Greater Poland Voivodeship
Greater Poland Voivodeship known as Wielkopolska Voivodeship, Wielkopolska Province, or Greater Poland Province, is a voivodeship, or province, in west-central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Poznań, Konin, Piła and Leszno Voivodeships, pursuant to the Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998; the province is named after the region called Greater Wielkopolska. The modern province includes most of this historic region, except for some south-western parts. Greater Poland Voivodeship is second in area and third in population among Poland's sixteen voivodeships, with an area of 29,826 square kilometres and a population of close to 3.5 million. Its capital city is Poznań, it is bordered by seven other voivodeships: West Pomeranian to the northwest, Pomeranian to the north, Kuyavian-Pomeranian to the north-east, Łódź to the south-east, Opole to the south, Lower Silesian to the southwest and Lubusz to the west. The city of Poznań has international twinning arrangements with the English county of Nottinghamshire.
Greater Poland, sometimes called the "cradle of Poland," formed the heart of the 10th-century early Polish state. Poznań and Gniezno were early centers of royal power, but following the region's devastation by pagan rebellion in the 1030s, an invasion by Bretislaus I of Bohemia in 1038, the capital was moved by Casimir the Restorer from Gniezno to Kraków. In the testament of Bolesław III Wrymouth, which initiated the period of fragmentation of Poland, the western part of Greater Poland was granted to Mieszko III the Old; the eastern part, with Gniezno and Kalisz, was part of the Duchy of Kraków, granted to Władysław II the Exile. However, for most of the period the two parts were under a single ruler, were known as the Duchy of Greater Poland; the region came under the control of Władysław I the Elbow-High in 1314, thus became part of the reunited Poland of which Władysław was crowned king in 1320. In the reunited kingdom, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the country came to be divided into administrative units called voivodeships.
In the case of the Greater Poland region these were Kalisz Voivodeship. The Commonwealth had larger subdivisions known as prowincja, one of, named Greater Poland. However, this prowincja covered a larger area than the Greater Poland region itself taking in Masovia and Royal Prussia. In 1768 a new Gniezno Voivodeship was formed out of the northern part of Kalisz Voivodeship; however more far-reaching changes would come with the Partitions of Poland. In the first partition, northern parts of Greater Poland along the Noteć were taken over by Prussia, becoming the Netze District. In the second partition the whole of Greater Poland was absorbed by Prussia, becoming part of the province of South Prussia, it remained so in spite of the first Greater Poland Uprising, part of the unsuccessful Kościuszko Uprising directed chiefly against Russia. More successful was the Greater Poland Uprising of 1806, which led to the region's becoming part of the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw. However, following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Greater Poland was again partitioned, with the western part going to Prussia.
The eastern part joined the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland, where it formed the Kalisz Voivodeship until 1837 the Kalisz Governorate. Within the Prussian empire, western Greater Poland became the Grand Duchy of Posen, which theoretically held some autonomy. Following an unrealized uprising in 1846, the more substantial but still unsuccessful uprising of 1848, the Grand Duchy was replaced by the Province of Posen; the authorities made efforts to Germanize the region after the founding of Germany in 1871, from 1886 onwards the Prussian Settlement Commission was active in increasing German land ownership in Polish areas. Following the end of World War I, the Greater Poland Uprising ensured that most of the region became part of the newly independent Polish state, forming most of Poznań Voivodeship. Northern and some western parts of Greater Poland remained in Germany, where they formed much of the province of Posen-West Prussia, whose capital was Schneidemühl. Following the German invasion of 1939, Greater Poland was incorporated into Nazi Germany, becoming the province called Reichsgau Posen Reichsgau Wartheland.
The Polish population was oppressed, with many former officials and others considered potential enemies by the Nazis being imprisoned or executed, including at the notorious Fort VII concentration camp in Poznań. Poznań was declared a stronghold city in the closing stages of the war, being taken by the Red Army in the Battle of Poznań, which ended on 22 February 1945. After the war, Greater Poland was within the Polish People's Republic, as Poznań Voivodeship. With the reforms of 1975
Integrated Authority File
The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used for documentation in libraries and also by archives and museums; the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero licence; the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format; the Integrated Authority File became operational in April 2012 and integrates the content of the following authority files, which have since been discontinued: Name Authority File Corporate Bodies Authority File Subject Headings Authority File Uniform Title File of the Deutsches Musikarchiv At the time of its introduction on 5 April 2012, the GND held 9,493,860 files, including 2,650,000 personalised names.
There are seven main types of GND entities: LIBRIS Virtual International Authority File Information pages about the GND from the German National Library Search via OGND Bereitstellung des ersten GND-Grundbestandes DNB, 19 April 2012 From Authority Control to Linked Authority Data Presentation given by Reinhold Heuvelmann to the ALA MARC Formats Interest Group, June 2012
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town, with a population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Though villages are located in rural areas, the term urban village is applied to certain urban neighborhoods. Villages are permanent, with fixed dwellings. Further, the dwellings of a village are close to one another, not scattered broadly over the landscape, as a dispersed settlement. In the past, villages were a usual form of community for societies that practice subsistence agriculture, for some non-agricultural societies. In Great Britain, a hamlet earned the right to be called a village. In many cultures and cities were few, with only a small proportion of the population living in them; the Industrial Revolution attracted people in larger numbers to work in factories. This enabled specialization of labor and crafts, development of many trades; the trend of urbanization continues, though not always in connection with industrialization.
Although many patterns of village life have existed, the typical village is small, consisting of 5 to 30 families. Homes were situated together for sociability and defence, land surrounding the living quarters was farmed. Traditional fishing villages were located adjacent to fishing grounds. "The soul of India lives in its villages," declared M. K. Gandhi at the beginning of 20th century. According to the 2011 census of India, 68.84% of Indians live in 640,867 different villages. The size of these villages varies considerably. 236,004 Indian villages have a population of fewer than 500, while 3,976 villages have a population of 10,000+. Most of the villages have their own temple, mosque, or church, depending on the local religious following. In Afghanistan, the village, or deh is the mid-size settlement type in Afghan society, trumping the hamlet or qala, though smaller than the town, or shār. In contrast to the qala, the deh is a bigger settlement which includes a commercial area, while the yet larger shār includes governmental buildings and services such as schools of higher education, basic health care, police stations etc.
Auyl is a Kazakh word meaning "village" in Kazakhstan. According to the 2009 census of Kazakhstan, 42.7% of Kazakhs live in 8172 different villages. To refer to this concept along with the word "auyl" used the Slavic word "selo" in Northern Kazakhstan. People's Republic of China In mainland China, villages 村 are divisions under township Zh:乡 or town Zh:镇. Republic of China In the Republic of China, villages are divisions under townships or county-controlled cities; the village is called a tsuen or cūn under a rural township and a li under an urban township or a county-controlled city. See Li. Japan South Korea In Brunei, villages are the third- and lowest-level subdivisions of Brunei below districts and mukims. A village is locally known by the Malay word kampung, they may be villages in the traditional or anthropological sense but may comprise delineated residential settlements, both rural and urban. The community of a village is headed by a village head. Communal infrastructure for the villagers may include a primary school, a religious school providing ugama or Islamic religious primary education, compulsory for the Muslim pupils in the country, a mosque, a community centre.
In Indonesia, depending on the principles they are administered, villages are called Kampung or Desa. A "Desa" is administered according to traditions and customary law, while a kelurahan is administered along more "modern" principles. Desa are located in rural areas while kelurahan are urban subdivisions. A village head is called kepala desa or lurah. Both are elected by the local community. A desa or kelurahan is the subdivision of a kecamatan, in turn the subdivision of a kabupaten or kota; the same general concept applies all over Indonesia. However, there is some variation among the vast numbers of Austronesian ethnic groups. For instance, in Bali villages have been created by grouping traditional hamlets or banjar, which constitute the basis of Balinese social life. In the Minangkabau area in West Sumatra province, traditional villages are called nagari. In some areas such as Tanah Toraja, elders take; as a general rule and kelurahan are groupings of hamlets. A kampung is defined today as a village in Indonesia.
Kampung is a term used in Malaysia, for "a Malay hamlet or village in a Malay-speaking country". In Malaysia, a kampung is determined as a locality with 10,000 or fewer people. Since historical times, every Malay village came under the leadership of a penghulu, who has the power to hear civil matters in his village. A Malay village contains a "masjid" or "surau", paddy fields and Malay houses on st
Virtual International Authority File
The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of several national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. Discussion about having a common international authority started in the late 1990s. After a series of failed attempts to come up with a unique common authority file, the new idea was to link existing national authorities; this would present all the benefits of a common file without requiring a large investment of time and expense in the process. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library and the OCLC on August 6, 2003; the Bibliothèque nationale de France joined the project on October 5, 2007. The project transitioned to being a service of the OCLC on April 4, 2012; the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together. A VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary "see" and "see also" records from the original records, refers to the original authority records.
The data are available for research and data exchange and sharing. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol; the file numbers are being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAF's clustering algorithm is run every month; as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records. Authority control Faceted Application of Subject Terminology Integrated Authority File International Standard Authority Data Number International Standard Name Identifier Wikipedia's authority control template for articles Official website VIAF at OCLC
Poland
Poland the Republic of Poland, is a country located in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, covering an area of 312,696 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With a population of 38.5 million people, Poland is the sixth most populous member state of the European Union. Poland's capital and largest metropolis is Warsaw. Other major cities include Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk, Szczecin. Poland is bordered by the Baltic Sea, Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast and Lithuania to the north and Ukraine to the east and Czech Republic, to the south, Germany to the west; the establishment of the Polish state can be traced back to AD 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of the realm coextensive with the territory of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, in 1569 it cemented its longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin; this union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, with a uniquely liberal political system which adopted Europe's first written national constitution, the Constitution of 3 May 1791.
More than a century after the Partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, Poland regained its independence in 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Germany, followed by the Soviet Union invading Poland in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. More than six million Polish citizens, including 90% of the country's Jews, perished in the war. In 1947, the Polish People's Republic was established as a satellite state under Soviet influence. In the aftermath of the Revolutions of 1989, most notably through the emergence of the Solidarity movement, Poland reestablished itself as a presidential democratic republic. Poland is regional power, it has the fifth largest economy by GDP in the European Union and one of the most dynamic economies in the world achieving a high rank on the Human Development Index. Additionally, the Polish Stock Exchange in Warsaw is the largest and most important in Central Europe. Poland is a developed country, which maintains a high-income economy along with high standards of living, life quality, safety and economic freedom.
Having a developed school educational system, the country provides free university education, state-funded social security, a universal health care system for all citizens. Poland has 15 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Poland is a member state of the European Union, the Schengen Area, the United Nations, NATO, the OECD, the Three Seas Initiative, the Visegrád Group; the origin of the name "Poland" derives from the West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta river basin of the historic Greater Poland region starting in the 6th century. The origin of the name "Polanie" itself derives from the early Slavic word "pole". In some languages, such as Hungarian, Lithuanian and Turkish, the exonym for Poland is Lechites, which derives from the name of a semi-legendary ruler of Polans, Lech I. Early Bronze Age in Poland begun around 2400 BC, while the Iron Age commenced in 750 BC. During this time, the Lusatian culture, spanning both the Bronze and Iron Ages, became prominent; the most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, around 700 BC.
Throughout the Antiquity period, many distinct ancient ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland in an era that dates from about 400 BC to 500 AD. These groups are identified as Celtic, Slavic and Germanic tribes. Recent archeological findings in the Kujawy region, confirmed the presence of the Roman Legions on the territory of Poland; these were most expeditionary missions sent out to protect the amber trade. The exact time and routes of the original migration and settlement of Slavic peoples lacks written records and can only be defined as fragmented; the Slavic tribes who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. Up until the creation of Mieszko's state and his subsequent conversion to Christianity in 966 AD, the main religion of Slavic tribes that inhabited the geographical area of present-day Poland was Slavic paganism. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the religious authority of the Roman Church.
However, the transition from paganism was not a smooth and instantaneous process for the rest of the population as evident from the pagan reaction of the 1030s. Poland began to form into a recognizable unitary and territorial entity around the middle of the 10th century under the Piast dynasty. Poland's first documented ruler, Mieszko I, accepted Christianity with the Baptism of Poland in 966, as the new official religion of his subjects; the bulk of the population converted in the course of the next few centuries. In 1000, Boleslaw the Brave, continuing the policy of his father Mieszko, held a Congress of Gniezno and created the metropolis of Gniezno and the dioceses of Kraków, Kołobrzeg, Wrocław. However, the pagan unrest led to the transfer of the capital to Kraków in 1038 by Casimir I the Restorer. In 1109, Prince Bolesław III Wrymouth defeated the King of Germany Henry V at the Battle of Hundsfeld, stopping the Ge
Leszno
Leszno is a town in western Poland with 64,197 inhabitants and is the seventh-largest settlement in the Greater Poland Voivodeship of which it is situated in the southern part of the since 1999. It was the capital of the Leszno Voivodeship; the town has county status. The settlement arose in the 13th century. Leszno in the Polish Poznań Voivodeship was first mentioned in historical documents in 1393, when the estate was the property of Stefan z Karnina of Wieniawa Coat of Arms; the family adopted the surname of Leszczyński from the name of their estate according to the medieval custom of the Polish nobility. Around 1516, a community of Protestant Unity of the Brethren refugees expelled from the Bohemian lands by King Vladislaus II, settled in Leszno invited by the noble Leszczyński family, who were since 1473 imperial counts and had converted to Calvinism; the arrival of the Bohemian Protestants as well as weavers from nearby Silesia helped the settlement to grow and made it possible to become a town in 1547 by a privilege according to Magdeburg Law given by King Sigismund I of Poland.
Leszno was the biggest printing center in Greater Poland thanks to the activity of the Protestant community, whose number increased because of inflow of refugees from Silesia and Moravia during the Thirty Years War. In 1631, Leszno was vested with further privileges by King Sigismund III Vasa, treating it as equal with the most important cities of Poland. At that time it had a Gymnasium school led for a period by Jan Amos Komenský, an educator and the last bishop of the Unity of the Brethren. From 1638 until his death in 1647, Johann Heermann, a German-speaking poet, lived in Leszno. Between 1636 and 1639, the town became fortified and its area increased; the golden era of Leszno ended during the Second Northern War, when the town was burnt down on 28 April 1656. Rebuilt afterwards, it was again set on fire during the Great Northern War by Russian forces in 1707 and was ravaged by a plague in 1709; the Leszczyński family owned the city until 1738 when King Stanisław Leszczyński sold it after he had abdicated for the second time.
During the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, Leszno was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia and after the Napoleonic Wars was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Posen as Lissa. In 1887 it became the administrative seat of the Prussian Kreis Lissa; the town took part in the Greater Poland Uprising of 1918–19 and was returned to the Second Polish Republic by the Treaty of Versailles with effect from 17 January 1920. The local populace had to acquire Polish citizenship. In the 1939 Invasion of Poland, the town was annexed by Nazi Germany and incorporated into Reichsgau Wartheland; the Polish population was resettled to the General Government. Most of the town's Jewish population and remaining Poles were murdered by the Nazi Einsatzgruppen. After the defeat of Nazi-Germany, the town returned to Poland in 1945, it underwent a period of fast development between 1975 and 1998 when it was a seat of a voivodeship administrative area. In 2000 the city was awarded "The Golden Star of Town Twinning" prize by the European Commission.
Leszno is twinned with: Montluçon, France Deurne, Netherlands Unia Leszno speedway clubThe Leszno motorcycle club was founded on May 8, 1938. The club was re-established May 2, 1946 after World War II. On July 28, 1949 the Leszno motorcycle club changed its name to Unia Leszno Speedway Club; when the name was changed, some rules and regulations were changed as well. The Unia Leszno has been a successful club that has won many awards and medals throughout the years; the Unia Leszno Speedway Club has won over 78 different medals since the formation of the club. Leszno Aero ClubThe Leszno Aero Club is the largest airfield in the Wielkopolska area; the Aero Club belongs to the Polish Aero Club central gliding school. The Aero CLub in Leszno hosted the world gliding championship in 1958, 1969, 2003, it is the only place. The Aero Club has a pilot school called the Central Gliding school; the school has been around for over 50 years. KS Polonia LesznoThe Klub Sportowy Polonia Leszno was formed in 1912 in Leszno.
It is an indoor soccer field. The first President of the club was Marcin Giera; the club did not gain much popularity until after World War II when official teams started playing there. Prior to World War I most of the people that played there were locals. Muzeum OkregoweThe Muzeum Okregowe in Leszno was founded in 1949, it opened on January 1, 1950. It is known to be own of the oldest museums in the Wielkopolska area of Poland; the museum displays Leszno's culture from the past 50 years. It specializes in artifacts from the 17th century. Throughout the years, things from the museum were moved to different museums around Poland. In early 1963 the artifacts were and permanently placed in an old pastors home; the building is located on No. 17 Metzig Square. Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 1 Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 2 Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 3 Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 4 Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 5 Zespół Szkół Specjalnych Nr 6 Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 7 Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 8 Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 9 Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 10 Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 12 Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 13 Liceum Ogólnokształcące Nr 1 Liceum Ogólnokształcące Nr 2 Liceum Ogólnokształcące Nr 3 Liceum Ogólnokształcące Nr 4 Prywatne Liceum Ogólnokształcące Pierwsze Prywatne Liceum Ogólnokształcące w Lesznie Zespół Szkół Rolniczo-Budowlanych im.
Synów Pułku Zespół Szkół
Gmina
The gmina is the principal unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a municipality. As of 2010 there were 2,478 gminy throughout the country; the word gmina derives from the German word Gemeinde, meaning "community". The gmina has been the basic unit of territorial division in Poland since 1974, when it replaced the smaller gromada. There are three types of gminy: urban gmina consisting of just one city or town, mixed urban-rural gmina consisting of a town and surrounding villages and countryside; some rural gminy have their seat in a town, outside the gmina's division. For example, the rural Gmina Augustów is administered from the town of Augustów, but does not include the town, as Augustów is an urban type gmina in its own right; the legislative and controlling body of each gmina is the elected municipal council, or in a town: rada miasta. Executive power is held by the directly elected mayor of the municipality, called wójt in rural gminy, burmistrz in most urban and urban-rural gminy, or prezydent in towns with more than 400,000 inhabitants and some others which traditionally use the title.
A gmina may create auxiliary units. In rural areas these are called sołectwa, in towns they may be dzielnice or osiedla and in an urban-rural gmina, the town itself may be designated as an auxiliary unit. For a complete listing of all the gminy in Poland, see List of Polish gminas; each gmina carries out two types of tasks: commissioned ones. Own tasks are public tasks exercised by self-government, which serve to satisfy the needs of the community; the tasks can be twofold: compulsory – where the municipality cannot decline to carry out the tasks, must set up a budget to carry them out in order to provide the inhabitants with the basic public benefits optional – where the municipality can carry them out in accordance with available budgetary means, set out only to specific local needs. Own high objectives include matters such as spatial harmony, real estate management, environmental protection and nature conservation, water management, country roads, public streets, bridges and traffic systems, water supply systems and source, the sewage system, removal of urban waste, water treatment, maintenance of cleanliness and order, sanitary facilities and council waste, supply of electric and thermal energy and gas, public transport, health care, care homes, subsidised housing, public education, cultural facilities including public libraries and other cultural institutions, historic monuments conservation and protection, the sports facilities and tourism including recreational grounds and devices and covered markets, green spaces and public parks, communal graveyards, public order and safety and flood protection with equipment maintenance and storage, maintaining objects and devices of the public utility and administrative buildings, pro-family policy including social support for pregnant women and legal care and popularising the self-government initiatives and cooperation within the commune including with non-governmental organizations, interaction with regional communities from other countries, etc.
Commissioned tasks cover the remaining public tasks resulting from legitimate needs of the state, commissioned by central government for the units of local government to implement. The tasks are handed over on the basis of statutory by-laws and regulations, or by way of agreements between the self-government units and central-government administration. Abbreviations used for voivodeships:LS: Lower Silesian Voivodeship, KP: Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, LBL: Lublin Voivodeship, LBS: Lubusz Voivodeship, ŁD: Łódź Voivodeship, LP: Lesser Poland Voivodeship, MS: Masovian Voivodeship, OP: Opole Voivodeship, SK: Subcarpathian Voivodeship, PD: Podlaskie Voivodeship, PM: Pomeranian Voivodeship, SL: Silesian Voivodeship, ŚWK: Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, WM: Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, GP: Greater Poland Voivodeship, WP: West Pomeranian Voivodeship. Official report from the Central Statistical Office of Poland dated January 1, 2006
Poland
Greater Poland
