Place:Żary, Zielona Góra, Poland

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Żary (pronounced ,) is a town in western Poland with 37,502 inhabitants (2019), situated in the Lubusz Voivodeship since 1999. It is the administrative seat of the Żary County and of the Gmina Żary within the county, though the town is not part of the gmina (commune).

Żary is located in the east of the historic Lower Lusatia region, in the borderland with the Silesian lowlands and Greater Poland, roughly outlined by the Bóbr and Oder rivers. The city is one of the biggest economic and tourist centers in the southern Lubuskie region and the largest town in the Polish part of Lusatia, therefore also referred as its unofficial capital. The city, whose history dates back more than 1000 years, features many historic sites.

History

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The beginnings of settlement in the Żary area date back to prehistoric times. The name “Zara”, deriving most likely from a small, independent West Slavic tribe, appeared for the first time in 1007 in the chronicles of Thietmar of Merseburg, after Duke Bolesław I Chrobry of Poland had conquered the Żary land along with Lusatia. Regained by Emperor Conrad II in 1031. In the early 13th century it was part of the Duchy of Silesia within fragmented Piast-ruled Poland. Lost by Poland, the town was chartered on the Magdeburg law by the Wettin margrave Henry III of Meissen about 1260. It covered the following three areas: a trade settlement on the “Salt Trail” running from Leipzig to Wrocław, a fortified town erected among bogs (in the area of the later castle), and a Franciscan settlement established in 1274.

The city was under the domain of the Polish Silesian Piasts until Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV in 1364 purchased Lower Lusatia and incorporated it into the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. In 1635 the town became part of the Electorate of Saxony per the Peace of Prague. The Saxon Electors also served as Kings of Poland in 1697–1706 and 1709–1763 and of the two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town at that time. Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland visited Sorau many times, including in 1705, 1718, 1730, 1748 and 1763. The royal cabinet minister Erdmann II of Promnitz built a new Baroque palace in the town.

After the 1815 Congress of Vienna, Sorau fell to the Kingdom of Prussia, which in 1871 was united with other German states into the German Empire. The town's prominent families included the Dewins, Packs, Bibersteins and Promnitzs, whose residence was the castle-palace complex.

Near the end of World War II, Soviet Red Army troops conquered the town on 13 February 1945. After the war, British and American representatives at the Potsdam Conference of July-August 1945 were initially unwilling to agree to Polish administration being extended as far west as Stalin demanded. After some negotiations, both the Soviet and Polish representatives indicated that they would be willing to concede a frontier along the historic Lusatian border with Silesia at the Oder-Bóbr-Kwisa rivers, which would have left Sorau in German territory. However, ultimately the town was transferred to Poland under extensive border changes promulgated at the conference. The German residents of Sorau were expelled, and the town was gradually repopulated by Poles, incl. those displaced from former Eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union.

Initially, from 1945 it was administratively located in the Lower Silesian/Wrocław Voivodeship, then from 1950 to 1975 in the "larger" Zielona Góra Voivodeship, and from 1975 to 1998, in the "smaller" Zielona Góra Voivodeship.

Historical sites

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Despite significant war damage, many interesting architectural historic sites have been preserved in Żary, including its medieval municipal urban arrangement.

• In the northwest part of the city there is the Dewins-Packs-Bibersteins' Castle, a huge, 13th century structure, reconstructed later in the Renaissance style. It neighbors on the Baroque Promnitzs' Palace, which was designed by Swiss architect Giovanni Simonetti. Both residences, purchased by a private investor, continue to wait for renovation. They are surrounded by the remains of an old geometrical park, with a garden palace and the Blue Gate dating from 1708.
• The Gothic Sacred Heart Church towers above the Old Town. The church, which obtained its principal shape in the 15th century, remembers the times when the city was chartered; fragments of the wall in the northern wing date from the 13th century. Initially it was a Roman Catholic church, then a Protestant Lutheran church from 1524 to 1945, when it became a Roman Catholic church again. The Baroque Promnitz Chapel near the eastern wall was added in 1670–1672. In the vicinity of the church we can find a Gothic rectory and a Gothic-Renaissance building of the old commissariat. Today it houses a museum.
• The garrison Church under the invocation of the Elevation of the Holy Cross build in the turn of 14th/15th centuries; originally the church of Grey Friars
• Church under the invocation of St. Peter and Paul (13th century) located in the former cemetery

• One of the main treasures of the Market Square is the newly renovated Town Hall dating from the turn of the 14th century, featuring a beautiful Renaissance portal. There are also tenement houses that surround the Market Square and some at Bolesława Chrobrego Street, which is a major commercial thoroughfare of the city. The oldest buildings date from the 17th century.
• The remains of the medieval fortifications of the city are fragments of walls, two defense towers (the taller one of 14th/15th centuries, with ashlars made from meadow ore, has become a “landmark” of Żary), and a stone belfry from the turn of the 14th century.
• The Blue Gate build in 1708
• One of the tourist and natural attractions of the area is the “Green Forest” located near the southern border of the city, featuring the highest altitude in the Lubuski Region (227 m above sea level).

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