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Posen, Prussia (Capital)

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Posen, Prussia (Province)

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POSEN (Polish Poznan ), a city, archiepiscopal see and fortress of Germany, c, apital of the province of Posen, situated in a wide and sandy plain at the confluence of the Cybina and the Warthe, 150 m. E. from Berlin and 103 m. from Breslau. Pop. (1885), 68,315; (1895), 73, 2 39; (1905), 136,808, of whom nearly one-half are Germans and about one-tenth Jews. Posen lies at the centre of a network of railways connecting it with Berlin, Breslau, Thorn, Kreuzburg, and Schneidemiihl. The inner line of fortifications was removed in 1902 and the city has been completely modernized. The principal part of Posen, on the left bank of the Warthe, comprises the old town (Alstadt) and the modern quarter created by the Prussians after 1793. On the right bank lie Wallischei (a district inhabited by Poles) and some other suburbs. Posen has fifteen Roman Catholic and three Evangelical churches and several synagogues. The cathedral contains many interesting objects of art, but, with the exception of the Gothic Marienkirche of the 15th century, none of the churches is notable. The old town-hall is a quaint Slavonic adaptation of Romanesque forms. The royal castle, begun in 1905 and completed in 1910 at a cost of £250,000, is a pretentious building in what is officially called Romanesque style. It was intended as an effort to conciliate the Poles, and was opened by the emperor William IL, with imposing ceremonies, on the 10th of August 1910. Posen possesses an " Emperor William " library with 200,000 volumes, and the Raczynski library with 50,000. Other principal buildings are the two theatres, the Emperor Frederick museum, founded in 1894, the Polish museum and the various public offices. Industries include the manufacture of agricultural machinery, spirits, furniture and sugar, also milling and brewing. There is an active, trade, both by rail and river, in corn, cattle, wood, wool and potatoes. Posen is the headquarters of the V. army corps, and has a garrison of 6000 men.

Posen, one of the oldest towns in Poland and the residence of some of the early Polish princes, including Boleslaus I., provincial colonization " and to prevent German emigration.

In 1906 the Prussian government was made somewhat ridiculous by the strike of some t00,000 Polish school children, who objected to being whipped for refusing to answer questions in German. The petition of the archbishop of Posen that the children should be allowed to receive religious instruction in Polish having been rejected by the Prussian minister of education, he issued on the 17th of October a pastoral allowing parents to confine religious instruction became the seat of a Christian bishopric about the middle of the 10th century. The original settlement was on the right bank of the Warthe, but the new town, established on the opposite bank by German settlers about 1250, soon became the more important part of the double city. Posen became a great depot for the trade between Germany and western Europe on the one hand and Poland and Russia on the other. Many foreign merchants made the city their residence, and these included a colony of Scots, who exported produce to Edinburgh. The city attained the climax of its prosperity in the 16th century, when its population, according to one estimate, reached 80,000. The intolerance shown to the Protestants, the troubles of the Thirty Years' War, the plague and other causes, soon conspired to change this state of affairs, and in the 18th century the population sank to 12,000. New life was infused into the city after its annexation by Prussia at the second partition of Poland in 1 793, and since this date its growth has been rapid.

See Lukaszewicz, Historisch-statistisches Bild der Stadt Posen 9 68 - 1 793 (Ger. trans., Posen, 1881); Ohlenschlger, Kurzgefasste Geschichte and Beschreibung der Stadt Posen (Posen, 1886); Warschauer, Stadtbuch von Posen (Posen, 1892); and Fiihrer durch Posen (Posen, 1895).

i Posidippus (3rd cent. B.C.), Greek dramatist, of Cassandrea in Macedonia, the last and one of the most distinguished of the writers of the new comedy. He began to write for the stage in 289 B.C., and, according to SuIdas, wrote 40 plays, of which 17 titles and some fragments have been preserved. He appears to have gone somewhat out of the beaten track in his choice of subjects, and it is evident that cooks held an important position in his list of characters. His comedies were frequently imitated by the Romans (Aulus Gellius ii. 23), and it is considered very probable that the Menaechmi (a comedy of errors) of Plautus is an adaptation either from the "Oµoloi., or from some unknown comedy of Posidippus, called OLSvpoc, or perhaps MEvaixµoc. His statue in the Vatican is considered a masterpiece of ancient art.

Fragments in A. Meineke, Poetarum comicorum graecorum fragmenta (1855).