Former Austro-Hungarian Fortresses in The Southern Poland as an Example of Problems of Preservation, Restauration, And Adjustment for Public Purposes

As a result of partition of Poland in the year 1772 all the southern and eastern part of the Kingdom of Poland was captured by the Austrian Empire. In the year 1846 the last independent survivor of Poland - small Republic of Krakow - was annexed to Austria. A crisis between Austrian and Russian empires during the Crimean War (1854) forced a decision about erecting two new fortresses, defending the manoeuvre area of the Galicia to the north of the Carpathian Mountains. Fortress Przemyśl defends a strategic way thru the Łupkow and Uzsok passes to the Hungarian Lowland. Fortress Krakow defends the main strategic road to Moravia and Vienna. Each fortress was enlarged, reinforced, and modernized multiple times according to the development of artillery, firearms, and modern tactics. In the 1880s concrete constructions were used for the first times. In the 1890s the Austrians used armoured structures - turrets, shields, casemates, protecting artillery emplacements against the projectiles of new types. Each of the fortresses fulfilled their functions during the World War I. Przemyśl has been besieged three times; the 2nd siege was the longest fortress battle in the Great War. Before a capitulation on the 22-nd March of the year 1915 all the forts of Przemyśl were blown up and demolished. Krakow stopped the Russian offensive in November and December of the year 1914. After the war, the army of independent Poland still used the Fortress Krakow and continued the demolition of the Fortress Przemyśl. Many forts fulfilled military and non-military functions during the WW II (this number includes places of the Nazi terror) and during the Cold War. In the beginning of the 1960s the scientific recognition of former fortresses has begun. In 1969 the first former forts were enlisted to the Polish Monuments Register. Moreover, a circular system of the fortress' camouflaging greenery of Krakow was treated in the first time as an outline of the city system of greenery. Today the huge circles of forts, batteries, earthworks around each city and massive complexes of barracks, storages, factories, hospitals, and other post-military structures cause significant problems but, on the other hand, they offer opportunities the cities' government for further adaptations. Union of communes inside the former Fortress Przemyśl started an ambitious program of adaptation of the forts' ruins as an attraction for cultural tourism. The first phase of the project was a success with the financial support of the EU Funds. Parts of more than 140 fortress' objects of the former Fortress Krakow are under adaptation, but a majority of them still lack new functions. Each of the fortresses is a great urban, engineering, and moral problem and challenge. There are great battlefields, blooded by the sons of many Nations of the Central and Eastern Europe. This paper is a report of the state of proceeding of these projects.