and
Passionist Monastery The oldest traces of settlement in the area of Przasnysz come from the turn of the
Bronze and
Iron Age (around 700 BC). In the 13th century in Przasnysz, on the , there was a market settlement. There was also a hunting court of the Mazovian princes, described by
Henryk Sienkiewicz in
The Knights of the Cross. The name of the city according to folk sources comes from the miller
Przaśnik, who hosted the stray hunting Duke
Konrad I of Masovia and was then knighted with the surrounding lands. Przasnysz's rapid development was due to its favorable location on the border between two economically important areas – the Kurpiowska Plain and the agricultural Ciechanowska Upland. On 10 October 1427 Przasnysz obtained town privileges under the
Chełmno law from the Masovian Duke
Janusz I of Warsaw. The town flourished in the 16th century, especially after the incorporation of Mazovia into the
Crown in 1526. Przasnysz was a
royal town and a county seat in the Ciechanów Land in the
Masovian Voivodeship in the
Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1576, Przasnysz became the seat of the non-castle
starostwo (eldership). In 1648, the Przasnysz eldership was awarded to the defender of
Zbaraż, Prince
Jeremi Wiśniowiecki.
Partitions of Poland After the defeat of the
Kościuszko Uprising and the
Third Partition of Poland (1795), Przasnysz became part of the
Kingdom of Prussia as the seat of a large county including
Ciechanów. On 30 January 1807
Napoleon Bonaparte made a visit to Przasnysz. In the years 1807–1815 Przasnysz was part of the
Duchy of Warsaw, and then, after the
Congress of Vienna, became part of so-called
Congress Poland, which was part of the
Russian Empire. In November 1863, Przasnysz was the site of a Russian execution of , commander of a Polish insurgent unit, which fought in northern Masovia during the
January Uprising. During
World War I, in November and December 1914, heavy fighting took place near Przasnysz between the Russian and German armies. The city changed hands many times. On 24 February 1915 it was taken by the Germans, but on 27 February they were
forced out by Russian troops from the First and Second Siberian Corps.
Interbellum Poland regained independence after World War I in 1918, and Przasnysz was reintegrated with the reborn state. In August 1920,
extremely fierce battles with the Bolshevik 15 Army took place near Przasnysz. For two weeks the city was occupied by the Soviet army. On 21 August Przasnysz was liberated by the 202 Infantry Regiment of the Volunteer Division of Colonel
Adam Koc. In the
interwar period, Przasnysz was the capital of the poviat in the
Warsaw Voivodeship. In the first years of independence, reconstruction from war damage continued. Many public buildings were built: power plant, junior high school and elementary school, agricultural school, city theater, stadium and sports house. The main occupation of the inhabitants of Przasnysz was still agriculture, craft and small trade. In 1938, Przasnysz had 8,000 residents, including approx. 3,000
Jews.
World War II In the first days of the German
invasion of Poland, which started
World War II in September 1939, heavy fighting occurred nearby, between the
Mazowiecka Cavalry Brigade under the command of Colonel
Jan Karcz and the Germans. Afterwards the town was
occupied by Germany and annexed directly into the
Third Reich. It was renamed
Praschnitz. On 10 September 1939 the
Einsatzgruppe V entered the town to commit various
crimes against the populace. It immediately carried out mass searches of Polish offices, courts and organizations, arrested dozens of Poles, and expelled 70 Jews. The German police established a prison for Poles in the town, and a special court. In October and November 1939, the Germans executed 11 Poles at the local cemetery. Families of the victims were
expelled to the so-called
General Government. Local teachers and school principals were among Polish teachers and principals murdered in the
Mauthausen concentration camp. 18 Poles from the town and county were murdered by the Russians in the
Katyn massacre in 1940, including pre-war
starosta Zygmunt Młot-Przepałkowski and the chief of the local police Zygmunt Pampuch. On 3–4 December 1940 the German
gendarmerie expelled around 500 Poles, including old, ill and disabled people, who were then held for several days in a camp in
Działdowo and afterwards deported in
freight trains to the Kraków District of the General Government. A penal "education"
forced labour camp was operated in the town from 1941 to 1943. There was a high death rate in the camp due to hunger, diseases, tortures and executions. On 17 January 1945, the retreating Germans deported 31 malnourished Polish prisoners from Przasnysz to
Mława, then to Działdowo,
Rypin,
Sierpc and eventually
Płock, where they were massacred on 19 January along with other Poles from Płock by the
Gestapo. Shortly after the
Soviet Army seized the city on 18 January 1945, the
NKVD began mass arrests and deportations of Polish patriots. The town then was restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which remained in power until the
Fall of Communism in the 1980s.
Recent times In the years 1945–1951, numerous armed units of the
anti-communist underground operated near Przasnysz. In the 1960s, the rapid development of the city began, slowed as a result of the administrative reform of 1975. In 1966, a branch of Zakład Aparatury Gospodarcza im. Georgi Dimitrov, where lightning arrestors were produced. For the needs of this plant, a school complex was established to house a vocational school and technical college. Since 1 January 1999 Przasnysz is the seat of the
county in the
Masovian Voivodeship. ==Sports==