Plac Nowy krakowskiego Kazimierza. Zapis historii od XIV do XX wieku

Abstract

NOWY SQUARE IN KRAKÓW’S KAZIMIERZ: AN OVERVIEW OF THE SQUARE’S HISTORY FROM THE 14^TH TO THE 20^TH CENTURY

The present-day shape of plac Nowy [lit. New Square], formed on the two-dimensional scale around 1873, and on the three-dimensional scale – with its high-rise buildings featuring in the frontages and the rotunda (Okraglak) at the centre – at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century is the ultimate outcome of transformations spanning many centuries. The urban layout of Kazimierz delineated as a result of the town’s formal establishment under Magdeburg Law in 1335 played a crucial role in this process. Equally important was the incorporation of the village of Bawół into the town (1340), and the construction of the defensive wall whose course determined the location of the north frontage of the present-day square. The development of the land stretching between the plots on the north side of what is today known as Józefa Street (originally called Sukiennicza Street, and later renamed Zydowska Street around the late 15th or the early 16th century) resulted in the introduction of a number of new functions and facilities at the twilight of the Middle Ages and in the early decades of the Early Modern Period, e.g. the gold smelter run by the Kraków Goldsmiths Guild known as the gold mill (huta) located on the site currently occupied by the Centre for Jewish Culture at 17 Meiselsa Street / Nowy Square), and the manor house owned by the Jordan family which stood in the vicinity of today’s 3 Nowy Square (in the south frontage), together with a garden covering the west section of today’s square. The location of the square’s west frontage was determined by the course of the sewer collecting waste from the Monastery of Canons Regular of the Lateran and the adjacent houses which fed into the old channel of the Vistula River, outside the city’s defensive wall. Another important milestone was the incorporation of the discussed area into Kazimierz’s Jewish Town as part of its final expansion completed in 1608. The local Latin name which was then introduced – area nova Iudaeorum – was eventually to be partially preserved in the square’s present-day name. The said area was considered as development reserve for the wooden houses constructed by the less afluent residents which were preserved up until the 19th century and documented in archival street plans and the drawings produced by Kraków artists. The era of the Free City of Kraków (1815–1846) saw the creation of modern urban development plans which proposed (in vain) the liquidation of old wooden structures and their replacement by new, brick houses. These urban planning concepts were eventually executed in the era of the autonomy of Galicia (1867–1918) in the form of the abovementioned developments that took place in 1873 and at the turn of the 20th century. The tragedy of the Holocaust brought about a complete change of the social character of Kraków’s former Jewish quarter. The old, historical architecture in this area has survived in a much better shape than at the nearby Kupa Street. Thus, the unique atmosphere of this enclave whose tradition has been kept alive by the aforementioned Centre for Jewish Culture located at the former B’nei Emuna Beit ha-midrash has not been lost. The old, unofficial name of Nowy Square: plac Zydowski (lit. Jewish Square) is still in use among the neighbourhood’s elderly residents. Today, cultivating this tradition and keeping this memory alive is a challenge we face in the realm of non-material cultural values, which seems even more important than preserving the site’s material historical substance.