Early history The
Pomesanian settlement called
Kwedis existed in the 11th century. In 1232, the
Teutonic Knights built the
castle and established the town of Marienwerder (now Kwidzyn) the following year. In 1243, the
Bishopric of Pomesania received both the town and castle from the
Teutonic Order as fiefs, and the settlement became the seat of the
Bishops of Pomesania within
Prussia. The town itself joined the organization on 17 April 1440. Upon the request of the organization in 1454 Polish King
Casimir IV Jagiellon incorporated the region and town to the
Kingdom of Poland, and the
Thirteen Years' War broke out. In 1466, after the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the war, the town became part of Poland as a
fief held by the Teutonic Knights. In 1525, the Teutonic state was transformed into a secular and Lutheran
duchy under the last
Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Albert, a political foundation only possible with the consent of the Polish King
Sigismund I the Old. The town was visited by Polish Kings
Sigismund II Augustus in 1552 and
Stephen Báthory in 1576. In 1618 the ducal rights were inherited by the
Brandenburg branch of the
House of Hohenzollern, remaining under Polish suzerainty. In 1657 the Brandenburg dukes severed ties with the Polish crown and in 1701 elevated their realm to the sovereign
Kingdom of Prussia. During the
War of the Polish Succession, Polish King
Stanisław Leszczyński stayed in the town in July 1734.
Late modern period {{multiple image |align=left |perrow=2 |total_width=260 In 1765 Prussia established a customs chamber for Polish products floated down the Vistula to Polish Baltic ports. The town of Marienwerder meanwhile had become the capital of the
District of Marienwerder. In 1772, the Marienwerder district was integrated into the newly established Prussian Province of
West Prussia, which consisted mostly of territories annexed in the
First Partition of Poland. Separate Polish and German preachers were still appointed at the local church. In November 1831, several Polish cavalry units of the
November Uprising stopped in the town on the way to their internment places. By the enlargement of its administrative functions, the population of the town started to grow and in 1885, it numbered 8,079. This population was composed mostly of
Lutheran inhabitants, many of whom were engaged in trades connected with the manufacturing of sugar, vinegar and brewing as well as dairy farming, fruit growing and the industrial construction of machines. In 1910, Marienwerder had a population of 12,983 of which 12,408 (95.6%) were German-speaking and 346 (2.7%) were Polish-speaking.
Interbellum and World War II As a result of the
Treaty of Versailles after
World War I, the district of Marienwerder was divided. The parts west of the Vistula were incorporated into the
Polish Second Republic, which had just regained its independence. The parts east of the Vistula, to which the town of Marienwerder belonged, was to take part in the
East Prussian plebiscite, which was organized under the control of the
League of Nations. The Inter-Allied Commission with nearly 2,000 troops often favored the Germans, and its services towards Poles were often delayed and limited, while the administration remained under German control. The town was home to the Polish Warmian Plebiscite Committee and the Committee for Polish Affairs, which, however, had to operate partly secretly. On May 16, 1920, the largest Polish plebiscite demonstration in Powiśle took place in the town, and Poles had to organize defenses against attacks by German militias. According to Polish sources there was German electoral fraud. In Marienwerder 7,811 votes were given to remain in East Prussia, and therefore Germany, and 362 for Poland. Afterwards,
anti-Polish terror intensified. The Germans blocked the establishment of the school, and Polish organizations filed 100 complaints to the German administration before the Polish private
gymnasium was finally established on November 10, 1937. and in 1938 a fourteen-year-old boy was shot at the school playground, which the German police ignored, and the shooter was not caught. The German police surrounded the Polish school and arrested its principal Władysław Gębik, 13 teachers, other staff and 162 students, who were imprisoned in Tapiau (today
Gvardeysk), Strobjehnen (
Kulikovo) and Grünhoff (
Roshchino). The head of the local Polish
Bank Ludowy was also arrested, and the local Polish consulate was cut off from telephone lines, nevertheless the
state radio in Poland still provided information regarding the attack on the Polish school on the same day. Many Poles
expelled from
German-occupied Poland were deported to
forced labour in the town's vicinity. The Germans also operated a subcamp of the
Stutthof concentration camp in the town. One of the main contact points of the intelligence of the Pomeranian District of the
Union of Armed Struggle and
Home Army was based in the town. On 21 January at approximately 16:00, a surprising order came to evacuvate the civilians westwards towards
Chojnice. When the Red Army invaded East Prussia at least 95% of the citizens of Marienwerder were speaking German as their mother tongue, and therefore they feared the atrocities committed to the German population. A majority of them left the city but not all arrived save territory alive. Those which stayed were robbed, raped and eventually murdered by the Red Army. On 30 January the town was captured by the Red Army. The Red Army established a war hospital in the town for 20,000 people. The town center was burned and pillaged by
Soviet soldiers. In the course of 1945 the city was emptied of the last German inhabitants. Meanwhile, large parts of the inner city were sacked. Since then, Polish newcomers from Poland and Lithuania repopulated the town and its environments. The Lutheran ecclesiastical buildings were handed over to the Catholic Church. After
World War II, the town became again part of Poland under the terms of the
Potsdam Agreement, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the 1980s.
Recent period From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the
Elbląg Voivodeship. In 1982, the communists brutally crushed the protest of interned anti-communist oppositionists. ==Demographics==