Nowa Huta
Nowa Huta (literally The New Steel Mill) - is the easternmost district of Kraków. With more than 200,000 inhabitants it is one of the most populous areas of the city.
History
Following the establishing of the People's Republic of Poland, the Communist authorities had encountered substantial resistance to their regime from middle-class Cracovians. A referendum held by the authorities was soundly defeated by the people of Kraków - a major cause of embarrassment for the Government. To "correct the class imbalance", the authorities commenced building a satellite industrial town to attract people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to the region, such as peasants and the working class.
Nowa Huta was started in 1949 as a separate town near Kraków on terrain resumed by the Communist Government from former villages of Mogiła, Pleszów and Krzesławice. It was planned as a huge centre of heavy industry. The town was to become an ideal town for the communist propaganda and populated mostly by industrial workers. In 1951 it was joined with Kraków as its new district and the following year tramway communication was started.
On July 22, 1954 the Lenin Steel Works were opened and in less than 20 years the factory became the biggest steel mill in Poland. In the 1960s the city grew rapidly. The monumental architecture of the Central Square (Plac Centralny) was surrounded by huge blocks of flats. In the 1970s the steel production reached 7 millions tonnes of steel yearly. At the same time the biggest tobacco factory in Poland was opened there and a huge cement factory.
The reasons for building such an industrial town near Kraków were mostly ideological and were against laws of economy (both the coal and iron ore had to be transported from Silesia, and the products were shipped to other parts of Poland since local demand was relatively small). This became visible in the 1980s, when the economical crisis halted the city's growth. However, the remaining industry is a constant threat both to historical monuments of the Kraków old town and to city's inhabitants.
Currently this monumental socrealist centre is considered a monument of architecture.
One type of building lacking from the urban design of Nowa Huta was a church. A campaign to establish one grew after the election of the Polish cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II and the subsequent rise of Solidarity, which made this issue a significant focus of its activities. As a result of such campaign, the town was brought to world attention.
The Andrzej Wajda film, Man of Marble (Polish Człowiek z marmuru), is based in Nowa Huta and chronicles the life of a bricklayer who help build the new model atheist socialist city. Man of Marble, made in the mid 1970s, presaged the Solidarity labor union movement in Gdańsk that was ultimately responsible for overthrowing Communism, as the film that starts with Nowa Huta ends in Gdańsk.
The October Revolution and the changes that followed sparked all manner of Russian avant-garde artists. They declared their participation in consolidating and creating the new reality. The artist, as well as the destitute and the worker, was to become an architect of the new system. Avant-garde art was meant to reflect radical socio-political changes; to influence development of aesthetical preference of the society. However, the followers of more traditional artistic activities strongly rejected avant-garde art as unacceptable and obscure for the masses. If it was too experimental, it would not be able to reach an average consumer. A return to realism was suggested, depicting all the problems and issues connected with the creation of a new system in the most realistic and literal way. This was an example of socialist content. The concept of national forming on the contrary implied a more individualized way of expressing socialist content for each particular nation. It also meant finding the style that was characteristic for the tradition of a particular country to use as a carrier of new ideas. In 1934, socialist realism became the official, correct trend in the art of the Soviet Union.
The doctrine of socialist realism in Poland, as in other countries of the People's Republics, was enforced from 1949 to 1956. It involved all domains of art, but its most spectacular achievements were made in the field of architecture. The main lines of this new trend were very precisely indicated in a 1949 resolution of the National Council of Party Architects. Architecture was an extremely important weapon to the creators of a new social order. It was intended to help to form a socialist theme - the ideas sparking citizens' consciousness and outlook on life. During this great work, a crucial role fell to an architect who wasn't perceived as merely an engineer creating streets and edifices, but an "engineer of the human soul". The general outlook of a building was more valued than its simple aesthetics. It needed to express social ideas, to arouse a feeling of persistence and power.
Since the Renaissance style was generally regarded as the style most characteristic of Polish architecture, it was to become Poland's socialist national format. However, in the course of incorporating the principles of socialist realism, there were quite a few deviations introduced. One of these was to more closely reflect Soviet architecture, which resulted in the majority of works blending into one another; and finally the general acceptance of the classicist form. From 1953, critical opinions were increasingly frequently heard, and the doctrine was finally given up in 1956.
Nowa Huta Today
Since the fall of Communism the city that was once a showpiece for Stalinism now boasts many tributes to ardent anti-communists. Streets formerly named after Lenin and the Cuban Revolution have been renamed to honor Pope John Paul II and exile leader Władysław Anders. In 2004 Plac Centralny, Nowa Huta's central square which once was home to a giant statue of Lenin, was renamed Ronald Reagan Central Square (Plac Centralny im. Ronalda Reagana) in honor of the former U.S. President [1][2]
Landmarks
- Wanda Mound (8th century)
- Cistercian abbey (1225)
- Jan Matejko manor in Krzesławice
- Branice manor
- St. Wacław's Church (1226)
- St. Bartholomew Church (1466)
- Tadeusz Sendzimir Steel Mill (formerly Lenin Steel Works)
- Plac Centralny and Aleja Róż architecture
- Arka Pana (the Ark of the Lord) church in Bieńczyce
Industry
- Mittal Steel (Tadeusz Sendzimir Steel Mill) (Template:Lang-pl)
- Kraków Power Station (Template:Lang-pl)
- Philip Morris Cigarettes Co.
- ComArch, an international software house
See also
External links
- Satellite photo of the steelworks via Google Maps
- Nowa Huta Tourist Route
- http://nh.pl/english/
- http://www.nowahuta.org.pl/
