The outline of Polish history

Introduction
Contemporary Poland
 Basic dates
• 966 – christianity introduced
• 1795 – the state dissolved
• 1918- independence regained
 Periodization - classical
• Middle Ages: 10th to 15th centuries
• Early modern times: 16th to 18th c.
• 1795-1918: Poland under partitions
• 1918-1939: Second Republic
• 1939-1945: Second World War
• 1945-1989: Poland under communist rule
• From 1989 – Third Republic
 Periodization: Polish state (Middle
Ages, early modern times)
• 966-1370 – the rule of Piast dynasty
• 1385-1569 – the personal union with
Lithuania
• 1386-1572 – Jagiellonian dynasty
• 1569-1795 – the real union with Lithuania:
The Commonwealth of two Nations created
 State systems
• Medieval kingdom (966-1505)
• Noble democracy (1505-1609)
• Magnates oligarchy (1609-1795)
• Under partition: absolutic rule, limited kingdom (1795-
1918)
• Parliamentary democracy (1918-1926)
• Right-wing authoritarian regime (1926/1935-1939)
• Communist totalitarian regime (1945-1956)
• Communist authoritarian regime (1956-1989)
• Parliamentary democracy (from 1989)
The outline of Polish history

Middle Ages
 Biskupin
• Pre-slavic settlement, 8th century
• Reconstruction - An open-air museum
Biskupin
Slavic tribes, 8-9 c.
West Slavs – 9th-10th c.
 Mieszko I, the duke
• From the Polan tribe (Polanie)
• Establishing the rule of Piast dynasty
• Conquering territory
• Creating the first form of a state (duchy)
• Baptized – introducing christianity (966)
Picture of Jan Matejko (19th c.)
Picture from 1605
Jan Matejko, Christianization of Poland
(19c.)
Strongholds under Mieszko’s rule
 Gord (gród)
• a medieval Slavic fortified wooden settlement
Gord Bródno (Warsaw)
Giecz (remnants – grodzisko)
 Boleslaus I the Brave (Bolesław
Chrobry)
• Introducing the the cultus of Polands holy
patron – skt Adalbert of Prague (Wojciech)
• Christian coronation – 1025 (first Polish king)
• The bronze doors in the Gniezno cathedral
• 12th century
Boleslaus buying skt Adalbertus body from the pagan
Prussians – Gniezno doors
Adalbert’s martyrdom
Internal (feudal) fragmentation (1138-
1320)
• In the beginning of 12th c. (1138) the Kingdom
divided
• Duchies created, growing independence of
provinces
• Internal struggle for dominance
• Teutonic Order invited to protect the border with
pagan Prussia
• 1320 – Poland reunited (coronation of king
Władysław I the Elbow-high, Władysław Łokietek)
Internal fragmentation - the social and
cultural progress
• Population growth
• German settlement – growth of agriculture
and towns
• The growth of the Church
• The growth of towns
• Beginnings of script culture
Sachsenspiegel – German settlement
A castle with suburbium (podgrodzie)
 Suburbium (lat.)
• A settlement beneath the gord (castle)
• Craft
• Trade
German town law – town charter 1335
Wodzisław
Poznań
Kraków – XV century
The Church – 12th – 13th c.
Kraków – st. Andrew church
(Romanesqe style)
Gothic cathedral in Płock
Wawel castle, Kraków – king’s
residence, 14th c.
Altar of Veit Stoss (Wit Stwosz) in
Kraków (end of 15th century)
 History writings
• Chronica principum Poloniae (latin)
("chronicle of the princes of Poland") –
unknown author: Gallus Annonymus
Manuscript from 14th c.
Knightly culture
Arms
Kraków Academy (est. 1364) –
Collegium Maius
Teutonic Order in Europe ca. 1300
The expansion in the east
Malbork (Marienburg)
 Transition
• 1370 – the last king from Piat dynasty dies
(Casimir the Great)
• The union with Hungary
• 1385 – union with Lithuania
Poland 1333-1370
Lithuania - history
• Pagan duchy under the rule of Gediminids („sons
of duke Gedymin”)
• Early 14 c. – territorial expansion – conquering
areas of Wester Rus’ and Kiev
• Suffering from the Teutonic orders expansion
• Grand Duke Jogaila signs union with Poland
(1385)
• Becomes Polish king Władysław Jagiełło (1386)
• Introduces western christianity to Lithuania
• Establishing the new dynasty – Jagiellonians
Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy
of Lithuania after 1385
Władysław II Jagiełło (tomb monument
in Wawel cathedral, gothic style)
 Consequences
• An alliance against Teutonic order – succesful
wars:
• 1410 – battle at Grunwald (Tannenberg)
• 1454-1466 – Thirteen Years' War:
• Western Prussia to Poland (Royal Prussia)
• Eastern Prussia retained under nominal Polish
overlordship.
 Consequences
• Lithuanian interests in the east – conflicts and
rivalry with Muscovian duchy – soon Russia
• Poland evolving into a multinational and
multireligious state
• Expansion of Polish magnates and nobility in
the eastern areas
Battle at Tannenberg
The battle at Grunwald, Jan Matejko
The outline of polish history

Modern times (16th 17 century)

 The form
• 1569 (Lublin) – personal union with Lithuania
transformed into a real one:
• Common king, central authority, privileged
position of the nobility
• Own, separate local law, local authorities
• New name: The Commonwealth of Two Nations
(Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth)
• South-eastern territories (Ukraine) incorporated
into Polish Kingdom
• Economy based on agriculture
 Society – the nobility (szlachta)
• Nobility (6-8%) layers:
• Rich (large land owners, dignitaries, officials) –
the magnates (ca 1% of szlachta
• Middle – nobility
• Poor
• Tendency: growing wealth and power for the
magnates,
• Growing number of poor noble families,
dependant on magnates
Magnate - estates
Baranów palace
Krasiczyn castle
16th century
18th century
Radzyń Podlaski – the palace
A nobleman
A poor nobel family’s house
A wealthy nobel family’s house
 Privileged position of the nobility
• The monopoly of political power
• The control over the peasants
• The dominance over the towns
• The monopoly of land properties (folwark)
 Society – the peasants
• Tenants (no land owners)
• Compulsary land labour – increasing
• Serfs (bound to soil)
• Under manorial (nobility’s jurisdiction)
• Economic deterioration – 16th c. – rather
good condition, growing poverty from mid-
17th century
Peasant cottage 18th c.
A cottage of a wheelwright
Field work
Playing cards
In the tavern
A peasant in stocks (16th c.)
 Political system
• Monarchy: hereditary within the Jagiellonian
dynasty; from 1572 – elective
• All adult noblemen were partitipation in the
election
• Noble democracy – szlachta enjoys privileges,
liberties, predominance – „Golden liberty”
Royal election 1669
Election of last king of the
commonwealth (1764)
 Ruling bodies
• Limited authority of the king
• Leading position of of the diet – the
parliament: (sejm)
• Two chambers: chamber of deputies (elected
by the nobility) and the Senate – representing
the magnates
King with the senators
The sejm
The chamber of the Senate, Royal
Castle, Warsaw
 Privileges of the nobility
• Freedom from arbitrary arrest
• Exemption from taxes
• Freedom of confession (out of use from the
mid-17 th c.)
• Exclusive right to enter the clergy
• Right to elect the king
• Extended self-government – local councils
(sejmik)
Sejmik (18th c.)
Extention of political freedom – on the
road to anarchy
• Liberum veto (I freely forbid) – unanimous
voting
• Confederacy – armed association against the
king
• Rokosz – armed, semi-legal rebellion against
the king
A condfederacy (17th c.)
 Culture
• Multireligious until mid-17th c. based on
tolerance and equality among confessions;
later: supression of protestants and orthodox,
domination of Roman Catholic church (large
influence of Jesuit order)
• Jewish autonomy (isolation)
• Multinational - but the dominance of Polish
language and culture
• The process of polonization
Religions in Poland, 16th c.
Clergymen and nobels
 16 c. renaissance
• Golden age of polish culture: the growth of
literature, architecture
Towns-hall, Zamość
The Polish translation of the Bible
Sigismundus chapel, Wawel (I half of
the 16th c.)
Wawel castle, Kraków, inside yard
The baroque Jesuit church of sts Paul
and Peter, Kraków
 The age of crisis (17th-18th c.)
• Economic decline
• Wars
 Wars

• Russia
• Ottoman Empire
• Sweden („the deluge”)
• Internal disturbances: the kossacks rising in
the Ukraine
• Peasants revolts
The Vienna battle (1683) – the Polish army supporting Austria
against The Ottoman Empire the painting of Jan Matejko)
 Consequences
• Loss of territories (to Sweden, Russia)
• Economic ruin, depopulation; towns
destroyed, famine and plagues
• The loss of intenational position – the
Commonwealth as an object in European
policy
• Military victories – important part of Polish
historical tradition
Polish Hussars (light cavalry)
The Commonwealth collapses – 18th c.
• Early 18th c. – under Russian hegemony
• Three partitions
• Reform period (The Grand Sejm)
• Lost war with Russia
• Lost uprising
 Partitions
• First – 1772 (Russia, Prussia, Austria)
• Second – 1793 (Russia, Prussia)
• Third – 1795 (Russia, Prussia, Austria)
Allegory of the 1st partition of Poland (1772), showing Catherine
the Great of Russia (left), Joseph II of Austria and Frederick the
Great of Prussia (right) quarrelling over their territorial seizures
Jan Matejko, Rejtan, or the Fall of
Poland
 Reform period
• The reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski
• Cultural revival
• The Great Sejm (Four-Year)
• Constitution of 3rd May (1791) – a modern
constitutional monarchy established
Stanisław August Poniatowski
The „Great Sejm”
Jan Matejko, The Constitution of 3rd
May
 Final
• Lost war with Russia – 1791-1792
• Kościuszko uprising - 1794
Victory at Racławice
The outline of Polish history

Nineteenth century
 No own, independent Polish state
• Foreign rule: Russian, Prussian (German),
Austrian (different forms)
• Policy of integration, unification – attempt to
denationalize (impose German or Russian
language)
• Loss of political liberties – all three powers are
absolutist regimes
• Large areas on the east incorporated into
Russian empire (the „stolen land”)
Poland under partitions
 In consequence: armed resistance

• During revolutionary and napoleonic wars _

supporting France against Austria, Russia,
Prussia
• The Polish Legions – in Italy (1797)
Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, the most famous
commander of the Polish Legions
 Polish national anthem
• „Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła” - Poland Is Not Yet
Lost
 The national uprisings
• Against Russia:
• The November Rising – November 1830 –
september 1831
• The January Rising – 1863-1865
• Against Germany:
• Spring of nations, 1848
 The struggle for national culture
• After the traumatic experiences of lost risings
– the policy of preserving the identity in non-
violent ways: struggle against the russification
and germanization
 The organic work (praca organiczna)
• a term adopted from Herbert Spencer by the 19th
century Polish positivists, denoting an ideology
demanding that the vital powers of the nation be spent
on labour (i.e. work at the foundations) rather than
fruitless national uprisings against the overwhelming
military presence of the neighbouring empires. The
basic principles of the organic work included education
of the masses and increase of the economical potential
of the Poles. This was to turn the Polish lower classes
into a modern nation and put a stop to the successes
of Germanization and Russification.
 Economic and social progress
• Abolition of serfdom
• Enfranchisment of peasants
• Partly jewish emancipation
• Industrialization
• Urbanization
• Slow progress of litteracy among peasants
Warszaw, 1912
Lwów, ca 1910
Warsaw-Białystok railroad
 The advertisement of Lilpop-Rau
machinery factory, ca 1860, Warsaw
Białystok, marketplace ca 1900
Włocławek railway station, 1863
Białystok, railway station
Warsaw, bridge over Vistula, 1863
Jews in Lodz
 Political forms late 19th c.
• Eastern territories – „the stolen lands”
incporporated into Russian Empire (Ukraina,
Belorussia)
• Kingdom of Poland – in theory a separate unit,
in practice fully subordinated to Russia
• Galicia – southern part, a autonomous
province in Austria-Hungary
• Wielkopolska, Pomerellen (Pomorze Gdańskie)
– incorporated to German Empire
Political activity – late 19th century
• Under Russian rule – secret organizations
• Under Austrian rule (Galicia) – legal activity
within the Galician autonomy and in Austria-
Hungary
• Under German rule (after 1871 – the creation
of the German Empire) – legal activity
 Political movements and parties
• Socialism: revolutionary (aiming toward social
revolution, marxists)
• and national (the programme of regaining
independence as a democratic peoples republic)
• Nationalism – focus on preserving and
developing national identity; hostility to national
minorities (Ukrainian, Jewish); struggle against
socialism; loyal to Russia
• Loyalists, conservatist – reject the independence
plan, hopes for some autonomy within the
powers.
 The peasant problem
• Abolition of serfdom (1807, 1848)
• Enfranchisment (Prussia:1811, Austria:1848,
under Russian rule: 1864)
• Large land estates dominate (aristocracy, Church)
• Growing number of land-less peasants
• The villages overpopulated
• Poverty
• Discrimination
The landlord, his official, peasants:
caunting labor service
Mother died…, 19th c. painting
A peasant burial…
Field work
A peasant cottage near Białystok