Greetings from Tarnów: From Factory Town to Humanopolis

A Galician city

At the beginning, there was a village, but following a royal decree, the Kraków voivode of Spycimir (with the Leliwa coat of arms) made it a city. From then on, Tarnów was a private city, held by the Tarnowski, Ostrogski, Zasławski and Sanguszko families – but it also belonged to emperors and kings. Its castle ruins, city hall, basilica and renaissance tenement houses are great reminders of its long history.

In time, Tarnów amassed everything a Galician city needed: a railway station, art-deco architecture, Vienna-style cafés and a statue of Adam Mickiewicz, which became the site of patriotic celebrations. In fact, Tarnów was not just any ordinary city, because it was a metropolis for Galician standards – the third biggest settlement of the region, after Lwów (today’s Lviv) and Kraków. But ascribing a metropolitan character to Tarnów might be an overstatement, given that, as Karol Estreicher put it:

Galician cities have always been lethargic and languid, devoid of light and any desire for noble diversions. They have been and always will be so. The tiniest town of Congress Poland is much greater than Przemyśl, Rzeszów, Tarnów, Jasło or Sącz – cities covered under a cloud of ignorance.

Martin Pollack’s Po Galicji (After Galicia) is written in a similar tone:

Karl Ludwig’s railway went from Kraków through Tarnów, Przemyśl, Lwów and Tarnopol to the East, where it reached the Podwołoczyska customs station at the Russian border. […] After around 70 km, the train reached the county capital of Tarnów. Located at the right bank of the Biała river, it was the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop and a railway junction. […] Tarnów was a place not worthy of a visit.

Full article: https://culture.pl/en/article/greetings-from-tarnow-from-factory-town-to-humanopolis