EARTH, WIND & FIRE
Cataclysms That Afflicted the Town

Floods, earthquakes, sieges, invasions, occupations, wars, plagues, storms, and fires; all have struck Krakow at one time or another throughout the city’s long history.  Join me now for an account of a few of the more dramatic events.

FIRES

It could easily be said that fires used to be a calamity as much feared as they were imminent at the times when thatched roofs, bay windows, and lack of running water were commonplace. With mostly wooden houses, tightly squeezed within a small area for defense reasons, and insufficient preventive measures on the part of the municipal authorities, even a tiny fire was a potential catastrophe for the whole community.

As soon as written records documenting the history of Krakow appear, so do entries about fires. Each century records from one (12th c) to eight (16th c) major fires ravaging the town. The most disastrous one broke out on a hot summer day in 1850. July 18 of that year has written itself forever not only into the town chronicles and the lives of contemporary inhabitants of Krakow, but into architecture and art as well, along with marking the establishment of a certain important institution: the municipal fire brigade. 

It wasn’t long past noon when a guard on the watchtower of St. Mary’s Church spotted tongues of flames leaping into the air from the west side of the main market square. He rang the bell – a well-known and much feared fire alarm. The sound of the bell was soon overwhelmed by the beating of alarm drums. The normal everyday routine was suddenly broken, and the inhabitants of the city rushed in the direction which by that time was clearly marked by a cloud of black smoke. They didn’t know then that the worst fire in the city’s history had just begun.

Far back in the history of Krakow (1374) it was ordained that any person running away from town upon spotting a fire, instead of announcing it, should be banished. Active participation in putting out fires was every citizen’s duty. Municipal authorities offered a monetary award for the first person who arrived at the scene of a fire with a barrel of water. There was no public fire service in the 14th century, and despite so many deadly fires in the intervening years, there was still no fire service in 1850 either. Shortly after this fire, however, a voluntary, and then a fully professional fire brigade was established. On July 18, 1850, with only 5 people trained in how to use hoses, and with no running water, the chances of putting the fire out before it reached the densely built-up area of the main market square, and the streets leading to and from it were practically nil. Especially on a hot day like this, with a strong western wind and in the face of a really unfortunate coincidence… 

The fire started in one of the mills downtown in a street called Dolnych Młynów (now Krupnicza). [MAP] It quickly spread to the neighboring buildings. Misfortune had it that in one of them, nuts had been laid out to dry in the attic. When these caught fire, they puffed up like popcorn, and, propelled by the wind, behaved like remotely controlled incendiary bombs, attacking the town center. There, as they landed on the roofs, most of which were wooden, the fire began to rage out of control. Gołębia Street was hit first. Despite the best efforts of the street’s inhabitants, along with assistance from a group of soldiers, the fire could not be contained. One of the few successes in fighting the fire was at the University. There about 150 students defended the Collegium Maius, the building which at that time housed the priceless Jagiellonian University book collection. That battle was won, the fact of the building having a tiled roof being highly relevant to this success.

But elsewhere, the fire would not give in so easily. Soon, a house called “Under the Rabbit” in the neighboring Wiślna Street started burning. Suffering a much worse fate than the library, the University printing house was nearly a total loss. Before long, two churches just a three-minute-walk from each other, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, along with their monasteries, were ablaze. It took the flames only about ten minutes more to spread to the nearby roof of the Bishops’ Palace. Amidst unbearable heat and smoke, to the accompaniment of cracking walls and falling roofs, the inhabitants barely had time to run for their lives to the nearby park area of the Planty Gardens. 

The fire kept spreading relentlessly. Within two hours it swept through eight more streets and spread into the main and lesser market squares. The University buildings which had tiled roofs, had constituted a certain barrier to the flames. In several instances, the people ripped down the wooden roofs of other buildings which ultimately proved an effective measure for stopping the flames which tended to leap from one roof to another. With continued winds from the north and west, the fire did not spread in the direction of the eastern wing of the Main Market Square around St. Mary’s Church. But Sienna and Stolarska Streets were not so lucky. The houses on Stolarska Street burned as did the whole southern side of the lesser market square, and the northerly winds turned the fire in the direction of Grodzka Street.

To fight the fire, the town had 3 hoses. The rudimentary waterworks system had worked well in the Middle Ages, but by 1850 it was no longer functioning. It was only thanks to the heroic efforts of the inhabitants of Krakow, who fought the fire despite flame, smoke, and scorching wind, that it was finally brought under control and put out. In addition, the people were forced to continue the fight for days to come, as isolated fires rekindled in many places from the smoldering embers. In all, the fire destroyed over 150 buildings, and it took the city years to recover completely. 

Nevertheless, there was also a constructive result from the great fire of 1850. Shortly afterwards, municipal authorities established first a voluntary, and then a fully professional fire service with a force of 100 men. In the Fire Act of 1855, we find detailed procedures on how the sentry (who was now also a firefighter) up on the watchtower should announce a fire: “He shall ring a bell installed for the purpose on the tower to notify the Fire Brigade and announce the exact spot of the fire through a loudspeaker, which is to be stored in the tower at all times. Then, the sentry shall ring the bell again to indicate in which quarter (at that time Krakow was divided into four sections) the fire has been spotted: once for the first quarter, twice for the second, thrice for the third and four times for the fourth. If the fire is spotted in a nearby village, the guard will ring five times. In daytime the guard will fly a banner and at night a lantern, which shall be pointed in the direction of the fire.” The Act also stipulated that all public officials who are at the location of the fire should wear a blue and white ribbon on their headgear to identify themselves as authoritative personnel. 

The enormous destruction of artworks that had been kept in the burned churches, monasteries, and the Bishops’ Palace was replaced by new works by renowned 19th century artists including Stanisław Wyspiański and Józef Mehoffer. However, the project of redecoration  took many years to fulfill, and the original works remain lost to the world forever.

FIRES ON WAWEL HILL

A separate chapter of the fires in Krakow are the ones that affected Wawel Hill. Most of them occurred in the royal castle, but in the first recorded fire, in 1025, it was the pre-Romanesque cathedral erected by Boleslaus the Brave that burned. A few fires in the castle in the 16th  century had a great impact on its architectural shape. Indeed, the first of these, in 1500, became an incentive to have the castle rebuilt in Renaissance style. Not unlike today, carelessness was the main cause of fires at that time, whether due to the carelessness of cooks preparing kings’ meals, or the carelessness of the latter, who, engrossed in the studies of alchemy – the craze of the times – carried out risky experiments. 

A number of notorious fires that broke out in later times were caused by entirely different factors. Swedish troops under Charles XII besieged and conquered Krakow in 1702 and housed themselves in Wawel castle. They looted what was still left there after the previous Swedish invasion of 1655. In addition, in an act of a rare ignorance, they lit a fire on the floor of one of the castle’s rooms. In this way on September 15, 1702 the worst fire that had ever broken out in the castle started and completely destroyed the former abode of Poland’s kings. For an entire week heartbroken inhabitants of Krakow watched helplessly as black smoke billowed from the hill. Their nation’s most priceless treasure was perishing before their eyes. Swedish soldiers prohibited anybody from entering the hill, let alone those who would have liked to help put out the fire. The castle’s solid construction of thick wooden roof joints now became its own enemy as they provided excellent fuel to feed the relentless flames. 

To finish the story of major fires in Krakow, let us mention one that was more amusing than destructive. It was one July evening in 1910 shortly after a thunderstorm. People who were in the Main Market Square noticed – to their horror – a flash of light 81 meters above their heads, at the very top of the St. Mary’s watchtower. It was immediately recognized as the flame of a fire. The watchtower was undergoing renovation at the time and there was a wooden scaffold around it, which increased its combustibility. The Fire Brigade was immediately alerted. It took them two minutes to arrive at the foot of the tower, which – even though the Fire Brigade headquarters is very close – is still a respectable time. A group of firefighters with a fire hose rushed up the tower, climbing the scaffolding instead of the staircase. The other end of the hose was affixed to a hydrant near St. Mary’s. The action was quick. Within minutes the light at the top of the watchtower went out. The crowd that had gathered in the Square to watch, sighed with relief.

FLOODS

Of more than 80 major floods that have afflicted Krakow over the centuries, the one of 1813 was the heaviest, though the record year for multiple floods was 1597, when the town was flooded 7 times. The main culprit has always been the same: the Vistula, sometimes with its tributaries the Rudawa, the Wilga, the Dłubnia, and the Białucha. With the exception of the Białucha, they are all controlled today. After a severe flood in 1813, a system of levees was built. The embankments of the Vistula have four flood gates along Kościuszki Street. A new storage reservoir in Świnna Poręba is under construction and the so called Krakow Canal that will greatly diminish the danger of flooding is planned. On a few buildings in town we can still see plaques delineating the record highpoints that floodwaters reached in various floods, e.g. in Na Groblach Square, at 27 Piłsudskiego Street and on the wall of the Bernardine gardens on Koletek Street.

WARS & SIEGES

Wars are perhaps the worst catastrophes that can befall any human community. Unlike natural disasters they do not simply happen; they are brought about by man. The destruction they cause is usually avoidable and indeed pointless. And yet the damage caused by sieges, occupations, and other military interventions by far outweighs all natural disasters put together. Including loss of life, the deliberate destruction of homes and public facilities, war reparations and indemnifications, arson, looting, rape, pillage, and murder, the devastation of war outweighs all other destructive phenomena.

Had it not been for the Swedish wars in the 17th and 18th centuries, Krakow might be a dramatically different city today, politically, economically, and artistically. Though Swedish tourists are very much liked and welcome in Krakow nowadays, there is no denying that relations between the two nations in the period mentioned above were not the friendliest. The first siege of Krakow by Swedish troops lasted from September 26 to October 18, 1655. Krakow ultimately surrendered and Swedish troops along with their Transylvanian allies occupied the city until August 23, 1657. Occupation indemnifications that Krakow burghers were forced to pay to support the occupying troops amounted to two and a half million kilograms of corn, and the castle and the Cathedral were looted. During this time a silver coffin weighing 200 kilograms which held the relics of St. Stanislaus, was stolen and recast. Funded by King Sigismund III it had served its purpose for just 24 years. 

If the first Swedish occupation impoverished the town and its dwellers, the second left it completely devastated. The army of Charles XII marched into town in August 1702 encountering no resistance. During the Northern War, which lasted from 1702 to 1709, Swedish forces left and returned to Krakow several times. Russian troops and the troops of Augustus II of Saxony marched through the town as well, adding to the financial loss, which at the end of the war totaled 1,500,000 zloty (800,000 for the Swedes, 162,000 for the Russians, and 496,000 for the Polish and Saxon troops). Abandoned by the royal court,  which moved to Warsaw at the close of the 17th century, Krakow lost its primacy and luster, and was never to return to its former glory and opulence as the capital of Poland. 

The Swedish wars were obviously not the first to take place in Krakow. The 13th century witnessed three invasions by the Tatars. These invasions led to extensive defense initiatives, the most important of which was the construction of a uniform fortification system of ramparts and stockades on Wawel Hill. It was also in the 13th century that Prince Leszek Czarny insouciantly ensconced on Wawel Hill, condescended to permit the town itself to build its famous perimeter walls for their own defense. The success of the repulsion of the third and last Tatar invasion under Nogaj Khan was to a great extent thanks to the newly erected fortifications.

Tatar invasions gave birth to two traditions that are still very vivid and which add a unique flavor to present-day Krakow’s image: Lajkonik, the colorfully clothed and long bearded character who is one with his horse, and the hourly “hejnał” trumpet call from the top of the St. Mary’s Church watchtower. 

On a list of severely costly invasions of Krakow, the Prussian attack of 1795 takes one of the top inglorious positions. The occupiers looted the royal treasury and later melted down gold and silver items including priceless royal regalia in 1809. Only a few items had the good fortune to escape that fate. The Treasury in Wawel Castle displays some of the saved items: the royal coronation sword Szczerbiec, a sword of King Sigismund I, a sword of King Stephen Batory, the so-called Teutonic saber, two lances, a Ruthenian reliquary, and Sigismund Augustus’ coronation sandals. 

The defense of Krakow in the Middle Ages was the responsibility of the city’s guilds, but all town-dwellers had to actively defend the town. The defensive walls were divided into sections whose defenders were members of a given guild. The four towers preserved to the current time are called Haberdashers’, Carpenters’, Joiners’ and Furriers’, after the guilds that defended them in times of war. The town was surrounded by double walls and a moat, which in general was 6 to 8 meters wide, except at the Barbican where it spread to as much as 24 meters in width. There were seven gates which were locked every night even in times of peace. The mayor of the town was the key keeper. The watchman on St. Mary’s tower looked out for danger, and it was his responsibility to alert the town if he spotted enemy troops approaching. If he played “Bogurodzica” (among the oldest and best known Polish songs of the day), it was a sign for all town-dwellers to arm themselves and run to an assembly point. Town councilors under the leadership of local commanders were responsible for the condition of weapons and towers, while the town was responsible for the condition of fortifications and defensive walls.

The bitter times of World War II occupy a different chapter in the history of wars, occupations, and military incursions in Krakow. Just a few days after the outbreak of the war in 1939 Polish troops marched out of Krakow, and the Nazis took over. They made it the capital of the so-called General-Gouvernement with commander Hans Frank taking up his residence in Wawel Castle. Many works of art had already been hidden or removed from Krakow when war appeared imminent. The priceless collection of Sigismund Augustus’ tapestries along with Szczerbiec were already on their way to Canada. Many items that were not hidden in time fell prey to the Nazis. It was during World War II that Rafael’s “Portrait of a Young Man” disappeared from the Czartoryski Princes’ Museum and has not been found yet. The gothic high altar from St. Mary’s Basilica in the main market square was dismantled in an attempt to hide it from the Nazis. However, they succeeded in capturing it in Sandomierz and transported it to Nuremberg. Luckily, it survived the heavy Allied  bombardment of the town at the end of the war, and, found by Professor Karol Estraicher, was later returned to Poland. The occupation lasted from September 1939 to January 1945, during which time the inhabitants suffered unprecedented persecution and privation. Street raids were commonplace. So were mass arrests, the worst being the infamous arrest of 183 university professors on November 6, 1939. The Nazis deported them to concentration camps, where they murdered most of them.  

EARTHQUAKES

Krakow does not lie in an area of significant seismographic activity. Yet the annals of Krakow report no fewer than 18 earthquakes up through the end of the 20th century. At 6.2 on the Richter scale, Krakow’s strongest quake rattled the city on December 3, 1786. St. Catherine’s church in Kazimierz has suffered extensively from several earthquakes. The quake of 1443 caused the church’s roof to collapse, while another earthquake in 1785 caused serious damage to roof and walls of the building. Since 1903, when municipal authorities opened a seismological station in Krakow, most of the earthquakes that happen all over the world are detected by the gauges, but none of them has really posed any danger to the town itself. 

PLAGUES

There were 36 outbreaks of various epidemics in Krakow throughout the centuries. They included the Black Death, fever, smallpox, typhoid, and cholera. The most deadly plague ever to strike Europe – the Black Death of the Middle Ages – did not spare Krakow. It decimated the town from 1348 to 1351, with the daily death toll varying between 40 and 50 lives. It was during this plague that one of Krakow’s many homegrown saints earned his canonization by ministering to the sick and dying. Visit the tomb of St. Simon of Lipnica at the Bernardine church at the northeast foot of Wawel Hill. The next two centuries were marked by a total number of 26 epidemics in all. Not stopping there, however, the plague of 1652 claimed well over 20,000 lives, as did the one that lasted from 1677 to 1681. Typhoid, which broke out in 1707 and lasted two years was more precisely documented - fatalities in Krakow totaled 7,223, whereas in the surrounding area the numbers reached 12,047. Though the medical breakthroughs of the 19th century brought the first vaccinations against smallpox, they by no means eradicated all outbreaks of epidemics. The last major epidemic reported in the annals of Krakow was the cholera outbreak of 1873, which killed 1,565 people. 

In the Middle Ages each outbreak of an epidemic brought the usually busy and bustling town to a complete standstill. Before the town gates were bolted, the richer families who had property in the countryside hastily withdrew to their summer residences. The town council adjourned its meetings. Sermons ceased to be preached in churches. Town baths were closed. Prostitutes and the unemployed were expelled, and no visitors were allowed within the town walls. More care than usual was taken to keep streets clean and collect rubbish. When someone contracted the disease the door of his house was literally nailed shut. The town council provided the occupants with food, but no one was allowed to leave the house. Only an undertaker would knock on the front door every now and then and ask: “Is there anything to be taken away?” The dead were not buried in church cemeteries in town, but special burial places were established outside the town walls. These cemeteries were clearly marked with special lamp posts called lanterns of the dead so as to warn passers by. One of these lanterns has been preserved and can be seen outside St. Nicolas’ Church on Kopernika Street. 

STORMS

Krakow’s location in the Vistula River valley surrounds the city with the hilly Krakow - Częstochowa Upland, which provides natural protection against tornados or whirlwinds. And yet, massive storms accompanied by high winds have also had their place in the history of the city’s disasters. The two most recent examples are a powerful hail storm accompanied by a whirlwind that struck the center of the town on July 31, 2002 and another storm that hit the town on August 23rd, 2007. The first caused a very peculiar damage to the Cloth Hall right in the middle of the main market square. The wind blew off a huge canvass poster that was affixed to the top of the historic building. The poster’s metal supports also collapsed, knocking architectural decorations off of the parapet on the western side of the building. Down went pinnacles, finials, and gargoyles, which smashed at the base of the historic building. Sunshades from numerous cafes and restaurants were blown around the square like children’s toys despite their heavy stone stands. Hail destroyed flower pots and wind smashed  numerous windows that hadn’t been shut in time, including one in the famous Wierzynek Restaurant. The storm of 2007 uprooted and devastated hundreds of trees in the Planty Gardens as well as many on Wawel Hill. On the morning of August 24th, the park offered a pitiful view to all passers by. Some paths were impassable, blocked by broken tree branches and fallen trunks. Nor was it only the trees that suffered. A statue of Our Lady of Faenza at the end of Jagiellońska Street – a votive offering erected in thanksgiving when a typhoid epidemic ended in 1709 – was knocked down and smashed to pieces by a falling tree.

Between natural disaster and human destruction, Krakow has faced many catastrophic events in its colored history.  But as we walk the historic streets today, we see that the city has more than survived, it has thrived and prospered.  And the painful and destructive events of history remain exactly that – history – and only serve to build the city’s thousand year old character.