Turawa

Turawa is a village in Opole County, Opole Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) of Gmina Turawa.

==History== thumb|left|19th-century view of the palace Though the village's origins are not known, local legend states that the rich forests around the village were used as a hunting ground by the Dukes of Opole of the Polish Piast dynasty. According to linguist Heinrich Adamy, the name comes from the Polish word tur, meaning "aurochs", who built a hunting lodge in the area. The first documents that mention Turawa are from the beginning of the 16th century, and mention two estates, both named Kuchar, belonging to the village of Kotorz Wielki. One of them was Turawa, while the second was on a site now flooded by the Turawa Reservoir. The name was probably given around 1562 by Georg von Königsfeld, the owner of the manor the settlement was located on. The settlement, along with its hamlets of Marszałki and Łyczyna continued to belong to the village of Kotorz Wielki until the eighteenth century. In 1712, the settlement and the surrounding property was sold by Franz Karl von Blankovsky to Martin Scholtz von Löwencron of Kamieniec and Wieszowa, who began construction of the present palace. The village was annexed by Prussia following the Silesian Wars, and from 1871 to 1945 it was also part of Germany. Martin Scholtz's son, Joseph, died childless in 1759 and his widow, Anna Barbara von Garnier, remarried Franz Adam Count von Gaschin. After her death in 1804, Turawa was owned for years by a brother, Franz Xavier von Garnier. From then until the end of World War II the village was owned by the von Garnier family, who in 1841 received the title of count (with the name Count von Garnier-Turawa.) In those times Turawa had 581 inhabitants. The last owner of Turawa was Hubertus Count von Garnier-Turawa, a German nationalist member of the Prussian Landtag (1925-1932), who called for the revision of the interwar Polish-German border either peacefully or by force. He died in 1952 in Unterwössen in Bavaria.