Лешно: Тарихы мен мәдениеті

Leszno (, Lissa, ) is a historic city in western Poland, seat of Leszno County within the Greater Poland Voivodeship. It is the seventh largest city in the province with an estimated population of 62,200, as of 2021.

In around 1516, a community of Protestants known as the Unity of the Brethren (Unitas fratrum) were expelled from the Bohemian lands by King Vladislaus II and settled in Leszno. They were invited by the Leszczyński family, imperial counts since 1473 and who had converted to Calvinism. The arrival of the Bohemian Protestants, in addition to weavers from nearby Silesia, helped the settlement to grow. In 1547 it became a town by a privilege according to Magdeburg Law granted by King Sigismund I of Poland. Leszno was a private town, administratively located in the Wschowa County in the Poznań Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province. Leszno became the largest printing center in Greater Poland thanks to the activity of the Protestant community. Their numbers grew with the inflow of refugees from Silesia, Bohemia, and Moravia during the Thirty Years War. In 1631, Leszno was vested with further privileges by King Sigismund III Vasa, who made it equal with the most important cities of Poland such as Kraków, Gdańsk and Warsaw. By the 17th century, the town had a renowned Gymnasium (school), which was headed by Jan Amos Komenský (known in English as Comenius), an educator and the last bishop of the Unity of the Brethren. Johann Heermann, a German speaking poet, lived in Leszno from 1638 until his death in 1647. Between 1636 and 1639, the town became fortified and its area increased.

In the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, Leszno was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, within which it was referred to as Lissa. In 1807 it was taken by Napoleon's Grand Armee and included within the newly established but short lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw. Following Napoleon's defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815 the town was reannexed by Prussia, initially as part of the semi autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen. The town was subjected to Germanisation policies. Nevertheless, Polish press was issued in the town (Przyjaciel Ludu) and in the 1840s, Polish historian, geographer and former officer Stanisław Plater published the pl ("Little Polish Encyclopedia"), one of the pioneering 19th century Polish encyclopedias, in the town. In 1871 it became part of Germany, and in 1887, it became the administrative seat of the Prussian Kreis Lissa. After World War I, in November 1918, Poland regained independence. Shortly after the Greater Poland Uprising of 1918–19 broke out, attempting to reintegrate Greater Poland and Leszno with Poland. The first local battles of the uprising took place in the area on December 28, 1918. Afterward the city became part of the newly established Second Polish Republic under the Treaty of Versailles, with effect from 17 January 1920. The local populace had to acquire Polish citizenship. In the interbellum, Leszno was a county seat within the Polish Poznań Voivodeship. In 1924, a monument dedicated to the Polish insurgents of 1918–19 was erected. A prison for Poles was established in the local monastery, where more than 200 people had already been imprisoned in September 1939 during the Intelligenzaktion. The Polish population was expelled to the General Government (German occupied central Poland). Most of the town's Jewish population (which had included such notable rabbis as Leo Baeck and Jacob of Lissa, as well as the writer Ludwig Kalisch) and the remaining Poles were massacred by the Nazi Einsatzgruppen, which entered the town in September 1939. A notable public execution of 20 Poles, members of the "Sokół" Polish Gymnastic Society, former Polish insurgents of 1918–19, a local teacher, and a lawyer, was carried out in Leszno by the Einsatzgruppe VI on October 21, 1939. Poles who were initially imprisoned in Leszno were also murdered in nearby towns and villages of Poniec, Osieczna, Włoszakowice and Rydzyna. Poles from Leszno were also among the victims of the large Katyn massacre committed by the Russians in April–May 1940. Already in late 1939, the Germans expelled over 1,000 Poles, including families of Poles murdered in various massacres, in addition teachers, local officials, activists, former insurgents, and owners of shops and workshops, which were then handed over to German colonists as part of the Lebensraum policy. A transit camp for Poles expelled from various nearby settlements was established in the local school. Despite such circumstances, local Poles organized an underground resistance movement, which included the Ogniwo and Świt organizations, the secret youth organization Tajna Siódemka and structures of the Polish Underground State. Polish underground press was printed in Leszno. The German occupation ended in 1945, and the town returned to Poland.

The pre war monument of the Greater Poland insurgents was restored in 1957. In 1991, a monument to the Constitution of 3 May 1791 and the heroes of the fights for Poland's independence was unveiled, From 1975 to 1998, it was the capital of the Leszno Voivodeship. In 2000, the city was awarded "The Golden Star of Town Twinning" prize by the European Commission.

Leszno has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb) although notably with warm summer continental characteristics (Dfb), typical of inland west and south polish.