Goraj, Lublin Voivodeship
| Goraj | ||
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| Village | ||
Town square
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 Goraj
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| Coordinates: 50°43′N 22°39′E / 50.717°N 22.650°E | ||
| Country |
 Poland
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| Voivodeship | Lublin | |
| County | Biłgoraj | |
| Gmina | Goraj | |
| Population | 1,048 | |
Goraj [ˈɡɔrai̯] is a village in Biłgoraj County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Goraj. It lies in historic Lesser Poland, approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Biłgoraj and 60 km (37 mi) south of the regional capital Lublin. The village has a population of 1,048. Goraj was formerly a town. It was granted town rights in the 14th century and lost them in 1869.
The name of the village probably comes from a Polish language word “gora” (mountain), and is related to the location of Goraj, among the hills of the . In a 1377, Goray. The document was issued by King Louis I, mentions that two members of local nobility, were granted "castrum nostrum Goray alio Lada... cum villis Lada, Radziecin...". The medieval Goray Castle, which was also called Lada Castle, probably was surrounded by a village, where servants and artisans dwelled. It is not known when the village was granted Magdeburg rights, it probably happened in the early 1370s, as in a 1373 document, a person named Demetrio de Goray is mentioned, which suggests that it already was a town in that year. In 1389, King Wladyslaw Jagiello confirmed Goraj’s charter. Until 1508, the town belonged to the Gorajski family, and in the 16th century, it was property of several noble families - the Firlejs, the Sienienskis, the Trojanowskis, and in 1595, it pas purchased by one of the most powerful magnates in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Jan Zamoyski, who in 1596 incorporated Goraj into his landed property, Ordynacja Zamojska (Zamosc Estate).
In 1540, a Calvinist prayer house was built at Goraj. It remained in use until ca. 1625, and in 1561, the town received permission to build butcher shops and a town hall. In the same year, Goraj burned in a large fire. In 1648, the town was ransacked and destroyed by Cossacks and Tatars in the Khmelnytsky Uprising, it also suffered during the Swedish invasion of Poland (1655 - 1660), when, among other buildings, a local parish church was destroyed. By that time, Goraj already had a Jewish community, with a stone synagogue, built probably in the late 17th century, and destroyed by the Germans in World War II.
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Wikipedia