The village lies in the historical region of
Cieszyn Silesia. It was first mentioned in a Latin document of
Diocese of Wrocław called
Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis from around 1305 as
item in Prochna. It meant that the village was in the process of location (the size of land to pay a
tithe from was not yet precise). The creation of the village was a part of a larger settlement campaign taking place in the late 13th century on the territory of what would later be known as
Upper Silesia. Politically the village belonged initially to the
Duchy of Cieszyn, formed in 1290 in the process of
feudal fragmentation of Poland and was ruled by a local branch of
Silesian Piast dynasty until 1653. In 1327 the duchy became a
fee of the
Kingdom of Bohemia, which after 1526 became a part of the
Habsburg monarchy. The village became a seat of a Catholic
parish, mentioned in the register of
Peter's Pence payment from 1447 among 50 parishes of Teschen
deanery as
Prochna. After the 1540s
Protestant Reformation prevailed in the Duchy of Cieszyn and a local Catholic church was taken over by
Lutherans. It was taken from them (as one from around fifty buildings in the region) by a special commission and given back to the
Roman Catholic Church on 15 April 1654. In 1844-1863 a train station has been constructed in Pruchna on the
Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway. After the
Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire a modern
municipal division was introduced in the re-established
Austrian Silesia. The village as a municipality was subscribed to the
political district of
Bielsko and the
legal district of
Schwarzwasser. According to the censuses conducted in 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910 the population of the municipality dropped from 1525 in 1880 to 1467 in 1910 with the majority being native Polish-speakers (95.6%-96.4%) accompanied by a small German-speaking minority (at most 59 or 4.1% in 1890) and Czech-speaking (at most 20 or 1.4% in 1900), in terms of religion in 1910 majority were
Roman Catholics (64.1%), followed by
Protestants (35%) and
Jews (13 or 0.9%). The village was also traditionally inhabited by
Cieszyn Vlachs, speaking
Cieszyn Silesian dialect. After
World War I, the fall of
Austria-Hungary, the
Polish–Czechoslovak War and the division of
Cieszyn Silesia in 1920, it became a part of
Poland. It was then
occupied and
annexed by
Nazi Germany at the beginning of
World War II. A local Polish police officer was murdered by the Russians in the
Katyn massacre in 1940. After the war it was restored to
Poland. In 1945 a Catholic
Saint Anne church was almost completely destroyed, and it had to be rebuilt. There is also a Lutheran
Resurrection of the Lord Church, and a memorial to soldiers of the
Red Army fallen in Pruchna in the last months of
World War II. == Geography ==