There are many artefacts from Roman times in the area of Kalisz, indicating that the settlement had once been a stop of the Roman caravans heading for the
Baltic Sea along the trade route of the
Amber Trail.
Calisia had been mentioned by
Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD, although the connection is doubted by some historians who claim that the location mentioned by Ptolemy was situated in the territory of the
Diduni in
Magna Germania.
Middle Ages Archaeological excavations have uncovered early medieval settlement from the
Piast dynasty period, c. 9th–12th centuries. Modern Kalisz was most likely founded in the 9th century as a provincial capital
castellany and a minor fort. As part of the region of
Greater Poland, i.e. the cradle of the Polish state, the town formed part of Poland since the country's establishment in the 10th century. In 1106,
Bolesław III Wrymouth captured the town, and made it a part of his feudal domain. Between 1253 and 1260 the town was incorporated according to the
German town law called the (after
Środa Śląska), a local variation of the
Magdeburg Law, and soon began to grow. One of the richest towns of
Greater Poland, during the
feudal fragmentation of Poland it formed a separate duchy ruled by a local branch of the
Piast dynasty. In 1264, the
Statute of Kalisz was issued in the city by
Bolesław the Pious. It was a unique protective privilege for
Jews during their persecution in Western Europe, which in the following centuries made Poland the destination of Jewish migration from other countries. After Poland was reunited, the town became a centre of weaving and wood products, as well as one of the cultural centres of Greater Poland. In 1282 the
city laws were confirmed by
Przemysł II of Poland, and in 1314 it was made the capital of the
Kalisz Voivodeship by King
Ladislaus the Short. Located roughly in the centre of Poland (as its borders stood in that era), Kalisz was a centre of trade. In 1331, the city was successfully defended by the Poles during a by the
Teutonic Knights. Because of its strategic location, King
Casimir III the Great signed a
peace treaty with the
Teutonic Order there in 1343. As a
royal city, Kalisz managed to defend many of its initial privileges, and in 1426 a new
town hall was built. The Polish Duke
Mieszko III the Old was buried in Kalisz.
1500–1914 confirms the old
privileges of Kalisz, 1552 In 1574 the
Jesuits came to Kalisz and in 1584 opened a
Jesuit College, which became a centre of education in Poland; around this time, however, the importance of Kalisz began to decline somewhat, its place being taken by nearby
Poznań. The economic development of the area was aided by a large number of Protestant
Czech Brothers, who settled in and around Kalisz after being expelled from
Bohemia in 1620. In the 18th century, one of two main routes connecting
Warsaw and
Dresden ran through the city, and Kings
Augustus II the Strong and
Augustus III of Poland often traveled that route. As a result of conflict between Sweden, Russia, Saxony and Poland, the
Battle of Kalisz took place in October 1706. In 1789, 881 Jews lived in Kalisz, 29% of the city’s population. In 1792, a fire destroyed much of the city centre. At various times, the 1st and 7th Infantry Regiments of the Polish
Crown Army were stationed in Kalisz. In 1793, in the
Second Partition of Poland, the
Kingdom of Prussia absorbed the city, called
Kalisch in German. That year Jews were 40% of the population. In 1801, Wojciech Bogusławski set up one of the first permanent theatre troupes in Kalisz. In 1806, the 8th Polish Infantry Regiment was formed in Kalisz and the 6th Polish Infantry Regiment was formed in the present-day district of Dobrzec. After the successful
Greater Poland uprising of 1806, it was regained by Poles and became a provincial capital within the short-lived
Duchy of Warsaw. During
Napoleon's invasion of Russia, following
Yorck's
Convention of Tauroggen of 1812,
von Stein's
Treaty of Kalisz was signed between Russia and Prussia in 1813, confirming that Prussia now was on the side of the Allies. After the defeat of
Napoleon Bonaparte, Kalisz became a
provincial capital of
Congress Poland and then the capital of a
province of the
Russian Empire. In the 1820s a special Jewish quarter was created where the third of the town that was Jewish was required to live; it existed until 1862. Prussia and Russia held
joint military exercises near the town in 1835. The proximity to the Prussian border accelerated economic development of the city and Kalisz ("Калиш" in Russian
Cyrillic) began to attract many settlers, not only from other regions of Poland and other provinces of the
Russian Empire, but also from
German states. In 1860, 4,423 Jews lived in the town, 34.5% of its residents. In 1881, Russian authorities expelled Jewish residents who lacked Russian citizenship.
World War I and interwar period With the outbreak of
World War I, the proximity of the border proved disastrous for Kalisz; it was one of the first cities
destroyed in 1914. Between 2 and 22 August, Kalisz was shelled and then burned to the ground by German forces under Major Hermann Preusker, even though Russian troops had retreated from the city without defending it and German troops – many of them ethnic Poles – had initially been welcomed peaceably. Eight hundred men were arrested and then several of them slaughtered, while the city was set on fire and the remaining inhabitants were expelled. Out of roughly 68,000 citizens in 1914, only 5,000 remained in Kalisz a year later. By the end of the Great War, however, much of the city centre had been more or less rebuilt and many of the former inhabitants had been allowed to return. After the war Kalisz became part of the newly independent
Poland. On December 13, 1918, the First Border Battalion, composed of volunteers from Kalisz and
Ostrów Wielkopolski, was sworn in Kalisz, before joining the ongoing
Greater Poland uprising (1918–19) against Germany. In 1939 the population of Kalisz was approximately 81,000. The Jewish population of Kalisz at the time was 27,000.
World War II After the German
invasion of Poland in September 1939, the proximity of the border once again proved disastrous. Kalisz was captured by the
Wehrmacht after Polish resistance, and the city was annexed by
Germany. In revenge for resistance, the Wehrmacht carried out massacres of Polish defenders, who were executed both in the city and in the nearby settlement of
Winiary (today, a district of Kalisz). In November 1939, the
Einsatzgruppe VI Nazi paramilitary killing squad murdered 41 Poles at the local Jewish cemetery; among the victims was pre-war Polish mayor of Kalisz, Ignacy Bujnicki. In April and May 1940, many Poles arrested in the region, especially teachers, were imprisoned in the local prison, and afterwards deported to the
Mauthausen and
Dachau concentration camps, where they were murdered. In Kalisz, the Germans established a
Germanisation camp for
Polish children taken away from their parents (
Gaukinderheim). The children were given new German names and surnames, and were punished for any use of the Polish language, even with death (
e.g., a 14-year-old boy was murdered). The occupiers also established a
forced labour subcamp of the
Stalag XXI-D prisoner-of-war camp. Kalisz was an important center of
Polish resistance. In October 1939, the
Organizacja Jedności Narodowej (National Unity Organization) secret Polish military organization was established in Kalisz, and later also local units of other organizations were active, including
Service for Poland's Victory/
Union of Armed Struggle/
Home Army,
Zagra-Lin,
National Military Organization, and
Miecz i Pług (Sword and Plow). Polish spy and resistance member Alfred Nowacki founded a
food processing company in Winiary, which became a focal point of the Kalisz unit of the Home Army, and Nowacki fictitiously employed his Polish underground associates there. In the Franciscan monastery, the resistance movement set up a transfer point for people threatened with arrest. A Polish underground newspaper was issued in Kalisz, and also
Polish underground press from
Ostrów Wielkopolski and
Września was distributed here. The commander of the local unit of the Service for Poland's Victory was arrested and sent to the
Auschwitz concentration camp in 1941, the commander of the local unit of the National Military Organization was killed during a German roundup in 1943, the commander of the Kalisz District of the Home Army escaped from German captivity and then fought in the
Warsaw Uprising in 1944, and the leader of the National Unity Organization put up armed resistance and managed to escape arrest by the Gestapo. Several other resistance members were captured and executed by the occupiers. By the end of World War II approximately 30,000 local Jews had been murdered, and 20,000 local Catholics were either murdered or
expelled to the more eastern part of German-occupied Poland (
General Government) or to Germany as
slave workers. In 1945 the population of the city was 43,000 – approximately half the pre-war figure. In 1945, Kalisz was restored to Poland, although with a
Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the
Fall of Communism in 1989. Following the war, Jewish
Holocaust survivors returned to the city, by 1946 numbering some 500. By the late 1940s only some 100 remained, and those few who stayed blended into Polish society.
1950-present In 1975, after
Edward Gierek's reform of the
administrative division of Poland, Kalisz again became the capital of a province –
Kalisz Voivodeship; the province was abolished in 1998, however, and since then Kalisz has been the county seat of a
separate powiat within the
Greater Poland Voivodeship. In 1976, the city limits were greatly expanded by the incorporation of the surrounding settlements of Majków, Nosków, Piwonice and Szczypiorno as new districts. The Polish anti-communist resistance
Movement for Defence of Human and Civic Rights issued independent underground press in the city. In August 1980, employees of local factories joined the nationwide anti-communist strikes, which led to the foundation of the
Solidarity organization, which played a central role in the end of communist rule in Poland. In 1991 the city festival was inaugurated on 11 June to commemorate the confirmation of the incorporation of the city in 1282. In 1992, Kalisz became the seat of a separate
diocese of the Catholic Church. In 1997 Kalisz was visited by
Pope John Paul II. The city was the site of the former 'Calisia' piano factory, until it went out of business in 2007. The factory building was transformed into the Calisia One Hotel, which opened in 2019. ==Climate==