Krak�w: Wawel Castle and Wawel CathedralWawel Castle and Wawel Cathedral (originally 11th century; rebuilt 1142 and 1364) at left, overlooking the Vistula River, Krak�w, Poland.� neuartelena/Fotolia

Krak�w: St. Mary's ChurchInterior of St. Mary's Church (Ko�ci� Mariacki), mainly 15th century, Krak�w, Poland.� puchan/Shutterstock.comMany fine examples of medieval Romanesque and Gothic architecture, both secular and religious, have been preserved, together with outstanding sculptures, among which the wooden altar of Veit Stoss (Wit Stwosz), in St. Mary�s Church (Ko�ci� Mariacki) in Krak�w, is the most famous. The vast red-brick castle of Malbork (Marienburg), once the headquarters of the Teutonic Knights, is among the most impressive in Europe; the well-restored castle was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1997. The architecture and sculpture of the Renaissance and Baroque periods were formed under Italian influence but nevertheless developed individual Polish forms, as seen in the town hall of Pozna� or the decorated granaries at Kazimierz Dolny. Zamo��, a model Renaissance city built in the 1580s, has survived virtually intact. Like the medieval town of Toru�, it was designated a World Heritage site. The best-preserved urban architecture of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance is that of the Old Town and the Wawel Castle in Krak�w. The classicism of the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century left its most valuable monuments in some of the great palaces, such as that of the Radziwi��s at Niebor�w or at �azienki in Warsaw. Moreover, there are many examples of imperial German and Russian architecture from the 19th century, notably Lublin Castle.

Polish painting attained its greatest development in the second half of the 19th century, encompassing western European styles but again with specific national characteristics. Henryk Siemiradzki, Jan Matejko (the creator of monumental romantic historical canvases), and a number of landscape and genre painters achieved the widest fame. Great sensitivity was shown in portraits by Stanis�aw Wyspia�ski, a painter who was active in drama and design. With her woven sculptures, Magdalena Abakanowicz brought fibre arts to the forefront in the late 20th century. Theatre and motion pictures

The Polish national theatre, as distinct from the performance of earlier religious, court, and foreign plays that had circulated since the Middle Ages, dates from the end of the 18th century. The great pioneer was Wojciech Bogus�awski, an actor, director, and playwright. Political conditions during the period of partition (1772�1918) inhibited theatrical development, however, and most of the Romantic masterworks of Mickiewicz or S�owacki, who wrote drama in addition to poetry, were never staged during their lifetimes. The comedian and satirist Aleksander Fredro earned a less-exalted but no-less-lasting reputation. Krak�w, in Austrian Galicia, became a centre of lively theatre at the turn of the century. Between World Wars I and II, Juliusz Osterwa in Warsaw and Leon Schiller in Lw�w (now Lviv, Ukraine), Warsaw, and ��d� (after 1945) launched the experimental tradition. After 1956, once the era of Socialist Realism had passed, the avant-garde came into its own. The Theatre of the Absurd was explored alongside the revival of the classical repertoire. During the 1960s the Laboratory Theatre of Jerzy Grotowski (whose theories and methods emphasized the nonverbal aspects of theatre) gained international acclaim, and his work had a broad impact, especially in the United States. Henryk Tomaszewski�s Pantomime Theatre experienced parallel success. Tadeusz Kantor, a painter, designer, and director, also has been an important influence.

The origins of Polish cinema date to 1909. The communist government supported war films and themes connected with the Nazi occupation but allowed and subsidized projects on a wide range of contemporary issues. Many artists critical of the communist regime expressed themselves in innovative documentary films. Historical epics have also enjoyed great popularity. During the late 1950s Polish films began to attract worldwide attention. Just as the State Film School at ��d� earned high standing in the filmmaking profession, so did the work of individual directors who broke free of official preferences. Undoubtedly, the leading figure was Andrzej Wajda, whose films and theatre productions set precedents for independence and excellence in exploring the conflicts in Polish society. Roman Polanski, who worked internationally, directed the classic Hollywood films Rosemary�s Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974) and won an Academy Award for his direction of The Pianist (2002). Krzysztof Kie�lowski, known for his trilogy of films, Trzy kolory (�Three Colours�), also worked outside Poland. Among other distinguished directors are Andrzej Munk, Aleksander Ford, Tadeusz Konwicki, Wojciech Has, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Krzysztof Zanussi, and Agnieszka Holland.

Andrzej Wajda, 1972.Renata Pajchel SochaCultural institutions

Poles have made great efforts to preserve and cherish the records and artifacts of the past. Archives and museums of art, ethnography, archaeology, and natural history can be found in many Polish cities. The Czartoryski Museum in Krak�w dates to the beginning of the 19th century, the Archaeological Museum in Pozna� to 1857, and the National Museum in Warsaw to 1862. After World War II, official policy concentrated on the creation of new regional museums in cities recovered from German occupation, on museums connected with the history of the communist movement, on former private palaces and collections acquired by the state, and on sites connected with Nazi war crimes, such as the concentration and extermination camps at O�wi�cim (Auschwitz) or Majdanek. The government also supported traditional museums and galleries of modern art (e.g., the Zach�ta State Art Gallery in Warsaw, established 1900). The Roman Catholic Church is active in preserving and exhibiting the art treasures and records connected with Poland�s religious heritage. The Churches of Peace in Jawor and Swidnica, which have been designated UNESCO World Heritage sites, were built for Protestants in Silesia in the 17th century. Sports and recreation

Team sports and spectator sports thrive in Poland. Professional football (soccer) teams attract large crowds in the towns, and local authorities provide facilities for athletics (track and field) and swimming. Skiing and mountaineering in the Tatras and sailing on the Baltic or the Masurian Lakes are popular. In addition, many Poles enjoy cycling, horseback riding, and spelunking. There are a large number of recreation clubs devoted to football, volleyball, table tennis, athletics, basketball, and martial arts.

Since 1924 Poland has participated in all Summer and Winter Olympic Games, with the exception of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, boycotted by the communist regime along with other Soviet-bloc governments. Among Poland�s most accomplished Olympians were Irena Kirszenstein-Szewi�ska, who participated in the Olympic Games from 1964 to 1980 and won seven medals (three gold) in track and field; J�zef Szmidt, a triple jumper who dominated the event for six years and won two gold medals; and Robert Korzeniowski, who at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, became the first man to win both race-walking events. The Polish national football team won the Olympic gold medal in 1972 and earned third place at the 1974 World Cup. In 1982 the team, led by star forward Zbigniew Boniek, again reached the World Cup semifinals. Media and publishing

Under the communist government, the Main Office for the Control of the Press, Publications, and Public Performances (GUKPIW), headquartered in Warsaw, controlled the media, publishing, films, theatres, exhibitions, advertising, and related activities. The bureau maintained an office in all television and radio stations, press and publishing houses, film and theatre studios, and printing establishments throughout the country. Authorization was required even for such printed items as wedding invitations, obituary notices, and stationery. The government closely controlled access to photocopiers and printing machines, and all purchases of paper in bulk required a permit. Censorship of foreign mail was routine. No sphere of information was immune, however distant from immediate political concerns; censors attempted not only to suppress material but also to mold all information at its source.

The Polish press included the official organs of the party and state, such as Trybuna Ludu (�People�s Tribune�), the organ of the PUWP, and a variety of less closely controlled semiparty newspapers and journals, such as �ycie Warszawy (�Warsaw Life�), Polityka (�Politics�; a lively weekly), and Tw�rczo�� (�Creativity�; an intellectual monthly). Despite the official controls, speech was not generally suppressed in Poland, and the highly literate Poles became masters at writing and reading �between the lines.� Moreover, alternative perspectives were offered in the respected independent Krak�w publication Tygodnik Powszechny (�Universal Weekly�), in the Roman Catholic journals Znak (�The Sign�) and Wi� (�The Link�), and in the underground �free sector.� The latter developed in the 1970s and 1980s into a vast network, publishing everything from books banned by the regime to academic journals and local newssheets.

Restrictions on the media eased in 1989, and Solidarity supporters began publishing numerous journals and newspapers, including the daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza (�Voters Daily�; Eng. ed. Gazeta International). In 1990 the state abandoned censorship of the press, and this led to the appearance of a wide range of new publications. Though in the 1990s the number of newspaper titles was reduced by half, the number of books and magazines doubled. The private sector in both broadcast and print media has grown rapidly, in great part owing to foreign investments. It includes television and radio stations, national and regional newspapers and magazines, and publishing houses. Many communities publish local newsletters and bulletins. Rzeczpospolita (�The Commonwealth�) is a semiofficial newspaper of record. Jerzy A. Kondracki Norman Davies Andrew Hutchinson Dawson Krzysztof Jasiewicz History The Piast monarchyThe early state

The terms Poland and Poles appear for the first time in medieval chronicles of the late 10th century. The land that the Poles, a West Slavic people, came to inhabit was covered by forests with small areas under cultivation where clans grouped themselves into numerous tribes. The dukes (dux) were originally the commanders of an armed retinue (dru�yna) with which they broke the authority of the chieftains of the clans, thus transforming the original tribal organization into a territorial unit. Two tribes, the Polanie�based around the fortified settlement (castrum) of Gniezno�and the Wi�lanie�who lived near Krak�w�expanded to bring other tribes under their control.

Exposed to some missionary activities linked with St. Methodius, the state of Wi�lanie fell under the rule of Great Moravia�which was destroyed by the Magyar invasion of the early 10th century�and came eventually under the rule of Mieszko I, the first ruler of the Polanie to be mentioned in written records. He is regarded as the founder of the Piast dynasty, the beginnings of which are clouded in legend, though the names of three of his predecessors are known. Creating what a contemporary Spanish-Jewish traveler, Ibrāhīm ibn Yaʾḳūb, described as the most powerful of the existing Slav states, Mieszko accepted Roman Catholicism via Bohemia in 966. A missionary bishopric directly dependent on the papacy was established in Pozna�. This was the true beginning of Polish history, for Christianity was a carrier of Western civilization with which Poland was henceforth associated.

Facing the crucial problem of Poland�s relationship to the two pillars of medieval Christendom, the Germanic Holy Roman Empire and the papacy, Mieszko battled the expansive tendencies of the former�a record that dates from 963 refers to a struggle with the German dukes�while he sought reliance on Rome, to which he subordinated his state in a curious document, the Dagome iudex (c. 991). Poland alternately competed and cooperated with neighbouring Bohemia and Hungary as well as with the principality of Kievan Rus. At Mieszko�s death the Polish state stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains, resembling in shape post-World War II Poland.

Because the principle of primogeniture was unknown in the country, every succession led to internal strife. Mieszko�s successor was Boles�aw I (the Brave). Commanding a huge military force, he sought hegemony in east-central Europe. In 1000 he received the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, who dreamed of restoring a universal Roman empire and who recognized the sovereign status of the Polish duke. Moreover, Otto agreed to an independent Polish ecclesiastical organization that added an archbishopric in Gniezno and bishoprics in Krak�w, Wroc�aw, and Ko�obrzeg to the already extant bishopric in Pozna�. Given the role of the church in medieval statehood, this was a great achievement. Paying their respects to St. Adalbert (Vojt�ch)�the former bishop of Prague slain by the pagan Prussians and later elevated to sainthood�the two rulers sought to coordinate their missionary activities in the pagan Slav lands between the Elbe and Oder rivers. This area, home of the so-called Polabian Slavs, formed a kind of buffer between the two states and was the object of their respective expansion.

The successors of Otto pursued German objectives rather than imperial mirages and struggled with Boles�aw, who briefly occupied Bohemia and intervened in Kievan Rus. Polish-German strife continued intermittently until 1018. In 1025 Boles�aw assumed the royal crown, which made him the equal of the other monarchs of Europe. Collapse and restoration

The virtual collapse of the state under Boles�aw�s son Mieszko II, who was even obliged to renounce his kingly status, showed how much the political fortunes of a state were bound to the personality of its ruler. Mieszko�s successor, Casimir I, had to flee the country, which was torn by internal strife. A pagan reaction against Christianity combined with revolt against fiscal and administrative burdens to bring about a popular uprising. Casimir had to be restored by the emperor, Conrad II, who wished to preserve a balance of power in the region. Known later as �the Restorer,� Casimir eventually succeeded in bringing under his sway most of the Polish lands, reviving the ecclesiastical organization, and making Krak�w his capital instead of Gniezno or Pozna�, which had been devastated by the Czechs.

Poland, 1031Poland's territory in 1031, during the reign of Mieszko II Lambert.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Casimir�s son and successor, Boles�aw II (the Bold), sought to revive the great power designs of the first Boles�aw. Skillfully exploiting the great Investiture Controversy between the empire and the papacy that affected most of Europe, Boles�aw II sided with Rome and gained the royal crown in 1076. Boles�aw was later drawn into a conflict with Stanislaus (Stanis�aw), the bishop of Krak�w, whom the king ordered killed in 1079 under circumstances still debated by historians. Boles�aw then fled to Hungary, where he died. The cult of St. Stanislaus, who was canonized in 1253, became widespread in Poland and was invoked to defend the freedom of religion against the state and ethics against power.

St. Stanislaus of Krak�w, centre.Bettmann/Corbis

Under Boles�aw�s brother and successor, W�adys�aw I Herman, claims to the royal crown and a more ambitious foreign policy were abandoned. Efforts by the palatine, Sieciech, to maintain centralized power clashed with the ambitions of the rising magnate class. Following a period of internal conflict, Boles�aw III (the Wry-Mouthed) emerged as the sole ruler (reigned 1102�38). Promoting Christianity, he expanded his influence over Western Pomerania, whose towns and harbours, such as Wolin, Ko�obrzeg, and Szczecin, were already important centres of trade and crafts. Eastern, or Gda�sk, Pomerania came under direct Polish administration. After an invasion by Emperor Henry V was repelled, peace prevailed with the empire, and Bohemia renounced its claims to Silesia. The period of divisionsCollapse of Boles�aw�s governing system

The awareness of centrifugal trends and external dangers led Boles�aw III to establish in his testament of 1138 a system meant to ensure greater stability. He divided the state among his sons; the oldest became the senior duke, whose domain included the capital in Krak�w and who had general powers over military, foreign, and ecclesiastical matters. By the early 13th century, however, the efforts of the grand duke to exert real controls had come to naught. The entire system was characterized by disputes, subdivisions, and fratricidal strife into which the neighbouring powers were frequently drawn.

During the period of divisions, lasting almost 200 years (until the rule of Casimir III), Poland underwent transformation in almost every sphere of life. The centrally controlled early Piast monarchy had been based on a system of fortified settlements from which an official called the castellan tended to the ruler�s domain and acted as administrator, military commander, judge, and tax collector. Around some settlements there arose so-called service villages, in which artisans produced objects needed by the dukes and their retinues. The emerging social pyramid positioned the duke and his officials and leading warriors on top, with various categories of freemen, part-freemen, and slaves at the bottom. Between the 10th and the 12th century, this system slowly began to break down. Improved cultivation methods (notably the three-field system) enhanced the value of the land with which the ruler endowed the church and compensated his nobles, warriors, and officials. Estates cultivated by a semiserf population grew significantly. The old dru�yna changed into a smaller personal guard, the armed force being composed of nobles performing military service as landholders. Cultural developments, 11th�13th century

The church was the principal proponent of learning and art. Romanesque and then Gothic architecture made their way into Poland. Religious orders such as the Benedictines arrived in the 11th century, the Cistercians in the 12th century, and the Dominicans and the first nuns in the 13th century. Cathedral and, later, parish schools appeared. During this time the earliest historical chronicles appeared. The first was compiled in the early 12th century by a Benedictine monk known as Gallus Anonymous. The second was completed by Wincenty Kad�ubek at the beginning of the 13th century. Social and economic developments

The 13th century marked a turning point in the history of medieval Poland. The agricultural boom was accompanied by the development of salt mining in Little Poland and of silver and gold mining in Silesia. The Polish lands were brought more fully into the European economy, participating in the west-east trade as well as in that of the Baltic region in the north and that along the Danube River in the south. The growth of large landed estates was partly the cause and partly the consequence of surplus production that could be sold on the market. It became profitable to have free tenant farmers, rather than serfs, cultivate the land, which attracted large groups of settlers from as far away as the Rhineland and the Low Countries. Demographic trends in western Europe facilitated this �colonization.� The settlers�assured of personal freedom, fixed rents, and some measure of self-administration and operating under the so-called German Law�founded new villages and towns or reorganized old ones. Towns received formal charters (Wroc�aw in 1242, Pozna� in 1253, Krak�w in 1257) that provided for autonomy and self-government modeled on that of the German city of Magdeburg�hence the term Magdeburg Law.

Although the burgher population became largely German or German-speaking, the extent of settlement by Germans was restricted except in Silesia and Pomerania. Otherwise, most of the countryside remained Polish. Another alien group, however, began to play an important role in the country�s economy�namely, the Jews escaping persecution in the west. Boles�aw V (the Chaste) of Great Poland granted to the Jews the Kalisz Privilege (1264), which provided personal freedom, some legal autonomy, and safeguards against forcible baptism. Feudalism

Economic and social transformation led to some forms of feudalism and organization of estates. A system in which the entire state structure was based on contractual personal arrangements between superiors and inferiors (lords and vassals)�with land (fiefs) being the traditional means of reward for services�did not really prevail in Poland. Nor did a typical feudal pyramid exist. Nevertheless, vassalage of sorts and customs of chivalry and knighthood developed. In view of the weakening of the rulers, the landowners, both ecclesiastical (the church in the 12th century) and lay (the nobility in the 13th century), succeeded in obtaining so-called immunities�i.e., exemptions for their estates from taxes, services, and the legal jurisdiction of the state.

During that period the church functioned as the only structure that transcended the divisions. Although the Silesian duchies gravitated toward Germany, the archbishopric of Gniezno continued to include the diocese of Wroc�aw. Several archbishops were active proponents of reunification of Poland, notably Jak�b �winka. The concepts of Corona Regni Poloniae, as divorced from the actual ruler, and of gens polonica�an early form of nationalism that identified the state with the Polish people and implied its indivisibility�began to make their appearance. The arrival of the Teutonic Knights

The chances of reunification were dim, as the various branches of the Piast dynasty pursued their vested interests and further subdivided their lands. Western Pomerania, with its native dynasty, and Eastern Pomerania were already largely severed from Poland and threatened by the aggressive and expansive margravate of Brandenburg. In the north the pagan Lithuanians, Prussians, and Jatvingians were harassing Mazovia. In 1226 Conrad of Mazovia called in the German crusading order, generally known as the Teutonic Order, provided them with a territorial base, and assumed that after a joint conquest of the Prussian lands (later known as East Prussia) they would become his vassals. The Teutonic Knights, however, tacitly secured imperial and papal recognition and forged Conrad�s acquiescence to their independent status. After a series of ruthless campaigns, Prussia was conquered and resettled by Germans�the old Prussian population having been virtually wiped out. It became a powerful state of the Teutonic Knights. While German historians have traditionally stressed the civilizing and organizational achievements of the Knights, the Poles have emphasized their ruthlessness and aggressiveness. The arrival of the Teutonic Knights changed the balance of forces in that part of Europe and marked the beginning of the rise of Prussia as a great power.

In 1241 Little Poland and Silesia experienced a disastrous Mongol (Tatar) invasion. The duke of Silesia, Henry II (the Pious), who had been gathering forces to reunite Poland, perished in the Battle of Legnica (Liegnitz) in 1241, and the devastation wrought by the Mongols may have contributed to the above-mentioned colonization. Revival of the kingdomThe Czech dynasty

In the late 13th century, Bohemia emerged as the leading country in east-central Europe, and King Otakar II (P�emysl Otakar II) even tried to gain the imperial crown. His son Wenceslas II profited from the chaos prevailing in the Polish duchies�a bid for unification by Przemys� II of Great Poland (crowned king in 1295) was cut short by his assassination�to become king of Poland in 1300. Establishing an administration based on provincial royal officials (starosta)�a permanent feature of Polish administration in the centuries to come�he temporarily pacified the country. Wenceslas�s grandiose plans to rule all of east-central Europe ended with his death in 1305, which was followed a year later by the assassination of his son Wenceslas III. This meant the end of the native Czech P�emyslid dynasty, and John of Luxembourg claimed the thrones of Bohemia and Poland. His pursuit of the latter was opposed by one of the minor dukes, W�adys�aw the Short, who had earlier battled the two Wenceslases and their supporters. Allying himself with the new king of Hungary, Charles I, W�adys�aw withstood the enmity of Bohemia, the Teutonic Knights, rival Polish dukes, and the mainly German patriciate of Krak�w. At one point the struggle assumed the character of a Polish-German national conflict.

Wenceslas IIWenceslas II, 14th-century manuscript illumination; in the Heidelberg University Library, Germany.Archivo Iconografico, S.A./CorbisW�adys�aw I

W�adys�aw was crowned king of Poland in 1320, but he no longer controlled Silesia�whose dukes opted for John and which henceforth came under the Bohemian crown�and the Teutonic Knights seized Eastern Pomerania. The massacre the Knights perpetrated in Gda�sk in 1308 entered Polish folklore. Thus, the reunited Polish kingdom was deprived of two of its most developed provinces�Silesian Wroc�aw then had some 20,000 inhabitants�and was effectively cut off from the Baltic Sea. Cooperating closely with Hungary, W�adys�aw sought unsuccessfully to regain Pomerania through lawsuits and papal arbitration, but the Knights ignored the verdicts. A major battle with the invading Knights fought at P�owce in 1331 was a Pyrrhic victory for W�adys�aw.

W�adys�aw I, sarcophagus figure, 14th century; in Wawel Cathedral, Krak�w, Poland.Courtesy of the Pa�stwowe Zbiory Sztuki na Wawelu, Krak�w, PolandCasimir the Great

Under W�adys�aw�s son Casimir III (the Great), the only Polish ruler to bear this epithet, peace was made with John of Luxembourg, who gave up his claims to the Polish crown at the meeting of the kings of Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia at Visegr�d, Hungary, in 1335. Casimir�s simultaneous renunciation of Silesia was somewhat equivocal, and he sought later to regain the Silesian duchies by diplomacy and force. In 1343 Poland signed a peace treaty with the Teutonic Knights through which it recovered some land but retained only formal suzerainty over Pomerania. That policy of compromise was a tactical necessity on the part of a state still much weaker than the Teutonic Knights, Bohemia, or Hungary. Between 1340 and the 1360s, however, Poland expanded by roughly one-third, acquiring a larger part of Halicz, or Red, Ruthenia (the future eastern Galicia), which Hungary and Lithuania also coveted. That acquisition marked an expansion beyond ethnic Polish territory. Casimir�s international prestige was evidenced by his acting as arbiter between the Luxembourgs, the Angevins, and the Habsburgs and subsequently hosting an international conference in Krak�w in 1364 that dealt with general European issues. The sumptuous banquet given to the visiting rulers by the Krak�w burgher Nicholas Wierzynek passed into popular lore.

The domestic achievements of Casimir may be subsumed under the slogan �One king, one law, one currency.� His rule uncontested, Casimir presided over a process of unification and codification of laws in the mid-14th century for Great and Little Poland that is often called the Statute of Wi�lica. In need of trained lawyers, he founded a university in Krak�w (1364) modeled largely on that of Bologna. It was the second university east of the Rhine River and north of the Alps.

The introduction of a new currency, the Krak�w grosz, stimulated the economy and assisted the development of international trade. Many brick and stone structures arose in the country, as well as a large number of fortified castles. The population and its density increased. In view of a new wave of Jewish immigrants, the 1264 privilege was extended throughout the kingdom, and the town of Kazimierz, adjacent to Krak�w, became a Jewish centre. The privileged condition of the Jews, although they were resented as competitors by the burghers (who staged anti-Jewish riots), eventually resulted in Poland�s becoming the home of the largest Jewish population in Christendom. Louis I

Casimir designated as his successor his nephew Louis I (the Great) of Hungary, who gained the support of influential nobles by granting them certain privileges in 1355. Louis�s rule in Poland (1370�82), with his mother acting as regent, proved disappointing. Despite earlier promises, he definitely abandoned Silesia and Pomerania and sought to make Halicz Ruthenia directly dependent on Buda in Hungary. Eager to secure the succession to the Polish crown for one of his daughters, he granted privileges to the Polish nobility in the Pact of Koszyce (Hungarian: Kassa) in 1374. Among those privileges was the guarantee of a minimum tax, which meant that any future increase would have to be negotiated with the nobles as an estate. Thus, the principle of representation was established, but it did not become operative for decades to come. The marriage of Jadwiga

After Louis�s death the lords of Little Poland selected his younger daughter, Jadwiga (Hungarian: Hedvig), over her sister Maria (the wife of King Sigismund of Hungary). Preventing Jadwiga�s marriage to Wilhelm Habsburg, the lords chose for her husband W�adys�aw II Jagie��o (Lithuanian: Jogaila), the grand duke of Lithuania. This momentous act opened a new chapter in Polish history by linking the relatively small kingdom with a huge and heterogeneous Lithuania, which then comprised most of Ukraine and Belarus. The threat posed by the Teutonic Knights to both Poland and Lithuania, and the aspiration of the Poles to achieve status as a great power, figured prominently in the calculations. The church and Jadwiga, who was later beatified, attached great importance to the extension of Christianity. The prospects of opening vast regions in the east for trade and settlement appealed to the lords and merchants of Krak�w. In 1385 the negotiations were finalized through the Union of Krewo. Jagie��o accepted Roman Catholicism for himself and Lithuania proper�the other duchies were already Christian (Eastern Orthodox)�and promised to join (applicare) his Lithuanian and Ruthenian lands to the Polish crown. He became the king of Poland under the name of W�adys�aw II Jagie��o upon marrying Jadwiga, with whom he at first ruled jointly.

W�adys�aw II Jagie��o, sarcophagus figure, second quarter of the 15th century; in Wawel Cathedral, Krak�w, Poland.Courtesy of Pa�stwowe Zbiory Sztuki na Wawelu, Krak�w, PolandThe states of the JagielloniansThe waning of the Middle AgesThe rule of Jagie��o

The Polish clergy played a major role in the long process of Christianization�the bishopric of Wilno (Lithuanian: Vilnius) was set up in 1387�and Polish knights assisted Lithuania in its military campaigns; nevertheless, the Lithuanians were determined not to tolerate Polish interference, landowners, or troops. It was obvious that a simple incorporation of Lithuania into Poland was not possible. Jagie��o�s cousin Vytautas (Polish: Witold), who eventually controlled the various duchies that constituted the Lithuanian state before its union with Poland, assumed the title of grand duke and made Lithuania a virtually independent state. He even aimed at a royal crown for himself. The defeat he suffered at the hands of the Tatars at Vorskla River in 1399, however, destroyed his plans. The union with Poland was renegotiated on the basis of partnership of two sovereign states under the reign of W�adys�aw II, king and supreme duke.

The continuing struggles with the Teutonic Knights seeking to master eastern Lithuanian Samogitia (Polish: �mud�)�on the pretext of Christianizing its inhabitants�led to the great war in which Poland and Lithuania joined forces. The result was a crushing defeat of the Knights at Tannenberg (Grunwald) in 1410. The victory had no immediate sequel, for the Knights ceded only Samogitia (temporarily), but it marked the beginning of their decline; the Prussian nobles and towns secretly opposed the ruthless rule of the Teutonic Order. Polish tolerance was manifest at the Council of Constance (1414�18), where the prominent theologian and rector of Krak�w University Pawe� W�odkowic (Paulus Vladimiri) denounced the Knights� policy of conversion by the sword and maintained that the pagans also had their rights. Similarly, the Poles were sympathetic to Jan Hus of Bohemia, who was condemned as a heretic by the council, and lent discreet support to his followers, the Hussites, in their struggles against the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy.

Because of his concerns over dynastic succession, W�adys�aw II, who had no children with Jadwiga, granted new privileges to the szlachta (all those of noble rank). Called neminem captivabimus (comparable to habeas corpus), the measure guarded against arbitrary arrest or confiscation of property and distinguished between the executive and the judiciary. The Polish example also began to affect the internal evolution of magnate-dominated Lithuania. The lesser boyars, envious of the position of their Polish counterparts, favoured closer unity. At the Union of Horod�o in 1413, Polish nobles offered their coats of arms to a number of Lithuanians as a gesture of solidarity.

Only W�adys�aw�s fourth wife, Sophia Holsza�ska, bore him male children. One of their sons, W�adys�aw III Warne�czyk, ruled Poland (1434�44) under the regency of the powerful Ole�nicki" class="md-crosslink">Zbigniew Cardinal Ole�nicki; the other son, Casimir, was the grand duke of Lithuania. Largely because of Ole�nicki, W�adys�aw III was elected king of Hungary, became active in crusades against the Turks, and, after initial victories, died at the Battle of Varna in 1444. Casimir subsequently became the ruler of both Poland and Lithuania. Casimir IV

The long and brilliant reign of Casimir IV Jagiellonian (1447�92) corresponded to the age of �new monarchies� in western Europe. By the 15th century Poland had narrowed the distance separating it from western Europe and become a significant factor in international relations. The demand for raw materials and semifinished goods stimulated trade (producing a positive balance) and contributed to the growth of crafts and mining. Townspeople in Poland proper constituted about 20 percent of the population�roughly the European average. Divisions between the nobles, the burghers, and the peasants were still somewhat fluid. Coexistence of the ruler and the estates was relatively smooth and stable.

Cultural progress was striking, with the reconstituted and enlarged University of Krak�w playing a major role. Humanist trends found a promoter at Krak�w in the Italian scholar Filippo de Buonacorsi, known as Callimachus. From the pen of Jan D�ugosz came the first major history of Poland.

Casimir�s foreign policy centred on the conflict with the Teutonic Knights and succession in Hungary and Bohemia. When the rebellious Prussian towns and nobility turned to Casimir, he decreed an incorporation of the Knights� state into Poland (1454). Unable to decisively defeat the Teutonic Order during the Thirteen Years� War (1454�66), he had to sign the compromise Treaty of Toru� in 1466. Gda�sk Pomerania, renamed Royal Prussia and endowed with far-reaching autonomy, became Polish once again. This opened the route to the Baltic. The other territories (most of the future East Prussia), with the capital at K�nigsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia), remained with the Knights, albeit as a Polish fief.

Casimir�s dependence on the noble levies in wartime enabled the szlachta to extract new concessions. They culminated in the Privilege of Nieszawa (1454), which gave the provincial diets (sejmiki) the right to declare the levies and raise new taxes. In 1493�96 a bicameral general diet (Sejm) marked the beginning of Polish parliamentarism. The representatives of the sejmiki formed the lower house, while the king�s appointees constituted the senate.

The question of succession in Bohemia and Hungary was resolved toward the end of the 15th century when one of Casimir�s sons, Vladislas II, was elected to the throne of Bohemia in 1471 and Hungary in 1490. His other sons John I Albert and Alexander succeeded each other in Poland and Lithuania from 1492 to 1506. A Jagiellonian bloc had come into existence, but its effectiveness was marred by the fact that the four countries were guided by divergent interests and faced different problems. The golden age of the SigismundsPolitical developments

Under the last two Jagiellonians, Poland reached its apogee. The king was the source of law (usually in tandem with the Sejm, though some decrees did not require the Sejm�s assent), supreme judge, chief executive, and supreme commander, free to declare war and peace. He ruled Lithuania as a hereditary domain. Royal administration was quite effective, and Casimir�s youngest son, Sigismund the Old (reigned 1506�48), tried to improve the nation�s finances and taxation. An inadequate financial base and an undersized standing army limited the actual power of the king.

Sigismund I, detail of a painting by Andrzej, 1546; in the State Collections of Art in the Wawel, Krak�w, Poland.Courtesy of the Pa�stwowe Zbiory Sztuki na Wawelu, Krak�w, Poland

Domestic politics under Sigismund�and even more so under his son and successor, Sigismund II Augustus (reigned 1548�72)�centred on a contest between the fast-growing magnate oligarchy and the dynamic gentry, with the rulers generally favouring the former. The option of relying on the burghers, as was done by western European rulers, was not available because the towns (Gda�sk and some Royal Prussian towns excepted) allowed themselves to be eliminated from political struggles. The reformers among the lesser nobles focused on the program of the �execution� (enforcement) of laws that prohibited the transfer of crown lands and the accumulation of offices that profited the oligarchy. Wishing to emancipate itself from the magnates� political tutelage, the gentry strove for real partnership in government.

Brama Wy�ynna (High Gate), built 1574, Gda�sk, Poland.Courtesy of CAF

The Nihil Novi constitution (1505) achieved some of these aims, but it also stipulated that no new laws could be passed without the consent of the Sejm. The way was opened for parliamentary dominance that would eventually undermine the existing system of checks and balances. The growing political and economic power of the landowners had pernicious effects on the lot of the peasantry. Beginning with edicts issued in 1496 and repeatedly throughout the 16th century, the peasants� mobility was curtailed, labour obligations (corv�e) were increased, and subjection to the lord�s jurisdiction was affirmed. The degree of evasion of these burdens, however, was probably high. The impoverishment of the peasantry from the late 16th century became pronounced, while the barriers between the burghers and the szlachta became more rigid. Foreign affairs

Sixteenth-century foreign policies had to take into consideration an alliance between the Habsburgs, Moscow, and the Teutonic Order that was directed against Poland. Muscovite expansion threatened Lithuania, and only a major victory at Orsza in 1514 averted a catastrophe. The victory allowed Sigismund I to detach the Habsburgs from Moscow through the Vienna accords of 1515. Providing for dynastic marriages, the accords opened the way for Habsburg succession in Bohemia and Hungary should the Jagiellonians die out. Eleven years later Louis II, the Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia, perished at Moh�cs fighting the Turks. Thus ended the Jagiellonian bloc.

One year before Moh�cs, however, the matter of the Teutonic Knights had found a controversial resolution. The grand master of the order, Albert Hohenzollern, became a Lutheran and, isolated from the empire and papacy, offered to secularize his state as a vassal of the king of Poland. His act of homage in 1525 seemed a realistic arrangement that left the way open for the eventual absorption of Ducal Prussia (as East Prussia was thereafter called) into Poland. However, subsequent concessions to the Hohenzollerns allowed them to rule both Prussia and Brandenburg, on the flanks of the �corridor� that provided Polish access to the Baltic.

Polish concern with Baltic issues led to the creation of a small navy and to wars with Muscovy over Livonia (present-day Latvia and Estonia), which was controlled by the Knights of the Sword and coveted by the Muscovite tsar Ivan the Terrible. Eventually the region was partitioned. The union of 1561 brought the southern part to Poland and Lithuania and established a duchy of Courland, ruled as a Polish fief by the former grand master of the secularized Knights of the Sword. Meanwhile, Sweden expanded in the north.

Since Sigismund Augustus was childless, the future of the Polish-Lithuanian union became a paramount issue. Lithuanian socioeconomic, legal, and administrative structures came to resemble those of Poland, but the Lithuanians still opposed a simple incorporation. Their gentry, wishing to share in the privileges of the Polish szlachta, wanted a real union, but the powerful magnates opposed it. Fear of discrimination on religious grounds on the part of the Orthodox gentry (in Ukraine and the region that would become modern-day Belarus) was dispelled by granting them equality. The opposition of the magnates was finally broken by the king, who detached Podlasie, Volhynia, and the Kiev and Brac�aw regions from Lithuania and incorporated them into Poland. Facing the threat of complete annexation, the Lithuanian opposition gave in. The Union of Lublin (1569) established a federative state of two nations with a jointly elected mutual king�grand duke and legislature (a unique feature in Europe) and a customs union but with separate territories, laws, administrations, treasuries, and armies. Social and cultural developments

Polish culture, highly praised by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, continued to flourish. Renaissance art and architecture, promoted by Sigismund I�s wife Bona Sforza, became the style for numerous churches and castles. From Krak�w University came Nicolaus Copernicus, who revolutionized astronomical concepts. After 1513 a large number of books were printed in Polish, including translations of the Bible. During the 16th century the writings of Miko�aj Rej, the father of Polish literature, and of the great poet Jan Kochanowski helped establish the period as the golden age of Polish literature. The Renaissance and the Reformation had a major impact on Lithuania, marking its absorption into western European culture.

Frontispiece to Galileo's Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, tolemaico e copernicano (1632; Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic & Copernican). From left to right are Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Copernicus. Ptolemy holds an astrolabe, Copernicus a model of a planet orbiting the Sun.Courtesy of the Joseph Regenstein Library, The University of Chicago

Under the tolerant policies of Sigismund II, to whom John Calvin dedicated one of his works, Lutheranism spread mainly in the cities and Calvinism among the nobles of Lithuania and Little Poland. The Sandomierz Agreement of 1570, which defended religious freedom, marked the cooperation of Polish Lutherans and Calvinists. The Polish Brethren (known also as Arians and Anti-Trinitarians) made a major contribution by preaching social egalitarianism and pacifism. In 1573 the szlachta concluded the Compact of Warsaw, which provided for the maintenance of religious toleration. These victories for the Reformation, however, were gradually canceled by the Counter-Reformation" class="md-crosslink">Catholic Counter-Reformation under the leadership of Stanis�aw Cardinal Hozjusz (Stanislaus Hosius). In the 1560s the Jesuits arrived in Poland (their greatest preacher was Piotr Skarga), and their network of schools and colleges included the future University of Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania), founded in 1579. The CommonwealthB�thory and the VasasSocial and political structure

The dual Polish-Lithuanian state, Respublica, or �Commonwealth� (Polish: Rzeczpospolita), was one of the largest states in Europe. While Poland in the mid-16th century occupied an area of about 100,000 square miles (260,000 square km), with some 3.5 million inhabitants, the Commonwealth at its largest point in the early 17th century comprised nearly 400,000 square miles and some 11 million inhabitants. As such, it was a multiethnic country inhabited by Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Germans, Jews, and small numbers of Tatars, Armenians, and Scots. It was also a multifaith country, with Roman Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, Jews, and Muslims living within its boundaries. Certain communities lived under their own laws; the Jews, for example, enjoyed self-administration through the Council of the Four Lands.

Poland, 1634Poland's territory in 1634, during the reign of W�adys�aw IV Vasa.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The term Poland was used for both the entire state and the strictly Polish part of it (though the latter was officially called the Crown). This could be confusing. A supranational term like �British� was missing. The Commonwealth gradually came to be dominated by the szlachta, which regarded the state as an embodiment of its rights and privileges. Ranging from the poorest landless yeomen to the great magnates, the szlachta insisted on the equality of all its members. As a political nation it was more numerous (8�10 percent) than the electorate of most European states even in the early 19th century.

Throughout most of Europe the medieval system of estates evolved into absolutism, but in the Commonwealth it led to a szlachta democracy inspired by the ideals of ancient Rome, to which parallels were constantly drawn. The szlachta came to see in its state a perfect constitutional model, a granary for Europe, and a bulwark against eastern barbarism. Its inherent weaknesses in finance, administration, and the military were ignored.

The end of the Jagiellonian dynasty meant the beginning of unrestricted election to the throne. The first king elected viritim (i.e., by direct vote of the szlachta) was Henry of Valois, the brother of the king of France. On his accession to the throne (reigned 1573�74), which he quickly abandoned to become Henry III of France, he accepted the so-called Henrician Articles and Pacta Conventa. Presented henceforth to every new king as a contract with the noble nation, the former document provided for free election (but not during the reigning monarch�s lifetime), religious peace, biennial meetings of the Sejm (with a standing body of senators active in the interval), and the right to renounce the allegiance to the king should he break the contract. Stephen B�thory

In 1576 the prince of Transylvania, Stephen B�thory (Stefan Batory), became king. A brilliant soldier, he closely cooperated with Jan Zamoyski, chancellor of the Crown and grand hetman (commander in chief). The most spectacular achievement of B�thory�s reign was a series of military victories (1579�81) over Ivan the Terrible of Russia. Yet it is likely that the king�s eastern policies were inspired by the ultimate goal of liberation of Hungary, which was not necessarily a Polish concern.

Stephen B�thory, detail of a painting by Marcin Kober, 1585; in the collection of the Missionary Fathers, Krak�w, Poland.Courtesy of the Missionary Fathers, Krakow, Pol.Sigismund III Vasa

The long reign of his successor, Vasa" class="md-crosslink">Sigismund III Vasa (1587�1632), raised hopes of a union with Sweden that would strengthen Poland�s standing in the north. Sigismund was the grandson of the legendary Swedish ruler Gustav I Vasa, but, as an ardent Roman Catholic and champion of the Counter-Reformation, he was unable to hold on to the crown of Lutheran Sweden, and a 10-year succession struggle ensued. His attempts to secure the throne involved Poland in a series of wars with Sweden. Although one of Lithuania�s great military commanders, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, triumphed at Kirchholm (1605), and the Gda�sk-based navy defeated the Swedish fleet near Oliwa (1627), the truce that followed was inconclusive. The same was true for most settlements in foreign and domestic affairs.

Sigismund III, detail of a painting, school of Rubens; in the Bavarian State Picture Galleries, Munich, Germany.Courtesy of the Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, Munich

Although Poland remained neutral in the Thirty Years� War (1618�48), Sigismund stealthily supported the Habsburgs, a policy that contributed to a war with Turkey. Poland suffered a major defeat at Cecor� in 1620 but was victorious at Chocim (now in Khotyn, Ukraine) and negotiated peace a year later. The victory at Chocim was memorialized by poet Wac�aw Potocki a half century later.

The Thirty Years' War.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

There was, however, no real peace with Muscovy, then going through its Time of Troubles. The support extended by some Polish magnates to the False Dmitry (who claimed to be the son of Ivan the Terrible) eventually embroiled Poland in hostilities. The victory at Klushino in 1610 by Hetman Stanis�aw Z�kiewski resulted in a Polish occupation of Moscow and the election by Moscow�s boyars of Sigismund�s son W�adys�aw as tsar. Sigismund�s veto wasted this opportunity and instead left a residue of Russian hatred of Poland.

Suspicions that Sigismund�s policies were guided by his dynastic interests contributed to a domestic confrontation: the 1606�08 rokosz (�rebellion�). Accusing the king of absolutist designs, the rokosz brought together sincere reformers (who demanded the �execution� of the laws), Roman Catholics, and Protestants, as well as magnates pursuing their own ends. Although the royal forces triumphed in battle, both the king and the reformers were losers in the political realm to the magnates posing as defenders of freedom. W�adys�aw IV

W�adys�aw IV Vasa (reigned 1632�48) continued his father�s policy of strengthening the monarchy and of insisting on the rights to the Swedish throne. Some of the bellicose plans he formulated to increase his power were thwarted by the Sejm and by international circumstances. The anti-Turkish crusade he planned, however, in which Cossacks were to play a major role, contributed to the upheaval that shook the Commonwealth between 1648 and 1660�the uprising in Ukraine and war in the northeast.

W�adys�aw IV Vasa, detail of a painting by Tommaso Dolabella after a portrait from the Rubens atelier; in the State Collections of Art in the Wawel, Krak�w, Poland.Pedzlem rozmatiym

Transferred as a result of the Union of Lublin from the grand duchy of Lithuania to the more ethnically homogeneous Crown, Ukraine was �colonized� by both Polish and Ukrainian great nobles. Most of the latter gradually abandoned Orthodoxy to become Roman Catholic and Polish. These �little kings� of Ukraine controlled hundreds of thousands of �subjects� and commanded armies larger than those of the regular Crown troops. In 1596 the Union of Brest-Litovsk subordinated the Orthodox church" class="md-crosslink">Eastern Orthodox church of the Commonwealth to the papacy by creating the Eastern rite (Uniate) church.

Politically, this was intended to cement the cohesion of the state vis-à-vis Moscow; instead it led to internal divisions among the Orthodox. The new Eastern rite church became a hierarchy without followers, while the forbidden Eastern Orthodox church was driven underground. W�adys�aw�s recognition of the latter�s existence in 1632 may have come too late. The Orthodox masses�deprived of their native protectors, who had become Polonized and Catholic�turned to the Cossacks. The Cossacks

The Zaporozhian Cossacks were frontiersmen who organized themselves in a self-governing centre at modern Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine, first to resist Tatar raids and then to plunder as far away as Constantinople (modern Istanbul). Their prowess was recognized by Sigismund Augustus and B�thory, who �registered� a number of Cossacks for military duty. Other Cossacks and all those diverse groups of settlers or tenants whom the lords tried to turn into serfs coveted this privileged status. Even small nobles and burghers resented the heavy-handed behaviour of the �little kings,� who were bent on realizing maximum profits and employing Jews as middlemen and overseers. Growing socioeconomic antagonisms combined with religious tensions.

In the Polish-Turkish war of 1620�21, the victory in the Battle of Chocim had been largely due to the participation of some 40,000 Zaporozhian Cossacks, whom Petro Konashevych-Sahaydachny had brought to aid the Poles. Nonetheless, some 12 years later Cossack demands to be placed on an equal footing with the szlachta were contemptuously rejected by the Sejm. The king and the magnates needed the Cossacks in wartime but feared them as an unruly and seditious group that was embroiling the Commonwealth in hostilities with Turkey and the Tatars. Complaints about the enlargement of the military register and about mistreatment led to several Cossack uprisings. After the rebellion of 1638 was put down by Polish troops, Cossack privileges were greatly curtailed.

The undertaking of an anti-Turkish crusade opened new vistas. There was talk of massive Cossack participation, provided that some 20,000 men be �registered,� social grievances redressed, and a military border free of Polish troops established. Whatever the exact encouragements proffered by W�adys�aw IV, the Sejm and the szlachta were adamantly opposed and frightened lest the king use the Cossacks for his own ends. Bohdan Khmelnytsky

In 1648 Bohdan Khmelnytsky, whom contemporaries likened to Oliver Cromwell, assumed the leadership of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and, allied with the Tatars, defeated the troops of the Commonwealth and some magnate contingents. Khmelnytsky became the master of Ukraine, and its peasant masses, many of its townsmen, and even lesser noblemen were among his followers. The city of Kiev hailed him as a prince and the defender of the Orthodox faith. His objective became the creation of a separate Ukraine under the direct rule of a king.

In Poland, where the sudden death of W�adys�aw IV left the country leaderless, a policy of compromise represented by the chancellor, Jerzy Ossoli�ski, and the last Orthodox senator, Adam Kisiel (Kysil), clashed with warlike operations of the leading �little king,� Prince Jeremi Wi�niowiecki. The nature of temporary agreements, which intervened between the Commonwealth and the Cossacks, varied depending on the changing fortunes of war. The Polish victory at the Battle of Beresteczko in 1651 was followed by the pact of Bia�a Cerkiew, which the Cossacks found hard to accept.

In 1654 Khmelnytsky submitted to Alexis" class="md-crosslink">Tsar Alexis in the Pereyaslav Agreement. Russian historiography characterizes that agreement as the reunification of Ukraine with Russia; the Ukrainians interpret it as an alliance based on expediency. At any rate, war began between Muscovy and the Commonwealth, and Alexis�s armies drove deep into Lithuania. In 1655 they occupied its capital, Wilno. For the first time in nearly two centuries, an enemy invasion had taken place, and, when it was followed by a Swedish aggression, a veritable �deluge� overtook the Commonwealth. John II Casimir Vasa

The belligerent and ambitious Charles X Gustav of Sweden worried lest the extension of Muscovy upset the balance of power in the Baltic, which he aimed to turn into a Swedish lake. The refusal of King John II Casimir Vasa, the successor and brother of W�adys�aw IV, to give up his claims to the Swedish crown offered a good pretext for resuming hostilities with the Commonwealth. Aiming originally to seize Polish and Prussian harbours, Charles Gustav saw, after the first successes, the possibility of gaining the Polish crown and the mastery of the Commonwealth.

The magnates and gentry of Great Poland capitulated to the Swedes in July 1655. Prince Janusz Radziwi��, a leading Calvinist and the greatest magnate of Lithuania, hard-pressed by the Russians, broke off the union with Poland and signed one with Sweden. His motives were a combination of Lithuanian and Protestant interests coloured by his own ambition to rule the grand duchy.

The nearly bloodless conquest of the huge Commonwealth came as a shock to many Poles and foreigners. Yet Polish resistance to what turned out to be a regime of brutal occupation developed very quickly. The successful defense of the fortified monastery of Jasna G�ra (now in Cz�stochowa) became a rallying point and provided a symbolic religious-ideological banner. Although the Poles were seldom a match for the Swedish professional troops, they excelled at partisan warfare and at winning minor battles. Not only the szlachta but also the peasants fought the foreigner and enemy of Roman Catholicism. Stefan Czarniecki became the hero of the war.

Returning from exile in Silesia, John Casimir built an international coalition against the Swedes, whose successes were upsetting the balance of power. A cease-fire intervened on the Russian front, and the Cossacks were neutralized by the Tatars, while the Habsburgs, Denmark, and Brandenburg-Prussia went to Poland�s aid. The Swedes were gradually driven out of the Commonwealth, despite an armed intervention on their side by Transylvania�s Prince Gy�rgy II R�k�czi, who aspired to the Polish crown. The war ended with the Treaty of Oliwa (1660), which restored the territorial status quo before the Swedish invasion and brought the final renunciation of John Casimir�s claim to the crown of Sweden.

The real winner in the conflict proved to be Frederick William, the elector of Brandenburg and duke of Prussia. Adroitly maneuvering between Sweden and Poland and extracting a price for his collaboration from both sides, the �Great Elector� finally switched his support to John Casimir and thereby received the recognition of full sovereignty over Prussia for himself and his male descendants through the treaties of Wehlau (Welawa) and Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) in 1657.

Eastern wars still continued for Poland for several years. In Ukraine the Hadziacz agreement of 1658 with Khmelnytsky�s successor provided for the creation of a Ukrainian state as a third member of the Commonwealth with its own offices and army, as well as mass ennoblements of Cossacks and the suspension of the Union of Brest-Litovsk. The accord was short-lived. A pro-Russian faction in Ukraine denounced and nullified the pact, which led to a renewal of hostilities with Muscovy that ended in 1667 with the Truce of Andrusovo and was confirmed by a treaty in 1686. Restoring the occupied parts of Lithuania to the Commonwealth, the truce divided Ukraine along the Dnieper River. Together with the Treaty of Oliwa, that agreement marked the beginning of the decline of the Commonwealth�s international standing. The 17th-century crisisSocial and economic changes

The two decades of war and occupation in the mid-17th century, which in the case of Lithuania gave a foretaste of the 18th-century partitions, ruined and exhausted the Commonwealth. Famines and epidemics followed hostilities, and the population dropped from roughly 11 to 7 million. The number of inhabitants of Krak�w and Warsaw fell by two-thirds and one-half, respectively. Wilno was burned down. The Khmelnytsky uprising decimated the Jews in Ukraine, even if they recovered fairly rapidly demographically. The productivity of agriculture diminished dramatically owing to labour shortages, the destruction of many farm buildings and farming implements, and the loss of numerous cattle. The dynamic network of international trade fairs also collapsed. Grain exports, which had reached their peak in the early 17th century, could not redress the unfavourable balance of trade with western Europe. Losses of art treasures�the Swedes engaged in systematic looting�were irreplaceable.

The Commonwealth never fully recovered, unlike Muscovy, which had suffered almost as much during the Time of Troubles. Twentieth-century Marxist historians blamed the manorial economy based on serf labour for pauperizing the masses and undermining the towns, yet the Polish economy was not unique in that respect. Moreover, some attempts to replace serfs with rent-paying tenants did not prove to be a panacea. The economic factor must therefore be treated jointly with other structural weaknesses of the Commonwealth that militated against recovery.

The 17th-century crisis�a European phenomenon�was basically a crisis of political authority. In the Commonwealth the perennial financial weakness was the central issue. The state budget in the second half of the century amounted to 10�11 million z�otys, as compared with the equivalent of about 360 million in France or 240 million in England. About nine-tenths of it went for military purposes, compared with half in Brandenburg and more than three-fifths in France and Russia. Equating a large army with royal absolutism and extolling the virtue of noble levies, the szlachta was unwilling to devise defensive mechanisms. This was true even after the chastising experience of the Swedish �deluge.� Most nobles contented themselves with invoking the special protection of St. Mary, symbolically crowned queen of Poland, as a sufficient safeguard. Political stagnation

Those wishing to reform the state without strengthening the monarchy wanted to make the Sejm an effective centre of power. The szlachta, however, refused to accept the notion that liberty could be better preserved in a stronger state. In 1652 the notorious and often misunderstood practice of liberum veto (free veto) appeared: a single negative vote by a member of the Sejm was considered sufficient to block the proceedings. It was argued that unanimity was essential for passing laws, for deputies, as representatives of the local sejmiki, were bound by instructions. Moreover, a majority could disregard local interests and be corrupted by the administration. Hence, liberum veto came to be regarded as the kernel of liberty and a safeguard against tyranny. In reality, the dissenting deputy was usually an instrument of a magnate or even of the king.

The liberum veto could paralyze the functioning of the state, and in the 17th century it was used sparingly. The weakening of the Sejm meant that some of its functions, notably in matters of taxation, had to pass to local sejmiki. Without a central bureaucracy and with a dual structure of offices in the Crown and Lithuania, the fragmentation of sovereignty became increasingly ominous. The attempts at reform by John Casimir and his energetic wife, Marie Louise, may have been ill-conceived, but, given the factional strife within the oligarchy, it was difficult for the monarch to find a stable base of support. The szlachta, ever suspicious of anything that could smack of absolutism, was naturally opposed. The royal plans were defeated by a rokosz in 1665�66 led by Marshal Jerzy Lubomirski. Two years later the frustrated John Casimir abdicated and settled in France, having prophetically warned the Sejm that Poland would fall victim to its rapacious neighbours unless it reformed its ways. Cultural changes

The prevalent mentality in the Commonwealth in the 17th century manifested itself in Sarmatism. The name came from alleged ancestors of the szlachta (Sarmatians), and the concept served to integrate the multiethnic nobility. Representing a symbiosis of a political ideology and a lifestyle typical of a landowning, rather provincial, tightly knit, and increasingly xenophobic culture, Sarmatism extolled the virtues of the szlachta and contrasted them with Western values. An Orientalization of Polish-Lithuanian culture (including modes and manners) was occurring. Roman Catholicism was Sarmatized in its turn, assuming a more intolerant posture toward other denominations. The struggles against Lutheran Swedes and Prussians, Orthodox Russians, and Muslim Turks and Tatars strengthened the belief in Poland�s mission as a Catholic bastion. The expulsion in 1658 of Polish Brethren�accused of collaboration with the Swedes�when taken together with the virtual elimination of non-Catholics from public offices, was the first harbinger of the Pole-Catholic syndrome (the notion that a true Pole must be a Catholic). Decline and attempts at reform

The Lubomirski rokosz was barely over and the truce with Muscovy newly signed when the Cossacks in the Polish part of divided Ukraine submitted to Turkey and called for Tatar aid against Poland. Victories won by Hetman Jan (John III) Sobieski only temporarily forestalled the threat, and in 1672 the Commonwealth faced a major invasion by Turkey. The fall of the key border fortress Kamieniec Podolski was followed by the humiliating Peace of Buczacz. The Commonwealth lost the provinces of Podolia and Bratslav and part of Kiev, which remained under Turkish rule for more than 20 years, and it had to pay a tribute to the Sublime Porte. Sobieski�s victory over the Turks at Chocim in 1673 was not exploited, because of the lack of financial means, but it paved the way for Sobieski�s election to the Polish throne. His predecessor, Michael Korybut Wi�niowiecki�who had followed John Casimir�reigned for only four years (1669�73) and proved utterly incapable.

Sobieski, ruling as John III (1674�96), sought to improve Poland�s position and at first considered conquering Prussia in alliance with France. But that plan did not succeed. With the papacy and the Habsburgs preparing for all-out war against Turkey, John reverted to an anti-Turkish policy and concluded an alliance with Austria. In 1683 he led a relief army to a Vienna besieged by the Turks and, as supreme commander of the allied forces, won a resounding victory that marked the beginning of Turkish withdrawal from Europe. The Commonwealth, however, did not share in the subsequent victorious Austrian campaigns. Poland became a secondary partner, and, when the final peace with Turkey was concluded with the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699, the Poles recovered only the lost Ukrainian lands. By that time John was no longer alive, and Augustus II, the elector of Saxony, had succeeded him on the throne (reigned 1697�1733).

John III Sobieski, engraving by Carel Allardt.Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.The Saxons

The �Saxon Era� lasted for more than 60 years and marked the lowest point in Polish history. Research since the 1980s has somewhat corrected the largely negative picture of Augustus II and Augustus III by stressing that they were operating in a context of political anarchy, dominated by factions of struggling oligarchs and subject to the meddling of neighbouring powers. The neighbouring states signed agreements among themselves to promote weakness within the Commonwealth, as for instance the Austro-Russian accord of 1675 and the Swedish-Brandenburg pacts of 1686 and 1696, which were followed by others in the 1720s.

Augustus II, oil painting by Louis de Silvestre; in the State Collections of Art in the Wawel, Krak�w, Poland.Courtesy of the Pa�stwowe Zbiory Sztuki na Wawelu, Krak�w, Pol.

Foreign interlopers corrupted politicians and fomented disorder. During the reign of Augustus II, 10 out of 18 Sejms were paralyzed by liberum veto. In 1724 a Protestant-Catholic riot in Toru� resulted in Protestant officials� being sentenced to death. Prussian and Russian propagandists spoke of a �bloodbath� and used the situation as an opportunity to denounce Polish intolerance. Posing as a protector of non-Catholics, St. Petersburg was in fact using them as a political instrument. Polish politics, ways, and manners, as well as declining education and rampant religious bigotry, were increasingly pictured as exotically anachronistic. The Polish nobles became the laughingstock of Europe. Because the promises John Casimir made during the darkest days of Swedish invasion to improve the lot of the peasantry had remained empty, the oppressed peasants were largely alienated from the nation. Augustus II

A personal union with Saxony, where Augustus II was a strong ruler, seemed at first to offer some advantages to Poland. A king with a power base of his own might reform the Commonwealth, which was still a huge state and potentially a great power. But such hopes proved vain. Pursuing schemes of dynastic greatness, Augustus II involved unwilling Poland in a coalition war against Charles XII of Sweden that proved disastrous. In 1702 Charles invaded the country, forced Augustus out, and staged an election of the youthful Stanis�aw I Leszczy�ski as king.

The country, split between two rival monarchs, plunged into chaos. The slowly proceeding demographic and economic recovery was reversed as the looting armies and an outbreak of bubonic plague decimated the people. A crushing defeat of Sweden by Peter I (the Great) of Russia at the Battle of Poltava (Ukraine, Russian Empire) in 1709 eventually restored Augustus to the throne but made him dependent on the tsar. Having failed to strengthen his position through war and territorial acquisitions, Augustus contemplated domestic reforms while his entourage played with the idea of a coup backed by Saxon troops. Peter intervened as an arbiter between the king and his noble opponents. A settlement at the �silent Sejm� surrounded by Russian troops removed Saxon contingents from Poland, but it brought about certain reforms. Subsequent attempts by Augustus to mount a coalition against the rising might of Russia foundered on the distrust of the king�s motives. He was even suspected of plotting partitions of the Commonwealth. During the remaining years of his reign, Augustus�s main preoccupation was to ensure the succession of his son. Augustus III

Upon Augustus�s death in 1733, Stanis�aw I, seen this time as a symbol of Poland�s independence and supported by France (his daughter, Marie Leszczy�ska, married Louis XV), was elected once again. The counterelection of Augustus III followed, and Russian troops drove Stanis�aw out of the country. He abdicated, receiving as compensation (after the so-called War of the Polish Succession) the duchy of Lorraine.

Marie Leszczy�ska, detail from a pastel by Jean de la Tour; in the Louvre, Paris.Giraudon�Art Resource/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The reign of Augustus III (1733�63)�during which 5 out of 15 Sejms were dissolved while the remainder took no decisions�witnessed the nadir of Polish statehood. The Commonwealth no longer could be counted as an independent participant in international relations; the king�s diplomacy was conducted from Dresden in Saxony. Poland passively watched the once-Polish territory of Silesia pass from the Habsburgs to Prussia as a result of the War of the Austrian Succession. Prussia, under Frederick II (the Great), whose grandfather had already been recognized in 1701 as �king in Prussia� by Augustus II, was becoming a great power. During the Seven Years� War (1756�63), Austrian and Russian troops marched through Poland, and Frederick flooded the country with counterfeit money. The Commonwealth was being treated as a wayside inn.

Augustus III, detail of an oil painting by Louis de Silvestre; in the State Collections of Art in Wawel Castle, Krak�w, Poland.Courtesy of the Pa�stwowe Zbiory Sztuki na Wawelu, Krak�w, Pol.

And yet there were also the first signs of economic recovery and population growth, the beginnings of a transition from Sarmatism to Enlightenment, and the appearance of a reformist political literature. In 1740 Stanis�aw Konarski, a member of the Roman Catholic Piarist teaching order, founded the Collegium Nobilium, which was to train the future elite. A network of Piarist schools followed, while the ideas of the Enlightenment were being spread, often through Freemasonry. Konarski�s writings, as well as those coming from the circle of Stanis�aw I in Lorraine, attacked the liberum veto and advocated an improvement of the lot of towns and peasantry. After the 1740s, from the medley of factions, coteries, and partisan groups, two major camps were emerging: the so-called Familia, led by the Czartoryskis, and the Republicans, with the Potockis and Radziwi��s at their head. Reforms, agony, and partitionsReform under Stanis�aw II

The election of Stanis�aw II August Poniatowski as the last king of Poland (reigned 1764�95) was the work of the powerful Familia. Rising from the middle nobility (though his mother was a Czartoryska), the candidate was handpicked by Catherine II (the Great) of Russia not only because he had been her lover but because she felt that he would be completely dependent on her. The Czartoryskis in turn saw him as their puppet. Thus, from the beginning Stanis�aw II�a highly intelligent man, a patron of the arts, and a reformer in the spirit of the Enlightenment�had to operate under most-difficult conditions. The magnates resented him as an upstart; the conservative szlachta viewed him as Catherine�s tool and as a threat to their liberties. The king�s adroitness and personal charm allowed him in time to win over some of his adversaries, but he lacked a strong will and showed none of the military inclination so cherished by the Poles.

Stanis�aw II, detail of a painting by M. Bacciarelli, 1783; in the Museum in Toru�, Ratusz, Poland.Courtesy of the Museum in Torun, Ratusz, Pol.

The reforms that accompanied the election were limited. Stanis�aw sought to reform the state by strengthening the monarchy; the Czartoryskis wished to reform it by strengthening the Sejm. The king embarked on a vast program of modernization, encouraging initiatives in the economic, financial, and military spheres. But above all he waged a nationwide campaign, using the press, literature, and the new National Theatre to change the conservative mentality of the szlachta. In 1765 Stanis�aw established the Knights� School�the first truly secular college, which promoted civil virtues and religious toleration�and criticized the treatment of towns and peasantry.

The king�s policies, however, were constantly undermined by neighbouring powers. Frederick II�s view that Poland ought to be kept in lethargy was shared by St. Petersburg, which sought to isolate Stanis�aw by encouraging both religious dissenters (i.e., non-Catholics) and the conservative circles to form confederations. The presence of Russian troops terrorized the Sejm, and Russia formally guaranteed as immutable such principles of Polish politics as liberum veto, elective monarchy, and dominance of the szlachta. The First Partition

In 1768 the Confederation of Bar was formed. Its antiroyalist and anti-Russian program mingled patriotic and conservative overtones with religious objectives (namely, the defense of the privileged status of Roman Catholicism vis-à-vis the religious and political equality for non-Catholics advocated by Russia). Civil war erupted and lasted until 1772. Royal troops assisted the Russians�at one point the king was kidnapped by the confederates�and France and Turkey helped the confederates. The movement strengthened Polish national consciousness and produced the first martyrs sent to Siberia, but, at the same time, it created such chaotic conditions that St. Petersburg began to listen when Frederick repeatedly proposed partitioning Poland. With Russia and Austria on the brink of war over Turkish matters, Berlin suggested a resolution of the eastern crisis through mutually agreeable compensations at Poland�s expense. Austria, which had opposed the scheme (Maria Theresa had found it immoral), unwittingly created a precedent by annexing some Polish border areas.

Poland, Partitions ofPartitions of Poland, 1772�95.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

As a result of the First Partition (1772), Poland lost almost one-third of its territory and more than one-third of its population. Russia received the largest but least-important area economically, in the northeast. Austria gained the densely populated Little Poland (renamed Galicia). Prussia�s share was the smallest, but the annexation of Eastern Pomerania (although without Gda�sk) cut off Poland from the sea and allowed Frederick to put a veritable stranglehold on the Polish economy. Except for individual protests the helpless Sejm, fearing additional territorial losses, ratified the partition. Despite some British concern about Gda�sk and the Baltic trade, the European powers reacted to the partition with utmost indifference. The British political philosopher Edmund Burke was alone in criticizing the immorality of the act and in recognizing in it the beginning of a revolutionary change in the European balance of power. Social and economic changes

During the two decades that separated the First and Second Partitions, the country experienced a remarkable revival. The dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773 allowed a complete reorganization of the Polish educational system under the Commission of National Education, one of the first ministries of education in Europe. Cut off from the Baltic, Poland reoriented its trade toward the Black Sea. Producing for the national market, early manufacturing concerns grew on both royal and magnate land. Many estates began to operate with tenant farmers rather than serfs. Banks and joint stock companies appeared, canals were built, and roads improved. The position of the towns began to change, and Warsaw with its 100,000 inhabitants became a centre radiating into the country.

Under the king�s patronage, arts and literature flourished. Learning made important strides. The satiric poet Bishop Ignacy Krasicki headed a long list of important authors. Political literature reached its summit with the writings of Stanis�aw Staszic (a burgher) and Hugo Ko���taj. There was discussion of a reform of towns (including a Jewish reform) and changes in the status of the peasantry by extending to them rights and representation as well as state protection.

The newly created Permanent Council, a collegial body composed of five ministries, was the first executive organ for both the Crown and Lithuania. The council achieved progress in financial, police, and administrative fields, although it was seen as a channel for Russian influence and was attacked by the oligarchic opposition, who believed it strengthened the position of the king. However, because Stanis�aw II was convinced that only close collaboration with St. Petersburg constituted a guarantee against further partitions, reforms had to meet with Russian approval. The failure of a projected new code of laws reforming the social system and state-church relations showed the limits of tolerated reform. St. Petersburg seemed to regard its tutelage as firm enough to withdraw its troops from the country in 1780. The constitution of 1791

A Russo-Turkish war that began in 1787 created a situation that both the king and the magnate opposition tried to exploit. With Prussia proposing an alliance with the Poles (signed in 1790) and Austria becoming preoccupied with the French Revolution, the so-called Great Sejm, which met in 1788, embarked on sweeping reforms. The king aspired to constitutional monarchy, and the �patriots� preferred a republic presided over by a monarch, while the die-hard conservatives (�false patriots�) opposed all modernization and change. It took the Sejm four years of heated debates, in the course of which the example of the American Revolution was frequently invoked, to demolish the old system and enact a new one. The king, although fearful that the Sejm would go too far and antagonize Russia, eventually joined with the patriots in approving, on May 3, 1791, the first modern written constitution in Europe.

The new constitution was a revolutionary document that created a constitutional parliamentary monarchy and gave a new meaning to the term political nation. It combined Polish traditions with the ideas of the Enlightenment. Dynasties, not individuals, would henceforth be elected, beginning with the house of Wettin. The king�s decrees had to be countersigned by ministers responsible to the Sejm, which was partly elected on the basis of property qualifications. Since burghers gained some political rights and the poorest gentry�clients of the magnates�lost some of theirs, birth alone would no longer be a determinant of citizenship. The liberum veto was abolished, as was discrimination on religious grounds. An army 100,000 strong was to be raised. Royal towns recovered their autonomy, but the peasantry was only taken under the protection of the law. Additional laws applying to social and economic problems were to follow.

Although the constitution was passed through a quasi-coup (1791�92), Stanis�aw gained for it the approval of most of the sejmiki. It was, however, unacceptable to Russia and Prussia, both of which were fearful lest a revived, strong Poland reclaim its lost lands. Driven by pride and doctrine, a number of die-hard conservatives�among them high dignitaries such as Stanis�aw Szcz�sny Potocki, Seweryn Rzewuski, and Ksawery Branicki�formed the Confederation of Targowica (in St. Petersburg) to overthrow the May constitution. Acting as guarantor of the old Polish regime, Catherine ordered her armies to invade Poland in 1792. There they fought the outnumbered Polish troops under Prince J�zef Poniatowski and Tadeusz Ko�ciuszko" class="md-crosslink">General Tadeusz Ko�ciuszko, a hero of the American Revolution.

J�zef Poniatowski, detail of a portrait by M. Bacciarelli; in the Lanckoronski collection.Courtesy of the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, London; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.The Second and Third Partitions

Intimidated, the king and the government capitulated; the May constitution was abolished; and leading patriots emigrated. All this did not prevent Russia and Prussia from further diminishing Poland�s territory with the Second Partition in 1793. In 1794 Ko�ciuszko, returning from abroad, raised the banner of insurrection in the rump Commonwealth. It may have been a hopeless undertaking, but the Poles could not see their state destroyed without making a last stand. Ko�ciuszko, assuming the title of chief (naczelnik), ignored the king, but crowds in Warsaw, inspired by the example of revolutionary France, summarily executed a number of Targowica leaders. Offering emancipation measures to the peasants, Ko�ciuszko brought a large number of them under his banner. After winning the battle of Rac�awice and capturing Warsaw and Wilno, the insurrectionists were defeated by Russian and Prussian forces. The wounded Ko�ciuszko was taken prisoner, and Aleksandr Suvorov�s Russian army carried out a wholesale massacre of the population in the Warsaw suburb of Praga.

The Third Partition followed in 1795, and, as in the preceding cases, the Polish Sejm was obliged to give its consent. Stanis�aw abdicated and left for St. Petersburg, where he died. In the final count Russia annexed 62 percent of Poland�s area and 45 percent of the population, Prussia 20 percent of the area and 23 percent of the population, and Austria 18 and 32 percent, respectively. The three monarchs engaged themselves not to include Poland in their respective titles and thus obliterated its very name. But, while Poland disappeared, the �Polish question,� as the controversy over Poland�s status was called, was born, affecting both European diplomacy and the growth of Polish nationalism. Partitioned PolandThe legions and the Duchy of Warsaw

The 123 years during which Poland existed only as a partitioned land had a profound impact on the Polish psyche. Moreover, major 19th-century developments such as industrialization and modernization were uneven in Poland and proved to be a mixed blessing. Growing Polish nationalism was by necessity that of an oppressed nation and displayed the tendency of �all or nothing.� Compromise became a dirty word, for it implied collaboration with the partitioners; a distrust of authority grew. The tradition of the Polish nobles� republic militated against submission and engendered an attitude of revolutionary defiance.

Beginning with the Ko�ciuszko Insurrection, the Poles staged uprisings in 1806, 1830, 1846, 1848, and 1863 and a revolution in 1905. Defeats were followed by �organic work� that aimed at strengthening the society and its economy by peaceful means. This other major trend of nationalist aspiration was linked with Positivism, while the insurrectionary tradition became closely connected with Romanticism, but it is an oversimplification to identify the former with realism and the latter with idealism.

The survival of the Polish nation, which during the 19th century absorbed the peasant masses, was due in no small degree to a culture that continued to be all-Polish and dedicated to the Roman Catholic Church, whose role in maintaining �Polishness� was very important. Numerous writers, from the Romantic poets to Henryk Sienkiewicz, winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize for Literature, shaped the Polish mentality. For a stateless nation, ideas and imponderables acquired special importance. A rebirth of statehood, however, could be achieved only under the conditions of a major European upheaval, which would mean a collapse of the partitioning powers; this did not happen until 1918.

Henryk Sienkiewicz, detail of an oil painting by Kazimierz Pochwalski, 1890; in the National Museum of Warsaw.Courtesy of the Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw

Proud and politically conscious Poles never reconciled themselves to the loss of independence. Conspiracies and attempts to exploit the differences between the partitioning powers arose. �migr�s looked to Revolutionary France for assistance, and General Jan Henryk D�browski succeeded in 1797 in persuading Napoleon Bonaparte, then waging his Italian campaign, to create auxiliary Polish legions. In their headquarters the future Polish national anthem��Jeszcze Polska nie zgin�a� (�Poland Has Not Yet Perished�)�was sung for the first time.

Hopes placed on a French victory over Austria that would open the Polish question were, however, quashed by the Treaty of Campo Formio. In subsequent struggles Polish legionnaires were employed to fight French battles in Germany and in Santo Domingo, but Poland gained no political commitments. Yet the Poles� struggles did have a meaning in the long run, keeping a democratic Polish spirit alive and furnishing cadres to a future Polish army under Napoleon.

The pro-French military option had a counterpart in the ideas and policies of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski" class="md-crosslink">Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski. Appointed Russian foreign minister by Alexander I" class="md-crosslink">Tsar Alexander I, the prince advocated redrawing the map of Europe to take into account national feelings and reconstitute Poland in union with Russia. This approach failed when Alexander committed himself to a struggle against France on the side of Prussia.

Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, detail of a painting by Ary Scheffer, 1850; in the Bibliothèque Polonaise, Paris.Courtesy of Prince Adam Karol Czartoryski; photograph, Bibliotheque Polonaise, Paris

After Napoleon�s victories over Prussia in 1806, French troops entered the Prussian part of Poland. Responding to somewhat vague promises by Napoleon, D�browski called on the Poles to rise and organize armed units. In the campaigns that followed, Polish troops played a significant role, and Napoleon could not avoid making some gesture toward the Poles. In 1807, as a result of the compromise peace with Alexander at Tilsit, Prussia (now Sovetsk, Russia), a small state was created out of the Prussian shares in the First and Second Partitions and called the Duchy of Warsaw. Its ruler was the king of Saxony, Frederick Augustus I. Gda�sk was made a free city.

The Duchy of Warsaw, so named in order not to offend the partitioners, appeared to the Poles as a nucleus of a revived Poland. Doubled in size after a victorious war against Austria in 1809, it numbered more than four million people and had within its borders Warsaw, Krak�w, and Pozna�. The constitution imposed by Napoleon was comparable to his other authoritarian constitutions but took into account Polish traditions and customs. The ruler was absolute but used his powers with discretion and later delegated them to his ministers. The Napoleonic Code was introduced, and the constitution abolished �slavery.� But this was interpreted to imply only the personal emancipation of the peasants without transferring to them the land they cultivated. Hence, servile obligations for those who stayed on the land continued in practice.

Poland: Duchy of WarsawTerritory of the Polish state known as the Duchy of Warsaw, 1812.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Napoleon regarded the duchy as a French outpost in the east, which required the maintenance of a disproportionately large army. The costs of maintaining it, together with the adverse effects of the Continental System, brought the duchy�s economy to the brink of ruin. The emperor then took some Polish troops on his payroll, and they fought in Spain, where the charge of the light horse guards at Somosierra in 1808 passed into national legend.

Napoleon�s invasion of Russia in 1812, in which nearly 100,000 Polish soldiers participated, seemed to promise the re-creation of Poland. Napoleon encouraged the Poles to proclaim the restoration of their country but did not commit himself to that goal. In reality, the emperor waged war not to destroy Russia but to force the tsar back into a policy of collaboration with France. Only in his exile at St. Helena did Napoleon speak of the key importance of Poland. His defeat in Russia brought the victorious Russian troops into the Duchy of Warsaw. While other allies of Napoleon were abandoning the sinking ship, Prince J�zef Poniatowski, who commanded the Polish army, remained loyal and died fighting at the Battle of Leipzig (1813) as a marshal of France. From the Congress of Vienna to 1848

The victory of the anti-Napoleonic coalition led to a redrafting of the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna (1814�15). The Congress paid lip service to Poland by enjoining the partitioning powers to respect the national rights of their Polish subjects (insofar as was compatible with the partitioners� state interests) and by providing for free trade and communications within the borders of the old Commonwealth. The latter turned out to be a dead letter. The territorial issue caused dissent among the powers, but eventually a compromise arrangement left the former Duchy of Warsaw, minus Poznania (which went to Prussia) and Krak�w (made a free city), to Tsar Alexander under the name of the Kingdom of Poland. The tsar now controlled about two-thirds of the old Commonwealth�both the area commonly called Congress Kingdom, or Congress Poland, and the former Commonwealth (Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian) provinces that had been annexed during the partitions.

Congress Kingdom of PolandTerritory of the Russian-ruled Polish state known as the Congress Kingdom of Poland, 1815�74.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Early Russian rule

Endowed with a liberal constitution, which was increasingly violated in practice, the settlement satisfied neither the Poles nor the Russians. The former hoped for the kingdom to be united with the eastern �lost lands� and to become a junior partner of the empire. Alexander, who played with the idea, abandoned it under the pressure of Russian circles that were unwilling to give up any of the annexed provinces. The Wilno educational district, which comprised most of them, originally had been chaired by Czartoryski and had been seen as a model for educational reform in Russia. The university in Wilno was the largest in the empire. In 1823 it came under attack; students accused of sedition were jailed or exiled. One of the victims was the great Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. Thus, basic disagreement about the territorial question was augmented by the anomalous union of an autocratic empire with a liberal kingdom. In the long run a confrontation may have been inevitable, but it was hastened by a gradual deterioration of the position of the Poles.

Adam Mickiewicz, detail of an oil painting by Aleksander Kami�ski, 1850.Courtesy of the Instytut Sztuki, Polska Akademia Nauk, Warsaw

The post of viceroy did not go to Prince Czartoryski, by then estranged from Alexander, but went to a servile political nonentity, General J�zef Zaj�czek. The tsar�s brother Constantine, the brutal and neurotic grand duke, was made commander in chief. Together with a special representative of the tsar, the intriguing and unscrupulous Nikolay Novosiltsev, they dominated the kingdom while usually at odds with one another. Alexander, autocratic by temperament, was revolted by the phenomenon of a liberal opposition in the Sejm, which he regarded as ingratitude.

Out of Freemasonry, which the tsar at first patronized, there grew a secret Polish Patriotic Society whose aims could hardly be qualified as treason. Nevertheless, its leader, Major Walerian �ukasi�ski, became a national martyr when he was thrown into prison, where he languished half-forgotten for more than 40 years until his death. Other conspiracies of more radical character began to spread. The economy of the kingdom, however, developed, and its finances were put in order by the able though heavy-handed Prince Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki. He showed that Congress Poland was not a burden on the empire.

The Decembrist uprising in Russia in 1825, which accompanied the succession to the throne of Nicholas I, had repercussions in Congress Poland. A public trial exonerated the Polish leaders of complicity but made Russo-Polish relations tense. The outbreak of revolutions in Belgium and France in 1830 hastened the arrival of the November Insurrection. After its inception as a conspiratorial act at the cadet school in Warsaw (November 29, 1830), this uprising developed into a national revolt, marked by the dethronement of the Romanovs in Poland and the onset of a full-fledged Russo-Polish war. Hostilities spread into Lithuania and lasted until September 1831.

Russian victory was followed by severe reprisals, confiscations, arrests, and deportations. The kingdom�s constitution was suspended, which meant the end of a separate Polish Sejm, government, and army. The University of Warsaw (founded 1817) was closed, as was the University of Wilno. Cultural Russification in the empire�s former Polish provinces involved the liquidation of the Uniate church in 1839 and the abolition of the statute that had preserved the Lithuanian code of law. The Uniate church continued to exist only within the Congress Kingdom (until 1875) and in Galicia (until 1945). Emigration and revolt

Several thousand Poles, including the political and intellectual elite, emigrated. When they passed through Germany, these �migr�s were hailed as champions of freedom, and many of them came to believe in the idea of the solidarity of nations. The �migr�s, settling mainly in France, splintered into many factions but grouped mainly around two figures: the moderate conservatives followed Prince Czartoryski, and the leftists were led at first by the great historian Joachim Lelewel. Later these leftists took a more radical stance as the Polish Democratic Society. Czartoryski concentrated on seeking the support of Britain and France for the Polish cause against Russia. The democrats, distrusting governments and blaming the conservatives for the defeat of the November Insurrection, preached a national and social revolution in cooperation with other peoples that would emancipate the peasantry. The Polish Democratic Society, whose program was embodied in the Poitiers Manifesto of 1836, became the first democratically run, centralized, and disciplined political party of east-central Europe. Karl Marx regarded its concept of agrarian revolution as a major Polish contribution to European revolutionary thought.

Political and philosophical writings and belles lettres of the �migr�s were imbued with an intense patriotic message. The three greatest Polish Romantic poets�Mickiewicz, Juliusz S�owacki, and Zygmunt Krasi�ski�were the national �bards� (wieszcz) who influenced entire generations of Poles. They were followed by the much-later-discovered poet Cyprian Norwid. In music the emigration was epitomized by the compositions of Fr�d�ric Chopin. A messianic conception of the Polish nation arose, which in its most extreme and mystical form characterized Poland as the Christ of nations, redeeming all oppressed peoples through its suffering and transcendence.

Zygmunt Krasi�ski, detail of an oil painting by Ary Scheffer, 1850; in the National Museum of Warsaw.Courtesy of the Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw

In partitioned Poland �migr� emissaries inspired conspiratorial activities. After the failure of several other attempts, an uprising was planned for 1846. Stanched by arrests in Pozna�, it got off the ground only in Krak�w (where a national government was proclaimed) and in the neighbouring districts of western Galicia. The Krak�w rising was put down by Austrian troops, and the city was annexed; elsewhere peasant antagonism toward the landowners was channeled by Austrian officials against the mostly noble rebels. A jacquerie (peasant revolt) developed, in the course of which many manors were burned down and landowners killed. This came as a shock to Polish democrats, who had extolled the people (lud) as the backbone and the hope of the nation, and to conservatives, who had warned against a social upheaval.

The liberal and democratic Revolutions of 1848, which spread over most of Europe, raised hopes for the revival of the Polish cause. Poles were in the forefront of numerous struggles, and General J�zef Bem became a hero of the Hungarian Revolution. While the tsar threatened to punish the revolutionaries in Germany and in the Habsburg monarchy, liberals in Berlin and Vienna saw the advantage of a Polish buffer state against Russia. In Prussian Poland the authorities tolerated the emergence of a virtual Polish takeover of Poznania, including the formation of an armed militia. However, when the Russian danger receded, Polish nationalism appeared as the main threat, and Prussian troops crushed the militia. The Germans had opted for �healthy national egoism,� which meant that henceforth the Polish strife with the Prussian officialdom would become a nationalist German-Polish struggle.

Some circles in revolutionary Vienna seemed to consider the possibility of giving up Galicia to a revived Poland. The governor of Galicia was interested mainly in ensuring control over the province. Forestalling Polish plans, he abolished serfdom and used the nascent Ruthenian-Ukrainian movement in eastern Galicia to oppose national aspirations. A limited Polish resistance was broken by bombardments of Krak�w and Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine).

After the Revolutions of 1848, which revealed the sharpness of national conflicts, the Poles began to realize that a Poland within the prepartitions borders�a smaller Polish state was out of the question not only for Poles but also for Marx and Friedrich Engels�might have to be a federation of distinct nationalities and no longer a unitary country. The emancipation of the peasantry in Galicia (already emancipated under Prussia some two decades earlier) made the peasant question a central issue�namely, whether the peasants could be absorbed into the Polish national fabric or whether their first loyalty would be to the partitioning monarchs. The issue became acute in the Russian partition, which had remained passive in 1848. The January 1863 uprising and its aftermath

After humiliating defeats in the Crimean War, the Russian Empire under Tsar Alexander II embarked on major liberal reforms. For Congress Poland this meant political amnesty, conciliatory measures in cultural and religious matters, and the creation of the Agricultural Society to tackle the peasant question. Simultaneously, Alexander II warned the Poles against political �daydreaming.� The Agricultural Society, a union of reformist landowners headed by the popular Hrabia (count) Andrzej Zamoyski, debated changes in the agrarian sector but found it hard to avoid politics. A patriotic movement later known as the Whites grew around and partly out of the society. It included landowners and members of the bourgeoisie (often of German or Jewish origin), such as the banker Leopold Kronenberg. At this time a Polish-Jewish dialogue promoted close cooperation.

On the other side of the political spectrum, there developed a number of conspiratorial groups composed of students, younger army officers, artisans, and members of the lesser gentry. Subsequently called the Reds, these radicals acted as a pressure group on the Agricultural Society and staged demonstrations commemorating Polish patriots or historic events. In 1861, the year of the peasant emancipation decree in the Russian Empire, demonstrators in Warsaw clashed with Russian troops, and several were killed or wounded.

The Russians, determined to be firm with the radicals, sought a dialogue with the upper classes. But Zamoyski, worried lest he appear subservient to the Russians, demanded a return to the guarantees of the 1815 constitution. Such demands were rejected, and Zamoyski was eventually ordered to leave the country. The Russian viceroy turned to Zamoyski�s rival, Margrabia (margrave) Aleksander Wielopolski, whose program of limited concessions (Polonization of education, restoration of local self-government, transformation of the peasants into tenants, and emancipation of the Jews) was acceptable to St. Petersburg. Wielopolski�s contempt for public opinion and high-handed methods�especially the disbanding of the Agricultural Society and a showdown with the Roman Catholic Church�estranged him from the Poles. Tension grew after a massacre of demonstrators near the castle square.

Aleksander Wielopolski, detail from a lithograph by W�adys�aw D�mler, 1862.Courtesy of the National Museum, Warsaw

Wielopolski, appointed the head of government in 1862, introduced reforms that were not insignificant but did not include peasant emancipation. He was viewed as an enemy by both the Reds, who created an underground National Committee, and the Whites, who also set up a clandestine organization. Wielopolski decided to break the Reds by drafting large numbers of them into the Russian army. In January 1863 the National Committee, left with no choice but to take up the challenge, called on the peoples of Poland, Lithuania, and Rus (Ukraine) to rise, decreed peasant emancipation, and appealed for support from the Jews (�Poles of Mosaic faith�).

Thousands responded to the call; however, because the insurgents had failed to capture any town or compact territory, the National Committee, transformed into the National Government, had to operate anonymously underground. In the spring the Whites joined the uprising, contributing finances and international contacts but also seeking to control the movement. Fighting extended into Lithuanian and Belarusian lands but not into Ukraine. In some instances the peasantry participated in the struggle, and in others they cooperated with the Russians. France proffered encouragement and hinted that the blood of the insurgents would mark the boundaries of an independent Poland. But in practice France, Britain, and Austria did not go beyond joint diplomatic d�marches in St. Petersburg. Prussia sided with Russia. The insurgents, equipped with primitive weapons, fought doggedly as partisans in small detachments and succeeded in keeping the rising going until the autumn of 1864, when its last and most prominent leader, Romuald Traugutt, was captured and executed.

The decades that followed the January Insurrection opened a new phase in the history of partitioned Poland. Harsh reprisals in the kingdom�now called the Vistula Land�were designed to reduce it to a mere province of Russia, denied even the benefits of subsequent reforms in Russia proper. Large garrisons and emergency legislation kept the Poles down. Many individuals involved in the rising were executed or deported to Siberia; thousands of landed estates were confiscated. The Uniate church was abolished, and the Roman Catholic hierarchy was harassed. A huge Orthodox church emerged in the centre of Warsaw.

The government believed that it could resolve the Polish question by winning over the peasantry (emancipated in 1864) and pitting them against the szlachta and the Catholic Church, as well as by eradicating the historical ties between the �western provinces� and Poland. Catholics could no longer buy land there. In Lithuania the brutal governor Mikhail Muravyov was nicknamed �the hangman.� The post-1863 period marked the beginning of a final parting of the ways between the Poles and the Lithuanians and Ukrainians (the latter also were undergoing a national revival), but in the long run Russian policies did not accomplish their aims.

The emancipated peasantry, coming into direct contact with the Russian officialdom and antagonized by anti-Catholic and Russification policies, became more self-consciously Polish. The dispossessed gentry moved to towns, transmitting their values to a growing intelligentsia, which assumed national leadership. As the Industrial Revolution penetrated Congress Poland, the growth of a bourgeoisie and of an industrial proletariat was accelerated.

The fastest and greatest development was in textiles and was centred on ��d��the Polish Manchester�the population of which increased 10-fold between 1865 and 1897. Mining, metallurgy, and food-processing industries followed suit. Vistula Land became the most developed part of the Russian Empire, but its development was uneven and its modernization partial. Moreover, its reliance on the eastern markets made the country dependent on Russia.

Socioeconomic progress contrasted with political stagnation. The Polish question largely disappeared from the European agenda after 1870. Blaming romantic idealism for the catastrophic uprising, people rejected political activities and extolled the value of �organic work,� progress, and modernization. Warsaw Positivism, deriving its name and inspiration from the thought of Auguste Comte, provided the rationale for these views. Accommodation with the ruling governments

Uprisings also were condemned as folly by conservatives in Galicia, where the Krak�w historical school critically reinterpreted Poland�s history. The conservatives were willing to cooperate with Vienna in exchange for concessions, and, as the Habsburg monarchy transformed itself into a dual Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867, Galicia obtained local autonomy. From the 1860s the province was largely Polonized. Persecuted elsewhere, Polish culture could flourish there; the Universities of Krak�w and Lw�w (Lemberg) and the Academy of Arts and Sciences became cultural beacons radiating across the partition borders. There was less progress in the socioeconomic field. Ruled by conservative landowners, Galicia remained a poor and backward province. In its eastern part nascent Ukrainian nationalism clashed with that of the Poles.

The situation for Poles in Prussia at times appeared critical. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck�s anti-Polish policies culminated in the Kulturkampf, designed to strengthen the cohesion of the newly created German Empire. In addition, policies of cultural and linguistic Germanization and German settlement in the provinces continuously threatened the Polish and Roman Catholic character of Poznania and West Prussia. A colonization commission was set up in 1886. Eight years later a society for the promotion of German interests in the east came into being. The Poles called it Hakata, after the initials of its founders. The Polish response took the form of credit unions, cooperative associations, and self-help institutions. Showing great solidarity and organizational talents, working hard, and raising socioeconomic standards, Prussian Poles developed characteristics that distinguished them from their countrymen under Russian or Austrian rule.

In the post-1863 decades, prevailing political attitudes took the form of Triple Loyalism, the belief that material and cultural progress in each part of divided Poland was predicated on loyalty to the ruling governments. This policy seemed to produce beneficial results only under Austria. The pursuit of riches was being represented as essentially patriotic even if realized under the harsh conditions of early capitalism. For the masses, with their rapid population growth, living conditions were deplorable. This led to their radicalization on the one hand and to a sizable emigration on the other. In the period 1870�1914, about 3.6 million people, mostly peasants, emigrated from Polish lands to the United States.

A reaction to that situation developed in the 1890s that had both a nationalist and a socialist character. The National Democratic movement originated with a Polish League organized in Switzerland; by 1893 the organization had transformed into the clandestine National League, based in Warsaw. It stressed its all-Polish character, rejected loyalism, and promoted national resistance, even uprisings, when opportune. Its nationalist ideology tinged with populism gradually evolved into �integral� nationalism, which placed national interest and national egoism above everything else. Affected by social Darwinist theories of survival of the fittest and natural selection, Polish nationalism advocated a struggle not only against the partitioning powers but also against the Ukrainians and the Jews, whose interests were seen as opposed to those of the Poles. The father of this integral nationalism was Roman Dmowski, whose writings stressed the need to create a modern Polish nation deriving its strength from the ethnically Polish masses.

Polish socialism, which in its early manifestations was purely a class movement with an emphasis on internationalism, began by the 1890s to stress an indissoluble connection between social revolution and Poland�s independence. At a conference held in Paris in 1892, the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) came into existence. Illegal under Russian rule, it had a counterpart in Galicia in the Polish Social Democratic Party led by Ignacy Daszy�ski. The dominant figure in the PPS was J�zef Pi�sudski, who saw the historic role of socialism in Poland as that of a destroyer of reactionary tsardom.

Ignacy Daszy�ski, c. 1929.Courtesy of the Adam Ciolkosz Archives, London

Doubly oppressed (nationally and socially), the Polish proletariat was to be the force to carry the struggle for social justice and national liberation. Opposing such views was the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the forerunner of Polish communism. Its leading theorist, Rosa Luxemburg, argued that national independence would not promote the interests of the proletariat, who were integrated economically into the three partitioning states.

Rosa Luxemburg.Interfoto/Friedrich Rauch, Munich

The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 created a tense atmosphere and sharpened the basic differences between the major political trends. While Dmowski and his supporters sought to extract concessions from the tsarist regime, Pi�sudski promoted revolutionary nationalistic tactics. Both politicians went to Tokyo, where they presented their opposite programs to the Japanese. At the beginning of 1905, just as the revolution began to sweep Russia, Congress Poland responded to events with a school strike and a general workers� strike, while Pi�sudski�s PPS squads battled with Russian troops and police. The government offered limited concessions to the Poles in Congress Poland and the western provinces. Dmowski�s larger hopes, bound with the creation of the Russian Duma�in which the Poles were mainly represented by National Democrats�proved unfounded. The PPS, in turn, suffered internal splits, Pi�sudski moving increasingly in an insurrectionary (national), as opposed to a revolutionary (social), direction.

During the first decade of the 20th century, a mass political culture developed in Polish lands. The Russian Revolution of 1905 contributed to the growth of a civil society in Congress Poland (with legal political parties and trade unions), though it was constantly undermined by Russian rule. In Austria the introduction of universal manhood suffrage in 1907 widened the political involvement of the masses. The Polish peasant movement that had risen in Galicia in the 1890s was beset by schisms. In 1913 there emerged from it the Polish Peasant Party led by Wincenty Witos. In the German partition a Polish national revival in Upper Silesia led by Wojciech Korfanty and one on a lesser scale in East Prussia affected for the first time regions that had not been part of the prepartition Commonwealth. Poland in the 20th centuryThe rebirth of Poland

With the outbreak of World War I, two major political trends emerged among the Poles. J�zef Pi�sudski, distancing himself from socialist politics, became a military leader and commander of a brigade that fought on the Austrian side. His cooperation with the Central Powers was tactical, part of his pursuit of the goal of complete independence. Expecting a collapse of the three partitioners, he prepared for a Polish fait accompli. In 1915 the Germans and the Austrians drove out the Russians from Congress Poland, and on November 5, 1916, they issued the Two Emperors� Manifesto proclaiming the creation of the Polish kingdom. Its status and borders remained undefined, but the document internationalized the Polish question. Pi�sudski, who refused to raise Polish troops without binding political commitments from the Central Powers, came into conflict with them and in 1917 was imprisoned in Magdeburg, Germany.

Roman Dmowski�s alternative policy of linking the Polish cause with the Franco-Russian alliance appeared promising when the first formal offer of Polish autonomy and unification came from the Russian commander in chief, Grand Duke Nicholas, on August 14, 1914. Subsequent moves by the Russian government, however, revealed the hollowness of such promises. Russian concessions to the Poles, culminating in the tsar�s Christmas Day 1916 order, were made only in reaction to the Central Powers� initiatives and victories.

The chances of Polish independence increased radically in 1917 when the United States entered the war and two revolutions shook Russia. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, to whom the great Polish patriot and pianist Ignacy Paderewski had gained access through Colonel Edward M. House, already spoke of a united and autonomous Poland in a January 1917 address. The Russian Provisional Government, somewhat ambiguously, and the Petrograd (St. Petersburg) Soviet of Workers� and Soldiers� Deputies, more explicitly, declared their recognition of Poland�s right to independence in March 1917.

At the Brest-Litovsk conference (December 22, 1917�March 3, 1918), the Bolsheviks denounced the Central Powers� handling of the Polish question. On January 8, 1918, Wilson�s Fourteen Points appeared. Point 13 declared that an independent Polish state should be erected, to be composed of indisputably Polish inhabitants and with a secure access to the sea. The Inter-Allied conference (June 1918) endorsed Polish independence, thus crowning the efforts of Dmowski, who had promoted the Polish cause in the West since 1915. In August 1917 he had set up a Polish National Committee in Paris, which the French viewed as a quasi-government. Under its aegis a Polish army composed mainly of volunteers from the United States was placed under the command of General J�zef Haller.

With the end of the war on November 11, 1918, Pi�sudski, released by the German revolutionaries, returned to Warsaw. The German-appointed Regency Council handed over its powers to him, and Pi�sudski successfully negotiated a German evacuation of the kingdom. A leftist government in Lublin headed by Daszy�ski resigned in his favour, but Dmowski�s Polish National Committee, representing the Polish political right, did not. The danger of two rival governments was avoided through the mediation of Paderewski. Under a compromise implemented in January 1919, Pi�sudski remained chief of state and commander in chief; Paderewski, who became premier and foreign minister, and Dmowski represented Poland at the Paris Peace Conference.

Ignacy Paderewski.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

At that stage the Polish government controlled only Congress Poland and western Galicia. In the east the Ukrainians, having proclaimed their own republic, battled the Poles. Farther east the Poles clashed with the Bolsheviks, who were advancing into Belarusian and Lithuanian lands. A Polish uprising in Poznania led to a partial seizure of the province, but the fate of Prussian Poland lay in the hands of the peacemakers, who had also the last word about the territorial settlement. From the Treaty of Versailles to the Treaty of Riga

The Polish program at the Paris Peace Conference was affected by the Pi�sudski-Dmowski dualism. Pi�sudski�s approach was �federalist,� Dmowski�s �incorporationist.� The former strove to establish a bloc of states corresponding to prepartition Poland, but he was flexible on the issue of the borders of those states. The latter postulated a centralized Polish state, with its eastern border determined by the Second Partition but also including Upper Silesia and parts of East Prussia transferred from Germany in the west. France favoured strengthening Poland at Germany�s expense, but Britain opposed that approach. Wilson occupied a middle position.

Poland, 1921�39Poland's territory between the two World Wars.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The borders drawn under the Treaty of Versailles (June 1919) roughly corresponded to Polish-German frontiers before the partitions, except that Gda�sk became the free city of Danzig, and plebiscites were held in parts of East Prussia and Upper Silesia to determine which nation these regions wished to join. The East Prussian plebiscite of July 1920 (at the height of the Russo-Polish War) was won by Germany. In the Silesian plebiscite of March 1921�preceded and followed by three Polish uprisings�682 communes voted for Poland and 792 for Germany. The region was formally divided in October 1921.

Katowice; Silesian uprisingsFrench tanks and soldiers in the streets of Katowice (Kattowitz), Upper Silesia, during one of the Silesian uprisings, 1919�21.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The drawing of the southern border under the Treaty of Saint-Germain (September 1919) was preceded by an armed Czech-Polish clash in January 1919 in the Cieszyn" class="md-crosslink">duchy of Cieszyn. In July 1920 the area was divided, leaving a sizable Polish minority in Czechoslovakia. As for the embattled eastern Galicia, the Allies authorized a Polish administration and military occupation in 1919. Final recognition of Polish sovereignty came only in 1923, the delay being due to the Russian situation.

An armed struggle between the Bolsheviks and Poland resulted from Russian attempts to carry the revolution westward and from Pi�sudski�s federalist policy. The Great Powers failed to pursue either an all-out intervention against the Bolsheviks or a policy of peace. An Allied proposal for a temporary border between Bolshevik Russia and Poland (called the Curzon Line) was unacceptable to either side. Except for an alliance in April 1920 with the Ukrainian leader Petlyura" class="md-crosslink">Symon Petlyura, whose troops accompanied the Poles as they captured Kiev in May, Poland fought in isolation. An offensive by the Red Army drove the Poles back to the outskirts of Warsaw, but Pi�sudski�s counterattack on August 16 (the �Miracle of the Vistula�) saved the country from catastrophe. In the compromise Peace of Riga (March 1921), the Bolsheviks abandoned their plans to communize Poland, but the Poles had to abandon their federalist concepts. The new border, which corresponded roughly to the 1793 frontier, cut across mixed Ukrainian and Belarusian territories. In the north it included Wilno, captured by General Lucjan �eligowski, a move that opened a chasm between Lithuania and Poland. The Second Republic

With an area of about 150,000 square miles (389,000 square km) and more than 27 million inhabitants (more than 35 million by 1939), interwar Poland was the sixth largest country in Europe. Devastated by the years of hostilities, the state had to be reconstructed of three parts with different political, economic, and judicial systems and traditions. More than three-fifths of the population was dependent on agriculture that was badly in need of structural change: agrarian reform and redistribution of land that would relieve the demographic pressure (e.g., hidden unemployment) and modernization of production that could alleviate the disparity between agrarian and industrial prices (�the price scissors�). Industrialization was essential, but local capital was insufficient, and foreign investors did not always operate in Poland�s interests.

Nonetheless, the Polish economy made important strides in the mid-1920s through the reforms of W�adys�aw Grabski. The Great Depression of the 1930s had a crippling effect on Poland�s economy, but it began to recover under the guidance of Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, whose earlier achievements included the building of a new port and town of Gdynia.

Pressing political problems, such as the issue of minorities, exacerbated economic difficulties. Ukrainians (some 16 percent of the total population, according to estimates), Jews (about 10 percent), Belarusians (about 6 percent), and Germans (about 3 percent) lived in a state that, although multiethnic, was based on a single-nation ideology. The Ukrainians never fully accepted Polish rule, and Ukrainian extremists engaged in terrorism to which the Poles responded with brutal �pacifications.� In the case of the large and unassimilated Jewish population, concentrated in certain areas and professions, anti-Semitism was rampant, especially in the 1930s, though Poland never introduced anti-Jewish legislation.

Interwar politics centred to a large extent on the search for a constitutional model that would reconcile traditional Polish strivings for liberty with the need for a strong government. Pi�sudski gave up his provisional powers to a Sejm elected in January 1919 but continued as the head of state under a provisional �Little Constitution.� The Sejm quickly became an arena of interparty strife, with the right grouped around the National Democrats, the left grouped around the PPS and radical Populists, and the centre represented mainly by the Polish Peasant Party. The illegal Communist Party, formed in 1918, was of marginal importance. The constitution of 1921 made the parliament supreme vis-à-vis the executive. The proportional system of universal suffrage (which included women) necessitated coalition cabinets, and, except at times of national crisis, the left and the right hardly cooperated. In 1922 a nationalist fanatic assassinated the first president of the republic, Gabriel Narutowicz, an event that underscored the extent of blind partisanship.

In May 1926 Pi�sudski (who had held the title of marshal since 1920) came out of his three-year retirement. Demanding moral and political cleansing (sanacja), he staged an armed demonstration intended to force President Stanis�aw Wojciechowski to dismiss the government. Fighting in Warsaw ensued and ended in victory for Pi�sudski. His candidate, Ignacy Mo�cicki, became president and remained in office until World War II. Pi�sudski rejected fascism and totalitarianism but promoted an authoritarian regime in which his former legionnaires played a key role. Worshiped by his supporters and hated by his opponents, he became a father figure for large segments of the population. The pro-Pi�sudski Non-Party Bloc of Cooperation with the Government (BBWR) became his political instrument, used at first against the opposition rightist National Democrats. In 1930 Pi�sudski responded to the challenge of the centre-left opposition (Centrolew) by ordering the arrest and trial of its leaders, including three-time premier Witos. The brutal Brze�� affair (named for the fortress in which the politicians involved were imprisoned) was seen as a blot on the Pi�sudski regime, even though the sentences were light and some of the accused were permitted to emigrate.

Following the 1930 elections, the BBWR had a majority in the Sejm. In April 1935 it was able to push through a new constitution, which placed the president above all other branches of government. An electoral law undercut the political parties that boycotted the 1935 parliamentary elections. In May Pi�sudski died, leaving the country as a dictatorship without a dictator. His legend could not be bequeathed. A decomposition of the sanacja regime ensued. Attempts to pass on Pi�sudski�s mantle to the new commander in chief, Marshal Edward �mig�y-Rydz, were unsuccessful, as was the artificial creation of a governmental party�the Camp of National Unity. The peasant parties (now united); the increasingly chauvinist National Party (as the National Democrats were by then known), with its fascist splinter party, the National Radical C& and the socialists all opposed the regime and achieved success in municipal elections. Socioeconomic tension was translated into peasant strikes in the countryside and riots in towns.

Political and socioeconomic difficulties contrasted with the richness of intellectual, artistic, and scholarly life of the period. Twenty years of independence had given the Poles a new confidence that proved essential in the trials of World War II. Poland�s international position between an inimical and revisionist Germany (which constantly denounced the corridor�" class="md-crosslink">�corridor� separating it from East Prussia) and the Soviet Union was dangerous from the start. The tasks of Polish diplomacy during the interwar period were exceedingly difficult. The only option was to remain neutral in regard to its two giant neighbours while concluding alliances (in 1921) with France and Romania. An alliance with Czechoslovakia, which might have strengthened both countries, foundered on basic differences of approach to international relations, particularly when Colonel J�zef Beck became Pi�sudski�s foreign minister in 1932.

In 1932 Poland succeeded in signing a nonaggression pact with Soviet Russia, and in 1934 it made a declaration of nonaggression with Nazi Germany. The enmity of the Nazis for the Soviets seemed to preclude a rapprochement (such as the Russo-German agreement at Rapallo, Italy, in 1922). Poland maintained its alliance with France, though the treaties of Locarno (1925) and subsequent Franco-German cooperation diminished the value of the alliance. Warsaw vainly sought to encourage Paris�through defiant gestures in Danzig and vague war-prevention overtures�to adopt a strong line against Nazi Germany. But the French did not react forcibly even to the German remilitarization of the Rhineland (1936).

Poland continued its policy of balance, but, in profiting from the German action against Czechoslovakia by gaining the disputed part of Cieszyn (October 1938), it gave the impression of being in collusion with Adolf Hitler. However, when confronted with German demands for an extraterritorial road through the �corridor� and the annexation of Danzig, as well as with an invitation to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, Beck knew that his country�s independence was at stake. Accepting British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain�s guarantee of March 1939 and turning it into a full-fledged alliance with Britain, Warsaw rejected German demands. On September 1, 1939, Hitler, having secured Soviet cooperation through the German-Soviet (Molotov-Ribbentrop) Nonaggression Pact a week earlier, launched an all-out attack against Poland.

World War IIGermany invading Poland, September 1, 1939.Photos.com/ThinkstockWorld War II

The Poles, fighting alone against the Wehrmacht�s overwhelming might, particularly in air power and armour, were doomed. On September 17, 1939, the Red Army invaded Poland from the east, and on September 28 Hitler and Joseph Stalin agreed on a final partition, the Soviets taking eastern Galicia and lands east of the Bug River (i.e., more than half of the country, where the Poles constituted about two-fifths of the population). After farcical plebiscites in October and November, these territories were incorporated into Soviet Ukraine and Belorussia. Between 1940 and 1941 about 1.5 million people were deported to the U.S.S.R. Wilno was handed over to Lithuania, which by 1940 had become one of the Soviet republics. While the Soviets singled out class enemies, the Germans�who split the area they occupied into a central region called the General Government and territories annexed to the Reich�emphasized race.

The Holocaust claimed the lives of some three million Polish Jews, herded into ghettoes and killed in extermination camps, of which Auschwitz (O�wi�cim) was but one. Thousands of Jews died fighting, as in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. The Nazis also engaged in mass terror, deporting and executing non-Jewish Poles in an attempt to destroy the intelligentsia and extinguish Polish culture. Priests and politicians were killed; children of prominent citizens were kidnapped; and many Poles were forced into hard labour.

A group of Hungarian Jews arriving at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in German-occupied Poland.Yad Vashem Photo Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives

From 1939 a Polish underground, one of the largest in occupied Europe, resisted the Nazis through a veritable secret state and a Home Army (AK) loyal to the Polish government-in-exile. The latter was a legal successor of the government that on September 17, 1939, had crossed into Romania and was interned there. Set up in Paris and moved to London after the collapse of France, it was led by the premier and commander in chief, General W�adys�aw Sikorski. Under his command Polish troops, organized in the west, fought in all theatres of war in Europe and North Africa. Polish pilots played a disproportionately large role in the Battle of Britain (1940�41), and the small Polish navy also distinguished itself. A major Polish contribution to the war effort lay in discovering and passing on to the Allies the secret of the German ciphering machine Enigma.

W�adys�aw Sikorski, 1942.Courtesy of the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, London

The German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 changed Poland�s position drastically, for one of its foes now became a member of the Grand Alliance. Under British pressure the Polish government-in-exile reestablished relations with the Soviet Union through the Sikorski-Maysky accord, accepting the annulment of the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty without an explicit Soviet renunciation of annexed Polish territory. The Soviets promised to release the deported Poles�more than 230,000 Poles had been prisoners of war since 1939�and agreed to the creation of a Polish army under the command of General W�adys�aw Anders. Difficulties appeared almost from the start, however. The Soviets sought British and U.S. approval for their territorial gains. Friction developed regarding the Polish army in Russia, which in 1942 was evacuated to the Middle East. Meanwhile, the Soviets were promoting Polish communist activity both in the U.S.S.R. and in occupied Poland, where a Polish Workers� Party (PPR) emerged in 1942 with its own small People�s Guard, though this force was much smaller than the AK.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, not appreciating fully Stalin�s hegemonic designs, believed that timely territorial concessions to the U.S.S.R. would preserve the internal independence of postwar Poland. During three visits to Washington, D.C. (1941�42), Sikorski outlined his ideas about postwar security in east-central Europe, including a Czechoslovak-Polish confederation; however, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt regarded Polish issues as secondary. For him, as for Churchill, the importance of the Soviet Union as an ally was crucial, and neither leader was prepared to see relations with Stalin founder on the Polish rock.

This became apparent when they were undeterred by the German announcement on April 13, 1943, of the discovery in the Katyn Forest of mass graves of more than 4,000 Polish officers who had been captured by the Red Army. The Polish search for some 15,000 missing men had previously met with a Soviet profession of complete ignorance as to their fate. Stalin accused the Sikorski government�which had asked the International Red Cross to investigate�of complicity in Nazi propaganda and severed diplomatic relations with the government-in-exile. Only in 1992 did postcommunist Moscow publicly acknowledge its guilt and furnish to Warsaw supporting documents, which also indicated the locations of other mass executions.

Sikorski�s death in a mysterious plane crash in Gibraltar (July 1943) was a great blow to the Poles at a time when Soviet offensives after the victories of Stalingrad and Kursk had brought the Red Army closer to the prewar Polish borders. The new prime minister and Peasant Party leader, Stanis�aw Miko�ajczyk, could not rival Sikorski�s standing and was at odds with the new commander in chief, General Kazimierz Sosnkowski. The Soviets demanded, as the price for reestablishing relations with the Polish government, territorial concessions and the dismissal of several of its members. The Soviets also provided support for Polish communist organizations such as the Union of Polish Patriots in Moscow and the National Committee of the Homeland, headed by Boles�aw Bierut and set up in Poland in December 1943. At the Tehrān Conference late in 1943, Churchill�s proposal that the Soviet-Polish border coincide with the Curzon Line (roughly similar to the Ribbentrop-Molotov line) and that Poland be compensated at Germany�s cost was accepted by Roosevelt and Stalin. The Miko�ajczyk government, which was opposed to such a territorial deal, was not informed.

Roosevelt suggested to Miko�ajczyk, visiting Washington, D.C., in June 1944, that the AK show its goodwill by cooperating with the Red Army. Such cooperation, however, when attempted in areas that had been part of prewar eastern Poland, was followed by arrests and deportation or conscription into the Soviet-sponsored Polish Ko�ciuszko Division commanded by General Zygmunt Berling. On August 1, 1944, just as Miko�ajczyk, prompted by the British, went to Moscow, the AK, under the supreme command of General Tadeusz B�r-Komorowski, rose in Warsaw against the retreating Germans.

The Warsaw Uprising constitutes one of the most tragic and controversial events of the war. The AK planned to capture the capital and act on behalf of Miko�ajczyk�s government as host to the entering Red Army. It was assumed that the Soviets would not dare to disregard this demonstration of the Polish right to self-determination. In the absence of Soviet military assistance, the rising was doomed, yet, had the AK not risen, it would have been accused of inactivity by the communists. The insurgents fought alone for 63 days, because the Soviets not only halted their own offensive but also refused to allow Allied planes to help resupply the AK. When Warsaw capitulated, the city had been almost totally destroyed, and 200,000 civilians and more than 10,000 combatants had perished.

Stalin had no interest in assisting the Polish underground and did not hesitate to defy world public opinion when, in March 1945, he had 16 leaders of the underground arrested and tried in Moscow. Their elimination was linked to the process of building a communist-dominated Polish state. In July 1944 a Polish Committee of National Liberation was set up in Moscow (�officially� in Che�m), issued its Lublin Manifesto (July 22), and signed a secret territorial accord with the U.S.S.R. Miko�ajczyk, caught between British pressure and the resistance of his government, resigned in November 1944.

Ignoring the socialist Tomasz Arciszewski, who succeeded Miko�ajczyk as premier, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed with Stalin at the Yalta Conference (February 1945) to create a Provisional Polish Government of National Unity. Its core was the Lublin Polish Committee of National Liberation (already recognized by Stalin as the government), to which some politicians from Poland and abroad were added. Britain and the United States recognized that government on July 5, 1945, simultaneously withdrawing recognition from the government in London. A large Polish political emigration emerged as a voice of a free Poland and remained active during the next 40 years.

(From left) Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference, 1945.ITAR�TASS/SovfotoCommunist Poland

The postwar Polish republic, renamed in 1952 the Polish People�s Republic, occupied an area some 20 percent smaller than prewar Poland, and its population of almost 30 million rose to nearly 39 million in the following four decades. The Holocaust, together with the expulsion of several million Germans and population transfers with the U.S.S.R., left Poland virtually homogeneous in its ethnic composition. The expulsion of the Germans was approved by the Potsdam Conference, but the final decision regarding the new German-Polish border along the Oder-Neisse Line was left to a future peace conference. The U.S.S.R. cleverly capitalized on its status as the sole guarantor of this border, which gave Poland a long seacoast, with such harbours as Szczecin and Gda�sk, and such natural resources as coal and zinc in Silesia.

Poland, 1945Poland's territory following World War II.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Despite the potential for wealth established by the redrawn borders, the fact remained that the war had devastated Poland. Warsaw, Wroc�aw, and Gda�sk lay in ruins, and social conditions bordered on chaos. Huge migrations, mainly to the ex-German �western territories,� added to the instability. Fighting against the remnants of the Ukrainian Liberation Army was followed by the mass relocation of the Ukrainians (Operation Vistula) in 1947. Persecutions of the AK and political opponents (the National Party was outlawed) by the communists led to armed clashes that continued for several years. It was under these conditions that a Jewish pogrom occurred in Kielce in June 1946, claiming more than 40 lives.

Bierut, who was formally nonpartisan but in fact was an old communist, assumed the presidency. In a cabinet headed by a socialist and dominated by communists and fellow travelers, Miko�ajczyk became deputy prime minister. He successfully re-created a genuine Polish Peasant Party (PSL; Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, later also called the Polish People�s Party), which was larger than the PPR and its socialist and democratic satellite parties (the PPS and the SD, respectively). Supported by all enemies of communism, Miko�ajczyk sought to challenge the PPR in the �free and unfettered� elections stipulated by the Yalta accords. His opponents included the ruthless secretary-general of the PPR, W�adys�aw Gomu�ka, a �home communist,� and the men in charge of security (Jakub Berman) and of the economy (Hilary Minc), who had returned from Russia.

The Sovietization of Poland, accompanied by terror, included the nationalization of industry and the expropriation of privately owned land parcels larger than 125 acres (50 hectares). Yet in some areas (namely, matters concerning the church and foreign policy), the communists trod lightly during this transition period. The test of strength between Miko�ajczyk and the PPR first occurred during the referendum of 1946�the results of which, favourable to Miko�ajczyk, were falsified�and then in the general elections of 1947, which were hardly �free and unfettered.� Miko�ajczyk, fearing for his life, fled the country. The victorious communists completed their monopoly of power in 1948 by absorbing the increasingly dependent PPS to become the Polish United Workers� Party (PUWP).

Over the next few years the Bierut regime in Poland closely followed the Stalinist model in politics (adopting the Soviet-style 1952 constitution), economics (emphasizing heavy industry and collectivization of agriculture), military affairs (appointing the Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky as commander of Polish forces and adhering to the Warsaw Pact of 1955), foreign policy (joining the Communist Information Bureau, the agency of international communism), culture, and the rule of the secret police. Political terror in Poland, however, did not include, as elsewhere, show trials of fallen party leaders�Gomu�ka, denounced as a �Titoist� and imprisoned in 1951, was spared such a trial. Moreover, the primate of Poland, Stefan Wyszy�ski, could still negotiate a modus vivendi in 1950, though, as the pressure on the church increased, he was arrested in September 1953 (by which time he had been named a cardinal).

Stefan Wyszy�ski.UPI�Bettmann/Corbis

The death of Stalin in March 1953 opened a period of struggle for succession and change in the U.S.S.R. that had repercussions throughout the Soviet bloc. The interlude of liberalization that followed culminated in the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev�s denunciation of Stalinism at the 20th Party Congress in February 1956. With the sudden death of Bierut, anti-Stalinists in Poland raised their heads; a violently suppressed workers� strike in Pozna� in June 1956 shook the whole country. Gomu�ka, who believed in a �Polish road to socialism,� became a candidate for the leadership of the party. What appeared as his confrontation with Khrushchev and other top Soviet leaders who descended on Warsaw in October and threatened intervention made Gomu�ka popular throughout Poland. In reality the Polish leader convinced Khrushchev of his devotion to communism and of the need for a reformist approach to strengthen its doctrine.

Important changes followed, among them Polish-Soviet accords on trade and military cooperation (Rokossovsky and most Soviet officers left the country), a significant reduction of political terror, an end to forced collectivization, the release of Cardinal Wyszy�ski (followed by some concessions in the religious sphere), and increased contacts with the West, including freer travel. Gomu�ka�s objective, however, was to bridge the gap between the people and the party, thereby legitimizing the latter. Hence, the period of reform known as �Polish October� did not prove to be the beginning of an evolution of communism that revisionists at home and politically motivated �migr�s had hoped for.

Within a decade economic reform slowed down, the activity of the church was circumscribed, and intellectuals were subjected to pressures. Demonstrations by students in favour of intellectual freedom led to reprisals in March 1968 that brought to an end the so-called �little stabilization� that Gomu�ka had succeeded in achieving. Ever more autocratic in his behaviour, Gomu�ka became involved in an �anti-Zionist� campaign that resulted in purges within the party, administration, and army. Thousands of people of Jewish origin emigrated.

Also in 1968, Polish troops joined the Soviet-led intervention in Czechoslovakia. In 1970 Gomu�ka registered a foreign-policy success by signing a treaty with West Germany that involved a recognition of the Oder-Neisse border. In December 1970, however, major strikes in the shipyards at Gda�sk, Gdynia, and Szczecin, provoked by price increases, led to bloody clashes with police and troops in which many were killed. Gomu�ka had to step down and was replaced as first secretary by the more pragmatic head of the party in Silesia, Edward Gierek.

The Gierek decade (1970�80) began with ambitious attempts to modernize the country�s economy and raise living standards. Exploiting East-West d�tente, he attracted large foreign loans and investments. Initial successes, however, turned sour as the world oil crisis and mismanagement of the economy produced huge budget deficits, which Gierek tried to cover through increased borrowing. The policy of consumerism failed to strengthen the system, and new price increases in 1976 led to workers� riots in Ursus and Radom, which once again were brutally suppressed.

A Workers� Defense Committee (KOR) arose and sought to bridge the gap between the intelligentsia, which had been isolated in 1968, and the workers, who had received no support in 1970. The names of such dissidents as Jacek Kuro� and Adam Michnik became internationally known. Other committees appeared that claimed the legality of their activity and protested reprisals as being contrary to the 1975 Helsinki Accords. The PUWP responded with measures of selective intimidation.

In 1978 the election of Karol Cardinal Wojty�a, the archbishop of Krak�w, as John Paul II" class="md-crosslink">Pope John Paul II gave the Poles a father figure and a new inspiration. The coalition of workers and intellectuals, operating largely under the protective umbrella of the church, was in fact building a civil society. The pope�s visit to Poland in 1979 endowed that society with national, patriotic, and ethical dimensions. A strike at the Gda�sk shipyard led by a charismatic electrician, Lech Wa��sa, forced an accord with the government on August 31, 1980. Out of the strike emerged the almost 10-million-strong Independent Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarity (Solidarno��), which the government was forced to recognize. Here was an unprecedented working-class revolution directed against a �socialist� state, an example to other peoples of the Soviet bloc.

John Paul II, 1979.Lochon-Francolon-Simon/Gamma Liaison

A huge movement that sought not to govern but rather to ensure freedom through a �self-limiting revolution,� Solidarity could not have been homogeneous. The opponents of communism ranged from those who opposed the system as contrary to liberty and democracy to those who saw it as inimical to national and Christian values and to those who felt that it had not lived up to its socioeconomic promises. These three attitudes all resurfaced after the fall of communism and explain a good deal about the developments in Poland of the 1990s.

Gierek did not politically survive the birth of Solidarity, and he was replaced by Stanis�aw Kania, who was followed by General Wojciech Jaruzelski. By the autumn of 1981, Jaruzelski held the offices of premier, first secretary of the party, and commander in chief. His decision to attempt to break Solidarity through the introduction of martial law in December 1981 may well have stemmed from a conviction that the constant tug of war between Solidarity and the government was leading the country toward anarchy, which had to be ended by Polish or by Soviet hands. It is likely that he could not conceive of any Poland except a communist one.

Martial law effectively broke Solidarity by paralyzing the country and imprisoning virtually all of the movement�s leadership, Wa��sa included. It did not, however, destroy the movement. After the lifting of martial law in 1983, the government, despite its best attempts, could not establish its legitimacy. Severe economic problems worsened the political deadlock. In 1984 a popular priest, Jerzy Popieluszko, was murdered by the secret police, but, for the first time in such a case, state agents were arrested and charged with the crime.

In 1985 when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power as the leader of the Soviet Union, his policies of reform (glasnost and perestroika) started a process that eventually led to the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. The Jaruzelski regime realized that broad reforms were unavoidable and that a revived Solidarity had to be part of them. The roundtable negotiations under the auspices of the church�J�zef Cardinal Glemp succeeded Wyszy�ski as primate�resulted in a �negotiated revolution.� Solidarity was restored and participated in partly free elections in June 1989 that brought it a sweeping victory. Piotr S. Wandycz Transitioning from communism

Detaching the satellite (populist and democratic) parties from the PUWP, Wa��sa negotiated a compromise by virtue of which Jaruzelski was elected president, while Wa��sa�s adviser, the noted Catholic politician Tadeusz Mazowiecki, became premier. This was the first government led by a noncommunist since World War II. The tasks it faced were immense. In 1990 the government adopted a �shock therapy� program of economic reform, named the Balcerowicz Plan after its author, Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz. It was meant to arrest Poland�s financial and structural crisis and rapidly convert the communist economic model into a free-market system, thereby reintegrating Poland into the global economy. Although it proved a success, the social cost was high. The difficulties of redirecting trade previously linked to the Soviet bloc were great. The new government achieved, however, two major successes: a formal recognition of the Oder-Neisse border by the reunited Germany and, after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, the evacuation of Soviet troops from the country in 1992.

Poland�s reentry into western Europe, from which it had been forcibly separated since the end of World War II, was a slow process. Nonetheless, by 1996 the country had become a member of the Council of Europe, established economic ties with the European Union (EU), and been admitted to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In 1999 Poland became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization despite Russian opposition. Russia�s unsettled political situation during the 1990s cast a shadow on Polish foreign policy and complicated its options. Nevertheless, Poland signed accords with Ukraine and Lithuania and established limited regional cooperation with the formation of the Visegrad Group, whose other members were the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary.

By the mid-1990s the Polish economy�more than half of which had been privatized�was making important strides, including significant reductions in the annual inflation rate and the budget deficit. Moreover, the annual growth rate of Poland�s gross national product was the highest in Europe. But progress was uneven geographically, and economic sectors such as the coal-mining and building industries experienced slumps. The gap between the rich and the poor grew, adding to the bitterness and frustration reflected in a political life that was far less stable than expected.

The disintegration of Solidarity, accelerated by political and personality clashes, became apparent in the 1990 election, in which Wa��sa defeated Mazowiecki for the presidency. Voters expressed their dissatisfaction by supporting the dark-horse candidate Stanis�aw Tyminski, a Polish �migr� businessman from Canada who finished second in the balloting. The succession of cabinets in the early 1990s included one government headed by Jan Olszewski, which fell as a result of a clumsy attempt to produce a list of former high-ranking communist collaborators, and another led by Poland�s first woman prime minister, Hanna Suchocka, which was unexpectedly defeated by a somewhat frivolous no-confidence vote. The centrist Freedom Union (UW), which bore the brunt of the transition to democracy, failed to communicate its vision to the masses and remained largely a party of the intelligentsia. The rightists, split into several groups, accused Wa��sa and the roundtable negotiators of selling out to communists.

Meanwhile, the communists were able to profit financially from the collapse of the economy and reorganized as the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland (SdRP). Indeed, the SdRP exploited the increased frustration over the inequalities of a capitalist economy and the political infighting of the Solidarity camp. In 1991 the SdRP formed a coalition with the All Poland Trade Unions Alliance (OPZZ) under the banner of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). Well-organized and disciplined, the coalition, along with the Polish Peasant Party (PSL), captured the most seats in the 1993 legislative election, and the two formed a coalition government. In November 1995 the SLD captured the presidency when Wa��sa was defeated by the young, dynamic former communist Aleksander Kwa�niewski, whose campaign asked voters to look to the future rather than to the past. His election may have been symptomatic of a generational change that was also visible in the attitude toward the church, whose high prestige suffered as its efforts to influence politics and to be a national rallying point in the increasingly secularized postcommunist society occasionally backfired.

After the 1993 legislative election, the SLD-PSL coalition governments�under the premiership of Waldemar Pawlak (PSL, 1993�95), J�zef Oleksy (SLD, 1995�96), and W�odzimierz Cimoszewicz (SLD, 1996�97)�continued, albeit cautiously, the pro-market policies of their predecessors. They failed, however, to reform the obsolete structures of the welfare state that had been inherited from the communist regime and were inadequate in the context of a market economy. The constitution of 1997

The parliament elected in 1993 concluded its term by passing the new constitution in April 1997. The constitution�s content reflected the compromise between the ruling leftist coalition and the centrist UW, while addressing several concerns raised by the church. However, the extraparliamentary right, since 1996 united in a loose coalition known as the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS), challenged the draft submitted by the National Assembly and called for its rejection in a national referendum. In May 1997 the referendum approved the draft by a slim margin. The constitution came into force in October 1997.

The narrow defeat in the referendum showdown invigorated the AWS. In the September 27, 1997, legislative elections, it triumphed and formed a ruling coalition with the UW. The new government of Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek of the AWS included, among others, the leader of the UW and the architect of the shock therapy reforms, Leszek Balcerowicz, as the deputy prime minister and minister of finance. Continuing the economic policies of its predecessors since 1989, the government focused on further privatization of industries and services. It also launched a series of major reforms aimed at overhauling the state administration and welfare services.

The reform of the state structure, effective January 1, 1999, introduced a three-tier system of administration and local self-government. The health care, pension, and education systems also began undergoing reform in 1999. The policies of the government were frequently met with considerable popular opposition, as they antagonized some formerly privileged groups. Changes to agricultural policy were among the most contentious. Designed to facilitate Poland�s accession to the EU, the reforms were seen by some as jeopardizing the antiquated system of farming prevalent in many regions of Poland. Poland in the 21st century

Aleksander Kwa�niewski was reelected in 2000, while Wa��sa, capturing only 1 percent of the vote as the fourth most popular candidate, announced his retirement from politics. In the 2001 parliamentary elections, a coalition of candidates from the SLD and the Union of Labour (Unia Pracy; UP) were the majority winners, with Leszek Miller of the SLD becoming prime minister. In the next set of elections, the SLD fell to the centre-right party Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwo��; PiS), with its founders, identical twins Lech and Jaros�aw Kaczy�ski, attaining the posts of president (2005) and prime minister (2006), respectively. In 2007 the PiS abandoned its coalition partners�the scandal-plagued Self-Defense Party and the League of Polish Families�and called for an early parliamentary election. In a stunning result, the PiS was defeated by the centre-right Civic Platform party, which under the premiership of Donald Tusk formed a coalition government with the PSL.

Whether the relatively frequent changes of government would lead ultimately to the emergence of a real and responsible left, centre, and right and whether the new constitution would provide a mechanism for a smoothly functioning democracy depended in no small degree on the growing sophistication and experience of the electorate. In a nationwide referendum in 2003, the Polish electorate approved EU membership for their country, which came into force in 2004, a testimony to its successful postcommunist transition. Piotr S. Wandycz Krzysztof Jasiewicz

Although a plan to deploy a major new missile defense system in Poland was scrapped by the United States in 2009, Poland�s willingness to accept the system was a thorn in the side of Russia, as was Pres. Lech Kaczy�ski�s aggressive support for extending NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine. On the other hand, decades of strained relations between Poland and Russia over the Katyn Massacre, in which thousands of Polish officers were killed by Soviet troops during World War II, turned a corner on April 7, 2010, when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became the first Russian leader to participate in commemoration ceremonies at the massacre site. Three days later, on April 10, en route to another memorial ceremony, a plane carrying Kaczy�ski crashed near Smolensk, near the Katyn site, killing the president, his wife, the army chief of staff, the head of the national security bureau, the president of the national bank, and a number of Polish government officials and evoking widespread mourning in Poland. In June in the special election to replace Lech Kaczy�ski, interim president Bronis�aw Komorowski of the Civic Platform party edged out Jaros�aw Kaczy�ski at the head of a 10-candidate field, though neither polled the 50 percent necessary to prevent a runoff election between them. In that contest, held in July, Komorowski won the presidency with 53 percent of the vote.

Poland weathered the global economic downturn that began in 2008 better than most of its EU partners, and the Polish electorate returned the Civic Platform party to power in the 2011 parliamentary elections, making Tusk the first prime minister since the end of communism to serve a second consecutive term. Civic Platform captured about two-fifths of the seats in the Sejm and was poised to continue coalition rule with its junior partner, the PSL.

Much of the political debate in Poland in 2012 centred on Tusk�s plan to reform the pension system, which�after much wrangling between Civic Platform and its junior coalition partner, the Peasant Party�was enacted by the Sejm, raising the retirement age to 67. Numerous scandals contributed to an overall decline in popular support for the Civic Platform and the coalition government. In March 2013 the government survived Kaczy�ski�s attempt to bring it down with the aid of an iPad message. During debate on what became a failed no-confidence vote, the PiS leader employed the device to play a prerecorded speech by potential prime minister Piotr Glinski, who could not address the Sejm in person because he was not a member. In August Tusk faced a challenge for the party leadership head-on by calling early elections, in which he defeated former minister of justice Jaros�aw Gowin. A year later the leaders of the European Union voted unanimously to select Tusk to succeed Herman Van Rompuy as the president of European Council. With his term at the head of the European Council set to begin in December, Tusk resigned as prime minister in September and was replaced by Ewa Kopacz, the speaker of the lower house of the Sejm.

Komorowski ran for reelection on May 10, 2015, and finished a close second (with nearly 34 percent of the vote) to the PiS candidate, Andrzej Duda (almost 35 percent). Because neither of the front-runners managed to capture the 50 percent plus necessary for a first-round win�largely as a result of the surprising show of independent candidate Pawe� Kukiz, a rock star and actor who garnered some 21 percent of the vote�a runoff election between Komorowski and Duda was required. In the second round of voting, on May 24, Duda outpolled Komorowski (51.55 percent to 48.45 percent) to win the presidency.

Duda�s successful campaign was deftly managed by the theretofore mostly unknown Beata Szyd�o, who was rewarded for her efforts by being named the PiS candidate for prime minister in the October national parliamentary elections. Seemingly capitalizing on the frustration of many Poles who felt that they had not n shared in their country�s economic prosperity during eight years of rule by the Civic Platform, the PiS roared to a dominant victory, capturing nearly 38 percent of the vote, while Civic Platform finished second with about 24 percent. Szyd�o was positioned to become prime minister, but Kaczy�ski remained the driving force of the party, which took a Euroskeptic stance but embraced NATO and advocated social conservatism while forwarding a largely left-leaning economic policy.

The PiS government banged heads with the EU midway through 2016 after the government refused to accept a constitutional court ruling that had rejected the government�s proposal to limit the powers of that court. EU officials accused the PiS government of having disregarded the rule of law. Likewise, the government came in for criticism from domestic and foreign observers for having expanded its control of the media and for allegedly silencing voices of opposition. Arguably the most controversial aspect of the PiS effort to impose conservative, Roman Catholic, family-oriented values on Polish society was the introduction of legislation aimed at severely restricting the country�s already rigid abortion laws. In early October the Sejm overwhelmingly (352�58) voted down legislation that would have limited legal abortion to cases in which the mother�s life was threatened. Tens of thousands of Poles�mostly women dressed in black�had taken to the streets across the country earlier in the month to protest the legislation.

In July 2017 Poles once again took to the streets en masse around the country for a number of days when the PiS pushed through three bills aimed at judicial reform that was characterized by the opposition as a threat to democracy, judicial independence, and the rule of law in Poland. Responding to the public outcry as well as to the threat of sanctions from the European Union, President Duda defied Kaczy�ski and vetoed two of the bills: the bill that would have forced all the sitting judges on the Supreme Court to step down and would have given the minister of justice the power to replace them; and the bill that would have dissolved the National Council of the Judiciary, the body that nominates judges, and would have given parliament the power to determine the makeup of its successor. Duda announced that he would not veto the third bill, which gave the minister of justice the power to appoint the heads of local courts.

In early December 2017, the Sejm passed revised versions of the first two bills that had been framed by Duda. The new legislation reduced the retirement age for high court judges to 65, resulting in immediate forced retirement for some 40 percent of the Supreme Court. Also in December, Kaczy�ski engineered a dramatic reshuffle of the cabinet in which Mateusz Morawiecki, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, replaced Szyd�o as prime minister. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica