LET'S EXPLORE POLAND

Copyright 1997 by the AngloPol Corporation

This series will take us through the cities, towns, villages and countryside of Poland, 
as well as give us insights into the rich history and culture of the nation.

Part 24

EASTERN POLAND

EVEN MORE ABOUT TORUN

We are spending more time exploring Torun than most cities, because it seems that Polish Americans are not as familiar with this interesting city as with other locales. Torun offers a wealth of history and culture.

FLOURISHING OF ARCHITECTURE, ART AND EDUCATION

Architecture, painting, sculpture and craftsmanship flourished in Torun mainly in the Middle Ages, at the time when the Gothic style predominated. During that period, works of art were produced not only on the strength of local craftsmanship, but also thanks to the affluence of Torun's citizens, foreign masters and artisans could also be commissioned to work for the city.

Such a situation was also greatly facilitated by the international organizational structure of the main religious orders, such as the Franciscans and the Dominicans. The monastery workshops contributed immensely to Torun's medieval architecture and art. Many works created within the town or its extensive patrimony show influence of or were actually produced by artists from Bohemia, Germany, Gotland, or the Netherlands. Dutch influences became dominant in the 17th century. The workshop of Antoni van Obbergen from the Netherlands, for instance, carried out the most prestigious undertaking of rebuilding the Old Town Hall. Soon afterwards, in 1629, Torun again made use of Dutch achievements while erecting a new system of modern bastion-type fortifications, vital to the town's safety. Overall, the artists and builders from the Netherlands produced in Torun several dozen manneristic facades of town houses and municipal buildings, e.g., the armory. In fact, the style had already been used at the close of the 16th century.

The dormitory of Torun's medieval grammar school at 49 Piekary St. is one splendid example of the Dutch style. Constructed in 1598 by the builder Jan Eckard, it was used by the school's rector and professors. The school was founded in the hope that the establishment would be granted academic status. Although the plan failed, the school enjoyed the reputation of one of the best at the time and stimulated the cultural and scientific life of Royal Prussia. The school occupied the former Franciscan buildings adjoining the Church of the Virgin Mary. It boasted a rich library and a school "museum" with a portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus dating back to the middle of the 16th century. This painting, the oldest existing and most faithful likeness of the great astronomer, is currently on display in the Old Town Hall.

DECLINE OF FORMER SPLENDOR

The 18th century saw a gradual decline of Torun's former splendor. The process is easily noticed on the basis of the town's population numbers. Whereas in the 16th century the population numbered 36,000 inhabitants, 200 years later it had dropped to just 5,000.

During the 1703 siege by the troops of Charles XII, Torun was seriously devastated. For a number of years, it could not return to its former condition, as the Swedish ruler had imposed on the town a contribution of 160,000 thalers. The inhabitants suffered from diseases and famine. No earlier than the middle of the century were they able to pool enough resources to construct about 15 new buildings, among them farm buildings, a mill and a brewery in Przysiek, a few suburban villas and several palaces erected within the Old Town boundaries on the sites of former town houses. One of them is the Fengers' palace, at 14 Mostowa St., built in 1742, where in 1792 Fryderyk Skarbek was born, an economist and professor of Warsaw University and the teacher of Fryderyk Chopin's father. The edifice at 7 Old Town Square, along with the palace of Jakub Meissner, Torun's mayor and the royal burgrave, was rebuilt in the 19th century and did not retain the original Baroque decorations on their facades. But even the original decorations had been artistically inferior to the kind of stucco work created in Torun at the end of the 17th century, whose prime examples are the Dabskis' palace at 8 Zeglarska St. and the house called "The Star" at 35 Old Town Rynek Square.

RIOTS AND REVOLTS

During its long history, Torun has undergone a number of major internal upheavals, the most significant of which took place in 1456, 1523, and 1724.

In September 1456, a mob rioted against a Council resolution, which supposedly unfairly distributed the burden of an additional tax imposed to cover the costs of a rather special sort of war waged against the Teutonic Knights. The tax was intended to provide resources to buy out the Knights' castles held by their mercenaries, who had not received their pay. Such an action would have had a positive effect on the course of the war. The riot was suppressed with the help of Polish and Gdansk troops, which were temporarily stationed in the town. The local authorities severely punished the rebels, publicly beheading 72 people.

Less dramatic were the disturbances of 1523, sometimes called the "Guilds' Mutiny." They were caused by the deteriorating economic situation of the townspeople, caused by restrictions imposed on the right of storage in Torun and also because of the high costs of the war waged against the Teutonic Knights since 1519. The situation increased the citizens' dissatisfaction. The Council was accused of nepotism, discrimination of the common citizens in the municipal management and unfair distribution of financial burdens.

1724 was witness to the "Torun tumult," which quickly earned the city European notoriety. It was directly caused by a street fight between the Jesuit College and the Protestant Grammar School students during the Corpus Christi procession. The skirmish turned into general disturbances and was a bloody finale to a long-lasting dispute over the right to manage Torun's main churches. The argument was, in turn, a manifestation of a power struggle between the Protestant and Catholic communities. It ended the good times of Torun's religious tolerance, when from 1583 to 1596 SS. Johns' Parish Church served as a place of worship for Catholics and Protestants alike. The atmosphere of mutual respect among various denominations also resulted in the Colloquium Charitativum held in Torun in 1595. Although the conference did not achieve its intended goal, it is universally known as the first European attempt at ecumenism.

The Torun tumult ended with a bloody finale. Its perpetrators, as well as those who had failed to ensure peace in the town, were handed over to the executioner. By royal order some members of the local authorities, including the mayor, Jan Rosner, were beheaded.

These bloody events had one positive effect: the king gave his consent to building a Protestant church in Torun. It was constructed in the years 1753-6 in Old Town Rynek Square according to the design by Andreas Baehr from Dresden and a Torun citizen, Efraim Schroeger, who later became the royal court architect of King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski. Initially, the church was a steeple-less edifice because that was the condition imposed by the Polish monarch. The present steeple was added in 1898 and was designed in the neo-Baroque style by K. Schafer and H. Hartung. Since 1945 the church has been used by the Jesuits.

WARTIME DAMAGE

The location of Torun at the crossroads of various routes has understandably enhanced its attractiveness as a trade center, but has also increased the danger of invasion because of its strategic importance. Consequently, the city has been the object of numerous attacks and has had to defend itself sustaining substantial damage in the process. Written documents report that already in the 13th century the Prussians and the Pomeranians made attacks the city. Also during the wars against the Teutonic Order, Torun was the scene of fighting and devastation, and suffered further damage during the Swedish invasions. Luckily, Torun was spared wartime damage during the First and the Second World Wars.

UNDER PRUSSIAN RULE

The second partition of Poland in 1793 was a severe shock to Torun, as well as to the whole country. On 23 January, as a demonstration, the Council ordered the town gates to be closed before the approaching Prussian troops. The city was only protected by fifty soldiers and did not have the slightest chance of defense.

This event marked the beginning of over 100 years of Prussian rule, interrupted only by a few years of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and the sieges during the Napoleonic wars. The entire 19th century is characterized by deep transformations of Torun. The city found itself near the Russo-Prussian border. The former trade routes lost all their significance. Of prime importance now was the city's strategic role as a major fortress and garrison. This determined the course of changes that Torun underwent during the 19th century. Even the construction of a railway station in 1862, and then a railway junction, was dictated by military considerations.

In the 19th century, for military reasons, the Churches of St. George and St. Laurence situated outside the city walls were pulled down. Earlier, during the Swedish wars in the middle of the 17th century, another medieval church, that of the Holy Ghost, situated outside the Old Town walls on the Vistula bank, and a Benedictine convent connected with it were also demolished.

RETURN TO POLAND

Torun returned to Poland in 1920. After long battles in Pomerania against the Prussian troops organized and supported by the local Junkers, the red-and-white Polish flag was flown on the Old Town Hall in January and an activist of the Torun Scientific Society, Dr Otto Steinborn, was appointed the town's commissioner-mayor. The city became the seat of the Pomeranian voivodship, Pomeranian District of Polish State Railways, headquarters of the VIII Military District, and numerous other institutions. 1923 saw the opening of the municipal library and a Polish Radio Broadcasting Station was built in 1933. Torun's tradition as a garrison town was maintained by many military units stationed in the city, including the 4th Air Force Division, and above all the Gunnery Academy representing the town's age-old artillery tradition. The city's cultural life was best represented by two institutions: the Dramatic Theater and the Artists' Confraternity founded in 1920 and led by Julian Falat and Artur Gorski.

NAZI OCCUPATION

On September 7, 1939, when the German army marched into Torun, it marked the beginning of an era of terror and extermination of the Polish population. Not only were people, mostly the intelligentsia, ordered to leave the city, but also on the basis of the previously drawn up lists the Nazis arrested and executed several thousand of the most active participants of the political, social, and cultural life of Torun and its vicinity.

The place of their martyrdom was the woods in the nearby Barbarka and the Fort VII moat. Torun was incorporated into the Third Reich and, consequently, all forms of Polish cultural life were prohibited. Public use of the Polish language was a crime punishable by concentration camp. The city was populated with German families sent from the Reich. Despite very difficult conditions the local Poles took to the underground, mainly within the organizational structures of the Armja Krajowa and Gryf Pomorski.

AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR

After the Second World War, Torun ceased to be the voivodship capital and the headquarters of district military and railway authorities. On the other hand, it acquired a university. The core of its academic staff were the professors of the Stefan Batory University, repatriated from Vilnius [Wilno]. The new University also obtained an extensive collection of books from Stefan Batory's library, which were illegally moved to Torun. The institution chose Nicolaus Copernicus as its patron and formed a strong Department of Astronomy. The University also boasted a unique Department of Historical Monuments and Conservation Methods within the Faculty of Fine Arts, formed on the initiative and with the assistance of the pre-war Chief Monument Preservation Officer, Prof. Jerzy Remer. The Department soon achieved fame and international recognition.

Since the late 1960s Torun has seen expansive growth of new, suburban districts. The construction of a University campus was initiated. Numerous industrial enterprises, sports centers and housing estates have been built. Torun's population has doubled in relation to the period before WW II, reaching 200,000 inhabitants. In accordance with a program prepared in 1958, the Old Town District has been relieved of an excessive number of inhabitants, but still plays an important role as a shopping center and, above all, a tourist and cultural center.