Puà Âawy (, also written Pulawy) is a city in eastern Poland, in Lesser Poland's Lublin Voivodeship, at the confluence of the Vistula and Kurówka Rivers. Puà Âawy is the capital of Puà Âawy County. The city's 2019 population was estimated at 47,417. Its coat of arms is based on Pogonia.
Puà Âawy was first mentioned in documents of the 15th century. At that time it was spelled Pollavy, its name probably coming from a Vistula River ford located nearby. The town is a local center of science, industry and tourism, together with nearby Naà ÂÃÂczów and Kazimierz Dolny. Puà Âawy is home to Poland's first permanent museum and is a Vistula River port.
The town has two bridges and four rail stations, and serves as a road junction. Nearby DÃÂblin has a military airport.
Puà Âawy lies in the western part of Lublin Voivodeship, at the edge of the picturesque Lesser Polish Gorge of the Vistula, and near the easternmost point of the Vistula river. Historically the town belongs to Lesser Poland, and geographically, it lies at the border of Mazovian Lowland and Lublin Upland. The area of the town is . Puà Âawy is located on Polish Expressway S12 (highway), and the intersection of the S17 and S12 highways is located nearby, east of the city. Furthermore, the town has four rail stations (Puà Âawy, Puà Âawy Azoty, Puà Âawy Chemia and Puà Âawy Miasto). Long-distance rail transport is served by the Puà Âawy Miasto station, with connections to all Polish cities.
The history of Puà Âawy dates back to the 15th century when a settlement near a Vistula river ford was established. In the late 17th century it emerged as the location of a rural residence of the Lubomirski and the Sieniawski noble families and in 1676âÂÂ1679, Prince Stanisà Âaw Herakliusz Lubomirski built a summer palace, now known as the Paà Âac Czartoryskich or the Czartoryskich Palace. In 1687, Lubomirski's daughter Elà ¼bieta (who was called the uncrowned Queen of Poland), married Adam Mikoà Âaj Sieniawski, bringing Puà Âawy her dowry. In 1706, during the Great Northern War, the settlement together with the castle were destroyed by Swedish soldiers as Elà ¼bieta was a supporter of King Augustus II the Strong.
In 1731, Maria Zofia Sieniawska (the daughter of Elà ¼bieta and Adam Sieniawski), married August Aleksander Czartoryski. As a result, Puà Âawy remained in the hands of the Czartoryski family for the next 100 years. The settlement prospered, and in 1784 it became the property of Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and his wife Izabela Czartoryska, née Fleming. Under their stewardship, and after the loss of Poland's independence in 1795 (see Partitions of Poland) the palace became a museum of Polish national memorabilia and a major cultural and political centre. In 1784 Adam and Izabela moved permanently into the palace, and soon afterwards Puà Âawy became known as Polish Athens. All major cultural figures of the late 18th century Poland visited the palace. Among them were Grzegorz Piramowicz, Franciszek Dionizy Kniaà ºnin, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Adam Naruszewicz, Jan Paweà  Woronicz, Franciszek Karpià Âski, Franciszek Zabà Âocki, Jan Piotr Norblin, Marcello Bacciarelli. In 1794, during the Koà Âciuszko Uprising, Puà Âawy was plundered and burned by the Russians as punishment for the Czartoryski family's support of the rebels. The reconstruction of the palace was initiated in 1796 by Princess Izabela who employed the renowned architect Chrystian Piotr Aigner. In 1801, the Princess opened the first museum in Poland in the Temple of the Sibyl in Puà Âawy.
The end of Puà Âawy's Golden Age was marked by the November Uprising (1830âÂÂ31), when after its suppression, the estate was taken over by the Russian government. The museum collections that were saved later became the nucleus of the present Czartoryski Museum in Kraków. In the 1830s, the Czartoryski family was forced to leave Russian-controlled Congress Poland (see Great Emigration), and Puà Âawy was reduced into a small, provincial village. In 1842, to further erase traces of Polish culture, the Russians renamed Puà Âawy to Nowa Aleksandria. In 1869, an Agricultural and Forestry Institute was founded here. One of its first students was the future Polish writer Bolesà Âaw Prus (who had also spent part of his early childhood in Puà Âawy). Prus would set his 1884 micro-story, "Mold of the Earth," at the Temple of the Sibyl.
Puà Âawy received its town charter in 1906. In 1915, it was seized by the Austro-Hungarian Army, which remained until November 1918. On 13 August 1920, Józef Pià Âsudski, Poland's Chief of State, left Warsaw, and established a military headquarters in Puà Âawy. The Soviet Union's Red Army held most of eastern Poland and was besieging Warsaw, (see PolishâÂÂSoviet War). Pià Âsudski's radio-monitoring, cryptological and intelligence services detected a gap in the Soviet flanks in the Puà Âawy region, and he ordered a concentration of Polish forces in the surrounding area around the Wieprz River. On 18 August 1920, the Polish Army launched a counter-attack from Puà Âawy that encircled and defeated a 177,000-strong Soviet force. The attack drove the Red Army from Poland and established Poland's security for two decades, until the German invasion of 1939.
In the Second Polish Republic, Puà Âawy began a slow process of modernization. In 1934, the town significantly grew in size, after several local villages merged with it. Furthermore, in the late 1930s Puà Âawy took advantage of the Central Industrial Area.
In September 1939, during the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II, Puà Âawy was seized by the Wehrmacht, and afterwards was occupied by Germany. Three German concentration camps operated around Puà Âawy. In 1940 the Germans carried out mass arrests of local Polish intelligentsia, which was then imprisoned in Lublin, and then often deported to concentration camps or murdered in Rury, Lublin. During the occupation, Polish poet Krystyna Krahelska lived in the city from 1940 to 1942 and was part of the Polish underground resistance movement. She is best known as the author of the most popular song of the Polish resistance movement (Hej chà Âopcy, bagnet na broà Â), which she premiered in 1943 in Warsaw, where she was killed in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The town's Jewish population of some 3,600 was first confined to a ghetto, then murdered at the Sobibór camp. The Jewish population ceased to exist and was never reconstituted. The town remained under German occupation until July 25, 1944, when it was freed by the Home Army, as well as the Red Army.
A year later, on April 24, 1945, a local unit of the anti-Communist organization Freedom and Independence under Marian Bernaciak captured the local office of Communist secret services temporarily.
The postwar history of Puà Âawy has been dominated by the 1960 decision of the government of People's Republic of Poland to build a large chemical plant north of the town (Zakà Âady Azotowe Puà Âawy). It was opened in 1966 and produced nitrate fertilizer. As a result, in the 1960s and 1970s Pulawy quickly grew in size, with new districts built for the influx of workers. Recently the plant has become the world's largest producer of melamine. In 1980 and 1981, Zakà Âady Azotowe Puà Âawy was one of the largest centers of the Solidarity movement in the Lublin Region. After the declaration of Martial law in Poland (December 13, 1981), strike action was initiated in the plant, which was put down by force by the ZOMO on Dec. 19, and 20 people were arrested.
The most notable landmark in Puà Âawy is the Baroque-Classicist Czartoryski Palace, dating from 1676âÂÂ1679 (architect Tylman van Gameren), burned in 1706, remodeled 1722âÂÂ36, and again by Chrystian Piotr Aigner ca. 1800. The palace is surrounded by a 30-hectare park, in 1798-1806 fashioned into an English landscape garden, which includes classicist park pavilions dating from the early 19th century. One, the colonnaded round Temple of the Sibyl, is the setting of Bolesà Âaw Prus' striking 1884 micro-story, "Mold of the Earth."
Near the Temple of the Sibyl is the "Gothic House", built between 1800 and 1809 to commemorate Prince Józef PoniatowskiâÂÂs visit to Puà Âawy; it now houses the Regional Museum. Other palace buildings house the Soil and Fertilizer Institute.
Additional interesting buildings within the park include:
The town of Puà Âawy itself features some interesting buildings, including a former town hall, former Orthodox church, and historic inn.
Since the mid-19th century, Puà Âawy has been a center of higher education. Institutions operating here are:
Since 2008, local institutes, together with Town Council and the Kazimierz Puà Âaski University of Technology and Humanities in Radom have been working on a modern scientific campus, which will be located in the district of Azoty. Among others, the complex will host four departments of the Radom University of Technology.
Puà Âawy has several sports clubs, with the most famous ones being Wisà Âa Puà Âawy (football, swimming, track and field, weight lifting), and KS Azoty-Puà Âawy handball team which plays in the Polish Superliga, the country's top division, finishing 3rd in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Puà Âawy is twinned with:
Former twin towns, both having ended their relation due to implementation of an LGBT ideology-free zone: