Last modified: 2009-08-22 by jarig bakker
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![[Mogilno city and commune flag]](../images/p/pl-kp-mg.gif)
image by Chrystian Kretowicz, 23 Jun 2009
Mogilno belongs to one of the oldest settlements along the border of
the Greater Poland and Kuyavia historical regions. Since the turn of the
8th and 9th century until
the 10th century an early-medieval settlement existed there, at the
long narrow headland surrounded by waters of Mogilno Lake from the west
and south and marshes from the east. In 1065, a Benedictine abbey (Kloster
Mogilno) with German monks was founded there by Bolesław II Śmiały. North
of the abbey developed a city, which in 1398 was granted a city charter,
and which was the abbey's property until 1773. After the first Partition
in 1772 the city became a part of the Kingdom of Prussia, and in 1920 it
returned to Poland. Since 1898 until his death in 1910 a parish priest
in Mogilno was Piotr Wawrzyniak.
During the German Invasion of Poland in 1939, German forces incited by members of German minority killed 39 Poles and one Jew in the town. The victims were picked out by local Germans for execution. The oldest victim was 75, the youngest 17.
Neither the Arms or the flag of Mogilno has any legal standing.
The Arms, as in the present version, were in use since 1389, but often
the crosses were changed to swords. Under Prussian occupation the Arms
were showing the abbey and Saint Peter standing in front of it with the
key. On top of the shield there was a date: 1794 - the year the city was
taken by Prussian Kingdom.
In the 19th century another Coat of Arms was used, with three lilies, but this
had no historical justification whatsoever.
Since 1997 until April 2009 there was a flag flying every weekday from
the city hall's balcony. That flag was a brainchild of Deputy Mayor of
Mogilno, Przemysław Majcherkiewicz, who designed it and even explained
the color scheme:
blue - representing the sky, lakes and clean air;
yellow - standing for agriculture and natural gas reserves of the commune,
and
green symbolizing the forests, nature and ecology.
Flag was a horizontal tri-band and the Arms were placed in its center.
Mr.Majcherkiewicz raised many times the subject of the flag at the
council meetings over the years, but, as a matter of low priority, it never
attracted much attention
among the council's members and no action was taken.
Only this April, the Chairwoman of the City Council, Ms.Elżbieta Sarnowska,
began some steps to have the flag legalized, but also changed. She wants
to get rid of the green color and to submit the Arms and modified version
of the flag for approval by the Heraldic Commission in Warsaw.
It has to be noted that when Mr.Majcherkiewicz came up with the idea
of the flag, there was no Heraldic Commission yet (it was created in 2000)
therefore, there was nobody to ask for approval.
Source: this
website.
Chrystian Kretowicz, 23 Jun 2009
![[Mogilno coat of arms]](../images/p/pl-kp)mg.gif)
image by Chrystian Kretowicz, 23 Jun 2009
These arms could be blazoned as "Azure three Latin/long crosses conjoined/conjuct
radiant/rayonnant Or and bordured of this last"!
Christopher Southworth, 2 Jul 2009