1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Przemyśl

PRZEMYŚL, a town of Austria, in Galicia, 60 m. W. of Lemberg by rail. Pop. (1900), 46,295, mostly Polish. It is situated on the river San and is one of the strongest fortresses in Galicia. Przemyśl is the seat of a Roman Catholic and of a Greek uniat bishop, and has a Roman Catholic cathedral, begun in 1460. The industries comprise the manufacture of machinery, liqueurs and spodium or tutty, the refining of naphtha, corn-milling and the sawing of timber. The trade is chiefly in timber, corn, leather and linen. On the hill above the town are the ruins of an old castle, said to have been founded by Casimir the Great.

Przemyśl, one of the oldest towns in Galicia, claims to have been founded in the 8th century, and was at one time capital of a large independent principality. Casimir the Great and other Polish princes endowed it with privileges similar to those of Cracow, and it attained a high degree of prosperity. In the 17th century its importance was destroyed by inroads of Tatars, Cossacks and Swedes.