Case file · Witch trials
The Doruchów witch trial
Tradition holds that in 1775 fourteen women were seized at Doruchów, three died under torture and eleven were burned, the last great witch-burning in Poland, which supposedly led the Sejm to ban torture and witch trials in 1776.
1775 CE · 51.43, 18.00 · status: disputed
The account
The story was widely repeated in Polish histories. A reassessment of the documents by historian Janusz Tazbir dates the trial to about 1783 and finds six women sentenced to death, without proof that they were executed; the judges were reportedly punished for defying the 1776 law.
The sceptical view
The most detailed account comes from Konstanty Majeranowski, an early 19th-century writer known for historical hoaxes, and no trace appears in the Sejm records or the 1776 press.