Send Gift Baskets to Piekary Slaskie, Poland

A commune called Szarlej-Wielkie Piekary was created in 1934 by merging Szarlej and Wielkie Piekary communes in interwar Poland. Afterward, it took the name Piekary Polskie.

According to one legend, Piekary was founded in the late 10th century, and according to another, it was founded in 1041 by Polish ruler Casimir I the Restorer. Since the establishment of the Polish state in the 10th century, the area has been a part of Poland. The settlement was mentioned in a document from 1277 by the bishop of Kraków Pawe of Przemankowo under the Latinized name Pecare. Originating from Poland, the name is of Polish origin. It’s named after the Polish word piekarz (meaning “baker”), which might refer to bakers baking bread here for the nearby city of Bytom, or pieczara (meaning “cavern”), as caverns were supposedly created hereafter ore was exploited.

Due to the 12th-century fragmentation of Poland, it was part of various Piast-ruled duchies, the last being the Duchy of Opole until 1526. During 1303-1318, the first independent parish and church were built there. The zinc and lead mining industry developed in the 15th century, and settlement evolution began.

Piekary came under the suzerainty of the Habsburg monarchy in 1526. Piekary was visited by Polish King John III Sobieski in 1683 during the Ottoman invasion of Vienna. Several peasant revolts took place against the German magnates in the following years. The newly elected King of Poland, Augustus II the Strong, stopped in Piekary before his coronation in Kraków in 1697. The local parish priest converted him to Catholicism, and he also swore to the pasta convent. His son, Augustus III of Poland, certified the pasta convent here as he headed for his royal coronation in January 1734.

Were they following Prussia’s annexation of Piekary? skie in 1742, the settlement was colonized and Germanized. As a result, a strong movement was initiated to maintain the land’s Polish heritage. Piekary’s rector, priest Jan Alojzy Ficek, commissioned Daniel Grötschel to design a new neo-Romanesque basilica for St. Mary and St. Bartholomew in 1842. It was decorated with a painting of the Virgin Mary. Teodor Heneczek founded the Polish printing house Teodor Heneczek in the mid-19th century. During the late 19th century, Polish singing and gymnastic societies, reading rooms, and the first patriotic organizations were founded. As early as 1905, the Polish Gymnastics Society “Sokó” was founded in Piekary. It was possible to communicate by tram starting in 1894.