Defensive Architecture

      The San and The Dniester. The upper course of these two rivers is just a few miles apart! That's what they are the symbolic aorta of the history of Przemyśl and its region. The San flows north and feeds into the Vistula river, thus organically binding the city to the catchment area of the Baltic Sea region of Poland. The waters of the Dniester roll south into the Black Sea, vaguely drawing the Przemyśl region into the turbulent history of the south-eastern borderlands. The extremely rich, but unfortunately frequently painful experience of the Eastern borderlands, became the heritage of this city. The location of Przemyśl at the junction of Poland, Russia and Hungary, has always placed the city on the outskirts or on in the borderlands of one of these states, and the struggle for the region, has become an eternal and indispensable element of its history. (...)
      The nightmares of the 1846 Galician slaughter (also known as the peasant uprising), and finally the conflagration of World War I and struggles with our Ruthenian brothers over their own state, have cast a shadow over the magnificent centuries-old common history the borderlands. The November 1918 battle of Przemysl, was also the struggle of Lviv, of which Przemyśl always been a satellite city. Waiting for the relief of Przemysl was undertaken by Michael Karaszewicz Tokarzewskiego, and its advent was one of the most important episodes in the history of the royal city of Lviv. During World War I, Przemyśl also became one of the greatest triumphs of the Russian army. Capturing the fortress built after the Crimean War was trumpeted in Russia as one of the greatest triumphs. Austro-Hungarian troops fighting in Przemysl were well aware of why they were fighting, especially the Hungarians, whose divisions strengthening Przemysl were treated as the gateway to Budapest. "You fought like lions" at the gate of Hungary. Let this act be remembered forever. So reads the inscription on the monument of the Defenders of the Fortress in Budapest. (...)

      Currently, Przemyśl, which for centuries had been a satellite of Lviv from a geographical point of view, has become a city completely on the Eastern borderlands. The Yalta conference placed the city on the borders of the Polish Republic, and now the border of the European Union. The past borderlands, however, are inscribed in the genotype of our city and region. The awareness that the Przemyśl is the largest city of the Polish Republic of the former eastern borderlands, certainly ennobles, and it commits to memory the borderland heritage. The strategic location of the city, unfortunately, has determined its history, making it constant battlefield, which so many of the relics of military architecture clearly show.

Creator of the text: Lucjan Fac / Art. KRESOWY PRZEMYŚL /
The author of photos: Jacek Dzik