Pisz (pronounced , previously also ''Jańsbork'', ) is a historic

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in northern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, with a population of 19,466 (2016). It is the seat of

Pisz County __NOTOC__ Pisz County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, northern Poland. It came into being on 1 January 1999 as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 199 ...

. Pisz is situated at the junction of Lake Roś and the Pisa River, in the region of

Masuria Masuria ( ; ; ) is an ethnographic and geographic region in northern and northeastern Poland, known for its 2,000 lakes. Masuria occupies much of the Masurian Lake District. Administratively, it is part of the Warmian–Masurian Voivodeship (ad ...

Etymology

The name Pisz originates from the word ''pisa'', meaning "swamp" in the ancient Prussian language, owing to the muddy water from nearby Lake Roś. Johannisburg received the name of the castle in 1645, when it became a city by the decree of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg. Historic Polish names were ''Jańsbork'' and ''Pisz'', and the former was replaced by the latter as official in 1946.

History

The site of today's Pisz was originally inhabited by the indigenous

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

Old Prussians Old Prussians, Baltic Prussians or simply Prussians were a Balts, Baltic people that inhabited the Prussia (region), region of Prussia, on the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea between the Vistula Lagoon to the west and the Curonian Lagoon ...

. In 1345 the

Teutonic Order The Teutonic Order is a religious order (Catholic), Catholic religious institution founded as a military order (religious society), military society in Acre, Israel, Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Order of Brothers of the German House of Sa ...

began constructing a castle nearby at the southernmost point of the Piska Forest, in the

Masurian Lake District The Masurian Lake District or Masurian Lake Land () is a lake district in northeastern Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpath ...

. The castle was named ''Johannisburg'', after St. John the Baptist. The settlement nearby held a market as early as 1367, but it was not until 1645 that it received its town charter. The town's first mayor was Fryderyk Adam Czerniewski. The population of the settlement and its environs was almost entirely Polish since its establishment. The official German name of the town was Johannisburg, while the Polish-speaking residents referred to it as ''Jańsbork''. In 1454 it was incorporated to

by King

Casimir IV Jagiellon Casimir IV (Casimir Andrew Jagiellon; ; Lithuanian: ; 30 November 1427 – 7 June 1492) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1440 and King of Poland from 1447 until his death in 1492. He was one of the most active Polish-Lithuanian rulers; under ...

and after 1466 it was a part of Poland as a

fief A fief (; ) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal alle ...

. Its early growth owed much to the residents' skill in

beekeeping Beekeeping (or apiculture, from ) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in artificial beehives. Honey bees in the genus '' Apis'' are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as '' Melipona'' stingless bees are ...

, and it was located on trade routes leading to

Gdańsk Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of northern Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492, Data for territorial unit 2261000. it is Poland's sixth-largest city and principal seaport. Gdań ...

and to the

Vistula The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...

and

Narew The Narew (; ; or ) is a 499-kilometre (310 mi) river primarily in north-eastern Poland. It is a tributary of the river Vistula. The Narew is one of Europe's few braided rivers, the term relating to the twisted channels resembling braided h ...

Rivers. The town became part of Ducal Prussia in 1525 and remained under Polish suzerainty until 1657. In 1639 Polish King

Władysław IV Vasa Władysław IV Vasa or Ladislaus IV (9 June 1595 – 20 May 1648) was King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania and claimant of the thrones of Monarchy of Sweden, Sweden and List of Russian monarchs, Russia. Born into the House of Vasa as a prince ...

visited the town. Later on, the town was part of Brandenburg-Prussia, and, after that it became part of the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

in 1701 and Germany in 1871. In 1698, King of Poland

Augustus II the Strong Augustus II the Strong (12 May 1670 – 1 February 1733), was Elector of Saxony from 1694 as well as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1697 to 1706 and from 1709 until his death in 1733. He belonged to the Albertine branch of the H ...

and Elector of Brandenburg Frederick I held a meeting in the local castle. Polish King

Stanisław Leszczyński Stanisław I Leszczyński (Stanisław Bogusław; 20 October 1677 – 23 February 1766), also Anglicized and Latinized as Stanislaus I, was twice King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and at various times Prince of Deux-Ponts, Duk ...

stopped in the town in 1709 and 1734 and in 1813 Tsar

Alexander I of Russia Alexander I (, ; – ), nicknamed "the Blessed", was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first king of Congress Poland from 1815, and the grand duke of Finland from 1809 to his death in 1825. He ruled Russian Empire, Russia during the chaotic perio ...

stayed here. In 1709/10 only 14 inhabitants survived the plague.
The town began to develop extensively in the 19th century. In 1818 it became the seat of the Landkreis Johannisburg in the province of

East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...

. During the

January Uprising The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last i ...

, weapons were smuggled through the town and area to the

Russian Partition The Russian Partition (), sometimes called Russian Poland, constituted the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that were annexed by the Russian Empire in the course of late-18th-century Partitions of Poland. The Russian ac ...

of Poland, and Polish insurgents fleeing the Russian Partition took refuge in the town. The Prussians imprisoned and tried Polish insurgents and resistance members in the town. Residents protested against the deportation of insurgents to the Russian Partition. The town's population in 1876 was approximately 3,000. A railway built connecting Allenstein (Olsztyn) and Lyck (Ełk) ran through Johannisburg. Its water supply system and gas works were built in 1907 and its municipal

slaughterhouse In livestock agriculture and the meat industry, a slaughterhouse, also called an abattoir (), is a facility where livestock animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a mea ...

in 1913. The town's industrial development focused on

wood processing Wood processing is an engineering discipline in the wood industry comprising the production of forest products, such as pulp and paper, construction materials, and tall oil. Paper engineering is a subfield of wood processing. The major wo ...

and

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

. According to the 1900 Imperial German census, Johannisburg's population consisted of 70.2% Poles. As a result of the

treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...

, the 1920 East Prussian plebiscite was organized under the control of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

. It was preceded by a campaign of violence and terror by the Germans against the Poles. The Germans attacked the Polish community center, there were beatings of Poles and the Polish press reported preparations being made for a pogrom against Poles, thus it resulted in 2,940 votes to remain in East Prussia, and therefore Germany, and none for Poland. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Johannisburg was 70% destroyed by fighting and occupation by the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. At war's end in 1945, it was transferred from Soviet to Polish control according to the

Potsdam Agreement The Potsdam Agreement () was the agreement among three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union after the war ended in Europe that was signed on 1 August 1945 and published the following day. A ...

and officially renamed ''Pisz'' in 1946. The name Pisz comes from the

Old Prussian Old Prussian is an extinct West Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages, which was once spoken by the Old Prussians, the Baltic peoples of the Prussian region. The language is called Old Prussian to av ...

word ''pisa'' ("swamp"), owing to the muddy water from nearby Lake Roś. After assumption of Polish rule, Germans returned to their home after flight from the Red Army. Those who did not pledge allegiance to Poland were expelled in accordance with the

Tourism and sights

The town is a popular place to begin sailing on the Masurian lakes. Historic sites of Pisz include the Gothic

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

, the Church of St. John, the ruins of the Teutonic Knights' castle and preserved World War II bunkers.

Economy

Due to natural resources comprising the reach forestry and shallow deposits of bog iron ore, the industrial traditions of Pisz are connected with wood processing (the sawmill) and metallurgy. There are

iron works An ironworks or iron works is a building or site where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. Iron Works may also refer to: * Iron Works, a neighborhood in Brookfield, Connecticut * Clay City, Kentucky, known as Iron ...

in Wądołek, as well as the industrial smithies in Wiartl and in Jaśkowo. The wood processing industry has a long tradition in Pisz. The core of the industry is its sawmill, supporting a broadbase plywood industry with a plant called Zakłady Przemysłu Sklejek.About town. Official webpage of Pisz
Pisz is a centre of tourism industry, with boat trips, canoeing and kayaking along the Krutynia River, as well as with popular yachting voyages on the Masurian Lakes known in Polish as ''Kraina Wielkich Jezior''. On the shore of Nidzkie Lake there's the K. I. Gałczyński Museum in Leśniczówka Pranie. There is a museum in the 9th century granary displaying historical artifacts and a notable collection of antlers. There are horse and horse-drawn carriage trips. The town is surrounded by the largest

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

complex of the

region, known as Puszcza Piska (Piska Primeval Forest) with eleven nature reserves.

Notable people

* Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg (1759–1830), town commander * Gustaw Gizewiusz (1810–1848), activist * Samuel Lublinski (1868–1910), writer, literary historian, critic and philosopher of religion * Günther Strupp (1912–1996), artist * Marianne Hold (1929–1994), actress *

Zbigniew Włodkowski Zbigniew Włodkowski (born 30 April 1961 in Pisz) is a Polish politician. He was elected to the Sejm on 25 September 2005, getting 2842 votes in 35 Olsztyn district as a candidate from the Polish People's Party list. He was MP from 2005 to 2007 a ...

(born 1961), politician * Marcin Kaczmarek (born 1977), Olympic butterfly swimmer

References

{{Authority control Cities and towns in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship Pisz County Masuria (region)