The town's history goes back almost a thousand years to when it was part of amedieval trade route.[3] TheMuseum of Folk Architecture as well as the refurbishedSanok Castle and Old Town are popular points of interest.[4] The region also features a 70 km (43 mi) trail forhikers and cyclists.[4]
This historic city is situated on theSan River at the foot ofCastle Hill in theLesser Poland (Małopolska) region. It lies in a wooded, hilly area near the national road number 28, which runs along southern Poland, fromUstrzyki Dolne toWadowice (340 km or 211 mi away). It is located in the heartland of thePogórze Bukowskie part ofDoły (Pits), and its average elevation is 300 m (984 ft)above sea level, although there are some hills located within the confines of the city.
The city is a member ofCarpathian Euroregion, which is designed to bring together the people who inhabit the region of theCarpathian Mountains and to facilitate their cooperation in the fields of science, culture, education, trade, tourism and economy.
Sanok was mentioned in the RuthenianHypatian Codex chronicle, where one can read that in the year 1150:The Hungarian KingGéza II of Hungary crossed the mountains and seized the stronghold of Sanok with its governor as well as many villages in thePrzemyśl area. The same chronicle refers to Sanok twice more, stating that in 1205 it was the meeting place of a Ruthenian princess Anna and a Hungarian king, and that in 1231 a Ruthenian prince made an expedition to "Sanok -Hungarian Gate".
During theGalicia–Volhynia Wars, Sanok was seized by KingCasimir III of Poland, who reconfirmed its municipal status on 25 April 1366, and made it aroyal city of the Polish Crown. At that time Sanok became the centre of a new administrative district calledSanok Land, a part of theRuthenian Voivodeship. Several courts of justice operated in the town, including the municipal and rural courts of lower instance and also the higher instance court for the entire Sanok Land, based on theGerman town law.[6] Germans settled in the territory of theKingdom of Poland (territory of present-daySubcarpathian Voivodeship) from the 14th to 16th centuries (seeOstsiedlung), mostly after the region returned to Poland in 1340, whenCasimir III of Poland took theCzerwień towns.
As early at the 17th century, an importanttrade route went across Sanok connecting the interior of Hungary with Poland through theŁupków Pass. As a result of theFirst Partition of Poland (Treaty of St-Petersburg dated 5 July 1772), Sanok was attributed to theHabsburg monarchy.[7] At that time the area (including west and east of Subcarpathian Voivodship) became known as theGalicia province. For more details, see the articleKingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.
Main Market Square in Sanok
In the mid-18th century, 47.7% of the town's population was Roman Catholic (Polish), 36.4% Jewish, and 14.7% Greek Catholic (Ruthenian).[8]
The course of the riverDunajec and that of theSan, both in West Galicia, marked the two successive stages in the breakthrough battle which initiated the Austro-German offensive of 1915 on the eastern front. An attempt to hold the line of the Wisłok river and theŁupków Pass failed before renewed Austro-German attacks on 8 May 1915.Wisłok Valley was one of the strategically important Carpathian rivers bitterly contested in battles on theEastern Front of World War I during the winter of 1914–1915.[9]
DuringWorld War I, the Russian army occupied the town from May until July, 1915 and significantly damaged the town.[according to whom?] The town was subsequently occupied by troops of theAustro-Hungarian Empire.
Mass grave of Poles massacred by the Germans at the Gruszka mountain
The Jewish population of Sanok may have comprised nearly 30% of the total population in the early 20th century. During the joint German–Sovietinvasion of Poland, which startedWorld War II, in September 1939, it was invaded by Germany, and theEinsatzgruppe I entered the town on September 25, 1939 to commit variousatrocities against the populace.[10] In 1939–1940, the Germans imprisoned many Poles in the local prison, especially those who tried to escape occupation to take refuge inHungary.[11] The Germans then massacred 112 Poles at the Gruszka mountain nearTarnawa Dolna.[11] The victims are buried at the Central Cemetery in Sanok. At the beginning of theGerman occupation duringWorld War II, the Jewish population was around 5,000. During the occupation, most of the Jews were either executed or killed inNazi death camps orNazi concentration camps duringthe Holocaust. Some of the actions against the Jews were assisted by local auxiliaries and hundreds of the deaths occurred in Sanok itself,[12] while thePolish resistance movement established the secretPolish Council to Aid Jews "Żegota", which operated in the town.[13] Buildings that had been owned by Jews were taken over by the local population. The local Jewish cemetery still exists. Several hundred Jews are thought to have survived, most of whom fled to the Soviet Union at the beginning of the war. Some of the Jews emigrated toCanada and theUnited States in the early 1900s with Sanoker Burial Societies spreading throughout New York and other regions where they settled.
In 1942, Sanok was the location of the Stalag 327prisoner-of-war camp, following its relocation fromJarosław and before its further relocation toPrzemyśl.[14] Afterwards the present-day district of Olchowce was the location of a subcamp of Stalag 327, in which some 7,000-10,000 POWs died.[14]
In 1943 the foundation of theWaffen-SS Division Galizien took place among the Ukrainian minority in Sanok, with many locals volunteering in the ethnic UkrainianWaffen-SS.[citation needed] Because of material support and assistance provided by the Ukrainian minority to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which was waging a battle for Ukrainianseparatism against the Polish state, new Soviet-installedcommunist authorities deported the Ukrainian (and Lemko) population of Sanok and its region to theRecovered Territories attached to Poland after World War II duringOperation Vistula (1946–1947). Some of the Lemkos expelled returned to Sanok in 1957-58 and others after 1989.
Sanok contains anopen-air museum called askansen in the Biała Góra district, where examples of architecture from all of the region's mainethnic groups have been moved and carefully reassembled in a skansen evoking everyday rural life in the 19th century.
The region subsequently became part of theGreat Moravian state. Upon the invasion of theHungarian tribes into the heart of the Great Moravian Empire around 899, theLendians of the area declared their allegiance toHungarian Empire. The region then became a site of contention between Poland,Kievan Rus' and Hungary starting in at least the 9th century.
The first traces of settlement in the area of modern Sanok date back to at least the 9th century. The following century a Slavic fortified town (gord) was created there and initially served as a center of pagan worship. The etymology of the name is unclear, though most scholars derive it from the Celtic river-nameSan.[15][16][17] Certainarchaeological excavations performed on the castle hill and onFajka hill near Sanok-Trepcza, not only confirm the written resources, but date the Sanok stronghold origin to as early as the 9th century. On Fajka hill, where probably the first settlement of Sanok was situated, some remains of an ancient sanctuary and a cemetery were found, as well as numerous decorations and encolpions in Kievan type. Also found were twoseals of the Great Kievan PrinceRurik Rostislavich from the second half of the 12th century.
Sanok castle and Icon collection - one of the largest collections of this in Central and Eastern Europe.
Town square/Rynek
Parish Church dating to the 19th century
Franciscan Church dating to the 14th century.
Near the central town square and the previous Jewish ghetto, there is a valley where much of the Jewish population was murdered en masse by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Sanok has a strong industry base - home toStomil Sanok[18] (established in 1932) and Pass Gummiwerke plants, producers of various rubber and metal-rubber seals, strings and laggings for automotive sector, construction industries and electrical household goods sector,PGNiG[19] and Sanok BusCar Factory "Autosan"[20] (established in 1832), a producer of high capacity buses, cabins for thePolish Army and bodies for rail-vehicles. Stomil is next to the main train station in Sanok and Autosan is a 10-minute walk from the station, while the town centre is a 15-minute walk in the other direction.
The town has several public schools and a branch of the Polish High School of Technology. The town also has a football club calledStal Sanok and some othersport clubs (including volleyball, swimming, handball,ice hockey). TheSanok Castle near the centre of the old town houses a museum displaying over 300 fine icons. TheMuseum of Folk Architecture is one of the biggestopen-air museums inPoland and show cases 19th and early 20th century life in this area of Poland.
STS Sanok celebrating the Polish championship in 2014
There many sports facilities in Sanok and the main complex of those facilities is The Civic Sports and Recreation Centre, situated near theSan River. The Centre includes: the artificial speed skating oval Tor Błonie, a complex of indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a hotel, a tourist hostel, a camp-site, a sports stadium with technical facilities, etc. There is also another artificial ice rink in the centre of the town, designed for ice hockey and managed by the ice hockey clubSTS Sanok. There are two more sports facilities at Stróżowska street: a stadium of sports clubStal Sanok, and a gymnasium of the Technical Schools Complex.
In winter, a ski-lift operates in the nearbyKarlików.
In the mid-18th century, Roman Catholics constituted 48.7% of the population, people of Jewish faith 36.5%, and 14.7% of the inhabitants belonged to the Greek Catholic Church.[23]
In 1900, the town had 6123 inhabitants, 57%Polish, 30%Jewish, and the remainder of variousRusyn ethnicities (Boyko,Lemkos, etc.), and others. The town's large population ofJews were almost all murdered duringthe Holocaust.
^"Główny Urząd Statystyczny" [Central Statistical Office] (in Polish). To search: Select "Miejscowości (SIMC)" tab, select "fragment (min. 3 znaki)" (minimum 3 characters), enter town name in the field below, click "WYSZUKAJ" (Search).
^"Thus the region adjoining the Carpathians and extending to a lineTarnów–Rzeszów–Jarosław, the hithero almost uninhabitedregio pedemontana was settled by German-speakingSilesians and soon abounded in largeWaldhufendorfer with Frankish hides and in towns whose German names were in many case identical withplace-names in Silesia (Landskron,Grunberg, [...] Göttinger Arbeitskreis.Eastern Germany. Holzner-Verlag, 1961. p. 79.
^Atlas des peuples d'Europe centrale, André et Jean Sellier, 1991, p.88
^Motylkiewicz, Jerzy (2005). "Ethnic Communities in the Towns of the Polish-Ukrainian Borderland in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries". In Hann, C. M.; Magocsi, Paul R. (eds.).Galicia: A Multicultured Land.University of Toronto Press. p. 37.ISBN978-0802037817.
^"The Pursuit and Battles at Sanok and Rzeszów (May 6).—After his severe defeat,Radko Dimitriev's plan was to hold the Łupków Pass with his left wing, and, supported upon this, to bring the pursuit to a stand on the lineNowotaniec–Besko-right bank of theWisłok, where there were positions favoured by the lay of the ground, and then, between theVistula and the Wisłok, on the line Wielopole-Rzeszów–Mielec. Here he proposed to reconstitute his units, which had fallen into great disorder, and to strengthen them by bringing up reserves.Troops were sent to him from other fronts, and by the 8th he could again dispose of 18 inf. divs., 5 cav. divs. and 5 Reichswehr bdes. The orders were that the offensive was to be continued with all possible vigour. Mackensen's army was to push forward over the stretch of the Wisłok between Besko andFrysztak onMrzygłód andTyczyn, and theArchduke Joseph Ferdinand on Rzeszów, whileBoroevic was to roll upBrussilov's VIII. Russian Army in the direction of Sanok.Bohm's II. Austrian Army was to join up corps by corps from the left wing in proportion to the progress of the attack."Joly, Ernst (1922)."Dunajec-San, Battles of the" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 30 (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company. p. 864.
^Wardzyńska, Maria (2009).Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion (in Polish). Warszawa:IPN. pp. 58–59.
^Megargee, Geoffrey (2012).Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press. p. Volume II 569–571.ISBN978-0-253-35599-7.
^Datner, Szymon (1968).Las sprawiedliwych (in Polish). Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza. p. 69.
^abMegargee, Geoffrey P.; Overmans, Rüdiger; Vogt, Wolfgang (2022).The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945. Volume IV. Indiana University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. p. 323.ISBN978-0-253-06089-1.
^"[...]San (lateinische Graphie wie beiSandomierz,Santok usw. Vgl. altind. sindhu- "Fluß", den irischen GNShannon und den MaizzuflußSinn" [in:]Irena Kwilecka. Etnolingwistyczne i kulturowe związki Słowian z Germanami. Instytut SłowianoznawstwaPAN. 1987.ISBN83-04-02472-1 S. 64.
^"An adouci ensan,eau,rivière; stach, sinueux, qui tourne. Allusion au cours sinueux de la Charente".op. cit. Antiq. de France. [in:] Revue des études historiques. Société des études historiques. 1835. p.242.;Senne, nom propre de rivière. - Scène, ». Le lieu où l'on joue. —Seine, sf, sorte de «lot. 17. Cen», sm, impôt. —San, npSen», sm, jugement [...]". [in:] Dictionnaire de pédagogie et d'instruction primaire.Ferdinand Edouard Buisson. 1883. p. 980.
^Dokumentacja Geograficzna (in Polish). Vol. 3/4. Warszawa: Instytut GeografiiPolskiej Akademii Nauk. 1967. p. 55.
^J. Motylkiewicz. "Ethnic Communities in the Towns of the Polish-Ukrainian Borderland in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries". C. M. Hann, P. R. Magocsi ed.Galicia: A Multicultured Land.University of Toronto Press. 2005. p. 37.
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