Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Pszczyna
Summary
Pszczyna 'pszczyna (Pleß, Pština) is a town in southern Poland with 25,823 inhabitants (2019), and a seat of a local gmina (commune). It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship, and was a part of the Katowice Voivodeship from 1975 until administrative reforms in 1998.
There are several different theories of the origins of the name Pszczyna. Ezechiel Zivier (1868–1925) hypothesized that the land was first owned by Pleszko (alternatively Leszko, or possibly Leszek, Duke of Racibórz). Polish scholar Aleksander Brückner in turn explained the name based on its old spelling Plszczyna, from the ancient Polish word pło or pleso meaning a lake, making Plszczyna a place by a lake. Brückner's derivation, suggesting a marshy lakeside, based on Proto-Slavic plszczyna, is generally accepted in literature. Yet another explanation has been put forward by Prof. Jan Miodek of Wrocław University, who derives the town's name from the name of a nearby river, now known as Pszczynka. Miodek claims, firstly, that the town owes its name to the river, not vice versa (as the -ka suffix in the present name of the river would indicate), and secondly, that the original name of the river, Blszczyna, derives from Proto-Slavic blskati, to glisten. The oldest recorded versions of the town's name (Plisschyn, Plisczyna, Plyssczyna, Blissczyna, Blyssczyna, Plesna, Pssczyna) exclude none of the above derivations, except perhaps the Leszko/Leszek one, which seems far fetched. Neither does the German name Pleß shed any light, as it simply reflects the Polish name at the time of the beginning of German settlement.
The oldest settlement evolved around a small gord and wooden church in what was later known as Stara Wieś. The modern town (around Market Square) was probably founded in the second half of the 13th century. The first reference in sources to the place dates from 1303. The main trading route between Kievan Rus and the Moravian Gate ran through Pszczyna in the early Middle Ages, and the small settlement probably provided protective measures for merchants on the ford (surrounded by marshlands) of the small Pszczynka river.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.