Muszyna is a town in the

Lesser Poland Voivodeship Lesser Poland Voivodeship ( ) is a voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship in southern Poland. It has an area of , and a population of 3,404,863 (2019). Its capital and largest city is Kraków. The province's name recalls the traditional name of a h ...

, southern Poland. Population: 4,989 (2006). It plays host to a railroad junction, located near border with

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

, with trains going into three directions - towards

Nowy Sącz Nowy Sącz (; ; ; ; ) is a city in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship of southern Poland. It is the district capital of Nowy Sącz County as a separate administrative unit. With a population of 83,116 as of 2021, it is the largest city in the Beskid S ...

Krynica-Zdrój Krynica-Zdrój (until 31 December 2001 Krynica, Rusyn language, Rusyn: Криниця ) is a town in Nowy Sącz County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. It is inhabited by over eleven thousand people. It is the biggest spa town in Pola ...

and southwards, to Slovakia. The distance from the town to the Slovak border is . Muszyna lies in the valley of the

Poprad Poprad (; ; ) is a city in northern Slovakia at the foot of the High Tatras, High Tatra Mountains, famous for its picturesque historic centre and as a holiday resort. The largest town of the Spiš region and the largest of all towns in the vic ...

, at an altitude of

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

. The town has the status of a spa, with the Poprad Landscape Park and the picturesque Poprad River Gorge located nearby.

History

Muszyna's development is tied with proximity of the southern borders of the Polish state. The settlement was located along the so-called “Hungarian Trail”, as for centuries Slovakia belonged to the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...

. Muszyna was first mentioned in 1209, in a document in which King

Andrew II of Hungary Andrew II (, , , ; 117721 September 1235), also known as Andrew of Jerusalem, was King of Hungary and King of Croatia, Croatia between 1205 and 1235. He ruled the Principality of Halych from 1188 until 1189/1190, and again between 1208/1209 and ...

allowed local parish priest to collect tolls at the Poprad river near Muszyna. At that time, the settlement belonged to the Niegowicki family ( Półkozic coat of arms). In 1288 Muszyna passed into the hands of Bishops of Kraków, and in the early 14th century, King Władysław Łokietek, after a conflict with Bishop Jan Muskata, and the Rebellion of wójt Albert, decided to make the village a royal property. Muszyna remained in the hands of Polish kings for almost 100 years, and in 1356, it was granted

Magdeburg rights Magdeburg rights (, , ; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages gr ...

town charter by King Kazimierz Wielki. On July 30, 1391, King

Władysław Jagiełło Władysław is a Polish given male name, cognate with Vladislav. The feminine form is Władysława, archaic forms are Włodzisław (male) and Włodzisława (female), and Wladislaw is a variation. These names may refer to: People Mononym * Włodzis ...

granted the so-called Muszyna State (with two towns and 35 villages) to the Bishops of Kraków. As a result, the Muszyna State (''Państwo Muszyńskie'') was treated as a separate territorial unit, with its own administration, army and courts. On behalf of Kraków Bishops, the property was governed by

starosta Starosta or starost (Cyrillic: ''старост/а'', Latin: ''capitaneus'', ) is a community elder in some Slavic lands. The Slavic root of "starost" translates as "senior". Since the Middle Ages, it has designated an official in a leadersh ...

s, and remained in the hands of the bishops until 1781. In the 15th century, influx of settlers from

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ; : , : ) is a historical and geographical region of modern-day Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians. Wallachia was traditionally divided into two sections, Munteni ...

and

Transcarpathia Transcarpathia (, ) is a historical region on the border between Central and Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast. From the Hungarian Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, conquest of the Carpathian Basin ...

resulted in construction of several Orthodox churches. Muszyna was an important center of the

Bar Confederation The Bar Confederation (; 1768–1772) was an association of Polish nobles (''szlachta'') formed at the fortress of Bar, Ukraine, Bar in Podolia (now Ukraine), in 1768 to defend the internal and external independence of the Polish–Lithuanian C ...

, and after

Partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partition (politics), partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place between 1772 and 1795, toward the end of the 18th century. They ended the existence of the state, resulting in the eli ...

, it became part of Austrian Galicia, where it remained from 1772 to 1918.

Mineral springs

In the 1920s, thanks to the efforts of mayor Antoni Jurczak and doctor Seweryn Msciwujewski, Muszyna received the status of a spa town. In 1930 it became a member of the Association of Polish Spa Towns, and in 1932, first mineral springs (Antoni and Wanda) were opened. Muszyna's mineral waters contain several bioelements and make it a popular tourist destination across Poland.

Population growth

ImageSize = width:560 height:200 PlotArea = left:50 right:20 top:25 bottom:30 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = late Colors = id:linegrey2 value:gray(0.9) id:linegrey value:gray(0.7) id:cobar value:rgb(0.2,0.7,0.8) DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:0 till:5500 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:500 start:0 gridcolor:linegrey ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:250 start:0 gridcolor:linegrey2 PlotData = color:cobar width:19 align:left bar:1857 from:0 till:1596 bar:1869 from:0 till:1906 bar:1890 from:0 till:2358 bar:1900 from:0 till:2571 bar:1910 from:0 till:2728 bar:1921 from:0 till:2516 bar:1931 from:0 till:2979 bar:1943 from:0 till:3309 bar:1988 from:0 till:4806 bar:2002 from:0 till:5028 bar:2011 from:0 till:5123 PlotData= textcolor:black fontsize:S bar:1857 at: 1596 text: 1,596 shift:(-12,5) bar:1869 at: 1906 text: 1,906 shift:(-12,5) bar:1890 at: 2358 text: 2,358 shift:(-12,5) bar:1900 at: 2571 text: 2,571 shift:(-12,5) bar:1910 at: 2728 text: 2,728 shift:(-12,5) bar:1921 at: 2516 text: 2,516 shift:(-12,5) bar:1931 at: 2979 text: 2,979 shift:(-12,5) bar:1943 at: 3309 text: 3,309 shift:(-12,5) bar:1988 at: 4806 text: 4,806 shift:(-12,5) bar:2002 at: 5028 text: 5,028 shift:(-12,5) bar:2011 at: 5123 text: 5,123 shift:(-12,5)

Sport

* Muszynianka Muszyna - women's

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

team playing in Polish Seria A Women's Volleyball League: 7th place in 2003/2004 season, 1st place in 2005/2006, 2007/2008, 2008/2009 season.

External links

Jewish Community in Muszyna
on Virtual Shtetl
Official website

References

{{Authority control Cities and towns in Lesser Poland Voivodeship Nowy Sącz County Spa towns in Poland