Puławy

Puławy
Puławy
	Czartoryski Palace.
; Flag	; Coat of arms
	Puławy
	Coordinates: 51°25′N 21°58′E / 51.417°N 21.967°E
Country	Poland
Voivodeship	Lublin
County	Puławy County
Gmina	Puławy (urban gmina)
Established	16th century
Town rights	1906
	Government
• Mayor	Janusz Grobel
	Area
• Total	50.49 km2 (19.5 sq mi)
Elevation	115 m (377 ft)
	Population (2006)
• Total	49,839
• Density	987.1/km2 (2,556.6/sq mi)
Postal code	24-100 to 24-112
Area code(s)	+48 081
Car plates	LPU
Website	http://www.um.pulawy.pl

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For other places with the same name, see Puławy (disambiguation).

Puławy [puˈwavɨ] is a town in eastern Poland, in Lublin Province, on the Wisła and Kurówka rivers. According to the 2006 (GUS) census estimate, the town had a total population of 49,839. Puławy is the capital of Puławy County. It was known as Nowa Aleksandria from 1846 to 1918.

[edit] History

From the 17th century Puławy was the location of a rural residence of the Lubomirski, then the Sieniawski, noble families. In 1784 it became the property of Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and his wife Izabela Czartoryska, née Fleming. Under their stewardship, after the loss of Poland's independence in 1795 the palace became a museum of Polish national memorabilia and a major cultural and political centre. After the suppression of the November Uprising of 1830–31, the estate was taken over by the Russian government. The palace collections that had been saved became the nucleus of the present Czartoryski Museum in Kraków.

In 1869 an Agricultural and Forestry Institute was founded in Puławy. One of its first students, briefly, was the future Polish writer Bolesław Prus (who had also spent part of his early childhood in Puławy). Prus would set his stunning 1884 micro-story, "Mold of the Earth," at the Temple of the Sibyl in Puławy.

The town was incorporated in 1906.

On 13 August 1920, Józef Piłsudski, Poland's Chief of State, left Warsaw and established a military headquarters in Puławy. The Soviet Union's Red Army held most of eastern Poland and was besieging Warsaw. Piłsudski's radio-monitoring, cryptological and intelligence services had detected a gap in the Soviet flanks in the Puławy region, and he ordered a concentration of Polish forces in the surrounding area around the Wieprz River. On 18 August 1920 the Polish Army launched a counter-attack directed from Puławy that encircled and defeated a 177,000-strong Soviet force. The attack drove the Red Army from Poland and established Poland's security for two decades, until the German invasion of 1939.

The Assumption Church

During World War II, three German concentration camps operated around Puławy. The town's Jewish population of some 3,600 was first confined to a ghetto, then murdered at the Sobibór camp.

Since 1966, a large chemical plant (Zakłady Azotowe Puławy) north of the town has been producing nitrate fertilizer. Recently the plant has become the world's largest producer of melamine.

The most valuable landmark in Puławy is the baroque-classicist palace and park complex, dating from 1676–79, remodeled 1722-36 and by Chrystian Piotr Aigner ca. 1800. It includes classicist park pavilions dating from the early 19th century. One of these, the colonnaded round Temple of the Sibyl, is the setting of Bolesław Prus' striking micro-story, "Mold of the Earth."