Cedynia

Cedynia (pronounced ce'dyńa; Zehden, Cedene) is a small historic town in Poland, and the administrative seat of Gmina Cedynia in Gryfino County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is situated close to the Oder river and the border with Germany. The town is known for the 972 Battle of Cedynia, the first historically recorded battle of Poland. Cedynia lies in an area that formed part of historic regions of Pomerania and Greater Poland, before later being part of Neumark. It is situated close to the Oder river, which since 1945 forms the Polish–German border; it thereby is the westernmost town in Poland (neighbouring Osinów Dolny lies even further to the west, right on the German border, but is classified as a village). A road border crossing leads to the German town of Bad Freienwalde in the southwest. The town gives its name to an extended protected area known as Cedynia Landscape Park. Largely depopulated during the Migration Period, the first Slavic settlement came into existence in the 8th century, when a gród fortification was erected in the area. Around 967, it became part of the emerging Polish state. According to the Cedynia website, the "Name of city appears in documents under oldest written records already in the year 972 as Cidini, in 1187 as Zedin and Cedene, in 1240 as Ceden. " On 24 June 972, the first historically recorded battle of the Polan dukes, the Battle of Cedynia, took place at this location: the Piast duke Mieszko I of Poland and his brother Czcibor defeated the invading forces of the Saxon count Odo I, who then ruled as a margrave in the Saxon Eastern March (Lusatia). Information about this battle is found both in the chronicles by Thietmar of Merseburg and in the Gesta principum Polonorum by Gallus Anonymus. After Emperor Otto II intervened, a peace was reached at the Imperial Diet in Quedlinburg the next year. Under Mieszko's son Bolesław the name Poland was used for the first time.