Lubusz Voivodeship ( ) is a voivodeship (province) in western Poland with a population of 972,140. Its regional capitals are Gorzów Wielkopolski and Zielona Góra. The region is characterized by a landscape of forests, lakes, and rivers, and is bordered by Germany to the west.
The functions of regional capital are shared between two citiesGorzów Wielkopolski and Zielona Góra. Gorzów serves as the seat of the centrally-appointed voivode (wojewoda), or governor, and Zielona Góra is the seat of the elected regional assembly (sejmik) and the executive elected by that assembly, headed by a marshal (marszałek). In addition, the voivodeship includes a third city (Nowa Sól) and a number of towns.
Lubusz Voivodeship borders West Pomeranian Voivodeship to the north, Greater Poland Voivodeship to the east, Lower Silesian Voivodeship to the south, and Germany (Brandenburg and Saxony) to the west.
It was created on January 1, 1999, out of the former Gorzów Voivodeship and Zielona Góra Voivodeship, pursuant to the Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998. The province's name recalls the historic Lubusz LandIt is likely that it was a response to the names of some German military units; they have been named after lands that since at least 1945 belong to Poland and the very city of Lubusz is located just outside the Polish border in Germany. (Lebus or Lubus), although parts of the voivodeship belong to the historic regions of Lower Silesia, Greater Poland, and Lower Lusatia.
History
During the formation and early expansion of the Polish state under its first rulers, Mieszko I and Bolesław I the Brave, the entire territory of the present Lubusz Voivodeship became part of Poland by 1002, including the historic Lubusz Land, part of which is located on the western bank of the Oder River, including its capital Lubusz, now Lebus in Germany. The oldest towns in the region, dating back over 1,000 years, include Trzciel, Skwierzyna, Iłowa, Szprotawa, Jasień, Krosno Odrzańskie, Międzyrzecz and Żary, with most other towns also founded in the Middle Ages, including the current regional capitals of Zielona Góra and Gorzów Wielkopolski. The youngest towns are Łęknica, Czerwieńsk, Nowa Sól, Szlichtyngowa and Zbąszynek, all either first mentioned or established in the later periods.
Following the fragmentation of Poland into smaller provincial duchies, various portions of the present Lubusz Voivodeship were part of various duchies, initially the duchies of Greater Poland and Silesia, and later also Poznań, Legnica, Głogów, Lubusz and Żagań, ruled by various lines of the Piast dynasty. Over time, portions of the present Lubusz Voivodeship were lost by Poland. In 1250 the Lubusz Land was acquired by the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg. In 1319–1326 it was contested by various Polish and German rulers, before falling back to Brandenburg. After Brandenburg passed to the Bohemian Crown in 1373, Poland made a peaceful attempt to regain the northern portion of the area. In 1402, the Bohemian rulers reached an agreement with Poland in Kraków. Poland was to buy and re-incorporate the northern outskirts of the present Lubusz Voivodeship, but eventually the Bohemian rulers sold the area to the Teutonic Order, who in turn sold it back to Brandenburg in 1454 to raise funds for war against Poland. The southern part of the current voivodeship remained part of the duchies of Żagań and Głogów, ruled by the houses of Piast and Jagiellon, with the Żagań duchy eventually passing to houses of foreign background, including Czech, Saxon and French, whereas other areas were gradually incorporated directly into the Kingdom of Bohemia. In 1635, most of the south-western part of the present Lubusz Voivodeship passed from Bohemia to Saxony, and from 1697 formed part of Poland-Saxony. In the 18th century, Wschowa was an important royal city of Poland, as it often hosted Polish kings and several sessions of the Polish Senate, hence being dubbed the "unofficial capital of Poland". King Augustus III of Poland also often stopped in Brody. Wschowa and Gubin had important mints that struck Polish coins.
In 1701, the Kingdom of Prussia was established, which included Brandenburg-held Lubusz Land, and various areas were eventually gradually annexed by Prussia in the following centuries, starting with the south-eastern part of the current voivodeship in 1742, followed by eastern portions (western outskirts of Greater Poland) in 1793 (briefly regained by Poles in 1807–1815 as part of the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw), and the south-western part in 1815. Within Prussia and Germany the territory was divided between the provinces of Neumark/Brandenburg, South Prussia/Posen, and Silesia/Lower Silesia.
During World War II, the Oflag II-C, Stalag III-C, Stalag VIII-C and Stalag Luft III major German prisoner-of-war camps for Polish, French, British, Belgian, Canadian, Serbian, Italian, American, Australian, New Zealander, Soviet, Norwegian, Czech, Slovak, South African, Dutch, Greek, Yugoslav, Senegalese, Algerian and Moroccan POWs were operated in the territory. The latter was the site of the "Great Escape" in 1944. There are museums at the site of the camps in Dobiegniew and Żagań, and a memorial to the victims of the Stalag Luft III murders in Żagań. Particularly infamous camps in the region were the Oderblick labor education camp in Świecko and the Sonnenburg concentration camp in Słońsk, in which Polish, Belgian, French, Bulgarian, Dutch, Yugoslav, Russian, Italian, Ukrainian, Luxembourgish, Danish, Norwegian, Czech, Slovak and other prisoners were held, and many died. There were also eleven subcamps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp and a subcamp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, in which mostly Jewish and Polish, but also French, Russian, Czech, Italian, Greek, Yugoslav, Dutch, Romanian, Hungarian, Lithuanian and German prisoners were held. Obrzyce was the place of Aktion T4 murders of mentally ill and disabled people. The region was the site of fierce fighting during the war in 1945. During the liberation of the Stalag III-C camp, Soviet troops killed some American POWs mistaking them for enemy troops. On 18 March 1945, the Germans shot down an American bomber near Bucze.
Under the terms laid down by Joseph Stalin in the Potsdam Agreement, the borders of Poland and Germany were redrawn and the area of the Lubusz Voivodeship fell within the new borders of Poland.https://www.nato.int/ebookshop/video/declassified/doc_files/potsdam%20agreement.pdf Potsdam Agreement Protocol of the Proceedings, August l, 1945
In 1998, the government of Jerzy Buzek decided to introduce an administrative reform, with its principles including the restoration of counties and a steep reduction in the number of voivodeships. A general consensus existed among scholars that the local administration exercised through the 49 existing voivodeships established in 1975 was inefficient, anachronistic, impractical, detrimental to maintaining regional identity, and untenable. However, the reform draft accepted by the government surprised the public and caused widespread outcry, as its authors foresaw creation of only 12 large voivodships, thus going much further than the widely expected reconstitution of the 17 voivodeships existing prior to the 1975 reform. As a consequence, the original draft made no provision for a separate Lubusz voivodeship – Gorzów was to become along with Kostrzyn, Strzelce Krajeńskie and Drezdenko a part of West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Zielona Góra was to be included along with Krosno, Nowa Sól, Żagań, Gubin and Żary in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, while a narrow horizontal strip encompassing Międzyrzecz, Sulęcin, Świebodzin, Słubice and Sulechów was to be assigned to the Greater Poland Voivodeship as a bizarre sort-of corridor to the German border. However, mass protests broke out as a result in the cities such as Bydgoszcz, Koszalin, Opole or Kielce. Many of the people opposing the draft reform initially demanded retaining as many as 25 voivodeships (including the 2 ones seated in Gorzów and Zielona Góra), a number nevertheless widely regarded as a demand intentionally excessive to serve as an initial negotiating bargain, actually aiming to restore the 17 voivodeships existing prior to 1975 as an ultimate compromise. As Poland was at the time governed under political cohabitation, the opposition party constituting the political background of the President decided to capitalize on the popular discontent which erupted against the government on an unanticipated scale; the most obvious mean readily available for the opposition was a presidential veto, which in fact ensued. In order to salvage the reform from being killed altogether, the government was, in the face of lacking the supermajority required to overturn the veto at the time, forced to reconsider the original shape of the reform and to reconcile it with the reservations of the President and his political background, with the result of a compromise adjustment increasing the number of voivodeships to 16, with Lubusz Voivodeship included among the four additional ones created according to the agreement.