page_title: Sanok
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sanok / History
caption_attribution_description: English: old town hall in sanok
context_page_description: Sanok is a town in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of south-eastern Poland with 38,397 inhabitants, as of June 2016. Located on the San River and around 52 km south of Przemyśl, Sanok lies directly by the Carpathian Mountains.
  Once settled by Poles, Jews and Lemkos, the town's history goes back almost 1000 years when it was part of a medieval trade route. The Museum of Folk Architecture as well as the refurbished Sanok Castle and Old Town are popular points of interest. The region also features a 70 km trail for hikers and cyclists.
context_section_description: In 981 the gord, then inhabited by the Slavic tribe of Lendians, was made a part of Land of Czerwień. This area was mentioned for the first time in 981, when Vladimir I of Kiev took the area over on the way into Poland. In 1018 it returned to Poland, 1031 back to Rus', in 1340 Casimir III of Poland recovered it. The gord of Sanok in mentioned for the first time in Hypatian Codex in 1150. It was given the Magdeburg law by Boleslaw-Yuri II of Galicia in 1339.
  In a Ruthenian chronicle can be found the Hypatian Codex, where at the date of 1150 one can read: The Hungarian King Géza II of Hungary crossed the mountains and seized the stronghold of Sanok with its governor as well as many villages in the Przemyśl area. The same chronicle refers to Sanok twice more, stating that in 1205 it was the meeting place of a Ruthenian princess Anna and a Hungarian king and that in 1231 a Ruthenian prince made an expedition to "Sanok - Hungarian Gate".
  After 1339 Galicia–Volhynia was seized by King Casimir III of Poland, who reconfirmed the municipal status of Sanok on 25 April 1366. At that time Sanok became the centre of a new administrative district called Sanok Land, a part of the Ruthenian Voivodeship. Several courts of justice operated in the town, including the municipal and rural courts of lower instance and also the higher instance court for the entire Sanok Land, based on the German town law. Germans settled in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland (territory of present-day Subcarpathian Voivodeship) from the 14th to 16th centuries (see Ostsiedlung), mostly after the region returned to Polish sphere of influence in 1340, when Casimir III of Poland took the Czerwień towns.
  Marcin Bielski states that Bolesław I the Brave had settled some Germans in the region to defend the borders against Hungary and Kievan Rus', who later turned to farming. Maciej Stryjkowski mentions German peasants near Przeworsk, Przemyśl, Sanok, and Jarosław, describing them as good farmers. The region was also traditionally inhabited by subgroups of the Rusyn people: Lemkos and Boykos.
  As early at the 17th century, an important trade route went across Sanok connecting the interior of Hungary with Poland through the Łupków Pass. As a result of the first of Partitions of Poland (Treaty of St-Petersburg dated 5 July 1772, Sanok was attributed to the Habsburg Monarchy. At that time the area (including west and east of Subcarpathian Voivodship) was known as the Galicia province. For more details, see the article Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.
  In the mid-18th century, 47.7% of the town's population was Roman Catholic (Polish), 36.4% Jewish, and 14.7% Greek Catholic (Ruthenian).
  The Galician peasant revolt took place in the region during the revolutions of 1848.
  The course of the river Dunajec and that of the San, both in West Galicia, marked the two successive stages in the breakthrough battle which initiated the Austro-German offensive of 1915 on the eastern front. An attempt to hold the line of the Wisłok river and the Łupków Pass failed before renewed Austro-German attacks on 8 May 1915. Wisłok Valley was one of the strategically important Carpathian rivers bitterly contested in battles on the Eastern Front of World War I during the winter of 1914–1915.
  During World War I, the Russian army occupied the town from May until July, 1915 and significantly damaged the town. The town was subsequently occupied by troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
  During the Second Polish Republic (1919–1939), Sanok was known as a centre of Ukrainian movement in Galicia, and of cultural heritage of the Lemkos and other Rusyns.
  The Jewish population of Sanok may have been almost 30% for many years in the early 20th century.  At the beginning of the Nazi occupation, the Jewish population was around 5000.  With the advent of the Nazis and with anti-semitism in Galicia, most of the Jews were either executed or killed in Nazi death camps or Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. Some of the actions against the Jews were assisted by Ukrainian auxiliaries and hundreds of the dea
caption: Neogothic town hall
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