History of Pultusk

After the Partitions of Poland, the town was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia. The Polish forces of General Antoni Madaliński stationed in Pułtusk in 1794 declined to obey Prussian orders and started their march towards Kraków. This marked the start of the Kościuszko Uprising. Prussian rule lasted only a few years.

Yet another Battle of Pułtusk was fought on 26 December 1806, between forces of Imperial Russia and Imperial France. The battle became so famous that its name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. After the fall of Warsaw in 1809 Pułtusk became the temporary capital of the Duchy of Warsaw. After the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte the town was annexed by Russia.

During the November Uprising the town changed hands several times. However, in 1831 the Russian forces brought a cholera epydemic to the town. Pułtusk inhabitants took part also in the January Uprising. Afterwards the town was utterly destroyed and many prominent citizens were sent to Siberia. On 30 January 1868 a meteorite fell in Pułtusk. It was one of the biggest to fall in Europe and large chunks of it (9 kg (20 lb) each) are nowadays present at the British Museum. For additional details see the page about the Pultusk meteorite.

The great fire in 1875 destroyed most of the city and was depicted by Nobel Laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz in his novel Quo Vadis as the great fire of Rome.

The town was also a battleground in the Polish-Soviet War of 1920, at the eve of the Battle of Warsaw. In 1931 the town had some 16,800 inhabitants