 |
Business | Industries | Finance | Tax |
| Index: > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
|
|||||
| First Prev [ 1 2 3 4 5 ] Next Last |
In 1488 the imperial Poet Laureate and humanist Conrad Celtes founded the Sodalitas Litterarum Vistulana , a learned society based on the Roman Acadiemies. In 1489 Veit Stoss of Nuremberg finished his work on the Great Altar of the Church of St. Mary . He later also wrought a marble sarcophagus for Casimir IV. Numerous other artists, mainly from Nuremberg, worked in Kraków. By 1500, Haller had established a printing press in the city.
In 1520, Johan Behem made the largest churchbell in Poland, named the Sigismund Bell after king Sigismund I. At the same time Hans Dürer, younger brother of Albrecht Dürer, was Sigismund's court painter. Hans von Kulmbach made the altar for the Johannis Church .
In 1572, the king Sigismund II died childless, and the throne passed to Sigismund III of the Swedish House of Vasa. Kraków's importance began to decline, accelerated by the pillaging of the city during the Swedish invasion, and an outbreak of plague that left 20,000 of the city's residents dead. Sigismund III moved his capital to Warsaw in 1596.
In the late 18th century, the weakened Polish state was absorbed by its more politically vigorous neighbors, Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Kraków became part of the Austrian province of Galicia. Tadeusz Kosciuszko initiated a revolt, the Kosciuszko insurrection , in Kraków's market in 1794. The Prussian army put down the revolt, and looted Polish royal treasure kept in the city.
When Napoleon Bonaparte of the French Empire captured what had once been Poland, he established the Duchy of Warsaw ( 1809) as an independent but subordinate state. The Congress of Vienna ( 1815) restored the partition of Poland, but gave Kraków its independence, as the Free City of Kraków. The city again became the focus of a struggle for national sovereignty in 1846, during the Kraków Uprising. The uprising failed to spread outside the city to other Polish-inhabited lands, and was put down, resulting in Kraków's annexation by Austria.
After the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Austria granted autonomy to Galicia, making Polish a language of government and establishing a provincial diet. As this form of Austrian rule was more benevolent than that exercised by Russia and Prussia, Kraków became a Polish national symbol and a center of culture and art. Famous painters, poets and writers of this period include Jan Matejko, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Jan Kasprowicz , Juliusz Kossak , Wojciech Kossak Stanislaw Wyspianski, and Stanislaw Przybyszewski . The latter two were leaders of Polish modernism .
During the First World War, Kraków Legions led by Jozef Pilsudski set out to fight for the liberation of Poland, in alliance with Austrian and German troops. The Austrians and Germans lost the war, but the terms of the Treaty of Versailles ( 1919) established the first sovereign Polish state in over a century.
Poland was partitioned again in 1939, at the outset of the Second World War, and Nazi German forces entered Kraków in September of that year. It became the capital of the General Government, a colonial authority under the leadership of Hans Frank. The occupation took a heavy toll, particularly on the city's cultural heritage. On one occasion, over 150 professors and other academics of the Jagiellonian University were summoned to a meeting, arrested and dispatched to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen (see also Sonderaktion Krakau). Many relics and monuments of national culture were destroyed or looted. Major concentration camps near Kraków included Plaszow and Auschwitz.
Thanks to a manoeuvre by advancing Soviet forces, Kraków escaped complete destruction during and some historic buildings and works of art were saved. After the conclusion of the war, however, the government of the People's Republic of Poland ordered the construction of the country's largest steel mill in the suburb of Nowa Huta. This is regarded as an attempt to diminish the influence of Kraków's intellectual and artistic circles by attracting the working class.
Kraków's population has quadrupled since the end of the war, and it is still regarded as the cultural capital of Poland. In 1978, UNESCO placed Kraków on the list of World Heritage Sites.
| Politics | Business | Finance |
 |
 |
 |
|