The history of Puławy dates back to the 15th century when a settlement near a Vistula river ford was established. In the late 17th century it emerged as the location of a rural residence of the
Lubomirski and the
Sieniawski noble families and in 1676–1679, Prince
Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski built a summer palace, now known as the
Pałac Czartoryskich or the Czartoryskich Palace. In 1687, Lubomirski's daughter
Elżbieta (who was called the uncrowned
Queen of Poland), married
Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski, bringing Puławy her
dowry. In 1706, during the
Great Northern War, the settlement together with the castle were destroyed by Swedish soldiers as Elżbieta was a supporter of King
Augustus II the Strong. In 1731,
Maria Zofia Sieniawska (the daughter of Elżbieta and Adam Sieniawski), married
August Aleksander Czartoryski. As a result, Puławy remained in the hands of the
Czartoryski family for the next 100 years. The settlement prospered, and in 1784 it became the property of Prince
Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and his wife
Izabela Czartoryska,
née Fleming. Under their stewardship, and after the loss of Poland's independence in 1795 (see
Partitions of Poland) the palace became a museum of Polish national memorabilia and a major cultural and political centre. In 1784 Adam and Izabela moved permanently into the palace, and soon afterwards Puławy became known as
Polish Athens. All major cultural figures of the late 18th century Poland visited the palace. Among them were
Grzegorz Piramowicz,
Franciszek Dionizy Kniaźnin,
Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz,
Adam Naruszewicz,
Jan Paweł Woronicz,
Franciszek Karpiński,
Franciszek Zabłocki,
Jan Piotr Norblin,
Marcello Bacciarelli. In 1794, during the
Kościuszko Uprising, Puławy was plundered and burned by the Russians as punishment for the Czartoryski family's support of the rebels. The reconstruction of the palace was initiated in 1796 by Princess Izabela who employed the renowned architect
Chrystian Piotr Aigner. In 1801, the Princess opened the first museum in Poland in the
Temple of the Sibyl in Puławy. leaves Puławy during the
November 1831 Uprising (1833 lithograph) The end of Puławy's
Golden Age was marked by the
November Uprising (1830–31), when after its suppression, the estate was taken over by the Russian government. The museum collections that were saved later became the nucleus of the present
Czartoryski Museum in
Kraków. In the 1830s, the Czartoryski family was forced to leave Russian-controlled
Congress Poland (see
Great Emigration), and Puławy was reduced into a small, provincial village. In 1842, to further erase traces of Polish culture, the Russians renamed Puławy to
Nowa Aleksandria. In 1869, an Agricultural and Forestry Institute was founded here. One of its first students was the future Polish writer
Bolesław Prus (who had also spent part of his early childhood in Puławy). Prus would set his 1884
micro-story, "
Mold of the Earth," at the
Temple of the Sibyl.
20th century Puławy received its town charter in 1906. In 1915, it was seized by the
Austro-Hungarian Army, which remained until November 1918. 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, (see
Polish–Soviet War). Piłsudski's
radio-monitoring, cryptological and intelligence services 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 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. In the
Second Polish Republic, Puławy began a slow process of modernization. In 1934, the town significantly grew in size, after several local villages merged with it. Furthermore, in the late 1930s Puławy took advantage of the
Central Industrial Area. In September 1939, during the joint German-Soviet
invasion of Poland, which started
World War II, Puławy was seized by the
Wehrmacht, and afterwards was
occupied by Germany. Three German
concentration camps operated around Puławy. In 1940 the Germans carried out mass arrests of local Polish
intelligentsia, which was then imprisoned in Lublin, and then often deported to concentration camps or murdered in
Rury, Lublin. During the occupation, Polish poet
Krystyna Krahelska lived in the city from 1940 to 1942 and was part of the
Polish underground resistance movement. She is best known as the author of the most popular song of the Polish resistance movement (
Hej chłopcy, bagnet na broń), which she premiered in 1943 in
Warsaw, where she was killed in the
Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The town remained under German occupation until July 25, 1944, when it was freed by the
Home Army, as well as the
Red Army. A year later, on April 24, 1945, a local unit of the anti-Communist organization
Freedom and Independence under Marian Bernaciak captured the local office of
Communist secret services temporarily. The postwar history of Puławy has been dominated by the 1960 decision of the government of
People's Republic of Poland to build a large chemical plant north of the town (
Zakłady Azotowe Puławy). It was opened in 1966 and produced
nitrate fertilizer. As a result, in the 1960s and 1970s Pulawy quickly grew in size, with new districts built for the influx of workers. Recently the plant has become the world's largest producer of
melamine. In 1980 and 1981,
Zakłady Azotowe Puławy was one of the largest centers of the
Solidarity movement in the Lublin Region. After the declaration of
Martial law in Poland (December 13, 1981), strike action was initiated in the plant, which was put down by force by the
ZOMO on Dec. 19, and 20 people were arrested. == Points of interest ==