Wawel - 19th Century

19th Century

After the Third Partition of Poland (1795), Wawel was under Austrian rule. Austrian soldiers converted the hill into barracks; in the process much destruction took place and rebuilding was issued: the cloisters were walled up, the interior of the castle was changed, parts of the buildings were pulled down (e.g. churches of St. Michael and St. George). When the Kraków Uprising failed and the Republic of Kraków was terminated, three enormous buildings housing a military hospital were built on the Wawel Hill. In the second part of the 19th century the Austrians rebuilt the defense walls making them a part of Kraków Stronghold (two new caponiers were made). At the same time, the Poles tried to retake the hill.

In 1815 ceremonial funeral of Józef Poniatowski took place in the Wawel Cathedral. Since that event national heroes are also put to rest there (formerly only bodies of monarchs rested in the cathedral). In 1818 the body of Tadeusz Kościuszko was brought there and placed in St. Leonard's Crypt. The Potocki Chapel was reconstructed in a classicistic style. The statue of Artur Potocki, by the famous sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, was placed within the chapel. Another sculpture by the same artist was put in Queen Sophia's Chapel. In 1869, due to the accidental opening of the coffin of king Casimir III the Great, a second funeral was performed. Consequently, an initiative was taken to renovate other monarchs’ tombs in the Wawel Cathedral. The underground crypts were connected with tunnels, sarcophagi were cleaned and refurbished, new ones were funded - the emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria paid for a sarcophagus for king Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki whose wife was from the House of Habsburg.