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Warsaw Old Town – reconstruction
masterpiece
Poland, being a country of great cultural and natural
beauty, which takes care of its preservation, is not only one of the first
State Parties of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural
and Natural Heritage, but also one of the most represented on the World
Heritage List. Till July 2008, thirteen Polish properties were included to this
prestigious “Inventory” of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It gives to “our native heritage” the 8th place
in Europe (the 8th of 46 European countries) and the 17th in the world (the
17th on United Nations 197 independent states list).
In this way, Medieval Town of Toruń, Old City of
Zamość as well as Belovezhskaya Pushcha/Białowieża Forest, Churches of Peace in
Jawor and Świdnica, or Wieliczka Salt Mine, stand by these extraordinary sites
such as Banks of the Seine in Paris, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the
Taj Mahal in India or the Pyramids of Egypt. The Historic Centre of Warsaw,
called the Old Town (Starówka) was inscribed in the UNESCO list of World
Heritage Sites in September 2, 1980. It happened 41 years and 1 day after the
Nazi invasion of Poland.
Warsaw Old Town as the result of
the determination of the inhabitants and the support of the whole Polish nation
During World War II Poland suffered from a brutal nazi
occupation and Warsaw was deliberately annihilated in 1944 as a repression of
the Polish resistance. The capital city was literally reduced to ruins with the
intention of eliminating the centuries-old tradition of Polish statehood. The rebuilding
of the historic city, 85% of which was completely destroyed, was in fact the
result of the determination of the inhabitants and the support of the whole
Polish nation. It was another example of nation`s solidarity which has always
been the Poles` virtue. The reconstruction of the Old Town in its historic
urban and architectural form was the manifestation of the care and attention
taken to assure the survival of one of the most important testimonials of
Polish culture. The city was rebuilt as a symbol of elective authority and
tolerance, where the first democratic European constitution, the Constitution
of May 3, 1791, was adopted. The reconstruction included the holistic
recreation of the urban plan, together with the Old Town Market, townhouses, the
circuit of the city walls, the Royal Castle, and important religious buildings.
The reconstruction was so precise that one can hardly tell if the the building
survived the war or if it was rebuilt. That`s why the Warsaw Old Town was
honored by the UNESCO.
The reconstruction of Warsaw’s historic centre was a
major contribution to the changes in the doctrines related to urbanisation and
conservation of cities in most of the European countries after the destructions
of World War II. Simultaneously, this example illustrates the effectiveness of
conservation activities in the second half of the 20th century, which permitted
the integral reconstruction of the complex urban ensemble.
The reconstruction project utilised any extant,
undamaged structures built between the 14th and 18th centuries, together with
the late-medieval network of streets, squares, and the main market square, as
well as the circuit of city walls. Two guiding principles were followed:
firstly, to use reliable archival documents where available, and secondly, to
aim at recreating the historic city’s late 18th-century appearance. The latter
was dictated by the availability of detailed iconographic and documentary historical
records from that period. It was what luckilly survived the war and remained to
next generations. Additionally, conservation inventories compiled before 1939
and after 1944 were used, along with the scientific knowledge and expertise of
art historians, architects, and conservators. The Archive of the Warsaw
Reconstruction Office, housing documentation of both the post-war damage and
the reconstruction projects, was inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World
Register in 2011.
Warsaw – the invincible city
The rebuilding of the Old Town continued until the
mid-1960s. The entire process was completed with the reconstruction of the
Royal Castle opened to visitors in August 30, 1984. The reconstruction of
individual buildings and their surroundings, in the adopted format of
residential housing, featuring public functions dedicated to culture and
science, as well as services, carried with its numerous challenges posed by the
need to adapt to the social norms and demands of the time. In order to highlight
the defensive walls and the city panorama as viewed from the Vistula, the
reconstruction of some buildings was deliberately foregone. The urban layout
was retained, along with the division of the street frontages into historic
building plots; however, the properties within these quarters were not rebuilt,
thus creating communal open areas for residents. The interior layout of
buildings and residential flats was revised to meet the standards in force at
the time. However, both historical room plans and interior designs were
recreated in many of the buildings intended for public use. A highly regarded
feature was the decoration of exterior elevations carried out by a team of
renowned artists, who drew in part on designs from the interwar period.
Polychrome decoration was executed using traditional techniques, including
sgraffito. In spite of the adaptations and the changes introduced, the site,
along with the city panorama as seen from the Vistula (which has become a
symbol of Warsaw), presents a cohesive picture of the oldest part of the city.
Combining extant features with those parts of the Old
Town reconstructed as a result of the conservation programme led to the
creation of an urban space unique in terms of its material dimension (the form
of the oldest part of the city), its functional dimension (as a residential
quarter and venue for important historical, social, and spiritual events), and
its symbolic dimension (an invincible city).
The cohesive rebuilding process came to an end with the reconstruction
of the Royal Castle. Since then, the Historic Centre of Warsaw has fully
retained its authenticity as a finished concept of post-war reconstruction.
This World Heritage property includes two categories of structure. The first
comprises extant structures predating the damage of World War II. This applies
to most basements, some ground floor storeys and certain sections of wall up to
the level of the first floor. The second category encompasses reconstructed
features – this group includes buildings recreated in accordance with pre-war
records (some of the Old Town’s townhouses, the Sigismund’s Column, churches,
and the Royal Castle), and those rebuilt based on historical and conservation studies
pertaining to the architecture of the 14th to 18th centuries (e.g. the façade
of the cathedral, and the Old Town walls with the Barbican). The state of
preservation of individual types of structure and entire buildings is
satisfactory. Their
maintenance requires the implementation of systematic conservation measures.
The Warsaw Old
Town, the gateway leading into memory lane
The Warsaw Old Town is a place where our nation`s
heart was given. When I was living abroad in late 80`s and early 90`s I was
encouraged to remain in exile and discouraged to go back to homeland which was
still a member of so-called the Eastern European Block. At those days we were
unsure whether the Polish Round Table Talks would change our geopolitical
situation and we were afraid of experiencing martial law once again. Nothing
was obvious then but whenever I was thinking about staying in exile the same
image came to my mind, The Warsaw Old Town, my love and my favourite place on
Earth. I knew if I had chosen migration my way to my homeland, home town and
Old Town might have been closed for long time. The Historic Centre of Warsaw
does not have only our big affection and is the gateway leading into memory
lane but it also has fascinating history and if you want to learn it you will
need a journey to the past, old days much earlier than WWII. Shall we go back
to the 13th century when The Old Town was established?
Initially surrounded by an earthwork rampart, prior to
1339 it was fortified with brick city walls. The town originally grew up around
the castle of the Dukes of Mazovia that later became the Royal Castle. The
Market Square (Rynek Starego Miasta) was laid out sometime in the late 13th or
early 14th century, along the main road linking the castle with the New Town to
the north.
The Old Town Market Place (Rynek Starego Miasta),
which dates back to the end of the 13th century, is the true heart of the Old
Town, and until the end of the 18th century it was the heart of the whole
Warsaw. Here the representatives of guilds and merchants met in the Town Hall
(built before 1429, pulled down in 1817), and fairs and the occasional
execution were held. The houses around it represented the Gothic style until
the great fire of 1607, after which they were rebuilt in late-Renaissance style.
Nowadays you can find here restaurants and cafes which offer mainly Polish
specialities. However, one also sees barrel organ players and portrait
painters. Since 1855 there has been a bronze sculpture (The Warsaw Mermaid) at
exactly the same place. It’s the symbol of Warsaw. The four house sides of the
marketplace also are still named after one of their famous inhabitants:
Zakrzewski (mayor), Barss (solicitor), where you can find the Mickiewicz
Literature Museum in house number 20, Kollataj (priest) and Dekert (mayor),
where you now find the Historical Museum entrance in house number 42.
The Barbican was built in 1548. It is directly
situated where the Old Town merges into the New Town. It served as an access
gate to the Old Town and it is integrated directly into the Warsaw City Wall
that surrounds the Old Town. The most part of the Warsaw Old Town Wall has
survived since the time it was built in the 14th century. It took the workers
about 200 years till it was fully completed.
The Warsaw Old Town, historical site and gathering place
Let`s meet there
Before you get to the heart of The Warsaw Old Town,
i.e. The Market Square (Rynek Starego Miasta) you will find Castle Square (plac
Zamkowy) which is both meaningful historical site, place of interest and
nowadays gathering place. It`s also a visitor's first view of the reconstructed
Old Town, when approaching from more modern center of Warsaw. Enclosed between
the Old Town and the Royal Castle, Castle Square is steeped in history. Here
was the gateway leading into the city called the Kraków (Cracow) Gate (Brama
Krakowska). It was developed in the 14th century and continued to be a
defensive area for the kings. The square was in its glory in the 17th century
when Warsaw became the country's capital and it was here in 1644 that King
Władysław IV erected the column to glorify his father Sigismund (Zygmunt) III
Vasa, who is best known for moving the capital of Poland from Cracow (Kraków)
to Warsaw (Warszawa). This is a bronze statue which was errected in 1644 and is
22 meters high. It towers above the beautiful Old Town houses. Steps at the
bottom of the column are always occupied by people who have arranged meeting
there. It`s where most of them begin their walk through The Warsaw Old Town.
You can also find some nice restaurants here if you are hungry and also some
city tours have their starting point at the Castle Square.
The Royal Castle`s historical
value
As written above the Royal Castle was the place where
the Constitution of May 3, 1791 was adopted. It remained in effect for little
over a year before being overthrown by Russian armies allied with conservative
Polish nobility in the Polish–Russian War of 1792, also known as the War in
Defense of the Constitution. With the wars between Turkey and Russia and Sweden
and Russia having ended, Empress Catherine was furious over the adoption of the
document, which she believed threatened Russian influence in Poland. Russia had
viewed Poland as a de facto protectorate. "The worst possible news have
arrived from Warsaw: the Polish king has become almost sovereign" was the
reaction of one of Russia's chief foreign policy authors, Alexander Bezborodko,
when he learned of the new constitution. The contacts of Polish reformers with
the Revolutionary French National Assembly were seen by Poland's neighbours as
evidence of a revolutionary conspiracy and a threat to the absolute monarchies.
The Prussian statesman Ewald von Hertzberg expressed the fears of European
conservatives: "The Poles have given the coup de grâce to the Prussian
monarchy by voting a constitution", elaborating that a strong Commonwealth
would likely demand the return of the lands Prussia acquired in the First
Partition.
Magnates who had opposed the constitution draft from
the start, Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki, Seweryn
Rzewuski, and Szymon and Józef Kossakowski, asked Tsarina Catherine to
intervene and restore their privileges—the Cardinal Laws abolished under the
new statute. To that end these magnates formed the Targowica Confederation. The
Confederation's proclamation, prepared in St. Petersburg in January 1792,
criticized the constitution for contributing to "contagion of democratic
ideas" following "the fatal examples set in Paris". It asserted
that "The parliament ... has broken all fundamental laws, swept away all
liberties of the gentry and on the third of May 1791 turned into a revolution
and a conspiracy." The Confederates declared an intention to overcome this
revolution. We "can do nothing but turn trustingly to Tsarina Catherine, a
distinguished and fair empress, our neighboring friend and ally", who
"respects the nation's need for well-being and always offers it a helping
hand", they wrote.
Russian armies entered Poland and Lithuania, starting
the Polish–Russian War of 1792. The Sejm voted to increase the army of the
Commonwealth to 100,000 men, but owing to insufficient time and funds this
number was never achieved and soon abandoned even as a goal. The Polish King
and the reformers could field only a 37,000-man army, many of them untested
recruits. This army, under the command of Józef Poniatowski and Tadeusz
Kościuszko, defeated or fought to a draw the Russians on several occasions, but
in the end, a defeat loomed inevitable. Despite Polish requests, Prussia
refused to honor its alliance obligations. Stanisław August's attempts at
negotiations with Russia proved futile. As the front lines kept shifting to the
west and in July 1792 Warsaw was threatened with siege by the Russians, the
King came to believe that victory was impossible against the numerically
superior enemy, and that surrender was the only alternative to total defeat.
Having received assurances from the Russian ambassador Yakov Bulgakov that no
territorial changes will occur, the Guardians of the Laws cabinet voted 8:4 to
surrender. On July 24, 1792, King Stanisław August Poniatowski joined the
Targowica Confederation, as the Empress had demanded. The
Polish Army disintegrated.
Many reform leaders, believing their cause was for now
lost, went into self-imposed exile. Some hoped that Stanisław August would be
able to negotiate an acceptable compromise with the Russians, as he had done in
the past. But the King had not saved the Commonwealth and neither had the
Targowica Confederates, who governed the country for a short while. To their
surprise, the Grodno Sejm, bribed or intimidated by the Russian troops, enacted
the Second Partition of Poland. On November 23, 1793, it concluded its
deliberations under duress, annulling the constitution and acceding to the
Second Partition. Russia took 250,000 square kilometres (97,000 sq mi), while
Prussia took 58,000 square kilometres (22,000 sq mi). The Commonwealth now
comprised no more than 215,000 square kilometres (83,000 sq mi). What was left
of the Commonwealth was merely a small buffer state with a puppet king, and
Russian garrisons keeping an eye on the reduced Polish army.
For a year and a half, Polish patriots waited while
planning an insurrection. On March 24, 1794 in Kraków (Cracow), Tadeusz
Kościuszko declared what has come to be known as the Kościuszko Uprising. On
May 7, he issued the Proclamation of Połaniec (Uniwersał Połaniecki), granting
freedom to the peasants and ownership of land to all who fought in the
insurrection. Revolutionary tribunals administered summary justice to those
deemed traitors to the Commonwealth. After initial victories at the Battle of
Racławice (April 4), the capture of Warsaw (April 18) and the Wilno (April 22) —
the Uprising was crushed when the forces of Russia, Austria and Prussia joined in
a military intervention. Historians consider the Uprising's defeat to have been
a foregone conclusion in face of the superiority in numbers and resources of
the three invading powers. The defeat of Kościuszko's forces led in 1795 to the
third and final partition of the Commonwealth.
Jan Kiliński, a cobbler who
commanded the Kościuszko Uprising
One of the commanders of the Kościuszko Uprising was Jan
Kiliński (1760 in Trzemeszno - 28 January 1819 in Warsaw), a cobbler by trade,
a member of provisional government. In 1780 he settled in Warsaw, where he
became a shoemaking master in 1788. One of the most prominent burghers of the
time, he was elected member of the city council three times in a row between
1791 and 1793. During the Warsaw Uprising of 1794, Kiliński formed a unit of
National Militia and led his forces, along with the forces of the regular army,
against the Russian occupation forces. On April 19 of that year, following the
Russian withdrawal, he signed the Access of the city of Warsaw to the
Kościuszko's Uprising and entered the Provisional Temporary Council, a
temporary ruling body of the city.
The council was soon disbanded and passed its powers
to Tadeusz Kościuszko, and Kiliński focused on strengthening his militias. His
forces grew to over 20,000 men at arms and on June 28, 1794 were dispatched to
the front to link up with the regular Polish Army. On July 2 of the same year
Kościuszko promoted Kiliński to the rank of Colonel. After the failure of the
uprising, Kiliński was arrested by the Prussian authorities and handed over to
the Russians, who then imprisoned him in the Peter and Paul Fortress, in St.
Petersburg. Upon his release in 1796, he lived in Vilna for a short time.
However, he was yet again arrested for conspiracy against the tsarist
authorities and forcibly resettled to Russia. Upon his return he settled in
Warsaw, where he died January 28, 1819. Kiliński was buried in a crypt at the
Powązki Cemetery Church. His memoirs were posthumously published in 1830 and
1899 (1st and 2nd volume, respectively).
Said to embody the Polish virtues of bravery and
patriotism, his statue was erected in 1936 and originally located on pl.
Krasińskich. In reprisal for an attack on the Copernicus Monument, Nazi troops
hid Kiliński inside the vaults of the National Museum. Within days, boy scouts
had daubed the museum with the graffiti ‘People of Warsaw! I am here, Jan
Kiliński.’ After the war the cobbler was returned to his rightful place, before
being finally relocated to ul. Podwale in 1959.
Approaching the end of this story I shall give to you
one more thing. A Polish legend says that there is one townhouse in the Old
Market Place where a cat was immured alive. This cat was unlucky since whenever
it came to the city its appearance always caused flash flood. The government decided
to punish poor animal and immured it alive in the corner of the house situated
on the crossroad of The Old Town Market (Rynek Starego Miasta) and ul. Wąski
Dunaj. And believe it or not but this townhouse corner was only one remain
while the rest of The Old Town was badly damaged by the German Luftwaffe.
And we are back again in 2016. I am in a Castle Square
now writing this text. I see a lot of
people, languages are mixed like in the mythical Tower of Babel. I can hear
noises of the city but walking the streets of the Old and New Towns will allow
me to rest from the the bustle of central city life. And while strolling I will
be able to see the world heritage site. And you can do the same when you come to my lovely town. I am leaving you here and going towards
The Old Market Place. Good bye and to see you here.
Photos by Michał Stanisławski
Grandson and grandpa in Warsaw Barbican. They have never met.
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