Górki Wielkie is a village in Gmina Brenna, Cieszyn County,

Silesian Voivodeship Silesian Voivodeship, or Silesia Province ( pl, województwo śląskie ) is a voivodeship, or province, in southern Poland, centered on the historic region known as Upper Silesia ('), with Katowice serving as its capital. Despite the Silesian V ...

, southern Poland. It has a population of 3554 (2008). It lies in the historical region of

Cieszyn Silesia Cieszyn Silesia, Těšín Silesia or Teschen Silesia ( pl, Śląsk Cieszyński ; cs, Těšínské Slezsko or ; german: Teschener Schlesien or ) is a historical region in south-eastern Silesia, centered on the towns of Cieszyn and Český T� ...

History

The village was first mentioned in a Latin document of

Diocese of Wrocław In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

called '' Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis'' from around 1305 as ''Item in Gorki villa vlodari''. It was written in an atypical form and suggests that a village was much older. The reason why it was inscribed to the document was connected to a process of extracting of a part of the village, which belonged wholly to dukes, to form a new village given to a knight. The part which remained in dukes hand was later called '' Górki Małe'', while a knights' part ''Górki Wielkie''. As so a village of Górki (Małe) functioned probably before 1290, when the

Duchy of Teschen The Duchy of Teschen (german: Herzogtum Teschen), also Duchy of Cieszyn ( pl, Księstwo Cieszyńskie) or Duchy of Těšín ( cs, Těšínské knížectví), was one of the Duchies of Silesia centered on Cieszyn () in Upper Silesia. It was split o ...

was formed (where both belonged ever since). From it was extracted a knights' villages which was then first mentioned in ''Liber fundationis...'' Politically the village belonged initially to the

, formed in 1290 in the process of feudal fragmentation of Poland and was ruled by a local branch of Piast dynasty. In 1327 the duchy became a

fee A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in cont ...

Kingdom of Bohemia The Kingdom of Bohemia ( cs, České království),; la, link=no, Regnum Bohemiae sometimes in English literature referred to as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe, the predecessor of the modern Czec ...

, which after 1526 became part of the Habsburg monarchy. The village became a seat of a Catholic

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

, mentioned in the register of Peter's Pence payment from 1447 among 50 parishes of Teschen deanery as ''Gorky''. After the 1540s

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and ...

prevailed in the Duchy of Teschen and a local Catholic church was taken over by

Lutherans Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...

. It was taken from them (as one of around fifty buildings) in the region by a special commission and given back to the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

on 18 April 1654. After Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire a modern municipal division was introduced in the re-established

Austrian Silesia Austrian Silesia, (historically also ''Oesterreichisch-Schlesien, Oesterreichisch Schlesien, österreichisch Schlesien''); cs, Rakouské Slezsko; pl, Śląsk Austriacki officially the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia, (historically ''Herzogth ...

. The village as a municipality was subscribed to the

political district An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

Bielsko Bielsko (german: Bielitz, cs, Bílsko) was until 1950 an independent town situated in Cieszyn Silesia, Poland. In 1951 it was joined with Biała Krakowska to form the new town of Bielsko-Biała. Bielsko constitutes the western part of that to ...

and the

legal district A judicial district or legal district denotes the territorial area for which a legal court (usually a district court) has jurisdiction. By region Europe Austria In texts concerning Austria, "judicial district" (german: Gerichtsbezirk) refers ...

of Skoczów. According to the censuses conducted in 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910 the population of the municipality dropped from 1036 in 1880 to 1034 in 1910, with majority of the inhabitants being native Polish-speakers (98%-100%) and mostly Roman Catholics (83.4% in 1910), followed by Protestants (15.8% in 1910) and

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

(9 people). The village was also traditionally inhabited by Cieszyn Vlachs, speaking

Cieszyn Silesian dialect The Cieszyn Silesian dialect or Teschen Silesian dialect (Cieszyn Silesian: ''cieszyńsko rzecz''; pl, gwara cieszyńska or '; cs, těšínské nářečí; Silesian: ''ćeszyński djalekt'') is one of the Silesian dialects. It has its roots ...

. After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, fall of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

Polish–Czechoslovak War The Poland–Czechoslovakia War, also known mostly in Czech sources as the Seven-day war ( cs, Sedmidenní válka) was a military confrontation between Czechoslovakia and Poland over the territory of Cieszyn Silesia in early 1919. After a vai ...

and the division of

in 1920, it became a part of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. It was then annexed by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

at the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. After the war it was restored to

People

Polish writer

Zofia Kossak-Szczucka Zofia Kossak-Szczucka ( (also Kossak-Szatkowska); 10 August 1889 – 9 April 1968) was a Polish writer and World War II resistance fighter. She co-founded two wartime Polish organizations: Front for the Rebirth of Poland and Żegota, set up ...

lived here from 1924 and is buried here. There is also a museum dedicated to her in Górki Wielkie.

Gallery

File:POL Górki Wielkie Centrum ze Spacerowej.JPG, General view of the village File:POL Górki Wielkie Kościół Jana Sarkandra 1.JPG, Jan Sarkander Church File:POL Górki Wielkie Kościół EA Apostoła Jana 1.JPG, Lutheran church of St. John the Evangelist File:POL Górki Wielkie Dwór Kossaków 3.JPG, Ruins of a manor house

Footnotes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gorki Wielkie Villages in Cieszyn County Cieszyn Silesia