Nowy Sącz (; ; ; ; ) is a city in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship of southern Poland. It is the district capital of Nowy Sącz County as a separate administrative unit. With a population of 83,116 as of 2021, it is the largest city in the Beskid Sądecki Region as well as the third most populous city in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship.
Names
Nowy Sącz has been known in German as Neu Sandez and in Hungarian as Újszandec. The Rusyn name was Novyj Sanc. Its Yiddish names include צאַנז (Tsanz) and נײַ-סאַנץ (Nay-Sants).
History
Nowy Sącz was founded on 8 November 1292 by the Polish and Bohemian ruler Wenceslaus II, on the site of an earlier village named Kamienica. The foundation of Nowy Sącz took place due to the efforts of Bishop of Kraków, , who owned Kamienica. Upon request of the bishop, Wenceslaus II granted it Magdeburg rights, making it the only Polish town founded by the Bohemian king. Its name was taken from the nearby town of Stary Sącz. As early as 1329, the name was spelled Nowy Sandacz.
In the 14th and 15th century Nowy Sącz emerged as one of the most important economic and cultural centres of this part of the Kingdom of Poland. The town benefited from its proximity on the trade route to Hungary due to privileges granted by King Władysław I the Elbow-high, and later his son, Casimir III the Great, for supporting him during the Rebellion of wojt Albert in 1311–1312. During these times, the majority of the town's inhabitants were German colonists. In the 15th century it produced steel and woollen products, and nearly rivalled Kraków in visual arts. In 1329, Nowy Sącz signed a treaty with Kraków, upon which Kraków merchants, on their way to Hungary, had to stop at Nowy Sącz; Nowy Sącz merchants, on their way to Gdańsk, were obliged to stay at Kraków. In the mid-14th century, King Casimir the Great built a royal castle here and surrounded the town with a defensive wall. Nowy Sącz was the seat of a castellan and a starosta, becoming an important point in the system of defence of the southern border of Poland. The town was further elevated in 1448 when Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki promoted a local church to the status of a Collegiate. Nowy Sącz was a royal city of Poland, administratively located in the Kraków Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown.
Nowy Sącz prospered in the Polish Golden Age (16th century). It was an important centre of the Protestant Reformation. Local leader of the Polish Brethren, Stanisław Farnowski, was very popular among local nobility. Good times ended in the 17th century. In 1611 a great fire destroyed much of the town, and during the Swedish invasion of Poland, the town was captured by the Swedes (late 1655), who burned and looted it. Nowy Sącz was a centre of the rebellion against the invaders.
Partitions of Poland
The decline of the town continued in the 18th century, when Nowy Sącz suffered more destruction during the Great Northern War and the Bar Confederation, when the castle was burned. In 1772, during the First Partition of Poland, the town was annexed by the Habsburg Empire and made part of newly formed Galicia, where it remained until November 1918. Nowy Sącz rose to new prominence in the 19th century when the Austrian authorities built a railway connecting it with Vienna (1880s). Nowy Sącz was the seat of a county, new buildings were opened, the town was a rail hub with a large rail repair shop opened in 1876.
On April 17, 1894, the central part of Nowy Sącz burned in a fire, with a town hall and ancient town records. At that time, the town was important in Hasidic Jewish history for the founding of the Sanz Hasidic dynasty during the 19th century, the precursor to the Bobov dynasty founded in nearby Bobowa (with a synagogue with occasional services by Cracow congregation) and the Klausenberg dynasty.
World wars
At the beginning of World War I, Nowy Sącz was occupied by the Russian Army. The Russians were driven back by the Central Powers in December 1914. In the final stages of the war, on October 31–November 1, 1918, Poles stationed in the Austrian 10th Infantry Regiment in the city and local members of the secret Polish Military Organisation liberated it from Austrian rule, almost two weeks before Poland regained independence. Nowy Sącz and its surroundings, including Nowy Targ and Sanok, were claimed by the Lemko Republic (1918–1920) with capital in Florynka. Within interwar Poland the city saw industrial expansion and the railway factory expanded. In 1936, the Museum of Sącz Land was opened in the restored royal castle. Nowy Sącz had a population of around 34,000 in 1939.