Proskau

Polish: Prószków

The place name is thought to be of Slavic origin and is derived from proper names – ‘Proszek’, ‘Proszko’, ‘Prosimir’. Its German forms – ‘Proskow’, ‘Pruskow’, ‘Proskau’ – were in use from the 14th century onwards.^[1] In the past, the town was also known by the Polish name ‘Prusków’.^[2]

Proskau is situated at 50° 33' north latitude and 17° 55' east longitude, approximately 10 km south-west of Opole.

Upper Silesia

Poland. Proskau is situated in the Opole Voivodeship, in Opole County (Powiat Opolski), and is the administrative centre of the municipality of the same name.

The town’s first coat of arms, granted in 1564, featured a per pale shield with an arrow and a horseshoe open at the bottom. The town’s current coat of arms is divided into four quarters: the first and fourth quarters are gold and black in colour and depict a leaping stag. The second and third quarters are divided vertically into two halves, the left-hand half being silver and the right-hand half red. In each of the silver quarters there is a red horseshoe, and in each of the red quarters a silver one; both are positioned with their closed sides facing each other. The symbolism was adopted from the family coat of arms of the Prószkowski (von Proskau) family, the town’s former rulers.

Human settlements existed in the area that is now Proskau as far back as the Bronze Age (a necropolis containing urn graves dating from around 800 BC). Traces of human activity (dwellings and smelting furnaces for iron production) have also been found dating from the 1st to the 4th centuries AD.

According to a source that is no longer available, an ancestor of the Prószkowski family (of Proskau), Stanislaus, is said to have built a castle in Proskau in 1250.^[3] From 1311 onwards, a village named ‘Proscow’, owned by the noble family of the same name, is mentioned in documents from the Duchy of Opole. A document from 1336, signed by Duke Bolko II (1308–1368), records the donation of the Proskau estate to the Lords of Proskau and their lawful successors. In 1443, a church and a parish are mentioned in Proskau.

On 24 April 1560, at the instigation of Georg von Proskau, Proskau was granted town privileges by Emperor Ferdinand I (1503–1564). During the Thirty Years’ War, the town was plundered and burnt to the ground by Swedish troops in 1644. In 1741, Proskau, along with the entire Duchy of Opole, came under Prussian administration. In 1757, a major fire once again destroyed the town.

Following the extinction of the von Proskau family, the town passed by inheritance in 1769 to the von Dietrichstein zu Nikolsburg family, who sold it in 1783 to King Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786).

As part of the Prussian administrative reform, Proskau lost its town charter in 1809. Nevertheless, the head of the Proskau local council continued to use the title of mayor. In 1945, Proskau came under Polish administration and was granted its town charter once again in 2004.

The founding of the Royal Agricultural Academy (1847) and the Royal Pomological Institute (1868) contributed to Proskau’s economic development. On the site known as ‘Pomologie’, modern agricultural facilities, training and accommodation for teachers and pupils, a park and a hotel for visitors to the annual horticultural exhibitions were built. The institution, known as the ‘Royal School of Orchard and Horticulture’ from 1915 onwards, continued to operate between 1924 and 1944 under the name ‘One-Year Horticultural School’. In 1947, the school resumed operations as the State Horticultural Lyceum; over the following decades, it developed into one of the best-known training centres for horticulture in Poland. In the 1990s, the number of pupils fell significantly.

According to the sources, both German and Polish were spoken in Proskau towards the end of the 17th century; the town and the neighbouring Ellguth Proskau/Ligota Prószkówska had a population of around 600 at that time.^[4] Increasing industrialisation, but above all the founding of the Royal Agricultural Academy and the Pomological Institute, led to a rise in population: in 1825, 915 people lived here; in 1855, 2,196; in 1910, 2,290; and in 1939, 2,512.^[5] In the 1910 census, 431 of the 2,290 inhabitants declared themselves to be of Polish nationality. In the 1921 plebiscite, 91 per cent of the inhabitants voted for Upper Silesia to remain part of Germany. After the Second World War, some of the German inhabitants were expelled. In the 2011 census, 30.9 per cent of the 2,650 inhabitants identified as German and 4 per cent as Siles ian.^[6] Since 2006, the municipality of Proskau has been officially bilingual. The population today stands at approximately 2,700.

As the Prószkowski family remained Catholic, the Reformation was unable to take root in Proskau; by the end of the 17th century, all of the town’s approximately 600 inhabitants were Catholic.^[7] It was only with the town’s transfer to Prussian administration and the arrival of employees from the estate management and the faience factory that a Protestant congregation was established there (1787), which held its services in the castle and, from 1886, in the newly built church. In 1890, the Protestant-Lutheran parish in Proskau had 472 members, 350 of whom were town residents.^[8]

After the Second World War, only a few Protestant families remained in the town; the last service in the Protestant church took place in 1978.

The buildings surrounding the rectangular market square date mainly from the 18th and early 19th centuries. Until 1926, the historic town was home to the Opole Gate and the New Town Gate. The Baroque Church of St George was built between the 1670s and 1687 as a foundation of Georg Christoph II of Proskau by Giovanni (Johann) Seregno and his sons Antonio and Domenico. The Baroque interior of the hall church, dating from around 1700, with its altars, pulpit, baptismal font, patron’s box and ceiling frescoes, has been preserved.

On the site of a medieval residence, and partly utilising its existing walls, Georg von Proskau commissioned the construction of a new castle in the late Renaissance style from 1563 onwards. Following destruction during the Thirty Years’ War, reconstruction took place under Georg Christoph II von Proskau between 1677 and 1683, based on a design by Giovanni Seregno; this included, amongst other things, the construction of the two façade towers. The four-winged complex, which was significantly altered in the 19th century due to a change in function and features imposing corner risalits, encloses an inner courtyard that originally had arcades. The entrance portal, with its ashlar frame, supports a segmental pediment above a pair of pilasters, bearing the donor’s plaque of Georg von Proskau (1563); above this are two cartouches bearing the Proskau coat of arms (1677). In 1934, figurative and geometric sgraffito decorations from the Renaissance period were uncovered on the two rear risalits; these depict, amongst other things, battle and mythological scenes. Inside, several rooms have retained their late 17th-century furnishings; the oratory and the so-called Knights’ Hall are particularly magnificent. A landscape park was laid out around 1800, partly on the site of the former 17th-century bastions.

• Erhard Heinrich, Andrzej Pawełczyk: Proskau. A Historical Overview. Prószków 2000.
• Beata Lejman: Prószków/Proskau. In: Ernst Badstübner, Dietmar Popp, Andrzej Tomaszewski, Dethard von Winterfeld (eds.), Sławomir Brzezicki, Christine Nielsen (eds.): Dehio Handbook of Art Monuments in Poland. Silesia. Munich, Berlin 2005, pp. 765–768.
• Zenobiusz Mierzejewski: Park arboretum w Prószkowie [The Arboretum in Prószków]. Opole 2001.
• Upper Silesia House Foundation (ed.): Highlights of Silesian Ceramics: Faience from Proskau and Glinitz in Museums and Collections. Catalogue of items held in museums and private collections, as well as those available on the art market. Ratingen-Hösel 2007 (Digital Sources on Silesian Cultural History 4).
• Grzegorz Szołtysik: A Study of the Natural, Landscape and Cultural Resources of the Park and Historic Site Complex in Pomologia in the Municipality of Prószków, Together with Adjacent Land, Programme Council for the Protection of Natural and Cultural Resources of the Municipality of Prószków, ‘Zielona Ziemia’ Association [Study of the biological, landscape and cultural resources of the historic park complex in Pomologia in the municipality of Prószków and adjacent areas, Programme Council for the Protection of Biological and Cultural Resources of the Municipality of Prószków of the ‘Zielona Ziemia/Grüne Erde’ Association]. Prószków 2007.
• Hugo Weczerka: Proskau. In: Ibid. (ed.): Handbook of Historical Sites. Silesia. Stuttgart 1977 (Kröners Taschenausgabe 316), pp. 420ff.

• www.proszkow.pl (the town’s official website)
• www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/wikidata/Q1001200 (Images relating to Proskau/Prószków in the image archive of the Herder Institute, Marburg)

[1] Stanisława Sochacka: Etymological Dictionary of the Geographical Names of Silesia, Vol. 11, Opole 2004, pp. 17, 20.

[2] Józef Lompa: A Brief Outline of the Geography of Silesia for Primary Education. Głogówek 1847, p. 28.

[3] Mentioned, amongst others, by Johannes Sinapius: The Second Part of the Silesian Nobility or Continuation of Silesian Curiosities. Leipzig 1728, p. 181, without citation.

[4] According to episcopal visitations in the parish of Proskau in the years 1687/88, 1697 and 1713, sermons were delivered there in both languages. Heinrich, Pawełczyk: Proskau, p. 27.

[5] All population figures are taken from Heinrich, Pawełczyk: Proskau, p. 28.

[6] stat.gov.pl (accessed 11 September 2014).

[7] Heinrich, Pawełczyk: Proskau, p. 27.

[8] Heinrich, Pawełczyk: Proskau, p. 40.

Beata Lejman, Tomasz Torbus: Proskau/Prószków. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2014. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32276 (as at 30 July 2021).