Free City of Kraków
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The Free, Independent, and Strictly Neutral City of Kraków[1] (Cracow) with its Territory (Polish: Wolne, Niepodległe i Ściśle Neutralne Miasto Kraków z Okręgiem), more commonly known as either the Free City of Kraków or Republic of Kraków (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Krakowska, German: Republik Krakau), was a city-state created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and controlled by its three neighbours (Russia, Prussia, and Austria) until 1846, when in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Kraków Uprising it was annexed by the Austrian Empire. It was a remnant of the Duchy of Warsaw partitioned between the three states in 1815.
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[edit] History
The Free City was formally established on May 3, 1815. The statelet received an initial constitution in 1815, revised and expanded in 1818, establishing significant autonomy for the city. The Jagiellonian University could accept students from the partitioned territory of Poland. The Free City thus became a center of Polish political activity on the territories of partitioned Poland.
During the November Uprising of 1830–31, Kraków was a base for the smuggling of arms into the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland. After the end of the uprising the autonomy of the Free City was restricted. The police was governed by Austria, the election of the president had to be approved by all three powers. Kraków was subsequently occupied by the Austrian army from 1836 to 1841. After the unsuccessful Kraków Uprising of 1846, the Free City was annexed by Austria on November 16, 1846 as the Grand Duchy of Cracow.
[edit] Geography and population
The Free City of Kraków was created from the south-west part of the Duchy of Warsaw (part of the former Kraków Department on left bank of the Vistula river). The territory of the city comrised 1164-1234 km² (sources vary). It bordered with Russian Empire, Prussia and Austro-Hungarian Empire. It comprised the city of Kraków and its environs, the other settlements in the area administered by the Free City included 224 villages and 4 towns (Jaworzno, Chrzanów, Trzebinia and Nowa Góra).
In 1815 its population was 95,000; in 1843 - 146,000. 85% of them were Catholics, 14% - Jews, 1% - others. The most notable szlachta family was the Potoccy family of magnates, with their mansion in Krzeszowice.
[edit] Politics
The statelet received an initial constitution in 1815 which had mainly been devised by Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski. The constitution was revised and expanded in 1818, establishing significant autonomy for the city. Legislative power was vested in the Assembly of Representatives (Izba Reprezentantów), and the executive power was given to a Governing Senate.
In 1833, in the aftermath of the November Uprising and the foiled plan by some Polish activist to start an uprising in Kraków, the partitioning powers issued a new constitution, much more restrictive: the numbers of senators and deputies were lowered and their competences limited, while the commissars of the partitioning powers had their competences expanded. Freedom of press was also curtailed. In 1835 a secret treaty between the partitioning powers presented a plan in which in case of another Polish unrest, Austria was given the right to occupy and annex the city. That would take place after the Kraków Uprising of 1846.
The law was based on the Napoleonic civil code and French commercial and criminal law. The official language was Polish. In 1836 local police force was disbanded and replaced by Austrian police; in 1837 the partitioning powers curtailed the competences of the local courts which refused to bow down to their demands.
[edit] Economy
The Free City was a duty-free area, allowed to trade with Russia, Prussia and Austria. It had no duties, very low taxes, and various economic privileges granted by the neighbouring powers. As such, it became one of the European centres of economic liberalism and supporters of laissez-faire, attracting new enterprises and immigrants, which resulted in impressive growth of the city.
Weavers from Prussian Silesia had often used the free city as a contraband outlet to avoid tariff barriers along the borders of Austria and Congress Poland. Austria's annexation of the free city subsequently led to a significant drop in Prussian textile exports.[2]
[edit] See also
- History of Poland (1795–1918)
- Former countries in Europe after 1815
- Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria
[edit] Further reading
- Norman Davies, God's Playground. A History of Poland. Vol. 1: The Origins to 1795, Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-925339-0 / ISBN 0-19-925340-4.
- Janina Bieniarzówna, Jan M. Małecki i Józef Mitkowski (red.) Dzieje Krakowa, t.3 (Kraków w latach 1796-1918), Kraków 1979. (Polish)
- Feuchtwanger, E. J. (1970). Prussia: Myth and Reality. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 262. ISBN 0854961089.
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- Republic of Cracow, Encyclopædia Britannica
- Encyclopædia Britannica, New edition (Robert MacHenry, 1993, 32030 pages), page 949: the "Free City of Kraków" was designated to be the "symbolic capital of the divided Poland".[1].
- A Concise History of Poland by Hubert Zawadzki and Jerzy Lukowski, 408 pages, published by Cambridge University Press.[2] Chronology: year 1815, the Free City of Kraków, also, chapter “Challenging the Partitions”.
- The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, published by the Library in 1983. "Senate and government of the Free City of Kraków - the only fragment of Poland to have an independent existence as a state..."[3].
- "Constitution de la Ville libre de Cracovie et de son Territoire" Constitution of the Free City from 1833
