Łódź

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Template:Infobox Poland Łódź (pronunciation: Image:Ltspkr.png [[Media:Lodz.ogg|Template:IPA]]), Poland's second-largest city (population 776,297 in 2004), lies in the center of the country. It serves as the capital of the Łódź Voivodship. In Polish, the word also means "boat."

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History

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Agricultural Łódź

Łódź first appears in the written record in a document giving the village of Łodzia to the bishops of Włocławek in 1332. In 1423 King Władysław Jagiełło granted city rights to the village of Łódź. From then until the 18th century the town remained a small settlement on a trade route between Masovia and Silesia. In the 16th century the town had fewer than 800 inhabitants, mostly working on the nearby grain farms.

With the second partition of Poland in 1793 Łódź came under Prussian administration under its new Prussian name of Lodsch. In 1798 the Prussians nationalized the town and it lost its status as a town of the bishops of Kuyavia. In 1806 it joined the Duchy of Warsaw and in 1815 became part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland.

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Industrial Łódź

In 1820 Stanisław Staszic started a movement to turn the small town into a modern centre of industry. A constant influx of workers, businessmen and craftsmen from all over the continent turned Łódź into the main textile producton centre of the whole Russian Empire. The first cotton mill opened in 1825, and 14 years later the first steam-powered factory in both Poland and Russia commenced operations.

The immigrants came to the Promised Land (Polish Ziemia obiecana, the city's nickname) from all over Europe. Mostly they arrived from Southern Germany and Bohemia, but also from countries as far as Portugal, England, France or Ireland. However, three groups dominated the city's population and contributed the most to the city's development: Poles, Germans and Jews.

Image:5 Lodz 083.jpg

In 1850 Russia abolished the customs barrier between Congress Poland and Russia proper; industry in Łódź could now develop freely with a huge Russian market not far away. Soon the city became the second-largest city of Congress Poland. In 1865 the first railroad line opened (to Koluszki) opened, and soon the city had rail links with Warsaw and Białystok. In the 1823–1873 period, the city's population doubled every ten years. The years 1870–1890 marked the period of most intense industrial development in the city's history.

Łódź soon became a major centre of the socialist movement. In 1892 a huge strike paralyzed most of the factories. During the 1905 Revolution Tsarist police killed more than 300 workers. Despite the air of impending crisis preceding World War I, the city grew constantly until 1914. By that year it had become one of the most densely-populated industrial cities in the world (13,280 people per square kilometre).

In 1915 the city came under German occupation, but with Polish independence restored in November 1918 the local population liberated the city and disarmed the German troops. In the aftermath of World War I, Łódź lost approximately 40% of its inhabitants, mostly owing to draft, diseases and the fact that after 1918 a huge part of the German population moved to Germany.

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After 1918

Polish 1931 census
City of Łódź - population (according to language criterion)

Total 604,470

  • Poles 315,622 (52,21%)
  • Jews 202,497 (33,49%)
  • Germans 86,351 (14,28%)

In 1922 Łódź became the capital of the Łódź Voivodship, but the period of rapid growth had ceased. The Great Depression of the 1930s and the Customs War with Germany closed western markets to Polish textiles while the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) and the Civil War in Russia (1918–1922) put an end to the most profitable trade with the East. The city became a scene of a series of huge workers' protests and riots in the interbellum. On 13 September 1925 a new airport, Lublinek Airport, started operations near the city of Łódź.

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World War II

Image:2003-09 - Łódź hausmalerei.png During the Polish September Campaign the Polish forces of the Łódź Army of General Juliusz Rómmel defended Łódź against initial German attacks. However, the Wehrmacht captured the city on September 8. Despite plans for the city to become a Polish enclave, attached to the Generalgouvernement, the Nazi hierarchy respected the wishes of the local governor of Reichsgau Wartheland, Arthur Greiser, and of many of the ethnic Germans living in the city, and annexed it to the Reich in November 1939. The city received the new name of Litzmannstadt after the German general Karl Litzmann, who captured the city during World War I. Nevertheless, many Łódź Germans refused to sign Volksliste and become Volksdeutsche, instead being deported to the General Government. Soon the Nazi authorities set up the Łódź Ghetto in the city and populated it with more than 200,000 Jews from the Łódź area. Only about 900 people survived the liquidation of the ghetto in August 1944. Several concentration camps and death camps arose in the city's vicinity for the non-Jewish inhabitants of the regions, among them the infamous Radogoszcz prison and several minor camps for the Roma people and for Polish children.

By the end of World War II Łódź had lost approximately 420,000 of its pre-war inhabitants: 300,000 Jews and approximately 120,000 Poles. In January 1945 most of the German population fled the city for fear of the Red Army. The city also suffered tremendous losses due to the German policy of requisition of all factories and machines and transporting them to Germany. Thus despite relatively small losses due to aerial bombardment and the fighting, Łódź had lost most of its infrastructure.

The Soviet Red Army liberated the city on January 18, 1945, making a special effort to avoid warfare in the city and to preserve its historical buildings and industrial infrastructure. According to Marshal Katukov, whose forces participated in the liberation, the Germans retreated so suddenly that they had no time to evacuate or destroy the Łódź factories, as they did in other cities.

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After 1945

Image:Lodz liberation3.jpg In early 1945, Łódź had fewer than 300,000 inhabitants. However, soon the number began to grow, and refugees from Warsaw and from territories annexed by the Soviet Union immigrated. Until 1948 the city served as a de facto capital of Poland, since events during and after the Warsaw uprising had thoroughly destroyed Warsaw, and most of the government and country administration resided in Łódź. Some even planned moving the capital there permanently, but this idea did not gain support, and in 1948 the reconstruction of Warsaw started.

After World War II, under the Polish Communist regime, many industrialist families lost their fortunes when the authorities nationalised all private companies. The city once again became a major centre of industry. After the period of economic transition in the country during the 1990s most enterprises became privatised again.

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Łódź today

The city hosts the University of Łódź (Uniwersytet Łódzki) and the Technical University of Łódź (Politechnika Łódzka).

Image:Lodz UlPiotr sun.jpg

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Łódź for tourists

Tourists in Łódź gravitate to Piotrkowska Street, which stretching from north to south for a little over four kilometres, making it the longest commercial street in the world. Recently renovated, it has many beautiful buildings dating back to the 19th century, in the architectural style of the Secession. Well worth visiting from late spring to early autumn, strolling from one pub to another on Piotrkowska Street allows one to immerse oneself in the friendly atmosphere of this unique Polish city.

Although Łódź does not have any hills nor any large body of water, one can still get close to nature in one of the many parks in the city, most notably Łagiewniki (the largest city park in Europe), Zdrowie, and Poniatowskiego. Łódź Zoo, and Łódź Botanical Gardens also offer pleasant opportunities for leisure.

Łódź has one of the best museums of modern art in Poland, which displays art by all important contemporary Polish artists. Despite insufficient exhibition space (many very impressive paintings or sculptures lie hidden in the basement), it still offers much on display.

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The Łódź Film School

Image:Biala Fabryka2.jpg For cinema-lovers Łódź has another place worth visiting: the Łódź Film School. The school has served as an important education centre for the greatest Polish film-makers and a pivotal cultural centre for the entire country. At the end of the Second World War Łódź remained the only large Polish town besides Kraków that war had not destroyed, unlike Warsaw. The creation of the National Film School gave to the town a rôle of higher importance from a cultural point of view, which before the war had belonged exclusively to Warsaw and Kraków. Early students who attended the School included the directors Andrzej Munk, Andrzej Wajda, Kazimiersz Karabasz (one of the founders of the so called Black Series of Polish Documentary) and Janusz Morgenstern—who at the end of the Fifties became famous as one of the founders of the Polish Film School of cinematography, together with Jerzy Wójcik, Witold Sobocinski, Mieczyslaw Jahoda, Wieslaw Zdort and Adam Holender. Immediately after the war Jerzy Bossak, Wanda Jakubowska, Stanislaw Wohl, Antoni Bohdziewicz and Jerzy Toeplitz worked as the first teachers. The internationally renowned film director Roman Polanski was among the many talented students who attended the School in the 1950s. Lodz's cinematic involvment and its Hollywood-style star walk on Piotrkowska Street have earned it the nickname "Holly-Lodz".

The school is also associated with the Camerimage Film Festival, which occurs annually in late November and early December. Founded in 1993, the festival is specifically organized to focus on the art of cinematography and is well-attended every year by world-renowned cinematographers, many of whom also participate in seminars, workshops, retrospectives, or Q&As. Because of both of subject matter and attendee composition, it is also considered a key event for industry exhibitors, whom often make European debuts for their products here.

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Historical population

1793: 190
1806: 767
1830: 4,300
1850: 15,800
1880: 77,600
1905: 343,900
1925: 538,600
1990: 850,000
2003: 781,900

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Famous people from Łódź

Well-known people born or working in Łódź include: Image:5 Lodz 061.jpg Image:5 Lodz 107.jpg

Others include: Image:Rektorat Politechnika L.jpg

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Economy

Before 1990, Łódź's economy focused on the textile industry, which in the nineteenth century had developed in the city owing to the favourable chemical composition of its water. As a result, Łódź grew from a population of 13,000 in 1840 to over 500,000 in 1913. By just before World War I Łódź had become one of the most densely populated industrial cities in the world, with 13,280 people per sq km. The textile industry declined dramatically in 1990 and 1991, and no major textile company survives in Łódź today. However, countless small companies still provide a significant output of textiles, mostly for export to Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union.

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Education

See also: Education in Łódź

Currently Łódź hosts three major state-owned universities and a number of smaller schools of higher education. The tertiary institutes with the most students in Łódź include:

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Politics

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Łódź constituency

Members of Parliament (Sejm) elected from Łódź constituency:

Members of Parliament (Senat) elected from Łódź constituency:


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Mayors

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Sports

Image:Widzew Lodz.gif Image:LKS Lodz.gif

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See also

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External links

Image:Flag of Poland.svg Republic of Poland Image:Flag of Poland.svg
Voivodships: Greater Poland | Kuyavia-Pomerania | Lesser Poland | Lower Silesia | Lublin | Lubusz | Łódź | Masovia | Opole | Podlachia | Pomerania | Silesia | Subcarpathia | Świętokrzyskie | Warmia and Masuria | West Pomerania

Principal cities: Warsaw | Łódź | Kraków | Wrocław | Poznań | Gdańsk | Szczecin | Bydgoszcz | Lublin | Katowice | Białystok | Częstochowa | Gdynia | Gorzów Wielkopolski | Toruń | Radom | Kielce | Rzeszów | Olsztyn

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