Rybnik
Rybnik is a city in southern Poland, in the Silesian Voivodeship, around southwest of Katowice, the region's capital, and around from the Czech border. It is one of the major cities of the Katowice-Ostrava metropolitan area with a population of 5.3 million and the main city of the so-called Subregion Zachodni, previously also known as the Rybnik Coal Area. With a population of 135,994 as of January 1, 2022, it is the 25th most-populous city in Poland.
Rybnik is the center of commerce, business, transportation and culture for the southwestern part of the Silesian Voivodeship, a consolidated city-county and the seat of a separate suburban Rybnik county. Rybnik is particularly recognized for its contributions to music, with the Szafrankowie School of Music musicians such as Henryk Górecki or Lidia Grychtołówna, among others. It is also a seat of the Rybnik Philharmonic Orchestra.
The name Rybnik derives from an old Slavic word rybnik, meaning a pond, which was located in the place of the current market square. In the middle ages, three settlements merged into one town, with a Magdeburg rights location dating back to 1308. Fishing, trade and artistry were the main industries. Rybnik's development accelerated in late 19th century upon discovery of rich coal fields, and continued until the 1980s. Since the 1990s, the city attempts to diversify its economy with commerce, health care and business industries.
History
The city's name derives from the Proto-Slavic word for "fish" and meant "fishpond" in the Old Polish language. The name highlights the importance of fish farming for the city's economy in the Middle Ages, which is reflected in its coat of arms until this day.The city's origins can be traced back into the 9th and 10th century, when three Slavic settlements existed on Rybnik's present-day territory which eventually merged to form one town. It became part of the emerging Polish state under its first historic ruler Mieszko I in the 10th century. In the course of the medieval eastward migration of German settlers, Rybnik, as many other Polish settlements, was incorporated according to the so-called Magdeburg Law at some point before 1308. This, however, is not to be confused with a change in national affiliation; Rybnik continued to be part of the Kingdom of Poland, until most of Silesia became a fiefdom of the Bohemian Crown in 1327, however Rybnik was still ruled by local Polish dukes of the Piast dynasty until 1336.
The city continued to grow and developed into a regional trade centre. In the 15th century, the Hussites devastated the city, before being eventually defeated in a decisive battle on a hill nearby in 1433, with Poles and Czechs fighting on both sides. Around 1469 the city passed under Hungarian suzerainty, and in 1490 it fell back to Bohemia. From 1521 Rybnik was again ruled by Polish Piast dukes, as it was integrated with the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz, before in 1532 it eventually was incorporated into Bohemia, which itself came under the authority of the Habsburg crown. Then the city became the capital of a state country held by various noble families, including the Polish Węgierski family of Rola coat of arms from 1682 until the state country's dissolution in 1788.
At the beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession between Frederick II of Prussia and the Habsburg empress Maria Theresa of Austria, most of Silesia, including Rybnik, was annexed by Prussia in 1740, which Austria eventually recognized in 1763. In the 18th century, Rybnik belonged to the tax inspection region of Prudnik. Coal mining gained importance for Rybnik's economy as early as the 18th century. In 1871, Prussia, including Rybnik, merged into the German Empire, the first modern German nation state. At this point, Poland had already ceased to exist as an independent state, having been divided between Prussia, Austria and Russia in the Third Partition of Poland of 1795.
With the intensification of Germanization and anti-Polish policies in the German Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century, the ethnically mixed region of Upper Silesia became affected by growing tensions between German nationalists and indigenous Poles. A local branch of the Polish Sokół movement was established in 1898. Under pressure from the German police, tenants terminated their leases with the organization, which resulted in several changes of address and, over time, a shift to clandestine activities. In 1900, ten members were arrested and sentenced to prison and fines. After the end of World War I in 1918, the Polish state was finally restored. Amidst an atmosphere of ethnic unrest, the Polish Silesian Uprisings broke out, the first of which was centered on Rybnik, and the Upper Silesia plebiscite was held in 1921 to determine the future state affiliation. The lowest share of pro-German votes was registered in the districts of Rybnik and Pszczyna. However, in the city of Rybnik, 70.8% of the votes were in favour of Germany. The city and the larger part of the Rybnik district were attached to Poland. Rybnik thus became Polish-ruled for the first time since 1788.
Within the Second Polish Republic of the interwar period, Rybnik was part of the Silesian Voivodeship and enjoyed far-reaching political and financial autonomy. In 1933, brothers Karol and Antoni Szafranek, eminent Polish musicians, founded a music school, today known as the Karol and Antoni Szafranek Secondary and Tertiary State School of Music.
During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II, in September 1939, Rybnik was captured by Germany, and the Einsatzgruppe I entered the city to commit atrocities against Poles. Under German occupation the city was directly annexed into Germany. The population was ethnically categorized and either "re-Germanized" or disfranchised and partially expelled into the General Government. Local teachers and school principals were among Polish teachers and principals murdered in Nazi concentration camps. The Germans operated a Nazi prison in the city. The Polenlager No. 97, a forced labour camp for Poles, was operated in the city from 1942 to 1945. In the camp, the Germans mainly held children whose parents were either arrested or deported to Germany, and also elderly people. Nevertheless, the Polish resistance movement was active in Rybnik. In the final stages of the war, in January 1945, the Germans murdered 385 prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp in the city during a death march.
After the eventual German defeat which ended World War II in the European theatre of war in 1945, Rybnik was once more integrated into Poland, the territory of which was shifted westward on Joseph Stalin's initiative. Rybnik thus ceased to be a German-Polish border city. A large portion of ethnic Germans from Rybnik eventually settled in the West German city of Dorsten, which eventually became one of Rybnik's twin towns in 1994.
In the post-war period, coal mining continued to gain importance. Under Poland's communist rule in 1945–1989 the city was projected to grow as a main mining centre of southern Poland. The 1970s saw the construction of an important coal-fired power plant. A reservoir on the river Ruda was constructed to provide it with cooling water. In 2002, the University of Economics, the University of Silesia, both based in Katowice, and the Silesian Polytechnic University based in Gliwice established a joint campus in Rybnik to improve academic training opportunities in the area.
Population
Historical population
Historically, Rybnik was a small town, with population exceeding 1,000 people only in the late 1700s. It was similar in size to neighboring Żory and Wodzisław Śląski, around half the size of Gliwice and 1/3 the size of Racibórz. The population development accelerated after Upper Silesia was annexed by Prussia in 1740. In 1818, Rybnik became a county seat and in 1856 Rybnik was connected with Racibórz by rail. Two years later, in 1858, Rybnik gained a rail connection with Katowice, further accelerating growth. While the discovery of large coal deposits around Rybnik in late 1800s and early 1900s caused capital inflow and population growth of neighboring villages and settlements, Rybnik continued to be primarily a market town rather than transform into a large industrial city like other towns in the region, particularly in the Upper Silesian Industrial Region. This changed after World War II, when the Polish communist government doubled-down on its heavy industrialization platform, increasing coal production in existing coal mines around Rybnik and building a new city for miners nearby. Due to its central location and existing infrastructure, Rybnik became the center of the Rybnik Coal Area, growing to 44,400 people in 1972.In the 1970s, under administrative reform, Rybnik annexed a number of neighboring mining towns and villages, growing to 118,200 by the end of the decade. Labor shortages on the local market, created in part by emigration to Germany through the family reunification schemes since the 1950s, motivated large state enterprises to recruit workers in other parts of the country. As a result, by 1970s and 80s approximately 30% of people in Rybnik were recent internal migrants. That migration was a source of ethnic conflict since the 1950s, given that in the eyes of Poles from other parts of the country, indigenous Silesians were Germans, and the anti-German sentiment was still strong in Poland at the time. Rybnik's population continued to grow until the peak in 1997 at 144,943.
Current population estimates
On January 1, 2021, Rybnik had 137,128 inhabitants, with a population density of 955.3 per km².In 2020, age breakdown was as follows: 25,166 under 18, 50,183 aged 18–44, 31,248 aged 45–64, 30,531 65 and older. Total fertility rate in Rybnik is 1.39 as of 2020, below the replacement level of 2.1 but above the country average of 1.38.
As of the 2011 national census, education breakdown among 15-year-olds and older was as follows: 17,919 had a college degree, 35,709 had a high school diploma, 36,249 had a vocational school diploma, and 21,265 did not have a high school or vocational school diploma.