Slavonic Civilization What was Poland ? 1 November 1999
What was Poland in 1918?
Bride: Then maybe it's a waste of time looking.
Poet: And yet there is a little cage, just put your hand under
your breast.
Bride: That's the pleat of my corset, sewn a little too tight.
Poet: Is something beating ?
Bride: What's this all leading to ? My heart - ! - ?
Poet: That's Poland.
Stanis¸aw Wyspianski, Wesele (The Wedding), 1901.
Q: What was Poland in 1918 ?
A: A state without clearly defined borders which hadn't existed for 123 years. But it was not "Poland" which disappeared in 1795 ....
Polish History: 966-1900
1. Origins of the Polish state: PIAST Dynasty (960Ñ1370)
Capital: PoznaÄ;
1000 Archbishopric of Gniezno
966 Conversion to Christianity through Czechs (not Holy Roman
Empire)
992-1025 Boles¸aw Chrobry ("The Brave"): consolidation
and expansion of realm
1138 Testament of Boles¸aw Krzywousty:
SENIORATE (hereditary division of Polish territory among sons
produced FRAGMENTATION until 1320)
CAPITAL: CRACOW
1320-1333 W¸adys¸aw üokietek ("Ladislas the
Elbow-High")
UNIFICATION of territories as Corona Poloniae (The Polish
Crown)
1333-1370 Kazimierz Wielki (Casimir the Great)
1364 Foundation of Cracow University
2. Rise to Major Power Status: JAGIELLONIAN Dynasty (1386-1572)
1386-1432 Lithuanian Grand Duke, Jogaila, baptised and
took the name W¸adys¸aw Jagie¸¸o
before wedding the 12-year-old Queen of Poland, Jadwiga of
Anjou [Hungary] (d. 1399)
produced a Dynastic Union of Lithuania and Poland
1410 Grunwald: largest mediaeval battle: rout of Teutonic Order
MYTH of being the "Antemurale Christianitatis" (Bulwark of Christendom)
3. The Golden Age ('Z¸oty wiek') The Renaissance
Key figures:
"The Noble Democracy"
1569 UNION OF LUBLIN produced:
Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narod—w (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth)
1573 Henrician Articles (liberty of religious dissidents) [Pacta Conventa/Warsaw Confederation]
5. Major Problems
(a) Centrifugal forces within Polish-Lithuanian state:
(i) MONOPOLY on political and economic power enjoyed by
szlachta,
who vigorously defended their liberties against any centralist
tendencies shown by the monarch:
1505 Nihil novum ("Nothing new about us, without
us"). Produces REFEUDALIZATION (peasants, over 85% of the
population tied to the estates), inadequately developed middle
class.
(ii) Self-aggrandizement of nobility: SARMATISM
(Sarmatians: tribe undefeated by Romans). Application of LIBERUM
VETO
(the right to veto any legislation if opposed to noble interests
Ñ principle of UNANIMITY). Polish polity the best of all.
"POLISH ANARCHY" ("Polska nierzˆdem
stoi": "Poland stands while falling apart")
(b) External pressures:
Vying for and winning control of the Baltic in the GREAT NORTHERN WAR (1700-21) with
(ii) SWEDEN
(iii) PRUSSIA
(iv) AUSTRIA
(v) TURKS A threat from the early 16th century, defeated at Vienna in 1683 by Polish king Jan Sobieski's relief force
6. The Reform Period (1764-95)
The early part of the 18th century is traditionally known in Poland as the "Saxon Night", when two Kings of Saxony were maintained on the Polish throne with Russian support: the nobility suspected August II (1697-1733) of absolutist tendencies and a state of civil war prevailed until Peter the Great stepped in and established the RUSSIAN PROTECTORATE (1717-95), emasculating the Commonwealth by drastically limiting the size of its army and guaranteeing the right of the Tsar to intervene as arbiter in any disputes between the monarch and his subjects. Polish and German [Lutheran] religious chauvinism led to the "Tumult of Thorn", bloody retaliation by the Polish king against Lutherans in the city who had stoned a procession of the statue of the Virgin Mary. This incident gave the Prussians, like the Russians, the pretext for posing as defenders of the liberties of religious minorities: Prussia defended the Protestant sects while Russia looked after the Orthodox.
In 1764, with Frederick the Great's agreement, a former favourite of Catherine, Stanis¸aw August Poniatowski (to 1795), was elected king. Surprisingly, he embarked almost at once on a reform programme, which greatly annoyed the conservative szlachta, founding the Szko¸a Rycerska (Military Academy), the basis of a future, state-minded cadre of officers in the Commonwealth's army It eventually provoked a revolt Ñ the Confederation of Bar (1768-72) Ñ and the FIRST PARTITION [1773], enacted by Prussia and Russia against Austrian protests, although Maria Theresa took her share. Due legal form was observed by having the sejm vote for the partition.
The Partition gave Polish society an enormous shock and with Catherine's tacit agreement, Stanis¸aw developed some limited reforms: of the education system, establishing the first European Ministry of Education (properly: National Education Commission) in 1773, which took responsibility out of the hands of the Catholic orders, and of the government in 1775. The culmination of this process was the FOUR YEAR SEJM (1788-1791) ending in the promulgation of the 3 MAY [1791] CONSTITUTION, which transformed Poland-Lithuania into a modern democratic system, albeit one with a hereditary monarchy (designed to eliminate the effects of foreign intervention). It generated a conservative backlash, when certain magnates with Russian aid raised a confederation at Targowica in the Ukraine. The resultant brief war, whose outcome was decided by Stanis¸aw's desertion to the conservatives, led to the SECOND PARTITION in 1792. Discontent increased as demobbed Polish soldiers stewed in Warsaw and it was only a matter of time before the uprising of 1794 took place, led by Tadeusz Koæciuszko, a graduate of the Military Academy, and fairly quickly crushed by the Russians. Stanis¸aw was forced to abdicate, the Commonwealth was parcelled out between Austria, Prussia and Russia, whose monarchs vowed never to allow the name of Poland to return to the map of Europe.
7. The Way Back: The Polish Lands in the Nineteenth Century
A. Initial Polish Responses to Partition:
B. Long-Term Stances
COLLABORATION (Wsp—¸praca)
C. Polish Statehood in the 19th Century
D. Key Changes in the Polish Situation during 19th Century
E. Approaches of the Partitioning Powers
With the outbreak of WWI, all three powers played to Polish national sentiments, with the result that Poles fought for all three armies, sometimes against each other, during the war. The crucial events in the restoration of a Polish state did not result from Polish actions, however: the February and, even more so, the October 1917 Revolution in Russia, stemming from Russia's disastrous experience of the war, reduced Russian interests in Poland to a minimum, while in 1918 US President Woodrow Wilson made a free and independent Poland one of his 14-point war aims. The defeat of Austria and Germany left a power vacuum at the heart of Europe. Finally, the return of J—zef Pi¸sudski to Warsaw in November 1918 after internment in Germany made Polish independence a fait accompli.
In 1918, Poland was confused:
6 different currencies
3 separate railway systems, bureaucracies
no fixed borders
large non-Polish and occasionally hostile communities
a devastated economy and infrastructure
©Dr John Bates, 1999