After the war, power in Sącz passed to the national councils, and the town slowly counted its losses and returned to everyday life. The surrounding area was not at peace: in 1947 Operation Vistula swept up the Lemkos of the south-eastern part of the county.
Local lovers of the past, however, did not wait for better times. In 1948 the statute was approved of the Society of Friends of Stary Sącz, founded by Wiktor Bazielich, Antoni Królik, Józef Paszkiewicz and Roman Cesarczyk. On 28 August of that same year a general secondary school was established, and 199 pupils enrolled.
Chalk, gravel and cobbles
The economy of post-war Sącz was small-scale and based on crafts. In 1949 the market square, paved with river cobbles, was repaired. In 1950 a gravel pit opened where the Dunajec and the Poprad meet, and its gravel went to build Nowa Huta.
In 1954 the “Spójnia” Disabled Workers’ Cooperative opened a school chalk factory. It employed up to 70 people, and in the 1970s it produced over 700 tonnes of chalk a year – so many a pupil in Poland wrote on the blackboard with a piece of Stary Sącz. There was also the “Poprad” tanners’ cooperative, and at the end of the 1950s a new brickworks was set up. Around the town, farming still reigned, covering 89.2% of the land.
Someone, though, noticed that the town’s greatest treasure was the town itself. In the mid-1950s the centre of Stary Sącz was placed under protection as an urban heritage reserve. In 1956 the collection of the shoemaker Józef Paszkiewicz went to the Dom na Dołkach as a Regional Room. Since 1976 it has housed the Seweryn Udziela Regional Museum. In August 1957 the town celebrated its 700th anniversary in grand style, and for the occasion Marcin Szeligiewicz composed a bugle call.
The 1960s and 1970s brought a water supply (1955, modernised in 1974), a market on the Wielki Wygon (1961), the Tysiąclecia estate of eleven blocks of flats (1961–1965) and a new bridge over the Poprad. On 1 September 1964 a new building for the secondary school opened on Partyzantów Street, in 1974 a library, and from 1977 the Słoneczne estate was built.
After the 1975 reform the commune belonged to Nowy Sącz Voivodeship, and the town became largely a dormitory for Nowy Sącz. The population grew: from about 4,500 after the war to 7,420 in 1980. In 1987 the Poprad Landscape Park was created, with its headquarters in Stary Sącz.
Early music and free elections
In 1975, on the initiative of Stanisław Gałoński, the first Stary Sącz Early Music Festival was heard. Today it bears the name “Omnia Beneficia”, after a medieval piece written down in the Poor Clares’ manuscripts around 1300. Seven hundred years after Kinga, music once again filled the convent walls.
The change of system came to Sącz on 27 May 1990 with the first free local elections. The mayors, in turn, were Maciej Szuflicki, Marian Cycoń, Marian Kuczaj, Marian Cycoń once more, and from 2012 Jacek Lelek. Marian Cycoń held office for a total of 4,388 days, the longest in the town’s history. Since 1 January 1999 the commune has belonged to Nowy Sącz County in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship.
The day half a million came
The greatest day in the town’s history was 16 June 1999. Preparations had begun only a few months earlier: the organising committee was appointed on 24 February, the first spade went into the ground on 1 April, and 459 donors contributed 590,000 złoty. The organisers expected 300,000–400,000 pilgrims; more than 600,000 came. Thick fog meant that the Pope travelled from Limanowa by car.
On the meadows of Stary Sącz, John Paul II declared Kinga a saint. He spoke words that would long be remembered: “Do not be afraid to be saints.” He greeted separately the Poor Clares, who for the first time in more than seven hundred years had left their enclosure.
The wooden altar designed by Zenon Remi was to have been moved to Nowy Sącz, but after Mayor Kuczaj objected, Bishop Skworc decided in August 1999 that it would stay where it was. Today the “Opoka” Pilgrims’ House stands beside the altar; it was consecrated on 29 June 2010.
The town repaid the Pope with honorary citizenship, conferred on 27 October 2003 and presented in the Vatican on 5 November. On 20 June 2016 a decree was announced under which St Kinga replaced St Elizabeth as patron saint of the town. On 16 June 2024 the 25th anniversary of the canonisation was celebrated in the presence of Cardinal Dziwisz.
A new market square and a Monument of History
The 21st century transformed the town thanks to EU funds. On 29 April 2006 the rebuilding of the market square began, at a cost of about 10 million złoty, ahead of the 750th anniversary in 2007. Some 1,250,000 cobbles were laid on the square. In 2006–2008 a bypass was built, with the cable-stayed St Kinga’s Bridge, 328.8 metres long.
There were disasters, too: in the floods of 2010 water inundated homes in Cyganowice, Barcice and Popowice, and on 4 June the Poprad brought down two spans of the iron railway bridge of 1876, which had survived both world wars.
Then came investments enjoyed by residents and visitors alike. Since 2013 the town has hosted the Pannonica Festival. In 2018 Bobrowisko opened in the former gravel pit – a nature enclave with a footbridge and wildlife hides, which won the Witkiewicz Award. In 2021 the VeloDunajec cycle route reached Stary Sącz, on 7 March 2022 the new home of the Ada Sari Centre for Culture and Art was opened, and in October 2024 the “small bypass”.
The highest distinction came on 10 December 2018. By a regulation of the President of the Republic of Poland, the old town complex of Stary Sącz together with the convent of the Poor Clares was recognised as a Monument of History (Pomnik Historii) – a monument of special importance to Polish culture.
The convent that Kinga founded more than seven hundred years ago is still alive. In 2015 it was home to 29 sisters, and on 24 October 2024 Sister Antonina Kowalska was elected abbess. Today the town has about 8,600 inhabitants, and the commune as a whole over 23,000.
In old and new photographs
