Myślibórz ( [mɨˈɕlʲibuʂ] ; German : Soldin; Kashubian : Żôłdzëno) is a town in northwestern Poland, in West Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is the capital of the Powiat of Myślibórz (powiat myśliborski), with a population of 11,867.
It is home to the first monastery of the Congregation of Sisters of Merciful Jesus and a sanctuary of the Divine Mercy. [1]
The city's official webpage mentions a settlement inhabited by a pre-Slavic population from Lusatian culture on the shores of the lake (Polish: Jezioro Myśliborskie; German: Soldiner See) in the 7th century, which later turned into a West Slavic or Lechitic fortress in the 10th and 11th centuries; the area was incorporated into Poland by the Piast duke Mieszko I by the end of the 10th century. [2] According to the city's webpage, the town site was a fishing settlement called Sołtyń, located on a trading route between Silesia and Greater Poland towards the Oder delta. It is from this fishing settlement that the later German name of the town comes: Soldin. [2]
The site was acquired as a rest house by the Dominican Order in 1234, while the fort was granted to the Knights Templar by Duke Władysław Odonic and finally sold to the Ascanian margraves Johann I and Otto III of Brandenburg in 1261. Together with the nearby castellany of Santok, the former Greater Polish lands were incorporated into the Brandenburgian Neumark ("New March"; Polish : Nowa Marchia) territory. The town was first mentioned as Soldin in a 1270 deed and quickly became the administrative centre of the region, a Dominican monastery was founded there in 1275. However, in the first half of the 14th century Soldin declined due to famine and political strife of the Ascanian dynasty, in the course of which the Soldin Castle was destroyed.
In 1373 the New March became part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (or Czech Lands), ruled by the Luxembourg dynasty. In 1402, the Luxembourgs reached an agreement with Poland in Kraków. Poland was to buy and re-incorporate the region, but eventually the Luxembourgs sold it to the Teutonic Order. During the Polish–Teutonic War, in 1433 the town was destroyed by the Hussites. [2] In 1455 the Teutonic Knights sold the town to the Margraviate of Brandenburg, now under the rule of the House of Hohenzollern, in order to raise funds for another war with Poland. Elector Frederick Irontooth had Brandenburg's suzerainty over the area formalized in the 1466 Treaty of Soldin with the Pomeranian dukes (see below). In 1473 the town was briefly captured by Bogislaw X, Duke of Pomerania. [2]
In the 16th century, Margrave Johann of Brandenburg-Küstrin converted the Neumark to Protestantism, seceded from Brandenburg and transferred his court from Soldin to Küstrin (now Kostrzyn nad Odrą, Poland). The Dominican monastery was dissolved. Soldin suffered heavy damage in the Thirty Years War, when it was overrun by the Imperial army under Albrecht von Wallenstein marching against King Christian IV of Denmark. It began to recover only in the 18th century as a garrison town of the Kingdom of Prussia under Frederick the Great. When the German Empire was formed in 1871, Soldin was the capital of a rural district (Landkreis) within the Prussian Province of Brandenburg. In the 19th century, Soldin was largely bypassed by the industrial revolution, and was not served by rail until 1888. Electrification came in 1898, and a municipal water system only in 1912. In the nearby forest, the Lituanica plane crash occurred on 17 July 1933.
By the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, Soldin had 6,284 inhabitants. The city was captured without a fight by the Red Army on 31 January 1945. After a Soviet soldier attempting to rape a local woman was shot and killed by her husband on 3 February, the Soviets rounded up 160 civilians from the town, mostly teenaged boys and elderly men, and murdered 120 of them in a nearby quarry four days later. After the discovery of the mass grave of the victims in 1995, a memorial commemorating the victims was erected. [3]
With the end of the war in 1945, the partly depopulated area was transferred to Poland under border changes promulgated at the Potsdam Conference. The surviving German population of Soldin was forcibly expelled [ citation needed ] and the town, renamed Myślibórz, was gradually repopulated by Polish settlers. It was a powiat centre initially in Szczecin Voivodeship (1945-1975), then in Gorzów one (1975-1998), finally in West Pomeranian one since 31 December 1998.
Historically, the town was the site of two important treaties: The Treaty of Soldin (1309) between the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Teutonic Order State, and the Treaty of Soldin (1466) between the Electorate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Pomerania.
Myślibórz is twinned with:
Sarbinowo is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Dębno, within Myślibórz County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, in western Poland. It lies approximately 10 kilometres (6 mi) south of Dębno, 35 km (22 mi) south-west of Myślibórz, and 86 km (53 mi) south of the regional capital Szczecin. The village has a population of 490.
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The Neumark, also known as the New March or as East Brandenburg, was a region of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and its successors located east of the Oder River in territory which became part of Poland in 1945 except some villages of former districts of Königsberg in the New March and Weststenberg remained in Germany.
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The Schlawe and Stolp Land, also known as Słupsk and Sławno Land, is a historical region in Pomerania, centered on the towns of Sławno (Schlawe) and Słupsk (Stolp) in Farther Pomerania, in present-day Poland.
Pomerania during the Late Middle Ages covers the history of Pomerania in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Starting in the 12th century, the Margraviate, later Electorate, of Brandenburg was in conflict with the neighboring Duchy of Pomerania over frontier territories claimed by them both, and over the status of the Pomeranian duchy, which Brandenburg claimed as a fief, whereas Pomerania claimed Imperial immediacy. The conflict frequently turned into open war, and despite occasional success, none of the parties prevailed permanently until the House of Pomerania died out in 1637. Brandenburg would by then have naturally have prevailed, but this was hindered by the contemporary Swedish occupation of Pomerania, and the conflict continued between Sweden and Brandenburg-Prussia until 1815, when Prussia incorporated Swedish Pomerania into her Province of Pomerania.
The Treaties of Cölln and Mewe, concluded in 1454 and 1455, transferred the Neumark from the State of the Teutonic Order to the Electorate of Brandenburg. The Teutonic Knights had received the area as a pawn from Brandenburg in 1402, and as a possession in 1429. Financial shortages due to the onset of the Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466) forced Ludwig von Erlichshausen, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, to pawn the Neumark to Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg, by the Treaty of Cölln on 22 February 1454, and to subsequently sell it by the Treaty of Mewe on 16 September 1455.
John I, Margrave of Brandenburg was from 1220 until his death Margrave of Brandenburg, jointly with his brother Otto III "the Pious".
Otto III, nicknamed the pious was Margrave of Brandenburg jointly with his elder brother John I until John died in 1266. Otto III then ruled alone, until his death, the following year.