Archaeological evidence indicates that Rzeszów, before receiving the Localisation Act, used to be a large settlement centred on what is today called the Old Town (Antiqua Reschow). The first recorded reference to the city is dated 1354, when Rzeszów received its town law. The Polish King, Casimir the Great, presented the town to the knight and diplomat Jan Pakosławic, who in gratitude changed his name to Rzeszowski. In accordance with his wishes, the town was moved to today's Old Market location. The Rzeszowski family governed the town until 1583.
In 1363 there was already a parish church in Rzeszów and in 1406 the parish school was opened. At the beginning of the 15th century the town was destroyed by fire. The rebuilt town received a number of privileges such as permission to sell beer, wine and salt, an agreement to run market stalls, as well as the power to levy customs duties and transport tolls. The revised layout of the town paid particular attention to communications with other cities such as Kraków, Lvov, Dukla and Sandomierz. It was also relocated to the banks of the Wislok River and as a result growth was dramatic. In 1430 Rzeszów received permission to create a cattle trail, from Russia through Kraków to the Netherlands. In 1589 the Parliament (known as the Warsaw Parliament) classified the Wislok River as navigable. This resulted in the opening of new trade routes to Gdansk, using the San and Vistula rivers.
In the 16th century the town possessed a well developed administrative structure, which included a court and town council (since 1633 renamed a municipality), with the leader called a mayor. The Rzeszowian merchants developed highly profitable trade contacts with Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław as well as Lithuania, Moldavia, and Hungary. The townsmen prospered and craftsmanship flourished under a guild system. Although Rzeszów was caught up in the fires, wars and assaults of the Wolochs and Tartars – the town was able to survive and grow.
The period of greatest prosperity for the town was the last 25 years of the 16th century and the first 40 years of the 17th century when it became an important centre of trade and craftsmanship. This "golden period" of Rzeszowian history is directly linked with the authority of one man – Mikołaj Spytko Ligęza. He developed and fortified Rzeszów in a contemporary manner. He funded the purchase of church ceremonial objects and contributed to the construction of new municipal buildings. In 1591 he built the Town Hall and in 1600 he started to construct an impressive castle. He followed this by surrounding the town with a defensive embankment (1627). Between 1624 and 1629 he founded the fortified Bernadine monastery where, in the church, the Ligęza family mausoleum was built. Records, dated from the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries, which name some of the goldsmiths working in the town, confirm the prosperity of Rzeszów. Among them was an exceptional craftsman, Wawrzyniec Kasprowicz.
In 1638 Rzeszów together with its surrounding estates became the property of the Lubomirski family. Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski - a descendent of the rich noble family – was an educated person, a politician and a talented military leader. In 1658 he established the famous Piarist College, which was one of the few secondary schools in Poland. Among its lecturers was the famous priest, Stanisław Konarski. Over the centuries many famous Poles graduated from the school including; Ignacy Łukasiewicz, Władysław Sikorski, Władysław Szafer and Julian Przybos.
At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries the town had developed far beyond its established Middle Ages borders. War, a tragic fire in 1681 and the unfortunate politics of the Lubomirski family however swiftly impacted upon the town’s prosperity.
The Lubomirski family gained significant benefits from the trade of corn and, at the same time, tried to limit the liberty of the townspeople, craft workers and merchants. Rzeszów was gaining as a centre of nobility, but was losing its importance in trade and economic circles.
During the period of the Barska Confederation, on August 13th, 1769 – in the region of the current district of Pobitno – a battle between Confederation and Russian units took place. After the battle the corpses of the dead were buried and above the Polish grave a mound was built in order to commemorate the campaign. The fall of the town was speeded by the conquest of Małopolska by the Austrian army. A year later Rzeszów was the headquarters of an administrative centre called – The Circle. In the Lubomirski palace, the Austrian authorities established a court and prison.
With its 3,300 inhabitants Rzeszów, together with the extensive territory of Małopolska (called Galicia by the conquerors) became, for 146 years part of the Habsburg Empire. Its location at the periphery of the Austrian Empire and the proximity of the Russian Tsar created a sphere of potential conflict between the two empires, (and also an area of high investment risk) resulting in an outflow of local capital. Rzeszów as a town centre was losing more and more of its importance.
A refreshing shift in the development of the town appeared towards the end of the first half of the 19th century. In 1844 Rzeszów purchased "Town Law" from Prince Jerzy Lubomirski, and one year later Rzeszów became a free town.
Significant gains in political and economic liberty by Galicia under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy further aided the restoration of Rzeszów. In 1858 the railway came to the town and in 1863 was extended to Lvov. In 1848 serfdom in Galicia was abolished. This meant a free market in agriculture and also competition for jobs in the surrounding countryside resulting in high levels of unemployment. In order to survive, the inhabitants of over populated poor Galician villages emigrated to America, Germany and France and also moved to nearby towns.
In 1910 Rzeszów had 23,000 inhabitants, half of whom were Jewish. The small town was transformed into a capitalistic town centre. In 1889 telephones appeared followed in 1900 by the gasworks and gas street lamps. Eleven years later a power plant was opened and work on the water supply network was started.
In the years preceding the outbreak of World War One, Rzeszów gained a new function as an industrial fortress. At this time, the northern border of the Austro-Hungarian Empire saw intense development of its military infrastructure. It meant, for Rzeszów a significant supply of capital from Imperial sources. The mayor Stanisław Jabłónski, who held office for 17 years, used this period of boom in the market for the benefit of Rzeszów. During his tenure several buildings were completed (barracks, school, the reconstruction of the Town Hall) the town infrastructure was improved with electric lighting, gas, a new water supply system and pavements.
The approaching demise of the Austrian monarchy encouraged thoughts of independence among local people. In 1918, a Polish military organisation was established, whose Commanding Officer, Leopold Lis Kula, later became the hero of battles for an independent Poland.
The best recorded years in the history of Rzeszów were 1937 – 1939, during the time of the Second Republic of Poland. The structure of the government programme for the development of the defence sector meant that the centre of the special industrial district was established in middle Małopolska. A State owned aircraft production plant was located in Rzeszów, which still produces aircraft engines today together with a branch of the Poznan firm H. Cegielskiego, which formerly produced anti-aircraft guns. This resulted in an investment boom in Rzeszów, which assured the inhabitants jobs. At this time Rzeszów also gained a sewage system.
Between World War One and World War Two a large garrison, which included the Tenth Tank and Motor Brigade led by General Stanisław Maczek was stationed in Rzeszów.
During the Second World War, Rzeszów was partly destroyed. Monuments, tenements and industrial property were reduced to rubble. The occupying forces murdered a large number of local people and almost totally exterminated the local Jewish community.
In 1944 after the liberation from German Occupation, Rzeszów was nominated as the capital of the Rzeszów province and the administrative cultural centre for southeast Poland. This determined the path of city development. In 1952, the city grew in size by a factor of four as a result of combining with its neighbouring areas. Between 1950 and 1960 modernisation of the city centre took place. New houses and public service offices were built, e.g. the local government offices and then the provincial committee building of PZPR (Polish United Labour Party), the market hall, cinema "Zorza", the department store "Dom Handlowy" and a delicatessen. The building of suburban centres in the area of Hetmanska Street, (the first Rzeszów tower block 1960 – 63) and Dabrowskiego Street commenced. In the following years more new suburban areas were developed: Piastów (1960-65), Baranówka (1962-71), Tysiaclecia (1963-75), and Pułaskiego (1973 – 75) and in 1969 construction began on a new city centre (Nowe Miasto)
A system of communication was developed as well.
After the Second World War Rzeszów became the most important academic centre in southeast Poland. In 1963 two schools of higher education were opened – the teachers training college and the higher engineers school which, in 1974, was renamed Ignacy Łukasiewicz Rzeszów Polytechnic. The Rzeszów Polytechnic has the only aeronautical training civilian faculty in the country.
Currently there are seven colleges serving approximately 50,000 students. In 1993 city authorities together with people, who appreciate the importance of higher education, established a Foundation for the development of an academic centre in the city. Its aim is to establish a university in Rzeszów.
The foundation of economic development of the city was intense industrialisation. Building on the remnants of industry destroyed by the German Army, the Cegielski branch factory, from 1948 onwards has been producing domestic electrical goods under the name "Predom Zelmer". In the sixties and seventies a number of new industrial plants were built, among them a meat processing plant, the fruit and vegetable processing plant "Alima", the "Printing Plant", a pharmaceutical enterprise "Polfa", an automotive plant, an optical enterprise "Optores", a silversmiths "Resovia-Silver", and an industrial clothing factory.
The process of industrialisation was accompanied by the intensive urbanisation of Rzeszów. During this period two of the largest housing developments in the city appeared – Baranówka and Nowe Miasto. In the eighties they were joined by the Krakowska – Południe estate. Simultaneously semi-detached family dwellings were constructed at Zimowit and Biała centres.
Through the centuries an inseparable element of "the castle by the side of the Wisłok River" was its Jewish people, with their customs, culture and religion. During the Second World War this community, numbering some several thousand people was, almost completely wiped out and its material property destroyed. Today only a few remnants of Jewish culture remain visible in the form of the two synagogues, the old "kirkut " - Jewish Cemetery and the names of several streets. In order to remember the tragic events of over 50 years ago, the city council in its first term of office in 1999, renamed one of the city squares linked with the suffering of the Jewish community "The Square of the Ghetto Victims".
In 1991 Pope John Paul II visited Rzeszów. During the celebrations in which nearly 1,000,000 people participated the Pope beatified Bishop Józef Sebastian Pelczar, an elector of Przemysl Diocese. The Bishop, who died in 1924, was a founder of the Sacred Heart of Jesus convent.
Further recognition of the importance of the city came on March 25th, 1992 when Pope John Paul II, established the new Diocese of Rzeszów. The city became its administrative centre and "The Sacred Heart of Jesus" church was elevated to the level of a cathedral. The first bishop of the new diocese, appointed by the Pope was Kazimierz Górny. The auxiliary bishop is Edward Białogłowski. From December 1997 the city possesses a bugle call, which sounds from the city hall every three hours.
Today Rzeszów is the largest urban area among the cities in southeast Poland, an unquestioned trade and economic centre, the largest academic and cultural centre, the capital of Podkarpackie and the headquarters of the Diocesian authorities.
source www.rzeszow.pl