On its way from the Upper Square to Demel Square, the tram ran along today’s Szersznika Street. On the right, the tram passed the baroque Church of the Holy Cross. The enigmatic name “Demel Square” designated a well-known place i.e. Cieszyn’s Town Square. By giving this name to it, the local councillors honoured the long-standing mayor Jan (Johann) Demel (1825–1892). The Town Square has been on this site since the 14th century. Before that, the present-day Old Market served this function.
Similarly as the entire town, it owes its present appearance partly to the great fire of 1789, which destroyed most of Cieszyn. The few surviving tenement houses, previously in Renaissance or Baroque styles, acquired Rococo and Classicist elements. When constructing new buildings, inspiration was often drawn from Vienna – and services of Viennese architects were resorted to as well. The St. Florian’s Well in Cieszyn’s Town Square remembers the times before the great fire. The statue of this Saint dates from 1777 and is the work of sculptor Wacław Donay. The Konczakowski family’s tenement house (19 Town Square) with its Renaissance-Baroque inner courtyard also partially survived. In the past, it was owned by
Bruno Konczakowski (1881–1959), a military collector whose collections became the basis for the creation of the Wawel armoury. Among the buildings on the Town Square, the Hotel “Pod Brunatnym Jeleniem” (“Under the Brown Deer”) immediately caught the eye. From the half of the 18th century, numerous important people were its guests: Emperor Joseph II, French royal Maria Theresa (daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette), Tsar Paul I, Tsar Alexander I, the notorious Grand Duke Konstantin, Emperor Ferdinand I... Over time, it deteriorated, but was subsequently renovated and ceremonially reopened in 1912. It looked as if it had been directly imported from the Austrian capital. It had three floors, 67 hotel rooms, central heating, fridges, a lift, electric lighting, a ground floor café, a restaurant, a ballroom, a concert hall, a bowling alley, a hair salon, and a beauty salon. During the First World War, German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Bulgarian King Ferdinand I stayed at the hotel.
The building that currently houses the Cieszyn Cultural Centre (the National House) was also once a hotel. The destroyed building was bought by local Poles, who wanted to provide a seat for Polish associations that had had serious housing problems. The Polish House in Cieszyn was opened in 1901. When mentioning this initiative, it is expedient to explain the historical context. In the middle of the 19th century, Polish was the predominant language in Cieszyn, albeit in a dialect version, but this applied to all languages – German and Czech, too. This began to change mainly for two reasons. The first was the influx of German officials and intelligentsia from other parts of the Austrian monarchy; and the second was that the locals became increasingly Germanised, treating the transition to the world of German culture as a sign of a kind of civilisational advancement.
However, the majority of local Poles believed that since they had lived in Cieszyn and the Cieszyn Duchy for generations and were full-fledged citizens of the Austrian monarchy, they should have equal rights in terms of language. In the contemporary debate, they are quite often contrasted with supposedly “true Silesians” who felt closer affiliation to German culture. Actually, both were Silesians of the Cieszyn region, except that one group emphasized attachment to their native language, while the others absolutised the differences separating the Polish-speaking inhabitants of the Cieszyn Duchy and Poles from other areas, especially from poor and in many respects backward Galicia. Most of the inhabitants of the Cieszyn Duchy supported the Polish national movement. In Cieszyn itself, however, the German liberals were usually the majority. An exceptional manifestation of the political views of the region’s inhabitants was the rally organised on 27th October 1918 in Cieszyn’s Town Square, where tens of thousands of people solemnly proclaimed that the region belonged to the reborn Poland. Moreover, Cieszyn was the seat of the National Council of the Cieszyn Duchy, established on 19th October 1918. The council seized power after a bloodless coup on the night of 31st October/1st November, ten days before the symbolic date of Poland’s independence. Today, the building of the Polish House houses the Cieszyn Cultural Centre i.e. the National House (12 Town Square), where there are, among others, Galeria 12 and the Polish Folklore Centre of Cieszyn Silesia.
Not far from the market is the Museum of Cieszyn Silesia (6 Regera Street), the oldest public museum on currently Polish territory (founded in 1802). Next to it, there is the charming Peace Park, named after the armistice signed in Cieszyn in 1779, which ended the Bavarian Succession War fought by Austria and Prussia. In the park, you can see a monument to Father Leopold Szersznik (1747–1814), the founder of the museum and the most prominent figure of Cieszyn in the Age of Enlightenment.
author: Michael Morys-Twarowski
