an occupied city under the control of the Nazi Wehrmacht and SS. All higher education institutions were immediately closed and Warsaw's entire Jewish population — several hundred thousand, some 30% of the city — herded into the Warsaw Ghetto. When the order came to liquidate the Ghetto as part of Hitler's "final solution", Jewish fighters launched the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Despite being heavily outgunned and outnumbered, the Ghetto held out for almost a month. When the fighting ended, the survivors were massacred.

By July 1944 the Red Army wes deep into the Polish territory, pursuing the Germans toward Warsaw. Knowing that Stalin was hostile to the idea of an independent Poland, the Polish government-in-exile based in London gave orders to the underground Home Army (AK) to try to seize the control of Warsaw from the Germans just before the Soviets arrive. Thus, on 1 August 1944, as the Soviet army was nearing the city very fast, the Home Army and the general population started the Warsaw Uprising. Despite Stalin's hostility towards Poland, the Poles had expected that the Soviet troops would assist them against their common German enemy. However, after the Red Army captured the right-bank Warsaw, the Soviet offensive was abruptly stopped, while the Germans went on to ruthlessly suppress the uprising. Although the insurgency, planned to last 48 hours, held out for 63 days, eventually the Home Army fighters were forced to capitulate. They were transported to the POW camps in Germany, while the entire civilian population was expelled. Hitler, ignoring the agreed terms of the capitulation, ordered the entire city to be razed to the ground, and the library and museum collections robbed or burned.

Warsaw was liberated from the Germans on 17 January 1945 by the Red Army and the 1st army of Ludowe Wojsko Polskie during the Vistula-Oder Offensive. When the troops crossed the Vistula and entered through the left-bank, they found a Warsaw that had almost ceased to exist; 85% of the city had been destroyed, including the historic Old Town and the Royal Castle. The surviving Home Army fighters were rounded up by the NKVD, some were murdered or deported to Siberia.

The city was once considered a shining metropolis, but due to total destruction, it has lost its baroque tinge. Although many of the destroyed significant historical buildings were restored, little remains of the resplendence of Warsaw baroque.

After the war, Boleslaw Bierut's puppet regime set up by Stalin made Warsaw the capital of the communist People's Republic of Poland, and the city was resettled and rebuilt. Large prefabricated housing projects were erected in Warsaw to address the housing shortage. Few of the inhabitants of the pre-war Poland returned: Hundreds of thousands were dead, thousands more in exile from the new regime. Nonetheless, the city resumed its role as the capital of Poland and the country's centre of political and economic life. Many of the historic streets, buildings, and churches were restored to their original form. In 1980, Warsaw's historic Old Town was inscribed onto UNESCO's World Heritage list.

In 1995 the Warsaw Metro finally opened, and with the entry of Poland into the European Union in 2004, Warsaw is currently experiencing the biggest economic boom of its history.