24
Urban Planning and Municipal Governance in a Period of Rapid Change: A Frontier Town in Russian Poland at the Turn of the Twentieth Century makary górzyn ́ ski University of Warsaw I n 1907, Polish writer, journalist, and politician Adolf Nowaczyński (18761944), writing for the weekly illus- trated magazine Świat (World) in Warsaw, observed that the middle-sized towns of the Polish Kingdom, then under Russian domination, were becoming more and more indus- trialized. 1 He portrayed crowded streets, busy, industrious in- habitants, and urban landscapes where factory chimneys had risen next to old church towers. 2 Unfortunately, this industri- alization did not have the benefit of modern urban planning, and Nowaczyński claimed it threatened the historical monu- ments of the country. 3 His narrative revealed the harsh reali- ties of Polish urbanization: towns were transformed by horrendous new districtslacking communal infrastructure, and aesthetics were totally neglected. 4 Nowaczyński de- scribed the towns of Lublin and Kalisz in more detail. Both were governorate (province) seats, with growing industries and populations. 5 According to Nowaczyński, their inhabi- tants were able to combine concern for historic monuments and local traditions with the economic activity and liberalism of industrial society. 6 He claimed that Kalisz and Lublin had been fortunate under the administration of enlightened Rus- sian governors who did not consider Privislinsky Krai to be like a Tashkent, useful for devastation and exploitation, but they contributed to the beautification of both cities, for exam- ple, by establishing imposing public gardens.7 Nowaczyński saw the two cities as the most Westernizedprovincial cities of the Polish Kingdom, forming the main part of the Russia- ruled Polish provinces. From 1867 to 1914, Kalisz was the capital of the western- most governorate of the Russian Empire. It was located 5 kilometers east of the German border in the historic Polish region, Greater Poland (Figure 1). At the beginning of the twentieth century it was a small town, with approximately twenty thousand inhabitants. After 1902, when a new railway was established connecting Kalisz, Lódź, and Warsaw, the town expanded rapidly and reached a population of about sixty-five thousand in 1914. 8 Significant growth transformed its urban form, mostly with the emergence of new residential and industrial districts and suburbs that sprawled out from the historical core of the town. In this article, I show how Kaliszs urban planning, com- munal infrastructure, and public services projects of the early twentieth century were related to its municipal governance system and how they were hampered by an autocratic bu- reaucracy and by competition between the city and governor- ate agendas. The history of the town raises a number of questions. I believe that the Kalisz case epitomizes the lack of urban planning under the legal ordinances of Russian Poland, which conflicted with local middle-class initiatives to pro- mote modern town planning and self-governance. How did the legal status of municipal authorities in Russian Poland, where no elected, independent city government existed, affect the public investments and policies of Kaliszs munici- pality? How was the development of modern urban planning and modernization discourse in this region of Europe related to specific legal and political conditions that made municipal projects difficult? My approach to these issues is informed by the expressed desires of the middle-class Polish intelligentsia who campaigned to modernize their towns according to Western European models. 9 In the following study I analyze press articles, books, and official papers to reconstruct offi- cialsresponses to the challenges that rapid growth generated. 302 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, no. 3 (September 2017), 302325, ISSN 0037-9808, electronic ISSN 2150-5926. © 2017 by the Society of Architectural Historians. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Presss Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/ journals.php?p=reprints, or via email: [email protected]. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2017.76.3.302.

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Page 1: Urban Planning and Municipal Governance in a …was established connecting Kalisz, Łódź,andWarsaw,the town expanded rapidly and reached a population of about sixty-five thousand

Urban Planning and Municipal Governancein a Period of Rapid Change:A Frontier Town in Russian Poland at the Turnof the Twentieth Century

makary górzynskiUniversity of Warsaw

In 1907, Polish writer, journalist, and politician AdolfNowaczyński (1876–1944), writing for the weekly illus-trated magazine Świat (World) inWarsaw, observed that

the middle-sized towns of the Polish Kingdom, then underRussian domination, were becoming more and more indus-trialized.1 He portrayed crowded streets, busy, industrious in-habitants, and urban landscapes where factory chimneys hadrisen next to old church towers.2 Unfortunately, this industri-alization did not have the benefit of modern urban planning,and Nowaczyński claimed it threatened the historical monu-ments of the country.3 His narrative revealed the harsh reali-ties of Polish urbanization: towns were transformed by“horrendous new districts” lacking communal infrastructure,and aesthetics were totally neglected.4 Nowaczyński de-scribed the towns of Lublin and Kalisz in more detail. Bothwere governorate (province) seats, with growing industriesand populations.5 According to Nowaczyński, their inhabi-tants were able to combine concern for historic monumentsand local traditions with the economic activity and liberalismof industrial society.6 He claimed that Kalisz and Lublin hadbeen fortunate under the administration of enlightened Rus-sian governors who did not “consider Privislinsky Krai to belike a Tashkent, useful for devastation and exploitation, butthey contributed to the beautification of both cities, for exam-ple, by establishing imposing public gardens.”7 Nowaczyńskisaw the two cities as the most “Westernized” provincial citiesof the Polish Kingdom, forming the main part of the Russia-ruled Polish provinces.

From 1867 to 1914, Kalisz was the capital of the western-most governorate of the Russian Empire. It was located5 kilometers east of the German border in the historic Polishregion, Greater Poland (Figure 1). At the beginning of thetwentieth century it was a small town, with approximatelytwenty thousand inhabitants. After 1902, when a new railwaywas established connecting Kalisz, Łódź, and Warsaw, thetown expanded rapidly and reached a population of aboutsixty-five thousand in 1914.8 Significant growth transformedits urban form, mostly with the emergence of new residentialand industrial districts and suburbs that sprawled out fromthe historical core of the town.

In this article, I show how Kalisz’s urban planning, com-munal infrastructure, and public services projects of the earlytwentieth century were related to its municipal governancesystem and how they were hampered by an autocratic bu-reaucracy and by competition between the city and governor-ate agendas. The history of the town raises a number ofquestions. I believe that the Kalisz case epitomizes the lack ofurban planning under the legal ordinances of Russian Poland,which conflicted with local middle-class initiatives to pro-mote modern town planning and self-governance. How didthe legal status of municipal authorities in Russian Poland,where no elected, independent city government existed,affect the public investments and policies of Kalisz’s munici-pality? How was the development of modern urban planningand modernization discourse in this region of Europe relatedto specific legal and political conditions that made municipalprojects difficult? My approach to these issues is informed bythe expressed desires of the middle-class Polish intelligentsiawho campaigned to modernize their towns according toWestern European models.9 In the following study I analyzepress articles, books, and official papers to reconstruct offi-cials’ responses to the challenges that rapid growth generated.

302

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, no. 3 (September 2017),302–325, ISSN 0037-9808, electronic ISSN 2150-5926. © 2017 by the Societyof Architectural Historians. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests forpermission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University ofCalifornia Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints, or via email: [email protected]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2017.76.3.302.

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I examine the new urban regulation plan and discuss localmiddle-class ideas about town planning and self-governance,demonstrating their political ambitions and “Western” orien-tation. I also briefly frame the debates over town planning inKalisz within Polish urban discourse at the time.

The case study of Kalisz can help to broaden our under-standing of the histories of town planning and architecture inindustrial Europe. This article is an attempt to examine howlocal elites tried to establish an urban discourse drawing fromWestern sources in reaction to unsuccessful attempts to planKalisz’s urban development. A study of the relationshipsamong the actions of the municipality, the agendas of the im-perial governorate, and the responses of the middle class canreveal how a colonial regime reacted to rapid urban growthand how planning issues were part of the developing politicalconflict among people of different nationalities living inKalisz, part of the Russian Empire. Following recent scholar-ship and interest in imperial Russian governance over Poland,this essay may provide a fruitful example of a more localizedapproach to historical research on problems of modern urbanplanning and town management in the eastern parts ofEurope during the 1900s.10

Recalling Nowaczyński’s view, my claim is that educatedPolish observers perceived developing towns as sites forindustrial and commercial expansion, but also for social insta-bility and the multiethnic urban conflicts that exploded dur-ing the 1905–7 Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland, partof the Russian Revolution of those years.11 In the case ofKalisz, the “busy and industrious” urban landscape combinedthe promise of a booming economy with rapid urbanchanges, but the resulting development (which I call the“unwelcome transformation”) was viewed negatively by theintelligentsia. “While coming back from the countrysideKalisz seems to be a hell, a dazzling vortex for someone whoused to live at a monotonous, peaceful pace,” commented ananonymous Polish author around 1912.12 From the author’spoint of view, rapid economic development had transformedKalisz into a chaotic space comprising tenements withoutwaterworks or sewage system, rural suburbs metamorphosedinto proletarian areas, and randomly located factories. Theyears after the Revolution witnessed the emergence of masspolitics linked to the rise of political parties, radical changesin nationalist discourse, and politically backed anti-Semitism.Yet, as Kamil Śmiechowski has argued, “the Revolution of

Figure 1 “Europe at the Present Time,” 1911. The Polish Kingdom’s (Poland) borders within the Russian Empire are marked with a thick black line; the

dot marks the location of Kalisz (William R. Shepherd, The Historical Atlas [New York: Henry Holt, 1911], modified by author; University of Texas Libraries,

University of Texas at Austin, https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/history_europe.html, accessed 7 Mar. 2017).

URBAN PLANN ING AND MUN I C I PA L GOVERNANCE I N A PER I OD OF RAP I D CHANGE 303

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1905 was the first time in Polish history that the focus of po-litical events moved from villages to cities.”13 In this article, Iexamine descriptions of the new Kalisz districts as politicalnarratives referring to class and ethnic differences. As BarryM. Doyle has noted in regard to nineteenth-century politics:“Space was not only managed with police, but also withwords, which valorised and condemned physical environ-ments and social practices, feeding back . . . into political ac-tion.”14 Narratives of Kalisz’s “unwelcome spaces” formed adiscourse on urban modernity, developed by the Polish intel-ligentsia to describe and control urban space in an era ofsocial turmoil.15 In this essay, I address the ways in which sub-urbanization and the haphazard architecture of the industrialtown were associated with the conflictual social and politicalsphere, where Polish, Jewish, German, and Russian commu-nities competed.

Kalisz: A Provincial Polish Townin the Nineteenth Century

In 1909, towns and industrial settlements in Russian Polandaccounted for almost 30 percent of the entire population,which was growing quickly.16 At the time, the local Polishmunicipal administration was subordinate to Russian gover-norates and treated as a lower administrative unit of the impe-rial bureaucracy.17 Town councils and presidents remainedunelected after early nineteenth-century laws were reinforcedby the 1866–67 reform of governorate and county agenciesthat now supervised the Polish magistrates directly. Their re-sponsibilities were mostly bureaucratic, fiscal, and supervisoryregarding the town’s property, including maintaining build-ings for the Russian military garrisons and police. Therewas no room for municipal initiative in crucial areas such aseducation, public health, and building ordinances. Communalprojects were strongly limited by financial regulations.18 Aspointed out by historian Andrzej Chwalba, “Towns of thePolish Kingdom, lacking autonomy and a strong lobby, werein the hands of corrupted and often carefree clerks, mostlyPoles . . . concerned with their own profits, not the municipalone.”19During the late nineteenth century Polish and Russianwriters argued that outdated legal regulations resulted in apathological lack of initiative in municipal administration.Nevertheless, no reform of municipal government was intro-duced by the imperial Russian administration.20

Kalisz enjoyed a short period of prosperity in the first dec-ades of the nineteenth century, becoming an administrativecenter and an emerging industrial area. After the Novemberuprising against Russia (1830–31), however, Kalisz, becauseof its location far from Polish Kingdom urban centers suchas Warsaw, became a quiet provincial town (Figure 2). Localindustrial production had stagnated after unsuccessfulattempts to build a railway connecting Breslau (Wrocław),

Łódź, and Warsaw.21 After 1867, when it regained status asthe governorate capital, professionals—including lawyers,journalists, and industrialists—from the Polish, Jewish,Russian, and German communities came to Kalisz. Theywere appointed to posts in the new administrative offices es-tablished during a series of reforms of imperial governanceover Russian Poland: the governorate and its chancellery, thedistrict courthouse, and the treasury.22 This group of profes-sionals dominated Kalisz’s public sphere, promoting theirviews and social progressivism in the newspaper Kaliszanin,established in 1870, and its successor, Gazeta Kaliska (from1893).23 In the 1870s members of the intelligentsia initiatedpublic debates on the need for industrial development andways to stimulate urban growth in Kalisz. The town adminis-tration, led by President Franciszek Przedpełski (1824–88; inoffice 1872–88) with support from the Russian governors,participated in these debates. In addition, during the longtenure of Governor Mihail Piotrovich Daragan (1834–191?;in office 1883–1902) several such discussions were held,focusing on public investments like waterworks and sewagesystem projects, construction of modern buildings for publicschools, a new theater, and a town hall.24 Przedpełski soughtsupport from the Governor’s Palace to make importantimprovements, such as the construction of a new town hall,which was to be based on the winning design in an architec-tural competition (1879–80). The proposed building wasintended to house offices and audience rooms for an electedtown council. At that time, Warsaw governor-general PetrAlbiedynski (1826–83; in office 1880–83) supported intro-duction of the 1870 Russian municipal laws into the PolishKingdom.25

Albiedynski was unable to liberalize Russian rule in thePolish Kingdom, however, and the Kalisz town hall projectwas postponed. From the point of view of the Russian admin-istration, there was no need for extra offices or public spacefor the Kalisz municipality because municipal officers had nolegal standing. In 1887–91, the strong personal support ofDaragan made possible construction of a town hall designedby the governorate’s architects Józef Chrzanowski (1844–191?) and Eugeniusz Oraczewski (1854–190?) (Figure 3).The lavish architecture of this building, in imposing Renais-sance revival style, expressed the ambition of the city’s elitesfor the transformation of Kalisz into a center for industry andtrade between the Polish Kingdom and the German Reich.Ultimately, the new Town Hall never served as the seat ofan elected, autonomous administration; municipal offices oc-cupied only part of its large floor area. The building servedprimarily as the stage for the social life of the Kalisz elites.Rooms that had been planned to house elective councils andpublic meetings were converted into a large ballroomand a luxury public club, Resursa, that attracted imperialauthorities, politicians, and industrialists.26 The building’s

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Figure 3 Józef Chrzanowski and Eugeniusz

Oraczewski, Town Hall, Kalisz, Russian Poland,

1887–91; destroyed by fire 1914 (photo by

Wincenty Boretti, ca. 1900; Muzeum Okregowe

Ziemi Kaliskiej, Kalisz).

Figure 2 Wilhelm Ehrentraut, “Vue de la ville de Kalisz,” lithograph showing panorama of Kalisz, Russian Poland, from the northwest, with sixteen

miniatures of architectural monuments (Kalisz: Antoni Fietta, 1835; Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw).

URBAN PLANN ING AND MUN I C I PA L GOVERNANCE I N A PER I OD OF RAP I D CHANGE 305

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architecture, drawing from contemporary Western urbanculture and referring to liberal associations connected withthe nineteenth-century interpretation of the Renaissance,was intended also to express the ambitions of the city elitesfor self-governance, but these political aspirations were neverfulfilled.27 While Kalisz’s coat of arms was placed on thefront façade, the dominant sign of power and authority wasthe imperial coat of arms crowning the main flagstaff of thebuilding. Scholars stress Daragan’s liberal attitude and prag-matism toward Kalisz’s intelligentsia and local middle-classinitiatives.28 Thanks to his support, the town was granted per-mission to finance new public edifices, including a police andfire station and an imposing theater (Figure 4), and was ableto modernize its vast public garden, among other projects(Figure 5).29 In addition, Daragan’s policy toward local socialactivity was perceived as liberal.30

The Railway Boom and Initiativesto Modernize Kalisz

In 1902, the Warsaw–Łódź–Kalisz railway line connectedKalisz with major Polish industrial centers and with Russia,the main export market for goods and commodities from thePolish Kingdom.31 After 1906, when Kalisz was connecteddirectly by rail with Germany, the town served as an interna-tional hub for trade between the Russian and GermanEmpires.32 In the 1890s, Kalisz’s industry was dominated bytextile manufacture, and it became a center of embroideryand lacemaking within Russian Poland, part of its luxurygoods industry.33 Extended markets and industrial expansionattracted thousands of new residents to Kalisz, mostly fromadjacent rural counties. The 1900 census showed about23,000 inhabitants; the number rose to 28,000 in 1905,more than 50,000 in 1910, and 70,000 in 1914.34 In 1909,45.2 percent of the 46,796 inhabitants were Roman Catholic,31.5 percent were Jewish, 12.4 percent were Protestant, and10.9 percent were Orthodox. Employment rates in industryand crafts were rising: in 1900, 3,204 people were recorded inthe census as factory workers or craftsmen; ten years later, thenumber was 6,145.35 By 1914, Kalisz was able to competewith Sosnowiec and Częstochowa, major industrial centers inthe southwestern part of the country.36 Land speculation andrising rents accompanied the railway rush of 1900–1902,prompting debates about the future of the town’s medievalcore.37

Most Polish commentators, like politician and chief editorofGazeta Kaliska Józef Radwan (1858–1936), saw the promiseof growth and a booming economy. At the same time, someobservers were afraid of “international entrepreneurs” (espe-cially Germans and Jews) penetrating a local market that, intheir view, should be dominated by Poles.38 This situationcontrasted with a very slow Kalisz construction market in thelast decades of the nineteenth century.39 Between the late1880s and 1898, the construction market had been domi-nated by public investments and erection of new industrialfacilities, but the latter often involved only small alterationsof tenement houses or outbuildings. Kalisz’s property andinvestment boom began in 1900, when negotiations for thenew railway entered their final stage.40 Inexact statistics sug-gest that Kalisz had 457 private houses and tenements built inbrick in 1901 and 698 in 1903.41 This growth affected thestructure of the town substantially.

In the first years of the twentieth century, the municipalarea consisted of about 200 hectares. Its urban setting was stilldominated by the medieval town. Its regular street grid wassubordinate to the central market square, which was locatedon an island in the Prosna river channel (Figure 6). The oldcore of Kalisz, established in the mid-thirteenth century, wasredesigned and modernized in the late eighteenth and early

Figure 4 Józef Chrzanowski, Municipal Theater, Kalisz, Russian Poland,

1896–1900; destroyed by fire 1914 (photo ca. 1900; Muzeum Okregowe

Ziemi Kaliskiej, Kalisz).

Figure 5 Public gardens, Kalisz, Russian Poland, view of the artificial

ruins built 1887–88; demolished during World War II (photo by Wincenty

Boretti, ca. 1900; Muzeum Okregowe Ziemi Kaliskiej, Kalisz).

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nineteenth centuries. Especially between 1815 and 1830,local authorities, taking advantage of the interest and supportof Czar Alexander I, constructed new public buildings in theclassical style that characterized the Polish Kingdom’s publicarchitecture at the time.42 Despite the emergence of new sub-urbs outside the old town, the medieval island remained thedominant commercial area and the major public spacethroughout the nineteenth century. The Governor’s Palace(the building that formerly housed the province administra-tion) and military offices were located on Saint JosephSquare, standing next to historic Saint Joseph’s RomanCatholic church and the Orthodox Cathedral of Saints Peterand Paul (constructed 1875–77) (Figure 7). Around the mainmarket square, where Przedpełski’s administration erectedthe new town hall, were streets dominated by local mer-chants, such as Warszawska, Wrocławska, Kanonicka, andSukiennicza (Figure 8). Medieval churches and cloisters, likeSaint Nicolas Church and a Franciscan church, stood within

the former walls of the old town island. In its southwesternpart was the historic Jewish district, characterized by a busycommercial life and dominated by the main synagogue,erected in the 1850s. The narrow old town streets (between5 and 10 meters wide) were densely built with one- andtwo-story tenements with many annexes and yard outbuild-ings, built mostly between 1815 and 1900 (Figure 9). Therewas no public waterworks or sewage system, andmost sewageflowed into gutters on the streets, and then to the river.43

Kalisz had twomajor suburbs:Wrocławskie Przedmieście,or Wrocław suburb, south of the center, and Piskorzewiewest of the center, on a large plateau surrounded by theProsna channels (see Figure 6). After the 1870s, Piskorzewiebecame a major industrial and trade area. Its center waslocated on Saint Nicolas Square (ca. 1871), dominated by abuilding for the police and fire station (1886–87) (Figure 10).Several tenement houses, factories, and warehouses character-ized the urban landscape of this area, which was populated by

Figure 6 Ottomar Wolle, plan of Kalisz, Russian Poland, 1878, detail, with districts labeled and locations of important public buildings and historic

monuments marked: 1, Saint Joseph Square, with the Governor’s Palace; 2, main market square; 3, Orthodox Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul;

4, Saint Nicolas Church; 5, Saint Nicolas Square; 6, main synagogue; 7, Franciscan cloister and church (Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw; graphic additions

by author).

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Figure 7 Saint Joseph Square, Kalisz, Russian

Poland, ca. 1900. Left to right: the Governor’s

Palace, the former Jesuit church serving as the

Lutheran church, and the imperial army garrison

headquarters building; the obeliskwas built in 1841

to commemorate imperial visits to Kalisz (photo by

Wincenty Boretti; Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii

Nauk, Warsaw).

Figure 8 Main market square, eastern section,

Kalisz, Russian Poland, ca. 1900 (photo by

Wincenty Boretti; Muzeum Okregowe Ziemi

Kaliskiej, Kalisz).

Figure 9 Warszawska Street, one of the main old

town streets, as seen from the main market

square, with the Saint Peter and Paul Russian

Orthodox Church (1876–77, demolished 1928)

closing the perspective, Kalisz, Russian Poland,

ca. 1890 (photo byWincenty Boretti; Instytut Sztuki

Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Warsaw).

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merchants, craftsmen, and factory workers. The southern sub-urb consisted of an island where the upper-class residentialstreet, a promenade called Józefina, was located.44 Here thedistrict courthouse building, the Municipal Theater (1896–1900), all the most important banks, and a few modern resi-dential buildings stood (Figure 11). South of this island wasthe historic Wrocław suburb. The Holy Trinity MunicipalHospital, the seventeenth-century cloister and church of theReformed Order, and military barracks stood next to eachother, framing the busy southern entrance to the city that fol-lowed the highway connecting the town with the Germanborder (Figure 12). Streets in these sections of Kalisz wereusually wider than in the old town, mostly between 10 and15 meters wide. Other suburban and half-rural areas domi-nated by wooden houses and populated by factory workers and

the poor were located to the southwest (Dobrzec) and inthe northeastern outskirts of the town (Chmielnik, Tyniec).Finally, east of the town center, among river channels, spaciouspublic gardens served as popular destinations for leisure andtourism (see Figure 6).45 Views of the central areas of Kaliszdominated the local nineteenth-century urban iconography,consisting of postcards, albums, and press prints. PreparingKalisz for the prosperity anticipated to be brought by therailways, in the spring of 1901 the municipal and governorateauthorities proposed a comprehensive investment plan forimplementation during the years 1901 to 1904.

To cover further transportation needs, PresidentMaksymilian Opieliński (in office 1898–1903) and engineerChrzanowski planned the reconstruction, in steel or rein-forced concrete, of the main bridges across the Prosna

Figure 10 Józef Chrzanowski, police and fire

station, Piskorzewie, Kalisz, Russian Poland, 1886–

87; demolished 1970 (photo by Wincenty Boretti,

1892; Muzeum Okregowe Ziemi Kaliskiej, Kalisz).

Figure 11 Józefina Avenue, Kalisz, Russian

Poland, ca. 1905 (postcard; Biblioteka Narodowa,

Warsaw).

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channels. This scheme was connected with the paving ofseveral new streets in Piskorzewie and Wrocławskie Przed-mieście and completion of crucial municipal projects likethe building for the state Realschule (secondary technicalschool).46 In the same month the municipality dividedKalisz’s urban territory into three zones for different types ofindustrial activity, implementing the 1890s ordinances fol-lowing Russian state industrial law, which had been intro-duced to the Polish Kingdom in 1891.47 In the spring of1901, local authorities were busy planning an electric cablecar line through the city and preparing to draw up the newurban development plan.48 All these activities were relatedto the construction of the railway. The new depot and sta-tion for passengers were located south of Kalisz, in the sub-urban area of Nosków (2.5 kilometers from the old town).

Unfortunately, the railway boom was accompanied bychanges at the Governor’s Palace. Daragan’s departure fromKalisz in 1902–3 was associated with the local Russian gen-darmerie’s actions against his policies on Polish and Jewishelites.49 As Paweł Korzec has stressed, local reports sentto Warsaw portrayed Daragan as too “liberal” and a “friendof Poles” who rejected official imperial policy on RussianPoland. He had been probably asked to leave his office inKalisz, but then he became a member of the prestigiousGoverning Senate in Saint Petersburg.50 The new governor,Nicolas Nowosilcow (in office 1903–13), and the new presi-dent of Kalisz, Leonard Boetticher (1855–1918; in office1903–11), very soon faced barriers to the implementation ofthe 1901 investment plan.

In 1902, Varšavskij Dnevnik, the official Russian dailynewspaper published in Warsaw, described efforts to builda modern waterworks system in Kalisz. The reportersstressed that inefficient bureaucracy was delaying the proj-ect, which had been discussed since the 1870s.51 As early as

1874, entrepreneurs from Berlin were unable to convinceKalisz property owners to establish a commercial companyto build a modern waterworks. Local middle-class resi-dents argued that their town, located amid rivers and sup-plied by many efficient wells, did not need such expensiveand unnecessary investments.52 The same reluctance char-acterized Kalisz landowners in the 1880s, when severalfirms from Breslau (Wrocław) offered their projects for asewer system and waterworks.53 Varšavskij Dnevnik statedvaguely that “unreasonable formalities of administration”were the main obstacles to these negotiations. Finally, in1903, an engineer named Growe from Berlin received theconcession to build and then operate waterworks for the com-munity. Unfortunately, he had not even started before thelegal agreement was terminated by the governorate in 1905.54

At the time, the municipality had to deal with the effects ofa flood in 1903, an economic crisis in local industry andstrikes, and the effects of the Russian Revolution and the Rev-olution in the Polish Kingdom between 1905 and 1907.55

Boetticher’s municipality was unable to buy important plots ofland for new streets or to urbanize the new suburbs. The townbudget was consumed by the intensive building campaign ofthe last years of Daragan’s rule.56 A crisis was also caused bythe need for daily maintenance of existing infrastructure.Moreover, unforeseen expenditures on construction of a newartillery barracks for Russian troops, financed by the munici-pality, raided Kalisz’s treasury. And finally, the city was unableto obtain investment loans without receiving special permis-sion from Russian authorities.57 All of these factors impingedon Kalisz’s ability to carry out the modernization of its publicinfrastructure.

The only element of the 1901 plan that finally material-ized was the new bridges, constructed solidly in steel andreinforced concrete. Between 1902 and 1908, the old,

Figure 12 Wrocławska Street, Wrocław suburb,

Kalisz, Russian Poland, ca. 1900. Left: former

Reformed Order church. Right: Holy Trinity

Municipal Hospital (photo by Wincenty Boretti;

Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Warsaw).

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wooden structures were successfully replaced on the mainthoroughfares within the city (Figure 13). In 1908, how-ever, Boetticher’s administration was unable to finance thewaterworks project from the municipal treasury and at thesame time remained reluctant to sell another concession toprivate entrepreneurs. Gazeta Kaliska commented that thestill-anticipated introduction of municipal administrationreform in the Polish Kingdom terminated the waterworksproject. As Boetticher claimed, the reform, endlessly debatedin the Russian Duma, was expected to reshape legal and fiscallimits and make it easier for municipalities to undertakecommunal investments in projects like waterworks.58 Thissituation left the growing city without proper infrastructurefor decades, because municipal reform was not introducedin Russian Poland until the Great War.

A New Urban Regulation Proposal for Kalisz

Following the 1901 plan, the municipal administrationhired surveyor Bronisław Bukowiński (1857–1928) in 1902 tobring the town plan from 1878 up to date, adding recentlyconstructed buildings and new streets.59 He was also taskedwith measuring the existing city and delineating a detailedplan of its environs suitable for the further reconstruction ofinner-city streets and urban regulation of new districts andsuburban areas. This project was strictly connected to an ini-tiative of the municipal and governorate administration thatproposed to incorporate more than 300 hectares of suburbanarea into Kalisz’s boundaries, including the settlements ofCzaszki, Dobrzec, Tyniec, Majków, Chmielnik, and Ogrody(see Figure 6).60 These neighborhoods, together with the oldtown, created the new metropolitan area in July 1906, whenCzar Nicolas II and the Ministry of Internal Affairs acceptedenlargement of Kalisz’s boundaries. “Greater Kalisz,” twicethe size of the original, was expected to serve a population of300,000.61 Hence, comprehensive planning was necessary.

Bukowiński presented his surveys to the municipality inNovember 1905. Boetticher, following state laws and instruc-tions on urban regulation plans in the Polish Kingdom (1820,1854) and in Russia (1870), formed a special commission forthe urban regulation of Kalisz, consisting of the president,governorate engineer SergieyL. Pinajew, his assistant engineerWładysław Stachlewski, municipal architect Józef Schrajer,and Bukowiński.62 Members of the municipal administrationwere also invited to discuss all planning proposals. Accordingto the law, urban regulation plans in Russian Poland wereprepared in coordination between the municipal or county ad-ministration (depending on whether towns were governoratecapitals or county capitals) and governorate agendas. In thesecond stage of the procedure, the Technical-ConstructionCommittee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in SaintPetersburg supervised proposals. Finally, the czar himselfwas responsible for their approval.63 After several meetingsthe commission produced blueprints with schemes for ur-ban regulation and parceling of lots within the new bordersof the town, including proposed streets (divided into majorthoroughfares and residential roads), squares, parks, andlocations of major public buildings. The final project wasdrafted by Bukowiński together with municipal and gover-norate engineers.64

In October 1906, the municipality made a presentation ofthis preliminary version of the plan to the governorate. Todaywe can only reconstruct a draft of this project (Figures 14and 15).65 Its main idea was to introduce a rectangular gridof mostly 15-meter-wide streets in the new districts to unifyall incorporated suburbs with the city. Projected blocks gen-erally measured 150 by 250 meters. In the southern part ofKalisz, between Wrocławskie Przedmieście and the railwaystation (A in Figure 15), the Commission proposed to locatetwo large and several small squares. It appears that a publicpark was designed, but its location remains unclear. Themainaxis of this district would have been Wrocławska Avenue(25 meters wide), which would have connected the oldtown with the new railway hub. A regular grid of streets wasplanned for the new, northern suburbs, like Tyniec andChmielnik. In the old town, the plan included widening maintraffic streets likeWrocławska, Warszawska, and Sukienniczathrough repurchase and demolition of tenements (Figure 16).

The project was an attempt to prepare a rational, geomet-rical layout of streets in the new environs to connect all partsof Kalisz properly and to offer the most convenient layout forparceling of lots. In terms of urban planning techniques, itseems likely that its authors followed official Russian models,introduced to Russian Poland by an 1852 decree, in whichthe 1815 plan for Krasnoye served as the model for Polish cit-ies. In addition, the instructions on urban regulation schemesset by the Ministry of Internal Affairs from 1870 includedmodel plans for a middle-sized town, to serve as an example

Figure 13 Józef Schrajer, steel bridge linking Zamkowy Square with

Stawiszynskie Przedmiescie Street, Kalisz, Russian Poland, 1906–7;

demolished ca. 1941–42 (Ferrer private collection, Kalisz).

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for administrations across the empire.66 Both documents fol-lowed neoclassical eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuryimperial design principles for cities, offering regular, mostlyorthogonal grids for new districts, central squares with prom-inent ensembles of public buildings, and wide, straight streetsforming regular blocks or radial axes.

The presentation of the plan was followed by a longdebate between governorate technicians, the vice governor,and municipal representatives. Surprisingly, governorate en-gineer Pinajew accused Bukowiński and the city authoritiesof lacking skills and of being ignorant of existing laws. Whatis more, Pinajew prepared his own scheme for the plan of

Figure 14 Bronisław Bukowinski, draft plan of Kalisz, Russian Poland, 1905–6, scale 1:12,600 (“Kalendarz na Szkołe Rzemiosł w Kaliszu” [Kalisz, 1908];

Archiwum Panstwowe w Poznaniu, Poznan).

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Kalisz, offering it in three variants. Unfortunately, these proj-ects are also now lost, and their reconstruction is now impos-sible.67 It seems likely that Pinajew’s efforts to delay ordiscredit the work of the commission were motivated by hisambition to become the main author of the project for Kalisz.But he was not successful; the vice governor rejected his ideasbecause of the excessive cost of private lots for the plannedstreets and squares.68 In 1907, after a straightforward discus-sion, the 1905–6 commission plan was once again sent to the

governorate’s building department for amendments and offi-cial advice.69 In 1909 and 1910 the town administration ap-pealed to the governor’s office to consider the final versionof the plan and send it for immediate approval to theMinistryof Internal Affairs in Saint Petersburg.70 Unfortunately, thisturned out to be a waste of time, because Pinajew continuedto try to take over responsibility for all urban planning tasksin Kalisz. The 1905–6 project remained without approval un-til the outbreak of war in 1914.71

Figure 15 Schematic reconstruction of the Municipal Committee’s 1905–6 plan (now lost) for urban regulation of Kalisz, Russian Poland, showing

proposed street network for the city within its new boundaries (1906): A, railway station; B, Wrocław suburb; C, Ogrody; D, old town; E, municipal

gardens; F, Tyniec; G, Piskorzewie; H, Chmielnik. Pre-1906 municipal boundaries are marked with a thick black line (author’s drawing).

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Despite this fact, the building department accepted manyof the project’s ideas. New streets in the southern parts ofKalisz that had been laid out before the Great War formeda rectangular grid similar to that proposed by the commission(Figure 17). These improvements were possible because ofagreements reached with property owners, who divided theirlots or paved new streets at their own expense. As a result,many of these roads—such as Graniczna, Widok, andCmentarna—were actually private streets, even if such prac-tice was at odds with the existing laws concerning urban plan-ning.72 Why was the comprehensive proposal to “regulate”the urban development of Kalisz never officially sanctioned?Possibly because of an ambitious governorate engineer’s clashwith his supervisors and the municipality, but the financialcrisis of Kalisz’s treasury likely also moderated the approachof the governorate. Officially approved by the emperor, theurban regulation plan would have obliged city authorities toinvest considerable sums of money in infrastructure and pub-lic buildings in the new districts. Still, lack of administrativeagreement over the plan resulted in Kalisz’s inability to un-dertake any coherent urban planning policy before 1914.

In the early twentieth century, town planning in Russiaunderwent a transformation, and new designs were imple-mented, such as the ambitious 1899–1903 master plan for thenew Russian colonial city of Dalniy (Dalian), which displayedthe complexity of contemporary planning theories developedin the West, from the Josef Stübben’s handbooks to the ideas

of the garden city movement.73 In Polish Kingdom cities,however, there was no possibility of implementing such am-bitious solutions, as Kalisz’s case shows. The 1905–6 commis-sion project, based on a square geometry and ignoringexisting landscape conditions, could fulfill modern needs onlypartially.74 In addition, existing laws regarding plans werevery limited in terms of “modern urban planning”—that is,planning that included zoning and more complex solutionsfor transportation and housing. Very soon, complaints aboutthe unplanned “new Kalisz” fueled public debate on urbanissues in the local press.

The Emergence of Urban Planning Discoursein Kalisz and Russian Poland

The advent of urban planning discourse in the local Kaliszpress can be connected to new dynamics in the constructionmarket, an increase in the city’s population, and the 1906annexation, together with the lack of consensus over the urbanregulation plan. In the first decade of the century, Gazeta

Figure 16 Section of the plan of Kalisz, Russian Poland, showing the

inner-city area with proposed street widening, ca. 1910; regulation lines

marked in black (Archiwum Panstwowe w Łodzi, Łódz; graphic additions

by author).

Figure 17 Schematic plan of Kalisz, Russian Poland, 1914, showing the

street network and parceling of lots in the southern district of Wrocław

suburb, following the 1905–6 plan (Przeglad Techniczny 54, nos. 19–20

[May 1916], 192; Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw).

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Kaliska and the left-wingKaliszanin frequently published com-plaints about infrastructural deficiencies and the architectureof the new parts of the town, which was perceived as chaoticand lacking functional and artistic value.75 One anonymousreader observed in 1909 of the recently built districts, “Suchalleys and street labyrinths were unheard-of and never builteven in the Middle Ages.”76 The city’s proximity to Germanyalso fueled press campaigns focusing on modernization andthe rationalization of the everyday life standards of a town thataspired to be modern. “Every dweller of Kalisz looks jealouslyon the nearby towns of the GrandDuchy of Poznań,” claimedone observer, comparing the building ordinances and qualityof infrastructure in German Poland with their Russiancounterparts.77

Architects also entered the scene. In 1911, Schrajer, at thetime engineer of the Kalisz County administration, publishedin the Gazeta Kaliska lectures titled “Planowanie miast”(Town planning).78 Describing the impact of nineteenth-century industrialization and population growth on cities,Schrajer commented on the recent rise of town planningtheories in German-speaking countries (Städtebau), praisingthe ability of the architects and planners to combine traffic,infrastructure, modern architecture, and aesthetic needs incomprehensive, visionary plans for their cities. Schrajer criti-cized the industrial metropolises of Europe and the Americasthat had developed during the preceding century for what hecalled their “pure functionality” and uniform street grids laidout by “uneducated draftsmen.”79 Discussing different con-cepts of urban reconstruction in Baron Haussmann’s Parisand Camillo Sitte’s ideas, Schrajer compared them to theurban reality in Russian Poland. His conclusions were pessi-mistic, stressing the chaos of legal codes in building and con-struction ordinances and appealing for municipal reform asthe only solution to the contemporary stalemate and peren-nial lack of planning activity. “Only after the introduction ofelectedmunicipal government and release of special rules willour towns be able to apply broad urban planning methods,just like most of the culturalWestern European cities did,” heconcluded.80 Schrajer’s articles show his awareness of thedebates framing “modern” urban planning as a multidimen-sional task, which started in Europe and the Americas in thelate nineteenth century.81 Surprisingly, Schrajer did not evenmention the existing urban regulation plan for Kalisz, despitethe fact he was a member of the 1905–6 commission. A fewmonths later, this time writing on the sewers and pollution ofthe Prosna river, he called the 1905–6 urban regulation plan“a sketch”; in this way, he followed Pinajew’s path of criticismpublicly.82

It is possible to see this approach as a part of a wider strat-egy of emerging urban planning debate in Russian Poland,namely, the rejection of the official urban regulation patternsbased on the Russian models. In the early 1900s, Polish urban

reformers adopted their ideas mostly from Western exam-ples. Although a comprehensive analysis of the issue has yetto be conducted, I posit that the rise of the modern, complexdiscourse in this field was not only connected with the effectsof rapid late nineteenth-century urbanization, the ineffi-ciency of administrative procedures, and ideas of municipalreform, but also fueled by the 1905–7 Revolution, perceivedas an urban conflict. The years following the Revolution wit-nessed a sudden increase in publications concerning urban is-sues, comparisons of modern planning techniques acrossWestern Europe and the Americas, and projects for reform ofexisting building codes. These discussions were led by theurban middle class: technicians, lawyers, physicians, and jour-nalists. Journals like Przegląd Techniczny (Technical review),Wiadomości Budowlane (Building news), Architekt (Builder),Zdrowie (Health), and the popular illustrated weekly Światfrequently published reviews of international literature andurban planning competitions. Contributors to these publica-tions offered their up-to-date knowledge of the new “artof building cities” in visionary essays on the metropolitanfuture of Warsaw, articles dedicated to recent developmentsin towns and planning methods, comparisons of municipalbuilding codes and zoning, and discussions of the garden citymovement.83

TheWarsawCircle ofTechnicians, theEmperorNicolas IIInstitute of Technology, and the Warsaw Society of Hygiene(WSH), all established in 1898, were the biggest institutionspromoting this discourse based on science and technology.84

The WSH was led by a famous Warsaw physician, JózefPolak (1857–1928), who was also the author of the firstmodern Polish textbook on urban planning.85 The mem-bers of theWSH tried to change what they perceived as therural, traditional habits of the local population and soughtto implement technology- and medicine-based standards,offering what they considered to be scientific solutions toproblems caused by rapid industrialization. The WSHoperated throughout the Polish Kingdom. Local brancheswere established in the early 1900s in many industrial cities,such as Łódź, Lublin, and Częstochowa. The society’s workwas based on an alliance between the Polish intelligentsiaand the multiethnic middle classes, who wanted to “edu-cate” the poor and modernize the way of life of those whowere broadly associated with a “lack of cleanliness,” suchas Orthodox Jews.86 By the 1910s the WSH had becomethe leading Polish institution promoting technologies ofmodern urbanism, including proper sanitation and watersupply; the society also disseminated ideas regarding com-munal housing, the garden city movement, and GermanReformarchitektur.

As Stefan Muthesius has recently shown, the constructionof the third Vistula bridge in Warsaw (1904–13) fueled abroad debate about the urban conditions of the city as a

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former Polish capital and an emerging industrial metropo-lis.87 In addition, the 1909–10 competition for a metropolitanplan for “Greater Cracow” was widely discussed in RussianPoland.88 Soon arguments for a “GreaterWarsaw” appeared,as in architect Józef Holewiński’s 1911 book Przyszły rozwójWarszawy.89 In the area of urban journalism, an issue of Światthat was devoted to the “building of cities” (budownictwomiast) provided a comparative overview of the “developmentof Polish cities,” including Cracow, Lviv, Poznań, andWarsaw.90 Framing Schrajer’s 1911 articles within such acontext, many authors in Russian Poland criticized such phe-nomena as the “regular street grids” of modern cities, whichthey associated mostly with the industrial metropolises of theUnited States.91 In these articles discussion of Russia’s urbandevelopment was totally absent, despite the fact that the offi-cial planning procedures in the empire were based on a rect-angular layout for street grids. While Schrajer, like mostKalisz architects, was a graduate of the Institute of Civil En-gineers in Saint Petersburg, he never mentioned the efforts ofRussia’s urban reformers, showing a primary interest in thedirect “Westernization” of what aspired to be Polish dis-course on town planning.92 In the context of Kalisz such anattitude should be interpreted as a rejection of the 1905–6project, which he probably saw as not suitable for the modernaspirations of the local middle class.

In the contemporary Polish public sphere, disappoint-ment with the urban conditions of the new, industrial Kaliszdominated. The anonymous author of a series of articlestitled “Wczasy kaliskie” (Kalisz conveniences), published inthe right-wing Gazeta Kaliska in 1911–13, analyzed the city’surban space, combining architectural, social, and political cri-tiques. The articles enumerated and reviewed the contempo-rary urban and social needs of Kalisz. The author, possiblyGazeta Kaliska editor Radwan himself, was probably a mem-ber of the Polish intelligentsia and a middle-class supporterof the new municipal administration established in 1911under the leadership of Bukowiński.93 Describing what hesaw as Kalisz’s urban backwardness—exemplified by a lack of

properly paved streets and communal infrastructure and anabsence of rational urban planning—he called for immediatemunicipal reforms and actions. In one of his 1912 feuilletonsthe author described a walk from the inner town through thenew districts of Kalisz. He depicted the Ogrody (gardens)neighborhood especially, with particular emphasis on what hecalled the “wild appearance” of streets covered with dust andlacking even streetlamps.94

Ogrody was one of the neighborhoods that developed inthe early twentieth century (Figure 18). It was located in theWrocław suburb, next to the seventeenth-century cloisterand church of the Reformed Order and a small group of sub-urban villas from the 1870s. Up to the late 1890s it remaineda rural area, dominated by gardens and agriculture. Atthe turn of the twentieth century, several entrepreneurs fromKalisz—industrialists, merchants, and wealthy members ofthe gentry—bought lots in Ogrody to build tenements forthe growing population. The neighborhood’s location wasadvantageous, close to the old town and next to the emergingindustrial cluster. The new Realschule built by the municipal-ity opened its doors here in 1903. The street pattern ofOgrody had been established before 1906, when the area wasincorporated into Kalisz, on the basis of older rural paths,without intervention by the municipal administration andgovernorate building authorities. Two parallel west–eaststreets were created, Piaskowa and Podgórze, which differedin width from east to west. Piaskowa was 7 meters wide inits eastern part and 11 in the western section (Figure 19).The eastern segment of Podgórze was 11 meters wide, andthe western was 8 meters. Piaskowa and Podgórze were con-nected by the narrow alley passage of Gołębia. This dysfunc-tional layout of streets, lacking pavement and lighting,resulted from property speculation and an absence of urbanplanning.

In 1910, Ogrody consisted of about forty lots, most18 meters wide and 30–50 meters long. Speculators builtone- or two-story brick houses with small lateral outbuild-ings for warehouses, workshops, or woodsheds. Inner

Figure 18 Plan of Kalisz, Russian Poland, 1914,

detail showing the Ogrody neighborhood:

1, nineteenth-century suburban villas; 2, industrial

area; 3, stateRealschule, built 1900–1903; 4, public

baths, built by the Kalisz branch of the Warsaw

Society of Hygiene, 1909–11 (Biblioteka

Narodowa, Warsaw; graphic additions by author).

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courtyards were cultivated as small vegetable and fruit gar-dens. As in the other districts of Kalisz, there was no com-munal sewage or water system. Despite the fact that theapportioning of Ogrody was unplanned, the area was notdensely urbanized or overcrowded. In comparison with theinner town, its density was its main advantage. In the pe-riod following the 1906 incorporation, municipal authori-ties paid little attention to Ogrody. It was a neighborhoodlacking a strong political lobby, populated mostly by thelower-middle or lower classes: families of petty merchants,craftsmen, and factory workers. They worked in thenearby factories of Piskorzewie or combined small andbasic living spaces with workshops or even operated smallfactories located in the courtyards of the tenements.

The author of the “Kalisz conveniences” articles com-mented that Ogrody represented “almost a landscape of someupheaval or catastrophe,” characterizing its space by thechaos of unpaved alleys, which for him were “suspect.”95

Urban conditions in Ogrody caught his attention for their“primordial originality,” half-rural, half-urban space thatviolated his expectations of how a modern European cityshould function and look. Like other suburbs described inthis series, Ogrody, portrayed as a “tangle of crude streets,”demonstrated what the author perceived as a lack of the ratio-nality and moral order that, in his eyes, the urban space ofKalisz should manifest. Such neighborhoods suggested aninability on the part of the Polish middle class to sustain itscontrol, through efficient municipal administration and socialpatronage, by providing an example to the lower classes ofthe proper order of urban space. Those “strange,” “suspect”districts and the “crude” qualities of urban space manifestedtheir potential as revolutionary spaces to be populated by the“mob” during possible strikes and upheavals, as the events of

the 1905–7 Revolution had proven. Writing as an expert,rational planner of the modern city and supporter of therenewed municipality, the author suggested that contempo-rary Kalisz overshadowed the town he had known beforethe railway boom, a town that, in his view, had been small,admirable, and dominated by the local Polish intelligentsia:“This huge influx into Kalisz was dominated by differentelements of an alien, crude, backward genre; plenty of indi-viduals who have nothing to lose, seeking only a fortunatehour for themselves.”96

The “Kalisz conveniences” articles reveal not only theauthor’s ambitions for comprehensive townmanagement andnostalgia for the idealized old town but also his views ofthe ethnic clashes and political rivalry between the PolishNational Democracy movement and the left-wing partiesof Polish and Jewish socialists, a conflict that characterizedurban life in Russian Poland in the 1900s.97 Those “alien,crude, and backward” elements were Jews and poor settlerswho, in the author’s view, remained uneducated and wereprobably infiltrated by socialists. Playing on such ethnic inse-curities in the closing parts of his journalistic series, theauthor promoted the view that rapid urbanization had trans-formed Kalisz into a hybrid, a place of struggle for economicrivalry and a space of political uncertainty.98 Simultaneouslyproposing a new approach to addressing urban needs—thecomplex care of the city and ongoing development based onscience, technology, and the art of modern urbanism—

Schrajer and the author of the “Kalisz conveniences” articlestried to promote their own skills as a basis for efficient poli-cies of the rational nation-state.

The 1911 Congress of Hygienists in Kalisz:The Call for Self-Determination

The most important advocate for urban planning reform inRussian Poland was the public hygiene movement. A branchof the WSH was established in Kalisz in 1903 and broughttogether more than forty active, educated members from allprofessions, such as physicians like Leon Wernic (1870–1953), architects like Schrajer, and politicians like Dumadeputy Alfons Parczewski (1849–1933).99 Soon the WSHcommenced various initiatives: establishment of playgroundsfor the intelligentsia’s offspring, summer holidays for childrenof the poor, and construction of public baths located inOgrody (Figure 20). Its actions were supported by publicfunding, but also by contributions from the local bourgeoisie.Society members analyzed Kalisz’s urbanscape from the pers-pectives of bacteriology and hygiene and published articles inGazeta Kaliska and Zdrowie, the official bulletin of theWSH.100 The Kalisz branch not only criticized the town’spoor communal infrastructure but also proposed severalprojects dedicated to modernization suitable for the city’s

Figure 19 Different street widths visible on Wojciech Jabłkowski Street

(known as Piaskowa Street before 1914), Ogrody, Kalisz, Poland

(author’s photo).

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expanded boundaries. One of its most interesting initiativeswas the Congress of Hygienists in Kalisz, held 8–10September 1911. The meeting gathered Kalisz and Warsawarchitects, physicians, and intellectuals to discuss the city’sinfrastructure, urban conditions, and social life. The eventmarshaled more than one hundred participants, mostlymiddle-class men and a few women.101 Representatives ofthe imperial administration were absent; only PresidentBukowiński attended. The main program consisted of sixthematic papers followed by discussions, a trip throughKalisz, and presentation of the public baths.102

The opening paper on 8 September was delivered by localarchitect Marcin Heyman (1880–after 1939), who presented acomprehensive list of Kalisz’s needs in terms of infrastructureand public institutions. Heymanmentioned the lack of sewageand water systems, pollution of the river by industrial sewage,the poor quality of transportation services, and the hazardousworking conditions in the biggest of Kalisz’s factories.103 Hestated that the absence of a modern urban development planmade proper construction of central waterworks and sewersimpossible, and he linked the problem to the absence of effec-tive means of public transport.104 Heyman also discussedthe poor living conditions among the lower strata of society.Because of the high rents in the new districts, the growingpopulation of factory workers lived mostly in the medievalcore of the town, in the basements and attics of decrepit earlynineteenth-century houses, or in suburban, half-rural settle-ments that consisted mostly of vernacular wooden houses.105

Finally, Heyman campaigned for what he called a moderniza-tion of Kalisz’s middle-class houses and apartments. Accord-ing to his hygiene-oriented view, they were repositories ofdust, overcrowded as they were with old-fashioned furnitureand plush curtains. He recommended better lightening, venti-lation, and refurbishment.106

Heyman’s opening paper was followed by multiple threadsof discussion. Some participants focused on sanitation, sewagesystems, and urban regulation plans, including physicianBronisław Koszutski’s (1875–1952) paper on basement flats inKalisz.107 According to Koszutski’s studies, one-eighth ofthe city’s population lived in unhealthy conditions in damp,ill-lit basements. There was no initiative on the part of themunicipal administration or the owners of the factories tobuild cheap apartments for workers. Duma deputy Parczewskistressed his disappointment with the city’s recent urbangrowth. He found it frustrating because the town had poten-tial as a prosperous industrial capital mediating betweenRussian Poland and Germany: “All the streams of Westernculture are supposed to flow through Kalisz, which shouldmake absorbing the gains of modern civilization easier,” heclaimed.108 Parczewski elsewhere campaigned for an activemunicipal urban policy in Kalisz, criticizing the “lack of gen-eral synthesis andmaster plan, lack of commitment to beautifytown and dwellings.”109 Kalisz, transformed by industry andtrade, was in his view an insignificant group of settlements,unsupported by basic infrastructure and deprived of urbanbeauty: “Town building abroad is considered today as anart . . . when we in the twentieth century build hideous,unaesthetic districts.”110 For Parczewski, his home city wasfar behind small German towns, where living conditionswere better thanks to building laws that regulated publichygiene and modern transportation and municipalities thatmade communal investments. He cited the new districtsof Dresden and Bautzen as examples to be followed. Hisdescription of Kalisz was also a political indictment of themunicipal government and the contemporary politicalweaknesses of the Polish Kingdom.

Parczewski’s criticism was evident especially when herecalled the superior qualities of historical monuments and

Figure 20 Zenon Chrzanowski and Chrzanowski,

Neyman and Dzierzanowski, public bath, built by

the Kalisz branch of the Warsaw Society of

Hygiene, Towarowa Street, Kalisz, Russian Poland,

1909–11; altered in the 1990s to serve as the

headquarters of a local bank (photo 1933; Album

Kalisza z 1933 roku, Special Collections Division,

Ksiaznica Pedagogiczna imienia Alfonsa

Parczewskiego, Kalisz).

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the early nineteenth-century squares and public buildings ofKalisz, founded by rational, enlightened patrons under theliberal state governance of the constitutional Polish Kingdomof 1815 to 1830. Parczewski suggested that these achieve-ments serve as examples of good urban space that contempo-rary Kalisz authorities and planners could emulate.111 Hischoice of 1830—the beginning of the Polish–Russian warand the end of the constitutional Polish Kingdom—as a turn-ing point inKalisz’s urban development was not a coincidence.He proposed the refined classicism of the public architectureof the town, modernized under state patronage between1815 and 1830, as amodel for theKalisz of the future, suggest-ing that more autonomous Polish self-governance within theempire was necessary.

The Congress ofHygienists in Kalisz made several resolu-tions, regarding improvement of the water supply, release ofan urban development plan, and establishment of credit insti-tutions to finance cheap housing. In Russian Poland, whereno coherent state program of urban investments existed, theWarsaw Society of Hygiene was one of the few social organ-izations that tried to import ideas about modern urban cul-ture in planning, adapting trends from Western Europe.The idealized image of the “Western city,” where eleganttown houses surrounded by gardens lined picturesque boule-vards and cooperative housing estates for workers demon-strated social patronage and the power of the state, mayhave been on Parczewski’s mind when he commented oncontemporary Kalisz’s backwardness. His hometown was aspace where ethnic and class conflicts were increasing. TheCongress of Hygienists was organized at a time of growingeconomic tensions among the Polish, German, and Jewishpopulations of Russian Poland. The participants’ politicalagenda was to propagate and implement modern technolo-gies of management in industrial Kalisz, management basedon a scientific alliance of hygiene, urbanism, the art of plan-ning, and beautification that masked economic, class, and cul-tural policies of urban segregation.112

It is curious that there was again virtually no discussionabout the existing urban regulation plan produced by the mu-nicipality and the governorate. During the congress, Buko-wiński mentioned this project only once, claiming that hisadministration would send it to Saint Petersburg for immedi-ate approval.113 The plan’s ideas and solutions were not evenpresented or discussed during the sessions, as if the documentdid not exist. Tellingly, sessions were held in the building ofthe Kalisz Association of Music, not in the spacious TownHall. For the reformers it was probably the “foreign terrain”of the Russian-dominated administration they criticized soeagerly.114 In addition, the absence of any governorate tech-nicians or representatives should be considered a clear mes-sage that the congress was an independent event, organizedexclusively by Polish professionals to offer their views on

modern technologies for “national” urban governance. As thehistory of many similar initiatives shows, however, the impactof the participants’ outside expertise was limited.115 Kalisz’ssymposium did not attract a broad audience or the interest ofthe bourgeoisie or lower classes.116

President Bukowiński and his middle-class Polish sup-porters tried to introduce some of the congress’s proposalsalong with ideas inspired by the garden city movement,such as the “green suburb” on Pólko, located northeast ofKalisz.117 Despite the fact that the problems diagnosed in1911 were connected mostly with the alarming living con-ditions of the poor, the municipality decided to invest con-siderable money in a new public garden, which was openedduring the Kalisz Gardening Exhibition of 1912. The gar-den featured sports facilities, including tennis and football(soccer) grounds, dedicated to the “hygienic development”of the modern body, and it functioned as a commercialsporting space for Kalisz elites and their progeny.118

Although Bukowiński’s administration discussed onceagain the possibility of constructing a communal sewagesystem, waterworks, an electric cable car system, and streetlighting, the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914 inter-rupted those efforts.

Conclusion: An “Unwelcome Transformation”?

The urban development of Kalisz at the turn of the twentiethcentury resulted from the effects of industrialization on thismiddle-sized town in Russian Poland. The complicated con-dition of the municipal administration and the convolutedrelations between the imperial governorate and local com-munities were crucial elements in Kalisz’s urbanization. Thefiasco of local efforts to prepare an urban regulation plan forKalisz, however, seems to have stimulated activism on thepart of the Polish intelligentsia. By discussing the town’sneeds, professionals and intellectuals drew attention to whatthe governorate and the municipality had neglected: modernurban planning. During the early 1900s, when mass politicsemerged in Russian Poland, policies on public investmentwere clearly guided by political, class, and national consider-ations. The rapid growth of Kalisz transformed the social andspatial landscape of the city. The emergence of communitiesof factory workers and new suburbs dominated by the lowerclasses stimulated discourse on what contemporary middle-class observers, especially members of the Polish educatedclass, perceived as the “unwelcome transformation” of Kalisz.After the shock caused by the 1905–7 Revolution, when thestreets of Kalisz were crowded with Polish and Jewish resi-dents demonstrating against both bourgeois and imperialpower, the local elites tried to modernize their town andimprove the living conditions of the poor. They lacked

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effective tools, however, because the municipal administra-tion was inefficient.

Intellectuals like Parczewski were fully aware that politicalreforms could not solve all the problems of urban growth.119

In the first decade of the twentieth century, conflicts amongPoles, Jews, and Germans living in Kalisz were evidentbehind the political campaign to reform municipal gover-nance. As Theodore Weeks puts it, commenting on the com-plicated history of the municipal reform project in theRussian Duma:

Aside from the eternal problem of Russian distrust of Poles,efforts to introduce elective city government to the Polish King-dom were complicated by the high percentage of Jews dwellingin the Kingdom’s cities. Government distrust of both Poles andJews was compounded by increasing tension between the Polishand Jewish communities in the Kingdom of Poland, and espe-cially in its two largest cities, Warsaw and Łódź. It was not theRussian government but Polish anti-Semitism and the intransi-gent Russian reaction in the State Council that prevented theintroduction of elective city governments in Russian Poland.120

Kalisz was no exception. Bukowiński, Parczewski, and Rad-wan were Polish right-wing politicians connected with theNational Democracy movement. Their efforts to modernizeKalisz were part of their strategies for gaining power and pre-paring local Polish elites for municipal administrationreform. The elected city government desired by those whocampaigned for liberal reformmight have been able to imple-ment urban improvements if municipal reform had beenenacted. Hygiene, urban development plans, and efforts tobeautify Kalisz were part of the larger political discourse ofthe Polishmiddle class, which aspired to govern the city inde-pendently as an emerging industrial metropolis.

It may be concluded that under late imperial Russian rule,Polish cities faced great difficulties in establishing the legaland administrative structures needed to support urban plan-ning. The case of Kalisz demonstrates the imperial regime’sreluctance to provide an effective legal framework for munic-ipal administration, leaving the city unable to develop thepublic infrastructure that would have ameliorated the effectsof industrialization. Despite the fact that local elites perceivedKalisz’s border location as advantageous for the developmentof industry, trade, and commerce, the dynamic growth thatcharacterized the post-1902 period gave rise to political andethnic conflicts. The issue of the new “art of building cities”became a crucial tool for articulating the self-governance as-pirations of the members of an emerging Kalisz middle class,despite their lack of actual political control during imperialRussian domination. This dynamic is typical for many indus-trializing cities, but it seems that Kalisz suffered from it at alater date than did cities in Western Europe, and in very dif-ferent political circumstances: under an imperial and colonial

regime. Hence, being politically engaged, the Kalisz urbanreformers combined their Western-oriented discourse witha call for the revival of the more localized traditions of earlynineteenth-century classicism, which were associated withthe liberal period of the semi-independent Polish Kingdomfrom before 1830. Given this history, the Kalisz case study isan instructive example of the complicated roles that architec-ture and town planning played in imperial Russia’s border-lands during the early twentieth century.

Makary Górzyński is currently working on his PhD dissertation,which focuses on architecture and narratives concerning urbanspace in late nineteenth-century Kalisz. He has published athree-volume guide to the architectural monuments of Poland’sTurek County, monographs on the nineteenth-century Town Halland Theatre in Kalisz, and a few journal essays on urban history.http://www.mgarchitecturehistorian.eu

Notes1. This article is based on the research I conducted for my PhD thesis“Miasto, społeczeństwo, przyszłośc: Architektura i przestrzenie nowoczesno-ści Kalisza przełomu XIX–XX wieku” (City, society, future: Architecture andspaces of modernity in Kalisz at the turn of the twentieth century) (Institute ofArt History, University of Warsaw; academic promoter Professor BarbaraArciszewska). I would like to thank especially Professor Barbara Arciszewskaand Professor Agnieszka Zabłocka-Kos for their support, comments, and ed-iting and research tips that helped me substantially during my work on themanuscript. I would also like to thank the anonymous JSAH reviewer forinsightful comments that helped me develop the final version of this essay. Inaddition, let me express my gratitude to the editor of JSAH, Patricia Morton,for her patient editing and clarification of the manuscript and for manyimportant comments that helped to elaborate its conclusions. I also owea great debt of gratitude to Professor Theodore R. Weeks, ProfessorMalte Rolf, and all my Kalisz and Warsaw colleagues, who discussed myresearch with me several times, especially during the fruitful meetings ofthe Kalisz Society of Friends of Sciences. In its early stage, the manu-script was proofread by the Proof-Reading-Service.com team. I wouldalso like to thank Judy Selhorst for the excellent copyediting of this articlefor JSAH.

In this article I use the historical names Polish Kingdom (or Kingdom ofPoland) and Russian Poland in reference to ten particular Polish provinces, asmall part of the historical Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in its lateeighteenth-century form. After partition by Prussia, Austria, and Russia from1772 to 1795, these provinces finally fell under Russian rule in 1815, when theso-called Polish Kingdom was established by Russia. In the second half of thenineteenth century, after the unsuccessful January Uprising against Russia(1863–64), it was forcibly integrated with the Russian Empire. At the begin-ning of the twentieth century it was sometimes called Privislinsky Krai (Vis-tula Land or Russian Poland) in official documents, but its previous nameremained in use until the end of the empire in 1917.2. Adolf Nowaczyński, “Życie prowincyi,” Świat 2, no. 32 (10 Aug. 1907), 2.3. For an outline of the modern protection of historical monuments inPoland, see Bohdan Rymaszewski, Polska ochrona zabytków (Warsaw:Wydaw-nictwo Naukowe Scholar, 2005).4. Nowaczyński, “Życie prowincyi,” 3, my translation. Unless otherwisenoted, all translations are my own.5. The term governorate refers here to the Russian word guberniya and itsPolish counterpart gubernia, meaning the province, which was the major

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administrative and territorial unit of the Russian Empire from the time ofPeter the Great.6. Nowaczyński, “Życie prowincyi,” 3.7. Ibid., 4. By comparing the Polish Kingdom, a Russified part of the empire,to Tashkent, captured in 1865 by the Russian army (and later a capital ofRussian Turkistan), Nowaczyński suggested a colonial relationship betweenthe Polish borderland and the imperial center directly.8. Jarosława Raszewska, “Rozwój zaludnienia miasta Kalisza w latach 1793–1939,” Rocznik Kaliski 2 (1969), 8–67.9. On the Eastern European phenomenon of the intelligentsia, see Denis A.Sdvižkov, Zeitalter der Intelligenz: Zur vergleichenden Geschichte der Gebildeten inEuropa bis zum ErstenWeltkrieg (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht, 2006).See also Aleksander Gella, “The Life and Death of the Old Polish Intelligent-sia,” Slavic Review 30, no. 1 (Mar. 1971), 1–27.10. For an example of recent scholarship on imperial Russia and Poland, seeMalte Rolf, Imperiale Herrschaft im Weichselland: Das Königreich Polen im russi-schen Imperium (1864–1915) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015).11. In addition to its importance for the development of modern mass politicsand nationalism in the Russian Empire, the 1905–7 Revolution played an es-sential role in urban issues, including the use of town management and urbanplanning as political tools. On the Revolution and the Polish Kingdom, seeRobert Blobaum, Rewolucja: Russian Poland, 1904–1907 (Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity Press, 1995). For recent discussions, see Rolf, Imperiale Herrschaft,325–74; Kamil Piskała andWiktor Marzec, Rewolucja 1905: Przewodnik krytykipolitycznej (Warsaw: Krytyka Polityczna, 2013); Felicitas Fischer von Weikers-thal, Frank Grüner, Susanne Hohler, Franziska Schedewie, and Raphael Utz,eds.,The Russian Revolution of 1905 in Transcultural Perspective: Identities, Periph-eries, and the Flow of Ideas (Bloomington, Ind.: Slavica, 2013); Marek Przeniosłaand StanisławWiech, eds., Rewolucja 1905–1907 w Królestwie Polskim i w Rosji(Kielce: Wydawnictwo Akademii Świętokrzyskiej im. Jana Kochanowskiego,2005); Andrzej Szwarc, “Rewolucja 1905 roku na ziemiach polskich: Refleksjeo historiografii i postawach inteligenckich elit,” Artes Liberales: Zeszyty Nau-kowe Wyższej Szkoły Humanistycznej imienia Aleksandra Gieysztora 1, no. 1(2006), 25–36.12. “Wczasy kaliskie III,” Gazeta Kaliska 20, no. 52 (3 Mar. 1912), 2.13. Kamil Śmiechowski, “Searching for the Better City: An Urban Discourseduring the Revolution of 1905 in theKingdomof Poland,” Praktyka Teoretyczna13, no. 3 (2014), 73, http://www.praktykateoretyczna.pl/PT_nr13_2014_Archeologies/04.Smiechowski.pdf (accessed 14 Aug. 2015).14. Barry M. Doyle, “Urban Politics and Space in the Nineteenth and Twen-tieth Centuries: Regional Perspectives,” inUrban Politics and Space in the Nine-teenth and Twentieth Centuries: Regional Perspectives, ed. Barry M. Doyle(Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2007), 19.15. My approach to urban modernity is informed mostly by the “localized”perspective of “multiple modernities.” For informative discussion of moder-nity as a useful concept for historians of architecture, seeMiles Ogborn, Spacesof Modernity: London’s Geographies, 1680–1780 (London: Guilford Press,1998), 1–38; Barbara Arciszewska, Classicism and Modernity: ArchitecturalThought in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Warsaw: Neriton, 2010), 10–32. Fordiscussions of Polish realities at the time, see especially Tomasz Kizwalter,O nowoczesności narodu: Przypadek polski (Warsaw: Semper, 1999); Jerzy Jed-licki, Jakiej cywilizacji Polacy potrzebują: Studia z dziejów idei i wyobraźni XIXwieku (Warsaw: W.A.B./CiS, 2002).16. Edward Grabowski, Skupienia miejskie w Królestwie Polskiem (Warsaw:Ekonomista, 1914), 15, 24. Between 1875 and 1897, the number of inhabi-tants in these areas grew from 6,515,000 to 9,402,000; by 1909, the popula-tion had risen to 11,935,000. See ibid., 24.17. Antoni Okolski, Wykład prawa administracyjnego i prawa administracyjnegoobowiązującego w Królestwie Polskiem, vol. 2 (Warsaw: Redakcja BibliotekiUmiejętności Prawnych, S. Orgelbrand & Synowie, 1882).

18. For comprehensive studies of incomes and expenditures of towns inRussian Poland and Polish partitions, including expenditures on armedforces, see Edward Strasburger, Gospodarka naszych wielkich miast: Warszawa,Łódź, Kraków, Lwów, Poznań na podstawie budżetu na rok 1911 w porównaniuz latami poprzedniemi (Cracow: G. Gebethner, 1913); Bolesław Markowski,Finanse miast Królestwa Polskiego (Kielce: Tłocznia Kurjera Kieleckiego,1913). See also Daniel R. Brower, The Russian City between Tradition andModernity, 1850–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 131.19. Andrzej Chwalba, Historia Polski 1795–1918 (Cracow: WydawnictwoLiterackie, 2001), 40.20. Adolf Suligowski, Projekty ustaw samorządu miejskiego w Królestwie Polskim(Warsaw, 1906); Adolf Suligowski, Potrzeba samorządu (Warsaw: DrukarniaPolska, 1915); Jolanta Burza, “Starania o samorząd miejski w KrólestwiePolskim na przełomie XIX i XX wieku” (MA diss., Institute of History,University of Warsaw, 1988); Theodore R. Weeks, Nation and State in LateImperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863–1914 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), 152–72. Similarexpectations could be observed in Russia, where municipal reform was intro-duced in 1870; see Brower, The Russian City, 96–97.21. On the complicated history of railways in the Kalisz area, including theinfluence of Russian military strategy and lack of concessions to build railwaysnear the border, see M. Krzysica, “Rola czynników wojskowo-politycznych wbudowie kolei żelaznych w Królestwie Polskim,” in Studia do dziejów kolei że-laznych w Królestwie Polskim (1840–1914), ed. Ryszard Kołodziejczyk (War-saw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1970), 9–44.22. The Kalisz governorate administration comprised the governorate gov-ernment, led by the governor and his chancellery. It was established as an im-perial administrative unit (with preference in employment for Russians) onthe basis of the 1866–67 administrative reform of the governance over thePolish Kingdom. The governorate administration was supervised by theMinistry of Internal Affairs in Saint Petersburg and its Warsaw general-governorate, comprising ten governorates of Russian Poland. Another presti-gious workplace was the district courthouse and mortgage offices (super-vised by the Ministry of Justice in Saint Petersburg), which replaced thePolish Tribunal in 1876. Also located in Kalisz, in addition to the munici-pal administration, were the district departments of the Imperial Treasury,the State Schools Management Bureau, a branch of the Imperial StateBank (which in 1886 replaced the local branch of the liquidated PolishBank in Warsaw), the Kalisz County administration, the GovernorateCouncil of Public Charity, and the imperial army garrison headquartersfor infantry and cavalry units.23. Halina Tumolska, Kultura polityczna “małej ojczyzny” w świetle prasy kalis-kiej (1870–1914) (Kalisz: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu imieniaAdama Mickiewicza, 2006).24. See Iwona Barańska, “Dlaczego się Kalisz nie rozprzestrzenia? Problemyrozwoju przestrzennego Kalisza w końcu XIX i na początku XX wieku”(lecture delivered at the session “Portret miasta: Architektura Kalisza w doku-mentach archiwalnych,” Town Hall, Kalisz, 1 Dec. 2010), http://www.archiwum.kalisz.pl/aktualnosci/56 (accessed 26 Aug. 2015).25. Stanisław Wiech, “Dyktatura serca” na zachodnich rubieżach CesarstwaRosyjskiego: Dzieje kariery wojskowo-urzędniczej Piotra Albiedyńskiego(Kielce: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Humanistyczno–PrzyrodniczegoJana Kochanowskiego, 2010).26. SeeMakary Górzyński,Dziewiętnastowieczny ratusz w Kaliszu: Architekturai niezrealizowany projekt nowoczesności (Kalisz: Kaliskie Towarzystwo PrzyjaciółNauk, 2014). The “condition of incompleteness” of the Town Hall in Kaliszcan be compared with the fates of other buildings, such as the imposing mainbuilding of the Czar Nicolas II Institute of Technology inWarsaw (1902), theinner courtyard of which is crowned by a spectacular staircase. This building,designed for the multiethnic Committee of Russian Poland’s Industrialists to

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house a modern technical university, was also planned as a possible venue formass political gatherings, in anticipation of expected municipal reform.Although a comprehensive study has yet to be conducted, it may be assumedthat both public buildings were examples of architecture that was designedwith political ideas of self-governance in mind but were never used for suchpurposes due to the imperial regime’s unwillingness to enact municipal re-forms in Russian Poland. On the history and role of the institute’s building,see Małgorzata Omilanowska, Architekt Stefan Szyller 1857–1933 (Warsaw:Liber Pro Arte, Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2008), 263–67;Agnieszka Zabłocka-Kos, “Zwischen Kunst und Politik: Hochschulbauten inMitteleuropa im 19. Jahrhundert” (paper presented at the session “Das Vor-rücken des Staats in die Fläche im langen 19. Jahrhundert,” meeting of theTagung des Verbandes der Osteuropahistorikerinnen und -historiker,Herder-Instut, Marburg, Germany, 21–22 Feb. 2013).27. Górzyński, Dziewiętnastowieczny ratusz w Kaliszu. On this issue, see alsoMakary Górzyński, “Architecture of Urban Success: Experiencing PublicElite and Middle Class Spaces of Kalisz at the Turn of the 20th Century” (pa-per presented at the conference “Architecture and Experience in the Nine-teenth Century,” St John’s College, Oxford, 17–18 Mar. 2016), http://uw.academia.edu/MakaryG%C3%B3rzy%C5%84ski (accessed 7 Mar. 2017).On the role of the Renaissance as a source for representations of the modernand liberal, see Patrick Joyce, The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the ModernCity (New York: Verso, 2003).28. Artur Kijas, “Rosjanie w Kaliszu i guberni kaliskiej na przełomie XIX/XXwieku (do 1914r.),” in Kalisz—miasto otwarte: Mniejszości narodowe i religijne wdziejach Kalisza i ziemi kaliskiej, ed. Krzysztof Walczak and Ewa Andrysiak(Kalisz: Kaliskie Towarzystwo PrzyjaciółNauk, 2006), 70–79; Maciej Błacho-wicz and Anna Tabaka,Nowy Kaliszanin (Kalisz: Miejska Biblioteka Publicznaimienia Adama Asnyka, 2010), 199–201.29. See Władysław Kościelniak and Krzysztof Walczak, Kronika miasta Ka-lisza (Kalisz: Kaliskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, 2002).30. Richard G. Robbins, The Tsar’s Viceroys: Russian Provincial Governors in theLast Years of the Empire (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987); ŁukaszChimiak, Gubernatorzy rosyjscy w Królestwie Polskim: Szkic do portretu zbioro-wego (Wrocław: Funna, 1999); Artur Górak, Jan Kozłowski, and KrzysztofLatawiec, Słownik biograficzny gubernatorów i wicegubernatorów w KrólestwiePolskim (1867–1918) (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu imienia MariiCurie-Skłodowskiej, 2014). During Daragan’s tenure, a multiethnic intel-ligentsia and industrial elites established or expanded the activities ofprofessional, charity, and sports associations important for local sociallife, including the Association of Music (established 1882), the Associa-tion of Cyclists (established 1892), and the Kalisz Industry and TradeAssociation (established 1899). For comprehensive discussions of Kaliszsocial life at the turn of the century, see Andrzej Szwarc, “Inteligencjaw mieście gubernialnym Królestwa Polskiego po powstaniu styczniowym:Przykład Kalisza,” in Wspólnoty lokalne i środowiskowe w miastach i mia-steczkach ziem polskich pod zaborami i pod odzyskaniu niepodległości, ed. MariaNietyksza (Toruń: Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 1998), 211–22;Edward Polanowski, “Organizacja zycia kulturalnego, literackiego i nau-kowego w Kaliszu do 1914 r.,” in Dzieje Kalisza, ed. Władysław Rusiński(Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 1977), 452–80; Edward Polanowski,Życie literackie Kalisza 1870–1907 (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy,1987).31. See Andrzej Jezierski, Handel zagraniczny Królestwa Polskiego 1815–1914(Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1967).32. See StanisławKoszutski,Rozwój ekonomiczny Królestwa Polskiego w ostatnimtrzydziestoleciu 1870–1900 (Warsaw: Księgarnia Naukowa, 1905), 190; MariaNietyksza, Rozwój miast i aglomeracji miejsko-przemysłowych w KrólestwiePolskim 1865–1914 (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1986),263–64; Anna Roth, “Sto lat kaliskiej kolei żelaznej,” Kronika Wielkopolski30, no. 2 (2003), 160–64; Wiesław Puś, Przemysł Królestwa Polskiego w latach

1870–1914: Problemy struktury i koncentracji (Łódź: Uniwersytet Łódzki,1984).33. For an outline of Kalisz’s industrial development, see Jarosław Dolat,Fabryki Kalisza i okolic 1815–1989 (Kalisz: Archiwum Państwowe–Warsaw,Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Państwowych, 2016).34. Raszewska, “Rozwój zaludnienia miasta Kalisza”; Julian Janczak,“Stosunki ludnościowe,” in Rusiński, Dzieje Kalisza, 328–42.35. The figures noted here are only approximate because of the inaccuratestatistical methods used in nineteenth-century Russian Poland. See Janczak,“Stosunki ludnościowe,” 340.36. Grabowski, Skupienia miejskie, 132–35; Nietyksza, Rozwój miast.37. Rad [Józef Radwan], “Kolej Kaliska,” Gazeta Kaliska 8, no. 76 (4 Apr.1900), 1.38. See Wincenty Szatkowski, Kaliszanin kalendarz ilustrowany na rok zwyc-zajny 1902 (Kalisz: K. W. Hindemith, 1901), 55–56.39. Between 1870 and 1886, no more than fifty new town houses were built,and another forty older structures were altered or reconstructed. “Kalisz wświetle historyczno-ekonomicznem: Kalisz od roku 1866 po dzień dzisiejszy,”Kaliszanin 16, no. 7 (1886), 3–4.40. The governorate official Telesfor Trojanowski noted that in the 1901season about twenty-one new tenements had been built, and more thanone hundred new private structures had permission to be built in 1902.Tel-troj [Telesfor Trojanowski], “PrzyszłoścKalisza w świetle ironji i prawdy,”pts. 1 and 2, Gazeta Kaliska 9, no. 179 (9 Aug. 1901), 1; 9, no. 198 (1 Sept.1901), 1.41. See ibid.; Raszewska, “Rozwój zaludnienia miasta Kalisza.”42. Alexander I visited Kalisz with some frequency, as it was located close tothe Prussian border and was an attractive stopping point during his Europeanjourneys. See Iwona Barańska, Architektura Kalisza w dobie Królestwa Kongreso-wego (Kalisz: Kaliskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, 2002).43.However, most of Kalisz’s town houses had cesspools in their courtyards;only a few buildings were equipped with sewer installations leading to theriver. Waste was removed from cesspools by special carriages, a service oper-ated by the municipality.44. Józefina, or Josephine, Street, named for Napoleon’s wife, the EmpressJosephine I, was established as a suburban promenade around 1800, under thePrussian administration. See Barbara Czechowska, Kaliskie korso: Architekturai urbanistyka Alei Wolności w XIX i XX wieku (Kalisz: Kaliskie TowarzystwoPrzyjaciół Nauk, 2010).45. Makary Górzyński, “Dziewiętnastowieczny park miejski w Kaliszu: His-toria, władza i komercja w przestrzeni kultury popularnej,” Kultura Popularna37, no. 3 (2013), 46–61, http://kulturapopularna-online.pl/api/files/view/6491.pdf (accessed 7 Mar. 2017).46.Minutes of KaliszMunicipality, 26 Apr. (9May) 1901, attachment, Plan ofMunicipal Investments, 1901–1904, in Issues of Municipal Administration,April 1901–February 1903, Papers ofGovernorateGovernment inKalisz, sig.3842, State Archive, Łódź.47. Ibid.; Minutes of Kalisz Municipality, 14 Apr. (27 Apr.) 1901. The firstzone (the medieval island town) was set aside for factories or workshops usingonly handcrafting and nonpolluting methods; in the second zone (the newdistricts and suburbs), all types of factories were allowed, except for thoseinvolving chemicals and creating high levels of pollution; and the third zone(some nonurbanized areas downstream of the Prosna on Piskorzewie) wasdeemed appropriate for all types of factories. See Prawo fabryczne obowiązującei ubezpieczenie robotników: Przepisy tyczące się budownictwa fabrycznego z planemWarszawy, przepisy o kotłach parowych i oświetleniu elektrycznem (Warsaw: Or-gelbrand i Synowie, 1897).48. “W magistracie kaliskim,” Gazeta Kaliska 9, no. 81 (12 Apr. 1901), 1–2.49. Paweł Korzec, “Kalisz w latach rewolucji 1905–1907,” in Osiemnaściewieków Kalisza, ed. Aleksander Gieysztor, vol. 3 (Poznań: WydawnictwoPoznańskie, 1962), 363–65. Compare also Rusiński, Dzieje Kalisza, passim.

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50. Korzec, “Kalisz w latach rewolucji,” 363–65. The reasons for Daragan’sdeparture from Kalisz require further research. His policies in Kalisz weremuch more complicated than his Polish liberal or right-wing supporterspresented in the local press, and any attempt to explain his departure shouldemphasize his ability to negotiate Polish, Jewish, and German interests underthe leadership of the empire. On this issue, see Makary Górzyński, Dziewięt-nastowieczny teatr miejski w Kaliszu: Architektura i polityki kulturowe na peryfer-iach imperium (Kalisz: Kaliskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, 2017).51.This story was reprinted in Polish: “Kalisz,”Gazeta Kaliska 10, no. 108 (23Apr. 1902), 1–2.52. Czesława Ohryzko-Włodarska, “Akta do dziejów Kalisza w ArchiwumŁódzkim,” in Gieysztor, Osiemnaście wieków Kalisza, 403.53. “Wodociągi w Kaliszu,” Gazeta Kaliska 7, no. 256 (11 Nov. 1899), 1.54. “Z prowincji,” Kraj 24, no. 20 (2 June 1905), 17.55. See note 11 above.56. The investment campaign of the early 1900s—including a town theaterand technical secondary school complex—under the supervision of Daraganhad further impacts on the Kalisz town budget. Nevertheless, it was not theonly factor in the municipal crisis; compare the need to build Russian artillerybarracks in Kalisz, a project also financed by the municipal cashbox. See Con-struction of Artillery Barracks in Kalisz, 1908, Papers of the Chancellery ofGeneral-Governor in Warsaw, sig. 5411, Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych,Warsaw. For a critique of Kalisz’s investment budget, particularly regardingthe theater, see Adolf Suligowski, Warszawa i jej przedsiębiorstwa miejskie(Warsaw, 1903), 87.57. Markowski, Finanse miast Królestwa Polskiego, 100–118.58. Leonard Boetticher, “Głosy,” Gazeta Kaliska 17, no. 177 (8 Aug. 1909),2–3.59. “Plan miasta Kalisza,” Gazeta Kaliska 9, no. 126 (6 June 1901), 1. See thedocumentation of the new urban plan for Kalisz: Estimations and ProceduresConcerning the Preparation of the New Urban Plan for Kalisz, 1900–1910,Papers of Governorate Government in Kalisz, sig. 4052a, State Archive,Łódź(hereafter cited as Estimations of the New Urban Plan, State Archive).60. See Estimations of the New Urban Plan, State Archive.61. “Wielki Kalisz,” Gazeta Kaliska 14, no. 202 (24 July 1906), 1.62. Concerning building codes and urban planning regulations in Russiaand Russian Poland, see Józef Polak, Wykład hygjeny miast z uwzględnie-niem stanu zdrowotnego i potrzeb miast polskich (Warsaw: Wydział UrządzeńZdrowotnych Użyteczności Publ. przy Stow. Techników, 1908), 136–39;Polski Kalendarz Techniczny na rok 1911 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo KasyWzajemnej Pomocy i Przezorności Dla Osób Pracujących na Polu Tech-nicznym, 1911), 23–25; Gustaw Szymkiewicz, Ustawy i rozporządzenia zdziedziny budownictwa obowiązujące w Państwie Polskiem (Warsaw: E.Wende, 1923). See also Krzysztof Dumała, Przemiany przestrzenne miast irozwój osiedli przemysłowych w Królestwie Polskim w latach 1831–1869 (Wro-cław: Zakład Narodowy imienia Ossolińskich, PAN, 1974), 87–184; MartaWiraszka, Rozwój przestrzenny i zabudowa miast guberni podolskiej w czasachImperium Rosyjskiego (Warsaw: Neriton, 2008); Evgenija I. Kiričenko et al.,eds., Gradostroitel’stvo Rossii serediny XIX–načala XX veka, 3 vols. (Moscow:Progress-Tradicija, 2001–10), vols. 1–2.63. See Building Laws of the Russian Empire, edition 1900, article 177,quoted in Polak, Wykład hygjeny, 135.64. Minutes of Kalisz Municipality, 11 Oct. 1906, Correspondence be-tween the Kalisz Municipality and the Kalisz Governor, Estimations ofthe New Urban Plan, State Archive; Minutes of Kalisz Municipality, 6Nov. 1906, Correspondence between President Boetticher and the KaliszGovernorate Administrative Department, Estimations of the New UrbanPlan, State Archive.65. Most of the documentation related to the plan was probably burned inKalisz TownHall in August 1914, during the sack of the city by German armytroops (see note 67 below). The 1908 plan of Kalisz published and edited by

Bukowiński shows a regular street grid for the new districts, but it is only asketchy version of the original project. However, working with the adminis-tration’s minutes (especially the archives of the Kalisz Governorate TechnicalDepartment, in Papers of Governorate Government in Kalisz, State Archive,Łódź) and Kalisz’s historic cartography collection, I was able to prepare atleast a draft reconstruction of the 1905–6 project.66. Regular, mostly perpendicular blocks forming grids of streets, combinedwith an axial, central location of squares or parks and a few wide boulevardsforming major thoroughfares, were common features of many urban regula-tion projects for cities in the post-1860s Polish Kingdom, as seen in a schemefor Piotrków Trybunalski (1884), a master plan for Warsaw (1886), and amaster plan for Częstochowa (1901). See Dumała, Przemiany przestrzenne;Krzysztof Dumała, “Rosyjski urzędowy wzorzec urbanistyczny z 1870 rokuw Królestwie Polskim,” Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej 40, no. 2(1992), 383–97; Kiričenko et al., Gradostroitel’stvo Rossii, vol. 1, chap. 5. Also,compare my draft reconstructions of the abovementioned schemes in thesection “Teaching Documents” at https://uw.academia.edu/MakaryG%C3%B3rzy%C5%84ski (accessed 9 Mar. 2017).67. These projects were also probably lost in August 1914, when, at the verybeginning of the GreatWar, Kalisz’s urban core was sacked and burned by theGerman troops occupying the city. Hundreds of civilians were killed or in-jured, and more than four hundred buildings were destroyed, including theTown Hall and the Municipal Theater. The direct reasons for the Germans’brutal conduct remain unclear. See Laura Engelstein, “ ‘A Belgium of OurOwn’: The Sack of Russian Kalisz, August 1914,” Kritika: Explorations inRussian and Eurasian History, n.s., 10, no. 3 (2009), 441–73; Ryszard Bienieckiand Bogumiła Celer, eds., Katastrofa Kaliska 1914: Materiały źródłowe (wybór)(Kalisz: Kaliskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, 2015). On the German andPolish projects for reconstruction and development of Kalisz created after1914, see the respective chapters in Iwona Barańska and Makary Górzyński,eds., Reconstructions and Modernizations of Historic Towns in Europe in the FirstHalf of the Twentieth Century: Nations, Politics, Society (Kalisz: Kaliskie Towar-zystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, 2016), https://historictownsmodernizations2016.wordpress.com/about (accessed 7 Mar. 2017).68. Minutes of Kalisz Municipality, 30 Oct. 1906, Correspondence betweenthe Kalisz Municipality and the Kalisz Governor, Estimations of the NewUrban Plan, State Archive.69. Minutes of Kalisz Municipality, 10 Oct. 1909, Correspondence betweenthe Kalisz Governor and the Kalisz Governorate Head Technician, Estima-tions of the New Urban Plan, State Archive.70. Minutes of Kalisz Municipality, 26 May 1910, Estimations of the NewUrban Plan, State Archive.71. Ibid.72. For a description of the private initiative of property owners in the south-western part of the city to create a new street (finally called Graniczna) of13 meters’ width and parcel a few new blocks, observing the urban regulationplan of 1905–6, see “Ulica Udziałowa,” Gazeta Kaliska 20, no. 132 (13 June1912), 2. See also Correspondence between the Kalisz Governorate HeadTechnician and the Kalisz Governor, 30 Dec. 1909, Estimations of the NewUrban Plan, State Archive. On the controversies over the inefficiency of thelaws allowing the expropriation of land in towns for new streets, see, forexample, Omega, “Regulacja ulic wmiastach,”Wiadomości Budowlane 2, no. 50(15 Dec. 1912), 822–23.73. Kazimierz Skolimowski, a Polish graduate of the Imperial Academy ofArts in Saint Petersburg, was the chief designer of the ambitious projectfor Dalian. Surprisingly, in 1909 he tried to find a job as a state engineerin Kalisz, but without success. See Kiričenko et al., Gradostroitel’stvo Rossii,vol. 2, chap. 3; Svetlana S. Levoshko, “Polish-Russian Architect KazimirSkolimovsky (Kazimierz Skolimowski) against the Background of the Era(1862–1923),” in Polscy i rosyjscy artyści i architekci w koloniach artystycznychzagranicą i na emigracji politycznej 1815–1990, ed. Jerzy Malinowski et al.

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(Warsaw: Polski Instytut Studiów nad Sztuką Świata/Tako PublishingHouse, 2015), 139–44.74. Feliks Hertz, “Siedemdziesiąt lat planowania przestrzennego w Kaliszu,”Rocznik Kaliski 5 (1972), 391–96.75. F. L., “Głosy,”Gazeta Kaliska 12, no. 139 (20 May 1904), 1; “Głosy,”Gaz-eta Kaliska 15, no. 62 (14 Mar. 1907), 3; “Słuszne narzekania,” Gazeta Kaliska16, no. 244 (29 Oct. 1908), 1; Czytelnik “Gazety Kaliskiej,” “Głosy,” GazetaKaliska 17, no. 175 (6 Aug. 1909), 2; “Wielki Kalisz,” Gazeta Kaliska 18, no.177 (9 Aug. 1910), 1–2.76. Czytelnik “Gazety Kaliskiej,” “Głosy,” 2.77. “Głosy,” Gazeta Kaliska 17, no. 180 (12 Aug. 1909), 3. The Grand Duchyof Poznań was incorporated into Prussia after the first partition of Poland in1772. On urban planning and political conflict in its capital, Poznań, seeZenon Pałat,Architektura i polityka: Gloryfikacja Prus i niemieckiej misji cywiliza-cyjnej w Poznaniu na początku XX wieku (Poznań: Poznańskie TowarzystwoPrzyjaciół Nauk, 2011).78. Józef Schrajer, “Planowanie miast,” pts. 1 and 2, Gazeta Kaliska 19, no. 69(24 Mar. 1911), 1–2; 19, no. 72 (27 Mar. 1911), 1–2.79. Ibid., pt. 1, p. 2.80. Ibid., pt. 2, p. 2.81. See Giorgio Piccinato, Städtebau in Deutschland 1871–1914: Genese einerwissenschaftlichen Disziplin (Braunschweig: Springer, 1983); PeterHall,Cities ofTomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the TwentiethCentury (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988); Juan Rodriguez-Lores and GerardFehl, eds., Städtebaureform 1865–1900: Von Licht, Luft und Ordnung in derStadt der Gründerzeit, 2 vols. (Hamburg: Christians, 1985–88); Brian Ladd,Urban Planning and Civic Order in Germany, 1860–1914 (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, 1990); Stephen V. Ward, Planning the Twentieth-Century City: The Advanced Capitalist World (Chichester: John Wiley, 2002);Friedrich Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 1850–1914, trans. JoelGolb (Leiden: Brill, 2012), esp. chap. 5.82. Józef Schrajer, “Wczasy kaliskie: O zanieczyszczaniu rzeki Prosny i o sa-mooczyszaniu się rzek w ogóle,” Gazeta Kaliska 19, no. 224 (30 Sept. 1911),1–2.83. On Warsaw, see Stefan Muthesius, “Warsaw’s Poniatowski Viaduct: TheWorld’s First Elevated Urban Expressway,” JSAH 72, no. 2 (June 2013), 205–20; Barbara Arciszewska and Makary Górzyński, “Urban Narratives in theAge of Revolutions: Early Twentieth-Century Ideas to Modernize Warsaw,”Artium Quaestiones 26 (2015), 101–47. For contemporary urban planning re-views, see, for example, Edward Eber, “Powiększanie wielkich miast,” Prze-gląd Techniczny 47, no. 48 (26 Nov. 1909), 567–68; Zdzisław M. Kalinowski,“Regulacja dzielnic Warszawy/Plan projektowanej regulacji Saskiej Kępy,”Wiadomości Budowlane 1, no. 3 (1 Aug. 1911), 39–40; Ad.Wol, “Miasto przys-złości,” Przegląd Techniczny 52, no. 13 (25 Mar. 1914), 179; and Alfons Grav-ier, “Zarys normalnego rozwoju miast,” Przegląd Techniczny 45, no. 37 (12Sept. 1907), 439–40; 45, no. 38 (19 Sept. 1907), 451–52; 45, no. 39 (25 Sept.1907), 463–64. For a comparative perspective on legal codes concerning con-struction and town planning, see Józef Holewiński, “Ustawy i przepisy bu-dowlane, obowiązujące w różnych państwach,” Przegląd Techniczny 48, no. 3(20 Jan. 1910), 35; 48, no. 4 (27 Jan. 1910), 49; 48, no. 5 (3 Feb. 1910), 63. Onthe garden city movement, see, for example, Tadeusz Tołwiński, “Osady ogro-dowe w Anglii,” Przegląd Techniczny 47, no. 27 (8 July 1909), 327–28; 47, no.29 (22 July 1909), 347–48; 47, no. 32 (12 Aug. 1909), 379–80. On the recep-tion of Ebenezer Howard’s ideas among the Polish provinces, see Adam Czy-żewski, Trzewia Lewiatana: Miasta ogrody i narodziny przedmieścia kulturalnego/Miasta Ogrody Przyszłości—Ebenezer Howard, trans. Piotr Borman and AdamCzyżewski (Warsaw: Państwowe Muzeum Etnograficzne, 2009); Edyta Bar-ucka, W szkatułach zieleni: Europejski ruch miast ogrodów 1903–1930 (Warsaw:WUW, 2014).84. Janusz Kapuścik and Cezary Włodzimierz Korczak, eds., Polskie Towar-zystwo Higieniczne: 1898–1978 (Warsaw: Polskie Towarzystwo Higieniczne,

1979). See also Marius Turda and Paul Weindling, “Blood and Homeland”:Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900–1940(Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007).85. Polak, Wykład hygjeny. See also Maciej Demel, W służbie Hygei i Syreny:Życie i dzieło dr. Józefa Polaka (Warsaw: Państwowy Zakład WydawnictwLekarskich, 1970).86.Magdalena Gawin, Rasa i nowoczesnośc: Historia polskiego ruchu eugenicznego(1880–1952) (Warsaw: Neriton, 2003).87. Muthesius, “Warsaw’s Poniatowski Viaduct.”88. On the town planning in Galicia, see Jakub Lewicki, “ReconstructionProjects for Galician Towns as a Source of the Modern Urbanism Theory inCentral Europe,” in Barańska and Górzyński, Reconstructions and Moderniza-tions, 106–42. See also Nathaniel D.Wood, BecomingMetropolitan: Urban Self-hood and the Making of Modern Cracow (DeKalb: Northern Illinois UniversityPress, 2010); Marta Bochenek, ed., Wielki Kraków: Materiały z sesji naukowejodbytej 24 kwietnia 2010 roku (Cracow: Towarzystwo Miłośników Historii iZabytków Krakowa, 2011).89. Józef Holewiński, Przyszły rozwój Warszawy (Warsaw, 1911). Municipalengineers started work on themetropolitan plan ofWarsaw in 1911; see Fran-ciszek Klein,Włodzimierz Rabczewski, and Czesław Rudnicki, eds., Regulacjai zabudowa m. st. Warszawy: Szkic historyczny (Warsaw, 1928).90. Świat 7, no. 36 (7 Sept. 1912).91. See Gravier, “Zarys normalnego,” passim;Wacław Krzyżanowski, “Now-oczesne prądy w sztuce budowania miast,” Świat 7, no. 36 (7 Sept. 1912), 4.92. Kiričenko et al., Gradostroitel’stvo Rossii. See also Michael F. Hamm, ed.,The City in Russian History (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976).93. Makary Górzyński, Wczasy kaliskie 1911–1913: Obrazy z czasów transfor-macji (Kalisz: Kalisz Society of Friends of Sciences, 2016). See also MakaryGórzyński, “Unwelcome Spaces: Political Dimensions of Urban Growth inthe Polish Kingdom at the Turn of the 20th Century (Case Study: Kalisz)”(paper presented at the workshop “Debating Heritage: National Connota-tions of Historical Matter,” Institute of Art History, University of Wrocław,7–8 Nov. 2014), https://www.academia.edu/19404430/The_Unwelcome_S-paces_the_Kalisz_industrial_suburbs?auto=download (accessed 7 Mar. 2017).94. “Wczasy kaliskie XIII,” Gazeta Kaliska 20, no. 157 (13 July 1912), 1–2.95. Ibid., 1.96. Ibid., 2.97. Theodore R. Weeks, From Assimilation to Antisemitism: The “JewishQuestion” in Poland, 1850–1914 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press,2006); Weeks,Nation and State; Alina Cała, Asymilacja Żydów w Królestwie Pol-skim (1864–1897): Postawy, konflikty, stereotypy (Warsaw: Państwowy InstytutWydawniczy, 1989); Scott Ury, Barricades and Banners: The Revolution of1905 and the Transformation of Warsaw Jewry (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Uni-versity Press, 2012).98. Korzec, “Kalisz w latach rewolucji.”99. Issues of urban hygiene were raised in the local press from the 1870s on-ward. See, for example, Dr. W, “W sprawie hygieny,” Kaliszanin 7, no. 25(1875), 97–98. The anonymous author of this article mentions BenjaminWard Richardson’s “Hygeia, a City of Health,” an address that Richardsonpresented to the British Social Science Association in 1875, which was pub-lished in book form in 1876. The founder of the WSH, Leon Wernic, whoserved as head physician at Kalisz’s prison from 1901 to 1903, was to be-come one of the main figures of eugenics in Poland. See Teresa Rzepaand Ryszard Żaba, “Leon Wernic jako zwolennik i propagator eugeniki,”Postępy Psychiatrii i Neurologii 22, no. 1 (2013), 67–74; Christian Promitzer,Sevastē Troumpeta, and Marius Turda, eds., Health, Hygiene, and Eugenicsin Southeastern Europe to 1945 (Budapest: Central European UniversityPress, 2011).100. See Leon Wernic, “Hygiena Kalisza w ósmym dziesiątku lat ubiegłegostulecia,” Gazeta Kaliska 11, no. 91 (1 Apr. 1903), 1; Schrajer, “Wczasykaliskie.”

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101. A detailed chronicle of the Congress of Hygienists was published inZdrowie; see “Referaty i dziennik zjazdu higienicznego w Kaliszu,” Zdrowie,no. 10 (1911).102. Participants and guests also visited the nearby village of Lisków, knownfor its anti-alcohol movement backed by the Roman Catholic Church, whichsought to establish economic self-help cooperatives for peasants. See MariaMoczydłowska, Wieś Lisków (Warsaw: Księgarnia Polska, 1913).103. Marcin Heyman, “Kalisz pod względem hygjenicznym,” pts. 1 and 2,Gazeta Kaliska 19, no. 216 (22 Sept. 1911), 1–2; 19, no. 217 (23 Sept. 1911),1–2.104. Ibid., pt. 1, p. 2.105. Ibid., pt. 2, p. 1.106. Ibid.107. Marja Moczydłowska, “Zjazd Hygjenistów w Kaliszu,” Gazeta Kaliska19, no. 206 (10 Sept. 1911), 2.108. Ibid., 1–2.109. Alfons Parczewski, ed., Rys historyczny Towarzystwa Kredytowego MiastaKalisza—wydanie jubileuszowe (1886–1911) (Kalisz: Towarzystwo KredytoweMiasta Kalisza & Gazeta Kaliska, 1911), 46.110. Moczydłowska, “Zjazd Hygjenistów w Kaliszu,” 1–2.111. Parczewski, Rys historyczny Towarzystwa, 46.112. For German examples, see Ladd, Urban Planning. On issues of class-based urban politics, see the analysis of Poznań by Hanna Grzeszczuk-Brendel, Miasto do mieszkania: Zagadnienia reformy mieszkaniowej na przełomieXIX i XX wieku i jej wprowadzenie w Poznaniu w pierwszej połowie XX wieku(Poznań: Wydawnictwo Politechniki Poznańskiej, 2012), 85. On the role ofthe proletarian district Powiśle in the urban reform projects in Warsaw,see also Muthesius, “Warsaw’s Poniatowski Viaduct.”

113. Moczydłowska, “Zjazd Hygjenistów w Kaliszu,” 1–2.114. I am grateful to the JSAH reviewer of this essay for turning my attentionto the possibility of such an interpretation of the 1911 congress.115. Stanisław Nowak, a physician and social worker from Częstochowa,later noted that hygiene symposiums in Russian Poland were mostly uselessin terms of propagating modernization-oriented improvements in towns. SeeStanisławNowak, Z moich wspomnień (Czestochowa: W. Święcicki i Ska, 1933),http://www.wystawa1909.pl/dr-Stanislaw-Nowak-Z-moich-wspomnien-XXIII.html (accessed 16 June 2015).116. Emilia Bohowiczowa, “Luźne uwagi ze Zjazdu Hygjenicznego w Ka-liszu,” Gazeta Kaliska 19, no. 214 (20 Sept. 1911), 1.117. Their efforts included an electric cable car line, a proper infrastructurefor sanitation and water supply, a new public garden (opened 1912), and acentral market hall for Kalisz; only a few of the proposed projects were real-ized. On the garden suburbs in Kalisz—an initiative undertaken by prominentmiddle-class entrepreneurs (including Stanisław Koszutski) shortly after theCongress of Hygienists in 1911—see “Projekt kolonji podmiejskiej,” GazetaKaliska 21, no. 4 (5 Jan. 1913), 2.118. “Wystawa ogrodnicza,”Gazeta Kaliska 20, no. 77 (4 Apr. 1912), 2; “Trzyparki kaliskie,”Gazeta Kaliska 21, no. 95 (27 Apr. 1913), 2; “Zarząd miejski m.Kalisza,” Gazeta Kaliska 21, no. 188 (19 Aug. 1913), 2. A fee was charged forentrance to the public gardens, and additional fees were charged for access tothe playgrounds, lawn tennis courts, and soccer fields.119. Alfons Parczewski, Szpitale i zakłady dobroczynne wobec projektu samorządumiejskiego (Kalisz, 1911), 54.120. Weeks, Nation and State, 152.

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