Lublin - Zamek

A fortress of a regional tribe is attested here. After its destruction, Casimir I the Restorer, son of Mieszko II Lambert, had a castle built here.

In 1205 Roman of Volhynia unsuccessfully besieged the castle. In 1241 Lublin was destroyed by the Tatars. In 1244 the place was conquered by Lithuanians, in the same year, Daniel Romanovich of Galicia conquered and fortified it.

Under the protection of the castle, the settlement developed into a trade center. In 1317 it received the town charter. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the town grew rapidly. The largest trade fairs of the Polish-Lithuanian community were held in Lublin. In the 16th century, the parliaments (Sejm) of the Kingdom of Poland were held in Lublin several times. At one of the most important ones, the "Union of Lublin" was proclaimed in 1569, uniting Poland and Lithuania. After the capital was moved from Krakow to Warsaw in 1596, Lublin was located away from the main traffic and trade routes. As a result, there was an economic and cultural decline.

In the course of the Counter-Reformation, the Protestants were forcibly expelled from the city in 1631, so many merchants emigrated. In 1655 Cossacks sacked the town and the following year Swedish soldiers. After the Northern War, the reconstruction of the town began. Stanislaus II August Poniatowski allowed Protestants to settle in the city again. At this time, a significant Jewish community was also established. The Jews were an important part of life in the city until the Holocaust. During WWII they were deported by Nazi Germany to the infamous Lublin Ghetto and eventually murdered.

After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, Lublin was part of the Austrian Empire, after the Austro-Polish War of 1809 it was part of the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw, and in 1815 it was part of Congress Poland as part of the Russian partition of Poland. Russian rule ended in 1915 when the city was occupied by German and Austro-Hungarian armies. After the end of WWI, the Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland - the first government of independent Poland - was based in Lublin for a short time.
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The castle is of medieval origin, established by High Duke Casimir II the Just. In the first half of the 13th century, the stone keep was built, which by now is the oldest standing building in Lublin.

During the Jagiellonian dynasty, members of the royal family often stayed here. The castle was expanded and rebuilt to its present size in the 16th century. The most historically significant event of the castle took place in 1569 when the Treaty of Lublin was signed at the castle. This was the founding act of Poland-Lithuania.

As a result of the wars in the 17th century, the castle deteriorated. Only the tower and the chapel remained intact. After Lublin came under Russian rule as a result of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, a complete restoration of the castle was carried out in the 1820s by Congress Poland. The castle was built in neo-Gothic style, except for the tower and the chapel.

then the castle served as a prison for the next 128 years: as a Tsarist prison from 1831 to 1915, in independent Poland from 1918 to 1939, and most infamously during the Nazi occupation of the city from 1939 to 1944. After 1944 the castle continued to serve as a prison until 1954.