page_title: History of Białystok
section_title: Polish Independence
hierarchical_section_title: History of Białystok / Modern Era / Polish Independence
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Fasada pałacu Branickich w Białymstoku
context_page_description: The city of Białystok has existed for over five centuries, during which time the fate of the city has passed between various political and economic forces.
  From surviving documentation we know that around 1437, a representative of the family Raczków, Jakub Tabutowicz with the coat of arms of Łabędź, received from Michael Žygimantaitis son of Sigismund Kęstutaitis, Duke of Lithuania, a wilderness area located along the river Biała that marked the beginning of Białystok as a settlement. Białystok administratively was part of the Podlaskie Voivodeship, after 1569 also part of the Lesser Poland Province of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.
  During the years 1617–1626, the first brick church and a beautiful castle, on a rectangular plan with two floors, in the Gothic-Renaissance style, was built by Job Bretfus. Extension of the castle continued by Krzysztof Wiesiołowski, since 1635 Grand Marshal of Lithuania and the owner of several administrative and royal and married Aleksandra Marianna Sobieska. In 1637 he died childless, thus Bialystok came under the management of his widow.
context_section_description: On 11 November 1918, following the end of World War I, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, declared the establishment of the Second Polish Republic. Bialystok and the region around it was kind of a buffer zone between the newly established Polish state and Soviet Russia. However, after Germany's defeat, over half a million German soldiers remained in Russia. On 11 November 1918, following the end of World War I, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, declared the establishment of the Second Polish Republic. At the same time, the German garrison in Bialystok, officers formed a soldiers' council
  (Soldatenrat). In 1917, the Central National Committee existed in the city, Bialystok District, at the head of which they stood priest Stanisław Nawrocki, pastor from Zabłudów and pharmacist Feliks Filipowicz. On the night of 11 November 1918, the Central National Committee concluded a peace agreement with Soldiers' Council. The Germans pledged to hand over their weapons and warehouses, while the Poles guaranteed them a safe departure to Eastern Prussia. Some of the Polish troops that found themselves in Łapy went to Białystok, where they were to support the Self-Defense Guards that had been created earlier, being a formation organized by officers from the corps of general Józef Dowbor Muśnicki, students who, under the command of Tuśkiewicz, formed a force of 50 people and took over the posts at the station and in front of major buildings in the city.
  German authorities tried to isolate the population of the occupied areas such as Białystok from the newly established Polish state. Temporary eastern border reborn and Poland was to be insured by the Lithuanian-Belarusian Division of general Wacław Iwaszkiewicz and the Podlasie Division of general Antoni Lisowski organized in Biała Podlaska. From December 1918, the Polish government commissioner Ignacy Mrozowski resided in Białystok. He accepted it created in time German occupation Temporary City Committee (consisting of 16 local citizens, including 6 Poles), headed by Józef Puchalski. However, the situation was difficult and troublesome. The Germans took away the entire archive, leaving the municipal cash register empty. In addition, the organizational structure of the German military authorities deepened and demoralized groups of soldiers roamed the city.
  A General Civil Commissioner was then appointed to the Military Board of the Eastern Borderlands, which was to be the highest civil instance in the discussed territories - ruling and executive. In the field, commissioners were assigned to individual armies as inspectors of the General Civilian Commissioner poviat commissioners were to administer the poviat. Maciej Jamontt became the district commissioner for the areas of Białystok, his competences extended to poviats: Białystok, Bielsk, Sokółka, Grodno and Wołkowysk. Augusta Cyfrowicz was appointed as commissioner of the Białystok Poviat, his deputy was Bolesław Szymański, and the government commissioner of Bialystok, Napoleon Cydzik (he was to cooperate with the Provisional Municipal Committee, as well as prepare and conduct in the first municipal elections).
  The German command wanted to keep the railway lines at all costs, so that this army could return to Germany, and there were only two roads: through Białystok and Grajewo to East Prussia or through Warsaw to Berlin. Józef Piłsudski chose to avoid the option of German Army passing through the center of the country and be withdrawn by road through Białystok. Therefore, Białystok had to be left in German hands. On 5 February 1919, another Polish-German agreement was signed, so that where the German army withdrew, Polish troops could enter, because of the Russian Revolution and they were afraid of the occupation of other cities by the Red Army. Following that, a Provisional Municipal Committee was created, headed by Józef Puchalski, an experienced local government official and patriot. Representatives representing the Polish, Jewish, German and Russian communities sat on the committee. On 8 February 1919, the Committee met again. A German commander of Bia
caption: Branicki Palace in interwar Poland
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