Aleksander Józef Sułkowski became the new owner of Leszno. This city on the road from Dresden to Warsaw went through an economic boom during his tenure. Leszno’s position as a grain centre was somewhat reminiscent of the importance of Gdańsk.
High customs duties on east-bound exports after the Second Partition of Poland caused manufacturing to collapse. Leszno’s economic orientation underwent a radical transformation in the days of the Grand Duchy of Poznań. It became the administrative and educational centre of a predominantly agricultural region. Leszno ceased to be a private city in 1833.
The Treaty of Versailles returned Leszno to a reborn Poland. The first Polish troops entered the Leszno marketplace on 17 January 1920. During the Second Polish Republic, Leszno was the seat of a county as close as 70 km from the German border.
Leszno was on the frontline on 1 September 1939 and was incorporated in the Reichsgau Wartheland in October that year. Nazi atrocities and oppression only spurred the underground resistance. National Army formations were the most numerous. The Polish people woke up to a new life on 31 January 1945 after a long night of occupation.
The life of the city changed significantly in 1975 when it became a voivodeship capital as a result of an administrative reform. The Central Harvest Festivals held in Leszno in 1977 were a resounding success and brought numerous investment projects to the city. Leszno was made a county seat in the newly created Wielkopolska Voivodeship in 1999 as part of an administrative overhaul.
Worth Seeing
The marketplace, from where we set out to visit the city, still has the shape it had when Leszno was founded in 1547, although it was mainly built in the late 19th century. A few baroque tenements from the 17th (Nos. 16 and 29) and 18th (Nos. 7, 8, 15, 23 and 32) centuries can be found among these impressive townhouses.
The town hall, deemed one of the loveliest in Wielkopolska, is the most beautiful reminder of Leszno’s golden age of the Leszczyński family and John Amos Comenius.
St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, Leszno’s major place of worship, is in ul. Kościelna, not far from the south-west corner of the marketplace.
Turn right out of ul. Kościelna and follow ul. Wąska to Jan Metzig Square. Here we pass a majestic 350-year-old pedunculate oak, the oldest tree in Leszno. Holy Cross Church, Leszno’s first Lutheran church, faces the south side of the square. The lapidarium beside the church, created in 1950-1959, is a must see with its amazing collection of more than 100 17th-19th century tombstones sculpted in sandstone. The Leszno District Museum – in the former pastor’s house adjoining Holy Cross church – has a special collection of epitaph plaques and coffin portraits.
Other Buildings:
* The Church of St. John the Baptist in ul. Bolesława Chrobrego
* Sułkowski Palace in plac Tadeusza Kościuszki (Tadeusz Kościuszko Square)
* The Synagogue in ul. Narutowicza
