The Metamorphosis from the plains of Poland(Part1)

                                     

The written history of Poland began in the 10th century. At that time Poland was ruled by a dynasty called the Piasts. A Piast named Mieszko I reigned from about 960 to 992. In 966 he became a Christian and his people followed.

However a king named Boleslaw the Wrymouth (reigned 1102-1138) decided that after his death the kingdom should be divided between his sons. (Although the eldest son was to have overall control). This decision weakened Poland.

Nevertheless in the 12th and 13th centuries Poland prospered and town life flourished. A king named Henry the Bearded reigned from 1201 to 1238. His wife Jadwiga encouraged German merchants and craftsmen to come and live in Poland. They founded towns with German laws. Some Germans also came to farm uncultivated land in Poland.

However in 1241-42 the Mongols invaded Poland. The Poles were defeated at the battle of Legnica in April 1241 but the Mongols soon withdrew.

Another threat to Poland came from the Teutonic Knights. They were an order of fighting monks. They set out to conquer the Pagan peoples of eastern Europe and convert them by force. In 1235 they began conquering the pagan Prussians (who lived northeast of Poland). By 1283 Teutonic the Knights had conquered the Prussians. However in 1308 they turned on Poland. They took eastern Pomerania including the town of Gdansk, which they renamed Danzig.

Yet in the early 14th century Poland became a strong and unified state. Kazimierz III, known as Kazimierz the Great (reigned 1333-1370) expanded east into Russia. He also reformed the law and administration. Furthermore during his reign the first university in Poland, Krakow, was founded.

Kazimierz also protected and supported the Jews. It was partly due to him that Poland came to have a large Jewish community.

The era from the 14th century to the 16th century was one of greatness for Poland. Nevertheless the power of the king gradually weakened. The Polish nobility became more and more powerful.

Kazimierz was succeeded by his nephew Louis, the king of Hungary. Louis wanted his daughter to succeed as ruler of Poland him but in order to obtain the agreement of the Polish nobles he was forced to grant them concessions. The Privilege of Koszyce (1374) made the nobles exempt from most kinds of tax. It also gave them an important role in government. In future no important decision could be made without their consent.

The Jagiellonians Rule Poland

In 1384 the Polish nobles finally accepted Louis' daughter Jadwiga as Queen of Poland. They also arranged for her to marry Jagiello, Grand Duke of Lithuania and the two countries became allies. Jagiello became Wladyslaw II of Poland (reigned 1386-1434). Wladyslaw joined the Catholic church and his people followed.

In 1410 Poland and Lithuania utterly defeated the Teutonic Knights at the battle of Grundwald.

Then, in 1453 the people of Pomerania rebelled against the Teutonic Knights and appealed to the Poles for help. After 13 years of fighting the Poles took Pomerania and Gdansk.

However in the late 15th century the Polish nobles became increasingly powerful and the monarchy grew weaker. In 1505 the king agreed that no political changes would be made without the consent of the nobles.

The 16th century was an age of economic prosperity for Poland. Furthermore learning flourished in Poland. The greatest Polish scholar was Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). In his day people believed that the Sun and the planets orbited the earth. In 1543 Copernicus published a theory that the Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun. At the time it was a revolutionary teaching.

However like the rest of Europe Poland was rocked by the reformation. Polish Protestants were divided into Lutherans and Calvinists.

However in the 1560s the Jesuits arrived in Poland. They created a network of schools and colleges across Poland and they managed to defeat the Protestants. Nevertheless the Compact of Warsaw, 1573 allowed freedom of worship in Poland.

Meanwhile in 1569 by the Union of Lublin Poland and Lithuania formed a federation with the same king and parliament but separate armies and legal codes.

When the last Jagiellonian king died in 1572 without leaving an heir the Polish monarchy became elective. The king was elected by an assembly of all the Polish nobles. Then in 1596 Warsaw became the capital of Poland instead of Krakow.

Poland in the 17th Century

The 17th century was a troubled one for Poland. At that time the Poles controlled the Ukrainian Cossacks. However in 1648 they rebelled and in 1654 the Russians joined them in a war against the Poles. In 1655 the Swedes invaded Poland and overran most of it. However the Poles rallied and the war with Sweden ended in 1660. The war with Russian ended in 1667. However the wars left Poland devastated. Apart from the material damage a large part of the Polish population was killed.

In the late 17th century Poland scored some great military successes. At that time the Turks ruled Southeast Europe and they tried to drive further into the continent. However in 1673 a Pole named Jan Sobieski was elected king. In 1683 the Turks laid siege to Vienna but Sobieski defeated them and drove them back.

However in the late 17th century Poland was severely weakened by the lack of an effective central government. A single member of the Sejm could veto any measure. Furthermore a single member could dissolve the Sejm. That meant all measures already passed by that Sejm were cancelled and they had to be re-submitted to a new Sejm. As a result government was paralyzed.

Poland in the 18th century

In the 18th century Poland continued its political and military decline. Prussia and Russia took advantage of the lack of strong central government to interfere in Poland. In 1697 Frederick Augustus of Saxony became king of Poland. When he died in 1733 a Russian army marched into Poland and compelled the Sejm to elect his son king. Increasingly Poland was the plaything of the great powers.

In 1764, after the Polish king died Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, intervened to have her former lover Stanislaw Poniatowski elected the new king of Poland. However Poniatowski refused to be a Russian pawn. He and a number of other prominent Poles wanted reforms to strengthen the monarchy. However the Russians would not allow it. It was in Russia's interests to keep Poland weak and divided. There were also many conservative Polish nobles who were unwilling to surrender their privileges.

In 1767 the Russians forced Poland to accept a treaty. The treaty guaranteed the borders of Poland. It also guaranteed the rights of Orthodox Christians. (Although most Poles were Roman Catholics a small minority belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church). It also guaranteed the rights of Polish nobles. Russia would intervene if their rights were threatened. (The noble's rights kept Poland weak and without a strong central government so it was in Russia's interests to protect them).

Anger at Russian interference led to a Polish uprising called the Confederacy of Bar between 1768 and 1772. However the Russians eventually crushed the rebellion.

The great powers, Russia, Prussia and Austria then decided to help themselves to Polish territory. Prussia took Pomerania (northern Poland) cutting Poland off from the sea. Austria took Galicia. Russia took what is now eastern Belarus.

The shock of losing much of their territory galvanized the Poles into action. They reformed education and the army. They also reformed their government. The Four Years Sejm (1788-1792) created a new constitution for Poland in 1791.

However in 1793 there was a second partition. Russia and Prussia took more Polish territory. The 1791 constitution was annulled. In 1794 the Poles rebelled but they were crushed by the Prussians and Russians. Finally in 1795 Prussia, Russia and Austria divided the last part of Poland between them. The Polish king abdicated and the Polish state ceased to exist.

In 1807 Napoleon turned some of the Polish territories into the Duchy of Warsaw, a French satellite state. In 1812 almost 100,000 Poles fought with Napoleon against Russia.

19th Century Poland

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the great European powers divided up the continent. Poland was divided between Prussia, Russia and Austria. Prussia took the western and northern part of Poland while Russia took the centre and east. Austria kept Galicia.

The great powers were not willing to restore Polish independence. Instead they created a semi-independent Poland. The Russian part of Poland was made into the Kingdom of Poland. The Tsar was the monarch but his powers were limited and the kingdom had its own government and army.

However the Poles were dissatisfied and in 1830 rebellion broke out. Some Polish soldiers attempted to assassinate the Tsar's brother and the Polish Diet (parliament) declared the Tsar deposed. However the Russian army invaded and by September 1831 the Polish army was defeated.

Afterwards the Tsar suspended the Polish constitution and ruled by decree. The Polish army was disbanded. As a result of the repression many Poles emigrated to France or North America.

The Poles rebelled again in 1863. The rebellion lasted for 18 months but it was eventually crushed. Afterwards the Kingdom of Poland was dissolved and the area was renamed the 'Vistula Provinces'. Russian was made the official language of government and the Poles were forced to use it in schools - part of a policy to suppress Polish culture. On the other hand the Tsar abolished serfdom.

Meanwhile the Prussians tried to suppress Polish culture in the western part of the country but they could not. Polish culture flourished in the late 19th century and the Poles formed political movements including the Nationalist League, the Christian Democrats and the Polish Socialist Party.

20th Century Poland

Poland eventually regained its freedom after the First World War. In 1916 the Germans conquered the Russian held parts of Poland. To curry favor with the Poles the Germans promised to form a Polish kingdom after the war.

Meanwhile polish General Jozef Pilsudski (1867-1935) led a Polish force in the war against the Russians. However Pilsudski fell out with the Germans and in 1917 was interned. He was released just before the Germans surrendered on 11 November 1918. Meanwhile in January 1918 US President Wilson made clear his support for an independent Poland after the war.

On 11 November 1918, the day of the German surrender the Poles took charge of their country and the German troops were expelled. On 14 November 1918 Pilsudski became provisional head of state. In January 1919 a constitutional assembly was elected in Poland. A new constitution was published in 1921.

After the war the allies decided that Poland should have access to the sea. They gave Poland a strip of land called the Polish corridor, which cut through Germany. It meant that East Prussia was cut off from the rest of Germany. Danzig (Gdansk) was made an independent city state.

In its early years Poland fought border wars. In 1919 it fought a brief war with Czechoslovakia. However a much longer war was fought against Russia in 1919-1921.

As well as wars the Polish republic faced other problems. In 1922 the President, Gabriel Narutowicz was assassinated. Then in May 1926 Pilsudski led a military coup and became dictator. Pilsudski kept the outward forms of democracy. The Sejm continued to meet and political parties were allowed to continue. However Pilsudski held real power until his death in 1935.

Meanwhile in the 1930s Poland was threatened by both Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. In 1939 the two signed a secret agreement to divide Poland between them.