Poland

A

The Piast Dynasty

Mieszko converted the Poles to Christianity in order to compete better with the crusading and marauding Germans. During the reign (992-1025) of his son, Bolesław I, the Christian church was firmly established in Poland. Bolesław also conducted successful wars against Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and considerably expanded the Polish domain. He was crowned king by the pope in 1025. At his death, Poland extended beyond the Karpaty Mountains (Carpathian Mountains) and the Odra and Dniester rivers.

During the next three centuries Poland met with repeated misfortunes from internal disorder and foreign invasions. In 1079 Bolesław II had the bishop of Kraków murdered and Poland was placed under a papal interdict. Bolesław III, who reigned from 1102 to 1138, conquered the region of Pomerania, defeated the pagan Prussians, and defended Silesia against Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. On the death of Bolesław III Poland was divided among his sons, and the kingdom subsequently disintegrated into a number of independent warring principalities.

In 1240 and 1241 the Mongols invaded and ravaged Poland. Meanwhile, the neighboring Baltic dominions of the Prussians had been subjugated by the Teutonic Knights, and German colonists, encouraged by the Polish princes, began to settle in the country. During the period of German colonization, large numbers of Jews, in flight from persecution in western Europe, took refuge in Polish territory.

Władysław I of the Piast dynasty was crowned king of Poland in 1320. From 1305 to 1333, defeats were inflicted on the Teutonic Knights, and the kingdom was reunited. The power and prosperity of Poland increased tremendously during the reign of Władysław’s son Kazimierz III, also called The Great, which lasted from 1333 to 1370. Kazimierz was one of the most enlightened rulers in Polish history and the last of the Piast dynasty. He initiated important administrative, judicial, and legislative reforms, founded the Jagiellonian University in 1364, extended aid to the Jewish refugees from western Europe, and added Galicia to the Polish domains.

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B

The Jagiellonian Dynasty

The second dynasty of Polish kings, the Jagiellonians, was founded by Jagiełło, grand duke of Lithuania. In 1386 Jagiełło married Jadwiga, queen of Poland, a grand niece of Kazimierz III, and ascended the throne as Władysław II Jagiełło. Roman Catholicism was introduced into Lithuania, a predominantly pagan country, by Władysław, who was converted on his accession. In 1410 Polish and Lithuanian armies under Władysław won a decisive victory at Grünwald over the Teutonic Knights, thereby raising Poland to a leading position among European nations. Thereafter, until 1569, a single sovereign usually ruled both states.

Under the Jagiellonian dynasty, which lasted until 1572, Poland attained great heights of power, prosperity, and cultural magnificence. Kazimierz IV, who ruled from 1447 to 1492, conducted a protracted and successful war (1454-1466) against the Teutonic Knights. In 1466, by terms of the Peace of Toruń, which terminated the conflict, he secured West Prussia, Pomerania, and other territories. The landed gentry and lesser nobility acquired extensive privileges during Kazimierz’s reign, mainly at the expense of the peasantry. The Sejm, a parliamentary body that evolved out of earlier assemblies of nobles and other social groups, began to assume greater importance. The succeeding Jagiellonian kings, notably Zygmunt I, were generally victorious in the military and diplomatic struggles of the period, despite some setbacks in the east. In 1569 Zygmunt II Augustus united the two realms of Poland and Lithuania. The country was officially termed the Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita). Protestantism, which made many converts among the nobility in the middle years of the 16th century, ceased to be significant after 1600.

With the death of Zygmunt II Augustus, last of the Jagiellonians, in 1572, the Polish nobility and gentry (Szlachta) successfully concluded a prolonged campaign for complete control of the country. A regime of elected kings was instituted with the power of election vested in the Sejm, then a bicameral body consisting of the lesser and greater nobility. One important aspect of this system was to be the liberum veto, which made it possible for any member of the Sejm to prevent the passage of legislation. The constitution also sanctioned the formation of military confederations of nobles.

C

Wars and Polish Decline

For two centuries after these developments, the political, economic, and military position of Poland deteriorated. Successive and generally disastrous wars with Sweden, Russia, the Ukrainian Cossacks, Brandenburg, and the Ottomans led to the loss of important Polish territories and the devastation of much of Poland. In 1683 Polish and German armies under the command of Jan III Sobieski defeated a vast Ottoman army at the gates of Vienna, halting a serious threat to Christendom in central Europe, but his victory was unable to halt Poland’s decline.

Early in the 18th century the Russian Empire opened a systematic offensive against declining Poland. Supplementing military force with bribery and intrigue, the Russian rulers gradually reduced neighboring Poland to impotence. Widespread political corruption among the Polish nobility accelerated the drift toward national catastrophe. Through shameless bribery of a faction of the Sejm and armed Russian intervention, Frederick Augustus II, elector of Saxony, was placed on the throne of Poland in 1733 as Augustus III. These events brought on the conflict known in history as the War of the Polish Succession (1733-1735). Although sections of the Polish nobility subsequently united around a program of national salvation, Poland was unable to withstand the next Russian onslaught. In 1764 Russian troops entered Poland and forced the enthronement of Stanisław II Augustus, a paramour of Catherine the Great, empress of Russia.

D

Partitions of Poland

Russian expansionism, as exemplified by these events, caused profound alarm among the European powers. The Ottomans immediately declared war on Russia. Prussia and Austria, fearful of a general European conflict and coveting Polish territory, submitted a proposal to the Russian government for the partition of Poland.

D

1

The First Partition and the Polish Commonwealth

The Russian government agreed, and in 1772 the treaty of partition was concluded in Saint Petersburg, Russia. By the terms of this document, Russia, Austria, and Prussia acquired large portions of Polish territory, amounting to about one-quarter of the total area of the country. A constitution, which established safeguards against Polish resurgence, was also imposed on the nation by the partitioning powers. Consent of the Sejm to the treaty was obtained largely by bribery.

Despite the political restrictions surrounding the Commonwealth, Poland progressed in several domestic fields in the decade following the first partition. The national education system was secularized and completely modernized. A movement for constitutional reform also developed during this period, but the Polish nobility frustrated effective action. Relations between Russia and Prussia deteriorated rapidly after 1786. With encouragement from Prussia, Polish patriots in the Sejm instituted sweeping governmental reforms in 1788 and began the draft of a new constitution. A document proclaiming Poland a hereditary monarchy and strengthening and liberalizing the government was adopted, in the face of violent opposition from a section of the gentry, on May 3, 1791.

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