Warsaw (Warszawa) city (state capital), history - - Pictures
According to legend, Warsaw received its name from two children, Wars and Sawa. Syrenka, a mermaid from the Wisla, predicted the founding of Warsaw to the pair, who then gave their names to the city. Warsaw was founded around the turn of the 14th century by Duke Boleslaw of Mazovia, then an independent principality. In 1413 Warsaw became the regional capital. At that time its population was about 4,500. The city lay on major trade routes, benefiting from its location on the Wisla. In 1526, when the last Mazovian prince died without an heir, Warsaw was absorbed into the Polish state. The Sejm, Poland's parliament, began meeting in Warsaw in the 1550s. In 1573, four years after Poland united with Lithuania, the nobility began choosing the king in royal elections on Warsaw's Wola Field.
King Zygmunt III transferred the capital of Poland from Kraków to Warsaw in 1596. The move brought Zygmunt closer to the Baltic Sea, where he had territorial ambitions. By 1611 the court and government had completed the move to Warsaw, which remained the capital for the next 200 years. In the mid-17th century Sweden invaded the Polish-Lithuanian state and devastated Warsaw. Russian forces occupied the city several times in the 18th century. Only with Stanislaw II Augustus, the last king of Poland, did Warsaw undergo major regeneration; from 1764 to 1792 its population nearly quadrupled, rising from 30,000 to 110,000.
