Cracow history

Cracow was founded by Prince Krak in the seventh century. The legend goes that he settled here after defeating the local dragon, although more plausibly it would have been the prime location next to the Vistula River that attracted the prince.

In 1241, Cracow took a severe beating from the Tatars, who burned it to the ground. However, within two decades, a new town centre had been built; Rynek Glowny (Main Market Square) was the centrepiece in the new design, and Cracow’s magnificent Wawel Castle was situated to the south.

Economic prosperity and a cultural boom led to a golden age in the 15th and 16th centuries, during which the affluent nations of Poland and Lithuania merged into a single state. However, this belle époque was brought to an abrupt end when Russia, Prussia and Austria carved up Poland in the Third Partition of 1795, effectively erasing the country from the map. Cracow became a major centre for Polish culture and the spiritual capital of a country that no longer existed.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Poland witnessed a nationalist revival, and by the 20th century the large eastern European empires had dissolved. Much to the delight of its people, the Versailles Treaty declared that Poland was once again a sovereign state, although the country’s new-found freedom would be short lived with the Nazi invasion of 1939. Historians claim Hitler liked Cracow due to its aesthetic similarities with some German cities, which may explain why it became a regional headquarters for the Nazis.

Under German occupation, the nearby town of Oswiecim (70km/43 miles away from Cracow) was chosen as the site for the largest death camp in the Third Reich, Auschwitz. Approximately 1.5 million people were exterminated here. In Cracow itself, a ghetto was built south of the river in Podgorze, which became the temporary home for the city’s Jewish inhabitants, many of whom were later murdered in the nearby Plaszow camp or at Auschwitz. Although much of Poland was devastated during WWII, Cracow remained largely untouched.

With Germany defeated by the Allies, post-war Poland fell under the influence of the USSR and endured four decades of communism. Cracow became the site for the model communist town of Nowa Huta, an Orwellian suburb funded by the Soviet Union. With the collapse of communism in 1990, Poland appointed its first democratically elected president, Lech Walesa, and the fledgling democracy has since enjoyed greater integration with the rest of Europe; in 2000 it was the European Capital of Culture and in 2003 it became a member of the EU.

Although Cracow was once the capital of this ancient nation, those bragging rights now belong to Warsaw (much to the dismay of Cracow’s inhabitants). By way of conciliation, the city has retained its status as the ‘royal capital’ and is often regarded as the creative capital of Poland.