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Gdańsk (; , , ; older English Dantzig also other languages) is the sixth-largest city in Poland, and also its principal seaport and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodship.

The city lies on the southern coast of the Gdańsk Bay (of the Baltic Sea), in a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdynia and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the greater Gdańsk or the Tricity (Trójmiasto) with a population of over a million people. Gdańsk is, with a population of 460,524 (mid 2004), the largest city in the historical province of Eastern Pomerania. North lies the Kashubian Tricity: Rumia, Reda, and Wejherowo.

Gdańsk is situated at the mouth of the Motława river, connected to the Leniwka, a branch in the delta of the Vistula, whose waterway system connects 60% of the area of Poland, giving the city a unique advantage as the center of Poland's sea trade.

Historically an important seaport since medieval times and subsequently a principal ship-building centre, Gdańsk was a member of the Hanseatic League. Today the city remains an important industrial centre, together with the nearby port of Gdynia, and is world famous as the birthplace of the Solidarity movement which, under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa, played a major role in bringing an end to Communist rule in the Eastern Bloc.

Names

The name is thought to mean town located on Gdania river, the original name of the Motława branch the city is situated on. Like many other European cities, Gdańsk has had many different names throughout its history.

The Polish name Gdańsk is usually pronounced IPA , , or in English. The acute accent is frequently neglected by non-Poles. In the local Kashubian language it is known as Gduńsk.

Since the city was dominated by its German population, became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1792, and was part of the German Empire until 1919, the German name Danzig was widely used until the end of the Second World War. The city's Latin name may be given as any of Gedania, Gedanum or Dantiscum; the variety of Latin names reflects the influence of the Polish, Kashubian, and German names.

Former English versions of its name include Dantsic and Dantzic (in use until the end of WWI).

See also: List of European cities with names in different languages

Historical documents

The name of a settlement was recorded after St. Adalbert's demise in 997 A.D. as urbs Gyddanyzc and later was written as Kdanzk (1148), Gdanzc (1188), Gdansk (1236), Danzc (1263), Danczk (1311, 1399, 1410, 1414–1438), Danczik (1399, 1410, 1414), Danczig (1414), Gdansk (1454, 1468, 1484), Gdansk (1590), Gdąnsk (1636) and in Latin documents Gedanum or Dantiscum. These early recordings show the Pomeranian name Gduńsk, the Polish name Gdańsk and the German name Danzig.

Alternative spellings from medieval and early modern documents are Gyddanyzc, Kdansk, Gdanzc, Dantzk, Dantzig, Dantzigk, Dantiscum and Gedanum. The official Latin name of Gedanum was used simultaneously.

Special celebration names

On special occasions it is also known as The Royal Polish City of Gdańsk; Polish: Królewskie Polskie Miasto Gdańsk, German: Königliche Polnische Stadt Danzig, Latin: Regia Civitas Polonica Gedanensis, Kashubian: Królewsczi Polsczi Gard Gduńsk.

The Kashubians prefer the name: Our Capital City Gdańsk (=Nasz Stoleczny Gard Gduńsk) or The Kashubian Capital City Gdańsk (=Stoleczny Kaszëbsczi Gard Gduńsk).

Sources:

  • Gdańsk, in: Kazimierz Rymut, Nazwy Miast Polski, Ossolineum, Wrocław 1987
  • Hubert Gurnowicz, Gdańsk, in: Nazwy miast Pomorza Gdańskiego, Ossolineum, Wrocław 1978
  • Baedeker's Northern Germany, Karl Baedeker Publishing, Leipzig 1904.

History

Main article: History of Gdańsk, see also: History of Pomerania

Foundation and the Middle Ages

According to archeologists, the Gdańsk stronghold was built in the 980s by Mieszko I of Poland. The year 997 was celebrated as the date of the foundation of the city, this being the year when Saint Adalbert of Prague (sent by the Polish king Boleslaus the Brave) baptized the inhabitants of Gdańsk (urbs Gyddanyzc).

In the following years Gdańsk was the main centre of a Polish splinter duchy ruled by the Dukes of Pomerania. The most famous of them, Świętopełk II of Pomerania, granted a local autonomy charter in ca. 1235 to the city, which at the time had about 2,000 inhabitants. But at this time, the town had already obtained the city charter under Lübeck law (Lübisches Stadtrecht) in 1224 and the official language spoken was German.

By 1308 Gdańsk had became a flourishing trading city with some 10,000 inhabitants, but in the Gdańsk Massacre of November 13 1308, it was occupied and demolished by the Teutonic Knights. This led to a series of wars between the Knights and Poland, ending with the Peace of Kalisz in 1343 when the Knights acknowledged that they would hold Pomerania as "an alm" from the Polish king. Although it left the legal basis of their possession of the province in some doubt, the agreement permitted the foundation of the municipality in 1343 and the development of increased export of grain from Poland via the Vistula river trading routes.

While under the control of the Knights, the city and its trade prospered, German influence increased, and the city began to be referred to by variations of "Gdańsk", ultimately developing into the Germanised version of the Polish name: "Danzig". The city became a full member of the Hanseatic League in 1361, and its city seal showed, similar to that of Lübeck, a "Hansekogge" ship, with the inscription SIGILLUM BURGENSIUM DANTZIKE (approx. Seal of the Citizens of Dantzik).

A new war broke out in 1409, ending with the Battle of Grunwald (1410), and the city briefly came under the direct overlordship of the Polish king. A year later, with the Peace of Toruń (Thorn) in 1411, it returned to the Teutonic Knights' administration. In 1440 Danzig participated in the foundation of the Prussian Union which eventually led to the Thirteen Years War (1454-1466) and the incorporation of Royal Prussia to the direct rule of the Polish Crown.

Thanks to the Royal charters granted by king Casimir IV the Jagiellonian and the free access to all Polish markets, Danzig became a large and prosperous seaport and city. The 16th and 17th centuries were a Golden Age for trade and culture of the city. Beside the Germans, inhabitants from various other ethnic groups (Poles, Jews, and Dutch being the largest) contributed to Danzig's identity and rich culture of this period. A large number of Scotsmen took refuge or emigrated to and received citizenship in Danzig and other Prussian cities (see links below) and also, through trade, all over the Baltic region. With the Reformation, the German inhabitants adopted the Lutheran confession.

The city suffered a slow economic decline due to the wars in the 18th century, when it was taken by the Russians after the Siege of Danzig in 1734. Danzig was annexed to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1793 and remained Prussian until 1919 – except for the short period of 1807-1815 when it was the Free City of Danzig during the Napoleonic years. As part of Prussia, its longest serving Regierungspräsident was Robert von Blumenthal, who held office from 1841, before the troubles of 1848, until 1863. Danzig became part of the German Empire in 1871.

World Wars and inter-War wears

As a result of the Versailles treaty after World War I, Danzig became a free city under the control of the League of Nations. Its predominantly German population had no right of self-determination in a referendum as in other disputed parts of the former German Empire. When Poland regained its independence after World War I, the Poles hoped to regain the city to provide the free access to the sea which they had been promised by the Allies on the basis of Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points". However, since the population of the city was predominantly German, it was not placed under Polish sovereignty, but became the Free City of Danzig, an independent quasi-state under the auspices of the League of Nations, governed by its predominantly German residents but with its external affairs largely under Polish control. The Free City issued its own stamps and currency, bearing the legend "Freie Stadt Danzig" and symbols of the city's maritime orientation and history.

The vast German majority of the city's population favored eventual return to Germany. In the early 1930s the Nazi Party capitalized on these pro-German sentiments, and in 1933 garnered 38 percent of vote for the Danzig Volkstag. Thereafter the Nazis under the Bavarian Gauleiter Albert Förster achieved dominance in the city government - which, nominally, was still overseen by the League of Nations' High Commissioner.

Nazi demands for easier access from Pomerania to Danzig and to East Prussia served as a direct pretext for the German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 and triggered the outbreak of World War II. Military assault on Danzig began with an artillery bombardment by the old German pre-Dreadnaught battleship Schleswig-Holstein of the Westerplatte peninsula and a subsequent landing of German infantry. Polish defenders at the Westerplatte resisted for nearly a week before running out of ammunition. Many members of Danzig's Polish and Kashub population were deported to Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig or were executed at Piaśnica forest. The city was annexed by Nazi Germany and incorporated into the Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen.

Most of the Jewish community in Danzig was able to escape from the Nazis shortly before the outbreak of hostilities. However, German secret police had been observing Polish circles since 1936, compiling information which in 1939 served to prepare conscription lists of Poles to be arrested or executed in Operation Tannenberg. After the Nazi invasion, massive arrests of Poles started. On the first day of the war alone approx. 1,500 people were arrested, mainly Poles active in the social and economical life, activists and members of Polish organizations.* On 2 September 1939, 150 of them were deported to Stutthof concentration camp, where most were eventually killed.

After the final Soviet offensive began in January 1945, hundreds of thousands of German refugees fled through the city's port in a large-scale naval operation employing hundreds of German cargo and passenger ships. Some of the ships were subsequently sunk by Allied forces (see Wilhelm Gustloff). In the process, tens of thousands of refugees were killed in total.

On 30 March 1945, the Red Army liberated the city from the Nazi occupation, reducing it to a sea of ruins in the process * *. After the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the town was assigned to Poland along with other German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, a decision supported by the Soviet Union, Britain, and the United States. The remaining German residents of the city who survived the war were expelled to what remained of Germany, and the city henceforth became a wholly Polish city known as Gdańsk.

Modern age

Poles came to the city from throughout Poland, especially from the regions of eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. The Old City was rebuilt during the 1950s and 1960s. Because of the development of its port and three major shipyards, Gdańsk was a major shipping and industrial center of the Communist People's Republic of Poland.

In the course of German-Polish reconciliation policies driven by West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, German territorial claims on Gdańsk (and all other formerly German territories now under Polish administration) were renounced, and its full incorporation into Poland was recognized in the Treaty of Warsaw in 1970.

In 1970 Gdańsk was the scene of anti-government demonstrations which led to the downfall of Poland's communist leader Władysław Gomułka. Ten years later the Gdańsk Shipyard was the birthplace of the Solidarity trade union movement, whose opposition to the government led to the end of communist party rule (1989). Solidarity's leader Lech Wałęsa became President of Poland in 1990. Today Gdańsk is a major industrial city and shipping port.

Throughout its history Gdańsk/Danzig faced various periods of rule from different states before 1945:

From the early 14th century until 1945 the vast majority of Danzig`s population had been of German ethnicity and German had been the language officially spoken since its city charter was granted in 1224 under Lübeck Law. In recognition of this, Danzig enjoyed far reaching privileges concerning its self-autonomy (e.g. laid down in the Second Peace of Toruń) while it was under protection of the Polish Crown between 1466 - 1793. Due to its mainly German population the city resisted the Counter-Reformation and stayed Protestant until 1945. For example, in the course of a poll executed in 1923, 96% of the citizens of Danzig stated German to be their mother tongue whereas 3% stated Polish to be so. In 1945, the surviving German population was expelled to the western parts of Germany and the city was eventually re-populated by Poles, themselves expelled from Polish lands annexed by the Soviet Union.

Historical population
of Gdańsk
ca. 1000 1,000
1235 2,000
1308 10,000
1600 40,000
1650 70,000
1700 50,000
1750 46,000
1793 36,000
1800 48,000
1825 61,900
1840 65,000
1852 67,000
1874 90,500
1880 103,701
1885 108,500
1900 140,600
1910 170,300
1920 360,000 (whole FCD)
1925 210,300
1939 250,000
1946 118,000 (Germans expulsed)
1950 ?
1960 286,900
1970 365,600
1975 421,000
1980 456,700
1990 464,600
1994 464,000
2000 456,600
2004 460,524
Compare: population of Tricity

Economy

The city's industrial landscape is dominated by shipbuilding, petrochemical and chemical industries, and food processing. The share of high-tech sectors such as electronics, telecommunications, IT engineering, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals is on the rise. Amber processing for the local economy is also important.

Culture

Gdańsk was once an important centre of culture. In the 16th century it hosted Shakespearean theatre on foreign tours, and the Danzig Research Society founded in 1743 was one of the first of its kind. Currently, there is a Fundation Theatrum Gedanensis aimed at rebuilding the Shakespeare theatre at its historical site. It is expected that Gdańsk will have a permanent English-language theatre, as at present it is only an annual event.

Main sights

The city boasts many fine buildings from the time of the Hanseatic League. Most tourist attractions are along or near Ulica Długa (Long Street) and Długi Targ (Long Market), a pedestrian thoroughfare lined by buildings reconstructed in historical (primarily 17th century) style and capped on either end by elaborate city gates. This part of the city is sometimes referred to as the Royal Way because it was the procession route of visiting kings.

Walking from end to end, sites encountered on or near the Royal Way include:

  • Upland Gate
  • Torture House
  • Prison Tower
  • Golden Gate
  • Long Street (Ulica Długa)'''
    • Uphagen House
    • Main Town Hall
  • Long Market (Długi Targ)
    • Arthur's Court (Artus)
    • Neptune Fountain
  • Green Gate

Gdańsk has a number of historical churches:

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Gdańsk".

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