Szwederowo is a district of the city of Bydgoszcz, Poland, located on its southern territory. Szwederowo population is the second largest of all Bydgoszcz districts.
Location Szwederowo district borders the following districts: Old Town to the north, subsuming a part of the southern hill chain of Bydgoszcz; Górzyskowo and Błonie to the west; Wzgórze Wolności to the east, along Kujawska street; Biedaszkowo and Bielice to the south.
In geomorphological terms, the district lies within the Toruńsko-Eberswaldzka urstromtal, in the Kotlina Toruńska mesoregion and the City of Bydgoszcz microregion, i.e. a terrace to above sea level.
The actual district includes fragments of suburban municipalities incorporated into Bydgoszcz territory between the second half of the 19th century and 1920.
Etymology The name Szwederowo comes from Swedes, or Schwedenhöhe in German. Indeed, Swedish armies attacked Bydgoszcz during the Swedish Deluge in 1656, from the very hills of today's district. Swedish military engineer Erik Dahlbergh depicted the view of the Swedish troops looking over Bydgoszcz from the Szwederowa hills on a 1657 sketch.
The name also refers to a legend published in 1935 by editor Wincenty Sławiński in a book called Babia Wieś, from the suburban legends of old Bydgoszcz (). As the story goes, during the Swedish Deluge, Poles strived to resist the invader by all means. On the southern hills opposite the Wool Market square, a band of 200 Swedish partisans camped, nearby a tavern called Swedes. One day, they were all disarmed and captured in their sleep by townspeople, then later carted and sent to the Baltic Sea. This place was named at that time Szwederow and remains as such to this day.
Through the 19th and the 20th century, the district bore the following names: Sweiderowo from 1789; Schwedenberg in 1818; Schwederowo in 1860; Szwederowo since 1920.
History Polish period (before 1772)
Studies have located the existence of two 11th century-hillforts in Bydgoszcz: the Bydgoszcz stronghold was situated at the place where the city castle was erected in the 14th century (between present day Kościelecki Square and Grodzka Street); a second stronghold is supposed to have stood on the hills of today's Szwederowo district. Szwederowo's settlement appeared in the early 16th century, as a minor village of the city parish. During the Swedish Deluge, invading units were stationed there, as described on Erik Dahlbergh's sketches from 1657.
Settlements and villages in today's Szwederowo district welcomed a portion of colonizing Olęders in the 17th and 18th centuries: Bielice (nowadays a district of Bydgoszcz) was the first village to receive such settlers before 1660. During the first half of the 18th century, the city of Bydgoszcz promoted further settlements, in a search to recover from the disaster caused by successives wars. Thus additional settlers contracts were awarded for nearby villages (Biedaszkowo (1732), Górzyskowo (1733) and Szwederowo (1743)), or renewed for Bielice (1744). Such villages were organized as folwarks and located above meadows and watercourses, in the area between present day airport and the Five ponds valley.
In the middle of the 18th century, Szwederowo was a middle range folwark as far as farm income in Bydgoszcz region is considered. In 1743, city council leased this farm for 40 years to Barbarza and Adam Lasom. At the end of the 18th century, around ten farm-villages were registered in the vicinity of Bydgoszcz: Nowy Dwór ( Gross Neudorff or Neuhof), Nowy Dwór Mały, Nowy Dwór Wielki, Szwederowo, Goryczkowo, Nowy Dwór, Biedaczkowo, Bielice and Bielice Nowe.
In the 16th and 17th centuries fresh water was supplied from the Five ponds valley in Szwederowo down to public municipal wells, using hollowed tree trunks chiseled to fit together.
Prussian period (1774-1920) In the 19th century, Szwederowo farm-village occupied an area within today's following streets: Orla, Kujawska, Brzozowa and Nowa. The abutting farm Nowy Dwór was demarcated by Nowodworska, Nowa and Ugory streets. From 1850 on, a suburban area already bore the name of Schwedenberg, comprising New Szwederowo (, ) and Old Szwederowo (, ).
Under Prussian rule, Bromberg city authorities handed out Szwederowo farm for perpetual lease to several senior Prussian officials. They parcelled the area into many properties so as to obtain enough income, thus creating more than 160 new farms between 1818 and 1860. Settlers came from former Polish territories, Prussia, but also from France, living peacefully in the same community.
During the 19th century, thanks to the rapid industrial development of Bromberg, the number of inhabitants in Szwederowo increased dramatically. People worked in majority in city factories, workshops or on the railways. A local census of the region recorded in 1833 that 275 people lived in the village and farm of Schwedenberg (German for Szwederowo): 174 with Evangelical faith, 94 Catholics and 7 Jews in 27 houses. The same study revealed that 60 people (57 Evangelicals, 3 Catholics) lived among 8 houses in the nearby farm of Nowy Dwór ( Neuhoff): in 1858, this farm was incorporated into Bromberg territory. According to a description by Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz, both Szwederowo and Nowy Dwór belonged in 1846 to the city.
As mentioned in another census from 1860, two locations coexisted: Old Szwederowo, a 31-houses village with 322 people (167 Evangelicals, 98 Catholics, 57 Jews) and New Szwederowo, a 23-houses hamlet with 229 people (164 Protestants, 65 Catholics). Both places were subsumed under Catholic and Evangelical parishes of Bromberg.
Despite these organic relationships with the main city, Szwederowo and the neighboring villages (Małe Bartodzieje, Okole, Wilczak and Bielawy) formed separate urban bodies outside of the administrative area of Bromberg, leading to a somehow chaotic spatial development. Until the end of the Prussian period, several projects to incorporate these suburban hamlets into the main city territory were drawn, but none was ever carried out.
In the years 1870 to 1910, Szwederowo streets were mostly made up of wooden or brick one-story houses, since the majority of its inhabitants were workers. In 1897, the village was connected to the municipal gasworks grid. According to Prussian statistics, the village gathered the highest concentration of Polish-Catholic population (51%) in the area; conversely, they were only 16.2% living in the center of Bromberg. In 1910, Szwederowo had a population of 8801 people: 4495 speaking Polish, 4161 German and 145 Hebrew.
Large parks have been created during Prussian times, on the edges of the hills overlooking the old town: Henryk Dąbrowski Park in 1832, at the initiative of Carl von Wissmann, then president of the administrative region of Bromberg; initial schemes of the Aleja Górska in 1890; Park on Wolności Hill, Bydgoszcz in 1911–1913.
Interwar period (1920-1939)
After World War I, Szwederowo commune () has been incorporated into Bydgoszcz territory on April 1, 1920, together with Bielice Nowe (), on the south-east east of Szwederowo (between today's Szubińska and Inowrocławska streets). During this period, with a few exceptions, Szwederowo district had a poor housing records. In the 1920s, urban projects were unveiled, in particular aiming at building in the estate a market and new residential houses, but nothing was implemented for financial reasons.
However, some programmes were completed: in 1928, the construction of the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help; in 1927, the 'Bydgoszcz brewery (); in 1928 the City Bath (), today a culture and health center.
Two schools operated in Szwederowo, an evangelical-Catholic school (named after Stanisław Leszczyński) and a 7-grade public general school (named after Jan Henryk Dąbrowski), as well as a kindergarten, a care home, an orphanage and a makeshift hospital (Clinic of the Social Insurance Company).
Inhabitants of the district usually went picnicking on Sundays to the so-called Bielicki Forest (), stretching eastward between Bydgoszcz and Toruń, organizing orchestra concerts, gastronomic fêtes and competitions. There, they also picked up fire wood, berries or mushrooms. At the time they moved along Bielicka street from Szwederowo district to the forest: today, the street ends its course at Bydgoszcz airport.
Nazi occupation (1939–1945)
During Nazi occupation Szwederowo has experienced a particularly brutal repression campaign. It started with the controversial events of Bydgoszcz Bloody Sunday: on September 3, the Polish army entered the city from the northern forest district () and was attacked by saboteurs recruited from among the German minority. One of the heavy fighting place was located in Szwederowo, around Martin Luther's Church (then standing at 42-44 Leszczyńskiego street). As a result, the church burned down and intense skirmishes were carried out on Orla, Bielicka and Żuławy streets, opposing Polish soldiers, citizens' guard and Polish citizens on one side, German citizens and saboteurs on the other.
After seizing the city, Nazi forces investigated the events, while retaliating upon Polish citizens. One of the report mentioned the following regarding Szwederowo:
We have been informed by various Volksdeutsches that an uncertain reliability is to be found in the southern district of the city [i.e. Szwederowo] and still remains to a large extent. Szwederowo was presented as a criminal district where radical elements reside(...).
Among the Polish victims of the sundry roundups and searches performed from September 5 to 30, about 300 residents of Szwederowo are recorded. On the churchyard of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at Ugory street lays a mass grave of 21 murdered Poles detained while leaving the church after a service on Sunday, September 10, 1939.
During this period, the Reich Security Main Office settled in Szwederowo and Nazi Party cells were created in the district. The Nazis liquidated both Jewish cemeteries, the Old one at Henryk Dąbrowski Park (est. 1816) and the New one on Szubińska street (est. 1874). In 1943, a monumental cross standing next to the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was razed by a German tank (it has been rebuilt in 1947).
One of the local Polish resistance movement HQ was located in Szwederowo: at its head was Ludwik Suszyński, aka Sowa. One of its mottos when addressing the Polish government-in-exile was:
In Szwederowo, almost exclusively Polish language is heard. ()
Post war period (since 1945) After the war, Szwederowo district became a residential district: for several years, its largest industrial plant has been a clothing factory, Modus, at 33 Lenartowicza street.
Alfa a successful firm producing photographic plates, film and photographic papers, founded in 1926 at 3 Garbary Street, was nationalized under the name Foton after WWII: the factory then moved to 13-15 Piękna street.
At the beginning of the 1950s, authorities erected a high wooden tower in the eastern part of Henryk Dąbrowski Park in order to jamm Radio Madrid, an anti-communist radio station. In the wake of the Polish October, a spontaneous demonstration burned down this radio jamming contrivance on November 18, 1956. Although perpetrators were victims of repression during the following years, the device was never rebuilt.
In 1958, an anti-nuclear shelter with a capacity of 70 people was built for the city authorities at 23a Nowodworska street, along with a 32-meter high tower for communication.
Starting from the late 1950s, the city authorities have been identifying places where to erect large housing projects: a first cluster of 11-storey buildings was constructed in the second half the 1960s in Stroma street, following a typical functionalist design.