Cracow

CRACOW (Krah-kow', Polish Krah' kuf), the fourth city of Poland, capital of the province of the same name, an industrial centre, and the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop, 212m. W. by N. of Lemberg (Lwow) by rail. Polish name Krakow. Pop. (1931) 221,260, of whom 172,866 were Poles, the rest mostly Jews. No other Polish town contains so many historic buildings and national relics. It is still the intellectual centre of the nation.

Cracow is in a fertile plain on the left bank of the Vistula (which becomes navigable here) and occupies a position of great strategical importance. It consists of the old inner town and seven suburbs. The only relics of the fortifications of the old town, now replaced by shady promenades, is the Florian's Gate and the Rondell, a circular structure, built in 1498. Cracow has 39 churches—about half the number it formerly had—and 25 convents for monks and nuns. Of these the most important is the Stanislaw cathedral, in Gothic style, consecrated in 1359, and built on the Wawel, the rocky eminence to the south-west of the old town. Here the kings of Poland were crowned, and this church is also the Pantheon of the Polish nation, the burial place of its kings, of John Sobieski, of Thaddaeus Kosciuszko, of Joseph Poniatovski and of Adam Mickiewicz. Here also are conserved the remains of St. Stanislaw, the patron saint of the Poles, who, as bishop of Cracow, was slain before the altar by King Boleslaw in 1079. The cathedral is adorned with many valuable objects of art, paintings and sculptures, by such artists as Veit Stoss, Guido Reni, Peter Vischer, Thorwaldsen, etc. Part of the ancient Polish regalia is also kept there. The Gothic church of St. Mary, founded in 1223, rebuilt in the 14th century, with several chapels added in the 15th and 16th centuries, was restored in 1889-1893, and deco rated with paintings from the designs by Matejko. It contains a huge high altar, executed the masterpiece of Veit Stoss, who was a native of Cracow ; a colossal stone crucifix of the end of the 15th century, and several sumptuous tombs from the I 6th and 17th centuries. The royal castle (Zamek Krolewski), a huge building, begun in the 13th century, and successively enlarged by Casimir the Great and by Zygmunt I. Jagiello (151 , is situated on the Wawel, and was until 1610 the residence of the Polish kings. It suffered much from fires and other disasters, and from 1846 onward was used as a barracks and a military hospital; it has now, however, been cleared out and restored. The Jagel lonian university, housed in a Gothic building of 1881-1887, is the second oldest university in central Europe—the oldest being that of Prague—and was famous during the 15th and i6th cen turies. It was founded by Casimir the Great in 1364, and com pleted by Wladislaw Jagiello in 1400. Its rich library is now housed in the old I5th century university buildings, in the beauti ful Gothic court of which a bronze statue of Copernicus was placed in 1900. The Polish academy of science, founded in 1872, is housed in the new university buildings. In the Ring-Platz, or the principal square, opposite the church of St. Mary, is the cloth-hall (Pol. Sukiennice), a building erected in 1257, several times reno vated and enlarged, most recently in 1879, which contains the Polish national museum of art. Behind it is a Gothic tower, the only relic of the old town hall, demolished in 182o. The Czartory ski museum contains a rich library and a precious collection of manuscripts, relating to the history of Poland.

Among the manufactures of the town are machinery, agricultural implements, chemicals, soap, tobacco, etc. But Cracow is more important as a trading than as an industrial centre. Its position on the Vistula and at the junction of several railways makes it the natural mart for the exchange of the products of Silesia, Czecho slovakia and Poland. Its trade in timber, salt, textiles, cattle, wine and agricultural produce of all kinds is very considerable. In the neighbourhood of Cracow there are mines of coal and zinc, and, not far away lies the village of Krzeszowice with sulphur baths. About 2 2m. N.W. lies the Kosciuszko hill, a mound of earth molt.

t. high, thrown 182o-23 on the Borislava hill (I,o93ft.), in honour of Thaddaeus Kosciuszko, the hero of Poland. On the opposite bank of the Vistula, united to Cracow by a bridge, lies the town of Podgorze (pop. 18,142) ; near it is the Krakus hill, smaller than the Kosciuszko hill, and a thousand years older than it, erected in honour of Krakus, the founder of Cracow. About 8m. S.E. of Cracow is situated Wieliczka (q.v.), with its famous salt mines.

History.

Tradition assigns the foundation of Cracow to the mythical Krak, a Polish prince who is said to have built a strong hold there about A.D. 700. In the latter part of the loth century it was annexed to the Bohemian principality, but was recaptured by Boleslaus Chrobry, who made it the seat of a bishopric, and it became the capital of one of the most important of the princi palities into which Poland was divided from the 12th century onwards. The city was practically ruined during the first Tatar invasion in 1241, but the introduction of German colonists restored its prosperity, and in 1257 it received "Magdeburg rights," i.e., a civic constitution modelled on that of Magdeburg. The town passed through many vicissitudes until, in 1305, the Polish king, Ladislaus Lokietek, made it his capital, and from that time until 1764 it remained the coronation and burial place of the Polish kings. In 1795 Austria took possession of Cracow; but in 1809 Napoleon incorporated it with the duchy of Warsaw. In the cam paign of 1812 the emperor Alexander made himself master of this and the other territory which formed the duchy of Warsaw. At the general settlement of Europe in 1815 Cracow and the adjoining territory were formed into a free state. In Feb. 1846, an insurrection broke out in Cracow, apparently a ramification of a widely spread conspiracy throughout Poland. The senate and the other authorities of Cracow were unable to subdue the rebels or to maintain order, and, at their request, the city was occupied by a corps of Austrian troops. Russia, Austria and Prussia made this a pretext for extinguishing this independent state; and, as the outcome of a conference at Vienna (Nov. 1846), the three courts, contrary to the assurance previously given and in opposi tion to the expressed views of the British and French Govern ments, decided to incorporate Cracow with the dominions of Austria. At the conclusion of the World War, Cracow was included in the new Polish republic.