When was the Polish People’s Republic established?
Polish People's Republic
The Polish People's Republic (, ) was a state in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989, and the predecessor of the modern democratic Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million inhabitants near the end of its existence, it was the most populous state of the Eastern Bloc after the Soviet Union. Having a unitary Marxist–Leninist communist government, it was also one of the main signatories of the Warsaw Pact. The official capital since 1947 and largest city was Warsaw, followed by industrial Łódź and cultural Kraków.
Polish United Workers' Party
The former activists of the PUWP established the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland (in Polish: Socjaldemokracja Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, SdRP), of which the main organizers were Leszek Miller and Mieczysław Rakowski. The SdRP was supposed (among other things) to take over all rights and duties of the PUWP, and help to divide out the property of the former PUWP. Up to the end of the 1980s, it had considerable incomes mainly from managed properties and from the RSW company ‘Press- Book-Traffic’, which in turn had special tax concessions. During this period, the income from membership fees constituted only 30% of the PUWP's revenues. After the dissolution of the PUWP and the establishment of the SdRP, the rest of the activists formed the Social Democratic Union of the Republic of Poland (USdRP), which changed its name to the Polish Social Democratic Union, and The 8th July Movement.
Polish United Workers' Party
The Polish United Workers' Party was established at the unification congress of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) and Polish Socialist Party (PPS) during meetings held from 15 to 21 December 1948. The unification was possible because the PPS activists who opposed unification (or rather absorption into the Workers' Party) had been forced out of the party. Similarly, the members of the PPR who were accused of "rightist – nationalistic deviation" were expelled. Thus, for all intents and purposes, the PUWP was the PPR under a new name.
Territorial evolution of Poland
On July 17, 1919, a ceasefire was signed in the Polish–Ukrainian War with the West Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR). As part of the agreement Poland kept ZUNR territory. The West Ukrainian People's Republic then merged with the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). On June 25, 1919, Supreme Allies Council transferred East Galicia (ZUNR territory) to Poland.
Third Partition of Poland
The Third Partition of Poland ended the existence of an independent Polish state for the next 123 years. Immediately following the Third Partition, the occupying powers forced many Polish politicians, intellectuals, and revolutionaries to emigrate across Europe, in what was later known as the Great Emigration. These Polish nationalists participated in uprisings against Austria, Prussia, and Russia in former Polish lands, and many would serve France as part of Napoleon's armies. In addition, Polish poets and artists would make the desire for national freedom a defining characteristic of the Polish Romanticist movement. Poland briefly regained semi-autonomy in 1807 when Napoleon created the Duchy of Warsaw, but this effectively ended with the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The Congress created a Kingdom of Poland, sometimes called Congress Poland, as a Russian puppet state. Even this, however, came to an end after a Polish insurrection in 1831, at which point Russia dissolved the Congress Kingdom and exacted multiple punitive measures on the Polish populace. In 1867, Russia made Poland an official part of the Russian Empire, as opposed to a puppet state. Poland would not regain full independence until the end of World War I, when the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and the collapse of the Russian Empire allowed for the resurrection of Polish national sovereignty.
History of Poland (1945–1989)
In December 1989, changes to the Polish constitution were made, officially eliminating the "socialist" order: Marxist references were removed and the name of the country was changed back to the Polish Republic.
History of Poland
After Napoleon's defeat, a new European order was established at the Congress of Vienna, which met in the years 1814 and 1815. Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, a former close associate of Emperor Alexander I, became the leading advocate for the Polish national cause. The Congress implemented a new partition scheme, which took into account some of the gains realized by the Poles during the Napoleonic period. The Duchy of Warsaw was replaced in 1815 with a new Kingdom of Poland, unofficially known as Congress Poland. The residual Polish kingdom was joined to the Russian Empire in a personal union under the Russian tsar and it was allowed its own constitution and military. East of the kingdom, large areas of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth remained directly incorporated into the Russian Empire as the Western Krai. These territories, along with Congress Poland, are generally considered to form the Russian Partition. The Russian, Prussian, and Austrian "partitions" are informal names for the lands of the former Commonwealth, not actual units of administrative division of Polish–Lithuanian territories after partitions. The Prussian Partition included a portion separated as the Grand Duchy of Posen. Peasants under the Prussian administration were gradually enfranchised under the reforms of 1811 and 1823. The limited legal reforms in the Austrian Partition were overshadowed by its rural poverty. The Free City of Cracow was a tiny republic created by the Congress of Vienna under the joint supervision of the three partitioning powers. Despite the bleak from the standpoint of Polish patriots political situation, economic progress was made in the lands taken over by foreign powers because the period after the Congress of Vienna witnessed a significant development in the building of early industry.
Polish Party
The party had its origins in the national associations that were established during the 1848 revolution, but was formally established when the first Reichstag was elected in 1871. It won 13 seats in the elections, the lowest number of seats it held in the Reichstag until World War I. Its best performance was in the 1907 elections, when it won 20 seats.
History of Poland (1939–1945)
The State National Council (KRN), chaired by Bolesław Bierut, was established in Warsaw by the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) on January 1, 1944. The Armia Ludowa was its army. The Polish communist centers in Warsaw and in Moscow initially operated separately and had different visions of cooperation with the Soviet Union and regarding other issues. In the spring of 1944, the KRN sent a delegation to the Soviet Union, where it gained Stalin's recognition and the two branches began working together. In intense negotiations, the two Polish communist groups agreed to establish the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN), a sort of temporary government.
Constitution of Poland
The Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791 () is called "the first constitution of its kind in Europe" by historian Norman Davies. It was instituted by the Government Act (Polish: "Ustawa rządowa") adopted on that date by the Sejm (parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was designed to redress long-standing political defects of the federative Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its Golden Liberty. The Constitution introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility ("szlachta") and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, thus mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. The Constitution abolished pernicious parliamentary institutions such as the "liberum veto", which at one time had placed the sejm at the mercy of any deputy who might choose, or be bribed by an interest or foreign power, to undo all the legislation that had been passed by that sejm. The May 3rd Constitution sought to supplant the existing anarchy fostered by some of the country's reactionary "magnats", with a more egalitarian and democratic constitutional monarchy. 
The adoption of the May 3rd Constitution provoked the active hostility of the Polish Commonwealth's neighbors. In the War in Defense of the Constitution (1792), Poland was betrayed by its Prussian ally Frederick William II and defeated by the Imperial Russia of Catherine the Great, allied with the Targowica Confederation, a cabal of Polish magnates who opposed reforms that might weaken their influence. Despite the defeat, and the subsequent Second Partition of Poland, the May 3rd Constitution influenced later democratic movements in the world. Ultimately, Prussia, Austria and Russia partitioned Poland in 1795. It remained, after the demise of the Polish Republic in 1795, over the next 123 years of Polish partitions, a beacon in the struggle to restore Polish sovereignty. In the words of two of its co-authors, Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, it was "the last will and testament of the expiring Fatherland."The Second Polish Republic had three constitutions. They were, in historical order:
Colonization attempts by Poland
Poland regained independence in the aftermath of World War I. While colonization was never a major focus of the Second Polish Republic, certain organizations like the Maritime and Colonial League supported the idea of creating Polish colonies. The Maritime and Colonial League traces its origins to the "Polska Bandera" (Polish Banner) organization founded on 1 October 1918. The League supported purchases of lands by Polish emigrants in places like Brazil and Liberia. The League became highly influential in shaping the government's policies with regards to Polish Merchant Marine, despite its long and ongoing campaign (publications, exhibitions, speeches, lobbying, etc.) and public support, it has however never succeeded in following up with its plans to obtain a colonial territory for Poland. Furthermore, in 1926, "Colonial Society" ("Towarzystwo Kolonizacyjne") was founded in Warsaw. Its task was to direct Polish emigrants to South America, and the Society soon became active there, mostly in Brazilian state of Espirito Santo.
History of Poland (1795–1918)
At the outbreak of the First World War Poland's geographical position between Germany and Russia had meant much fighting and terrific human and material losses for the Poles between 1914 and 1918. At the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in spring 1918, revolutionary Russia renounced Russian claims to Poland. Following the German defeat and the replacement of Hohenzollern rule by the Weimar Republic and the collapse of Habsburg Austria-Hungary, Poland became an independent republic.
Medal of the 10th Anniversary of People's Poland
The Medal of the 10th Anniversary of People's Poland (Polish: "Medal 10-lecia Polski Ludowej") is a former Polish civil state award established by the Council of State on 23 May 1954 to recognize services to the state.
Polish–Soviet War
With the success of the Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919), Poland had re-established its statehood for the first time since the 1795 partition. Forming the Second Polish Republic, it proceeded to carve out its borders from the territories of its former partitioners. Many of these territories had long been the object of conflict between Russia and Poland.
Polish People's Republic
The Polish People's Republic was divided into several voivodeships (the Polish unit of administrative division). After World War II, the new administrative divisions were based on the pre-war ones. The areas in the East that were not annexed by the Soviet Union had their borders left almost unchanged. Newly acquired territories in the west and north were organised into the voivodeships of Szczecin, Wrocław, Olsztyn and partially joined to Gdańsk, Katowice and Poznań voivodeships. Two cities were granted voivodeship status: Warsaw and Łódź.
In 1950 new voivodeships were created: Koszalin - previously part of Szczecin, Opole - previously part of Katowice, and Zielona Góra - previously part of Poznań, Wrocław and Szczecin voivodeships. In addition, three other cities were granted the voivodeship status: Wrocław, Kraków and Poznań.
History of Poland
The Second Polish Republic, established in 1918, existed as an independent state until 1939, when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union destroyed it in their invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II. Millions of Polish citizens perished in the course of the Nazi occupation of Poland between 1939 and 1945 as Germany classified ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Jews and Romani (Gypsies) as subhuman. Nazi authorities targeted the last two groups for extermination in the short term, deferring the extermination and/or enslavement of the Slavs as part of the "Generalplan Ost" ('General Plan for the East') conceived by the Nazi régime. A Polish government-in-exile nonetheless functioned throughout the war and the Poles contributed to the Allied victory through participation in military campaigns on both the eastern and western fronts. The westward advances of the Soviet Red Army in 1944 and 1945 compelled Nazi Germany's forces to retreat from Poland, which led to the establishment of a communist satellite state of the Soviet Union, known from 1952 as the Polish People's Republic.
Polish Press Agency
Polska Agencja Prasowa S.A. was incorporated in 1918 as the Polish Telegraphic Agency (PTA). In 1944 following the Soviet entry into German-occupied Poland, the company was taken over by the Polish communists and set up under its current name as the local alternative to the still functioning Polish Telegraphic Agency loyal to the Polish government in exile from 1939 in Paris and London. During the reign of communism in Poland PAP was a government institution and the official communist mouthpiece. In 1990 after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism in Europe, the company was reformed and in 1991 the original PTA was finally merged into PAP to form the present day Agency.
History of Poland (1939–1945)
The so-called Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland was established at the end of 1944 in Lublin and was recognized by the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. It was headed by the socialist Osóbka-Morawski, but the communists held a majority of key posts. In April 1945, the provisional government signed a mutual friendship, alliance and cooperation pact with the Soviet Union.
Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland
On 15 October 1918 Daszyński and other Polish deputies to the Austrian parliament adopted a document in which they declared themselves to be Polish citizens, not Austrian. On 28 October the Polish Liquidation Committee was formed, led by Wincenty Witos first in Kraków, then in Lwów. On 6 November, Daszyński and his deputies proclaimed the formation of the Polish People's Republic led by interim government based in Lublin, with Daszyński as Prime Minister. On Sunday, 10 November at 7 a.m., Józef Piłsudski, newly freed from 16 months in a German prison in Magdeburg, returned by train to Warsaw. Piłsudski, together with Colonel Kazimierz Sosnkowski, was greeted at Warsaw's railway station by Regent Zdzisław Lubomirski and by Colonel Adam Koc. Next day, due to his popularity and support from most political parties, the Regency Council appointed Piłsudski as Commander in Chief of the Polish Armed Forces. On 14 November, the Council dissolved itself and transferred all its authority to Piłsudski as Chief of State ("Naczelnik Państwa"). After consultation with Piłsudski, Daszyński's government dissolved itself and a new government formed under Jędrzej Moraczewski. Italy became the first country in Europe to recognise Poland's renewed sovereignty.
Polish National Committee (1917–19)
Polish National Committee () was formed in Lausanne on 15 August 1917 by Polish National Democracy politician Roman Dmowski. Its goal was to support the Entente by creating a Polish Army (the Blue Army under Józef Haller), to fight alongside it in exchange of support for an independent Poland. In addition to Dmowski its chief activists included Ignacy Jan Paderewski, August Zaleski, Erazm Piltz, Marian Seyda and Maurycy Zamoyski. In September 1917, the Polish National Committee was recognized by the French as the legitimate representative of Poland. The British and the Americans were less enthusiastic about Dmowski's National Committee, but likewise recognized it as representing Polish interests in 1918. In January 1919 the Committee recognized the government of Ignacy Jan Paderewski and dissolved itself.
Second Polish Republic
After more than a century of Partitions between the Austrian, the Prussian, and the Russian imperial powers, Poland re-emerged as a sovereign state at the end of the First World War in Europe in 1917-1918. The victorious Allies of World War I confirmed the rebirth of Poland in the Treaty of Versailles of June 1919. It was one of the great stories of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Poland solidified its independence in a series of border wars fought by the newly formed Polish Army from 1918 to 1921. The extent of the eastern half of the interwar territory of Poland was settled diplomatically in 1922 and internationally recognized by the League of Nations.
Territorial evolution of Poland
The Poles are the most numerous of the West Slavs and occupy what some believe to be the original homeland of the Slavic peoples. While other groups migrated, the Polanie remained "in situ" along the Vistula, from the river's sources to its estuary at the Baltic Sea. There is no other European nation centred to such an extent on one river. The establishment of a Polish state is often identified with the adoption of Christianity by Mieszko I in 966 CE (see Baptism of Poland), when the state covered territory similar to that of present-day Poland. In 1025 CE, Poland became a kingdom. In 1569, Poland cemented a long association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin, forming the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of the largest and most populous countries in 16th- and 17th-century Europe.
Zdzisław Lubomirski
On November 5, 1916, the emperors of Germany and Austria-Hungary issued the so-called Act of 5th November, in which they promised an independent Polish state (see also Kingdom of Poland (1916–18)). A year later, on September 16, 1917, the Germans created a provisional government of Poland, the Regency Council, led by Prince Lubomirski, one of its three members along with Archbishop Aleksander Kakowski, and Józef Ostrowski. The Council had its first meeting at Warsaw's Royal Castle on October 27, 1917.
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, commonly known as interwar Poland, refers to the country of Poland in the period between the First and Second World Wars (1918–1939). Officially known as the Republic of Poland (), sometimes Commonwealth of Poland, the Polish state was re-established in 1918, in the aftermath of World War I. When, after several regional conflicts, the borders of the state were fixed in 1922, Poland's neighbours were Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Free City of Danzig, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania and the Soviet Union. It had access to the Baltic Sea via a short strip of coastline either side of the city of Gdynia. Between March and August 1939, Poland also shared a border with the then-Hungarian governorate of Subcarpathia. The Second Republic ceased to exist in 1939, when Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and the Slovak Republic, marking the beginning of European theatre of World War II.
Polish People's Republic
The 1947 election marked the beginning of undisguised Communist rule in Poland, though it was not officially transformed into the Polish People's Republic until the adoption of the 1952 Constitution. However, Gomułka never supported Stalin's control over the Polish Communists, and was soon replaced as party leader by the more pliable Bierut. In 1948, the Communists consolidated their power, merging with Cyrankiewicz' faction of the PPS to form the Polish United Workers' Party (known in Poland as 'the Party'), which would monopolise political power in Poland until 1989. In 1949, Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky became Polish Minister of National Defence, with the additional title Marshal of Poland, and in 1952 he became Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (deputy premier).
Over the coming years, private industry was nationalised, the land seized from the pre-war landowners and redistributed to the peasants, and millions of Poles were transferred from the lost eastern territories to the lands acquired from Germany. Poland was now to be brought into line with the Soviet model of a "people's democracy" and a centrally planned socialist economy. The government also embarked on the collectivisation of agriculture, although the pace was slower than in other satellites: Poland remained the only Soviet bloc country where individual peasants dominated agriculture.
Outline of Poland
The establishment of a Polish state is often identified with the adoption of Christianity by its ruler Mieszko I in 966 (see Baptism of Poland), when the state covered territory similar to that of present-day Poland. Poland became a kingdom in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a long association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by uniting to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth collapsed in 1795, and its territory was partitioned among Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Poland regained its independence in 1918 after World War I but lost it again in World War II, occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Poland lost over six million citizens in World War II, and emerged several years later as a socialist republic within the Eastern Bloc under strong Soviet influence. In 1989 communist rule was overthrown and Poland became what is constitutionally known as the "Third Polish Republic". Poland is a unitary state made up of sixteen voivodeships (). Poland is also a member of the European Union, NATO and OECD.Geography of Poland
History of Poland (1918–1939)
Reborn Poland faced a host of daunting challenges: extensive war damage, a ravaged economy, a population one-third composed of wary national minorities, an economy largely under control of German industrial interests, and a need to reintegrate the three zones that had been forcibly kept apart during the era of partition. Poland's formal political life began in 1921 with adoption of a constitution that designed Poland as a republic modeled after the French Third Republic, vesting most authority in the legislature, the Sejm. This was mainly to prevent Piłsudski from establishing himself as a dictator. A multitude of political parties emerged, of which there were four major and dozens of minor ones. All had very different ideologies and voter bases, and could scarcely agree on any major issue. There had been no serious consideration of re-establishing a monarchy, and although the great Polish noble families continued to have their names mentioned in newspapers, it was mostly in the society pages. The chief parties were the left-wing Polish Peasant Party (PSL) and on the right National Democracy party (ND) led by Dmowski.
The new, inexperienced government faced serious problems; already there was rampant corruption among government officials; a dizzying turnover of cabinets caused confusion and distrust. At a deeper level there was profound disagreement about inclusiveness in the new state. Roman Dmowski envisioned an ethnically-homogeneous Polish nation, and a pro-Western, anti-German path to modernization; he also espoused strong anti-Semitic attitudes, and emphasized that Poland should be a Catholic and hierarchical state. Piłsudski, however, rooted his ideal in notions about the multi-ethnic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In practice that meant ignoring the minority vote at home and seeking agreements with nearby countries. Universal suffrage gave the minorities a voice, especially when they formed a coalition, the Bloc of National Minorities (BMN) led by the Jews and including the others who together comprised a third of the population and 20% of the vote. However the districts were gerrymandered to minimize minority representation. The BMN helped elect Gabriel Narutowicz as president on the PSL ticket in 1922, but he came under nasty attacks from the right and was assassinated after five days in office. The BMN coalition declined in significance and shut down in 1930 as the different groups cut their own deals with the government on isolated issues.
History of Poland
The Polish people's referendum of June 1946 was arranged by the communist Polish Workers' Party to legitimize its dominance in Polish politics and claim widespread support for the party's policies. Although the Yalta agreement called for free elections, the Polish legislative election of January 1947 was controlled by the communists. Some democratic and pro-Western elements, led by Stanisław Mikołajczyk, former prime minister-in-exile, participated in the Provisional Government and the 1947 elections, but were ultimately eliminated through electoral fraud, intimidation and violence. In times of severe political confrontation and radical economic change, members of Mikołajczyk's agrarian movement (the Polish People's Party) attempted to preserve the existing aspects of mixed economy and protect property and other rights. However, after the 1947 elections, the Government of National Unity ceased to exist and the communists moved towards abolishing the post-war partially pluralistic "people's democracy" and replacing it with a state socialist system. The communist-dominated front Democratic Bloc of the 1947 elections, turned into the Front of National Unity in 1952, became officially the source of governmental authority. The Polish government-in-exile, lacking international recognition, remained in continuous existence until 1990.
Polish National Committee (1917–19)
During World War I, many Polish people were determined to regain national independence after 123 years of occupation by Austria, Russia and Prussia, following the partitions of Poland. Towards the end of the war, a number of Polish organizations were established both within the partitioned state, and across the world. This caused concern for the Kaiser of Germany and the King-Emperor of Austria Hungary. On November 5, 1916, they passed an act proposing the creation of a Kingdom of Poland which was meant as a puppet state of the German Empire under control of the Central Powers. This act is known as the Act of 5th November. After its proclamation, different Polish political groups and organizations began to seek the support of Entente states in the hope rebuilding the Polish state. In August of the following year the Polish National Committee was established and continued its activities until 1919.
Polish People's Party (1945–1949)
The parliamentary elections took place in January 1947 and were falsified in a number of ways, to defeat the People's Party and ensure the victory of the communists Polish Workers' Party and its allied partners in the so-called Democratic Bloc, which included a rival breakaway peasant party. The PSL for the time being remained legal, but was subjected to still increased suppression. Communist accusations of the PSL's cooperation with the armed underground intensified and culminated in the show "Kraków trial" of the late summer 1947. Two PSL leaders were tried together with several activists of the WiN underground formation, but unlike the WiN people, they were spared the death sentences. 
In early October 1947, the PSL's Executive Committee declared that state authorities were preventing PSL's further functioning as a party. Mikołajczyk himself fled to the West on 20 October with American help, to avoid imprisonment and possible execution. The PSL lingered on for another year and a half before its remains were cajoled into merging with the communist-controlled peasant party to form the United People's Party (only a few of Mikołajczyk's people remained within the new structure), a formal participant of the communist-led ruling coalition.
National symbols of Poland
The full official name of the Polish state is "Rzeczpospolita Polska" which loosely translates as "Republic of Poland". The word "rzeczpospolita" has been used in Poland since at least the 16th century, originally a generic term to denote any state with a republican or similar form of government. Today, however, the word is used almost solely in reference to the Polish State.
History of Poland (1918–1939)
The independence of Poland had been successfully promoted to the Allies in Paris by Roman Dmowski and Ignacy Paderewski. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson made the independence of Poland a war goal in his Fourteen Points, and this goal was endorsed by the Allies in spring 1918. As part of the Armistice terms imposed on Germany, all German forces had to stand down in Poland and other occupied areas. So as the war ended, the Germans sent Piłsudski, then under arrest, back to Warsaw. On November 11, 1918, he took control from the puppet government the Germans had set up. Ignacy Daszyński headed a short-lived Polish government in Lublin from November 6 but Piłsudski had overwhelming prestige at this point. Daszyński and the other Polish leaders acknowledged him as head of the army and in effect head of what became the Republic of Poland. Germany, now defeated, followed the terms of the Armistice and withdrew its forces. Paderewski became the first prime minister (in early 1919) and Dmowsky headed the largest party.
Supreme People's Council (Prussian Poland)
The Supreme People's Council () was a political organization in the Prussian Partition of Poland, which played a major role during the Greater Poland Uprising (1918–19). It was established in 1916 in Poznań as an underground Interparty Committee (Komitet Międzypartyjny), also known as the Central Citizen's Committee (Centralny Komitet Obywatelski). After the World War I armistice, the committee renamed itself to the People's Council and later to the Supreme People's Council. The Council self-disbanded on August 19, 1919, when the power in the area was transferred to the re-united Second Polish Republic.
Polish People's Republic
On 16 October 1978 the Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, was elected Pope, taking the name John Paul II. The election of a Polish Pope had an electrifying effect on what had been, even under Communist rule, one of the most devoutly Catholic nations in Europe. Gierek is alleged to have said to his cabinet, "O God, what are we going to do now?" or, as occasionally reported, "Jesus and Mary, this is the end". When John Paul II made his first papal tour of Poland in June 1979, half a million people heard him speak in Warsaw; he did not call for rebellion, instead encouraged the creation of an "alternative Poland" of social institutions independent of the government, so that when the next crisis came, the nation would present a united front.
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland, informally known as Congress Poland or Russian Poland, was created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a sovereign state of the Russian partition of Poland. Connected until 1832 by personal union with the Russian Empire under the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland, it was gradually thereafter integrated politically into Russia over the course of the 19th century, made an official part of the Russian Empire in 1867, and finally replaced during World War I by the Central Powers in 1915 with the nominal Regency Kingdom of Poland.
Polish People's Party &quot;Left&quot;
The party was established by Jan Stapiński on 5 April 1914 as a breakaway from the Polish People's Party. In the January 1919 elections to elect the first Sejm of the Second Polish Republic it received 3.5% of the vote, winning 12 seats. However, the 1922 elections saw it reduced to two seats in the Sejm and fail to win a seat in the Senate.
Józef Piłsudski
On 11 November 1918 in Warsaw, Piłsudski was appointed Commander in Chief of Polish forces by the Regency Council and was entrusted with creating a national government for the newly independent country. On that very day, which would become Poland's Independence Day, he proclaimed an independent Polish state.
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 123 years. The partitions were conducted by Habsburg Austria, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire, which divided up the Commonwealth lands among themselves progressively in the process of territorial seizures and annexations.
Polish People's Republic
The PZPR was finally disbanded on January 30, 1990, even if Wałęsa could be elected as President only eleven months after. The Warsaw Pact was soon followed on 1 July 1991 and the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991. On 27 October 1991, the first entirely free Polish parliamentary elections since the 1920s took place. This completed Poland's transition from a communist party rule to a Western-style liberal democratic political system. The last post-Soviet troops left Poland on 18 September 1993. After ten years of democratic consolidation, Poland joined OECD in 1996, NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.
List of heads of state of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was founded under Soviet protection on 31 December 1944 and recognized by the United States and the United Kingdom since 6 July 1945.
Polish Air Force
Along with the Polish People's Army ("Ludowe Wojsko Polskie") in the USSR, the "Ludowe Lotnictwo Polskie" – Polish People's Air Force – was created, in defence of the Soviet Union against Nazi invasion. In late 1943, the 1st Fighter Regiment "Warszawa", (equipped with Yak-1 and Yak-9 aircraft), the 2nd Night Bomber Regiment "Kraków" (flying Polikarpov Po-2 aircraft – produced in Poland as the CSS-13 from 1949 onwards), and the 3rd Assault Regiment (flying Ilyushin Il-2 aircraft) were formed. During 1944–5, further regiments were created, coming together to form the 1st Mixed Air Corps, consisting of a bomber division, an assault division, a fighter division and a mixed division. After the war, these returned to Poland and gave birth to the air force of the People's Republic of Poland.
Dziennik Ludowy (People's Daily)
The first issue of "Dziennik Ludowy" was published in 1907 by Polish immigrants to the USA. In its first months, the newspaper supported Polish nationalistic movement organized during the World War I. It was one of the most popular Polish language titles supporting the contemporary leader of the country- Jozef Pilsudski. After a split in the Polish- American socialist movement in 1908, the Polish Section of the Socialist Party was formed, and Dziennik Ludowy became the official organ of the Polish Socialist Alliance. It rejected the notion of military activity as a method of establishing an independent Poland proposed by Jozef Pilsudski. Instead, the newspaper focused on opening its columns to various Polish organizations, unions, and societies. Dziennik Ludowy supported the idea of establishing an independent Poland by promoting popular education and labor activism as a way of liberating the nation. The target audience of the newspaper was the first generation of immigrants, who did not speak English and strongly relied on the Polish language news. By 1925, when the daily stopped being published, the younger generation of Polish Americans was often educated in American schools and more accustomed to the American culture. Due to gradual Americanization younger people often chose English language newspapers, which contributed to decreasing readership of "Dziennik Ludowy." The last issue was published on April 20, 1925, when it declared bankruptcy and was superseded by other Chicago based titles.
History of Poland
In its early phases, the Commonwealth was able to sustain the levels of prosperity achieved during the Jagiellonian period, while its political system matured as a unique noble democracy. From the mid-17th century, however, the huge state entered a period of decline caused by devastating wars and the deterioration of its political system. Significant internal reforms were introduced during the later part of the 18th century, especially in the Constitution of 3 May 1791, but neighboring powers did not allow the reform process to advance. The independent existence of the Commonwealth ended in 1795 after a series of invasions and partitions of Polish territory carried out by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy.
History of Poland
Due to a series of German victories on the Eastern Front, the area of Congress Poland became occupied by the Central Powers of Germany and Austria; Warsaw was captured by the Germans on 5 August 1915. In the Act of 5th November 1916, a fresh incarnation of the Kingdom of Poland ("Królestwo Regencyjne") was proclaimed by Germany and Austria on formerly Russian-controlled territories, within the German "Mitteleuropa" scheme. The sponsor states were never able to agree on a candidate to assume the throne, however; rather, it was governed in turn by German and Austrian governor-generals, a Provisional Council of State, and a Regency Council. This increasingly autonomous puppet state existed until November 1918, when it was replaced by the newly established Republic of Poland. The existence of this "kingdom" and its planned Polish army had a positive effect on the Polish national efforts on the Allied side, but in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 1918 the victorious in the east Germany imposed harsh conditions on defeated Russia and ignored Polish interests. Toward the end of the war, the German authorities engaged in massive, purposeful devastation of industrial and other economic potential of Polish lands in order to impoverish the country, a likely future competitor of Germany.
Polish People's Party &quot;Piast&quot; (1913–31)
Polish People's Party "Piast" or Polish Peasant Party "Piast" (, "PSL Piast") was a political party from the interwar period of the Second Polish Republic (1913–1931). Piast refers to the medieval Piast dynasty, Poland's founding royal house.
Polish-Catholic Church of Republic of Poland
After realizing the necessity of establishing and maintaining contact with Poland, Bishop Hodur worked to establish the PNCC in that country. According to the religious and social precepts of the PNCC, there was an obligation to serve their country of origin, Poland. They especially sought the independence of their native land. The church worked to maintain this tradition among Polish immigrants, along with defending Polish national interests. Independence in Poland was gained in 1918, although the missionary work of the church was impeded due to lack of legalization. The efforts of the church for legal recognition were unsuccessful until 1939. It was not until February 1946 that the church gained legal status on the basis of the decision of Polish Ministry of Public Administration.
Second Polish Republic
Historically, Poland was a nation of many nationalities. This was especially true after independence was regained in the wake of World War I and the subsequent Polish–Soviet War ending at Peace of Riga. The census of 1921 shows 30.8% of the population consisted of ethnic minorities, compared with a share of 1.6% (solely identifying with a non-Polish ethnic group) or 3.8% (including those identifying with both the Polish ethnicity and with another ethnic group) in 2011. The first spontaneous flight of about 500,000 Poles from the Soviet Union occurred during the reconstitution of sovereign Poland. In the second wave, between November 1919 and June 1924 some 1,200,000 people left the territory of the USSR for Poland. It is estimated that some 460,000 of them spoke Polish as the first language. According to the 1931 Polish Census: 68.9% of the population was Polish, 13.9% were Ukrainian, around 10% Jewish, 3.1% Belarusian, 2.3% German and 2.8% other, including Lithuanian, Czech, Armenian, Russian, and Romani. The situation of minorities was a complex subject and changed during the period.
Poland was also a nation of many religions. In 1921, 16,057,229 Poles (approx. 62.5%) were Roman (Latin) Catholics, 3,031,057 citizens of Poland (approx. 11.8%) were Eastern Rite Catholics (mostly Ukrainian Greek Catholics and Armenian Rite Catholics), 2,815,817 (approx. 10.95%) were Greek Orthodox, 2,771,949 (approx. 10.8%) were Jewish, and 940,232 (approx. 3.7%) were Protestants (mostly Lutheran).
National Party (Poland)
During the period of the Polish People's Republic the organization was outlawed in Poland but continued in the Polish emigration with a major centre in London. It was re-established in Warsaw in 1989 by Jan Ostoj Matłachowski, Leon Mirecki, Maciej Giertych, Boguslaw Jeznach, Bogusław Rybicki, and others. The new SN was officially registered on 21 August 1990 in sovereign Poland after the fall of communism in 1989. Most of its members eventually entered the League of Polish Families (LPR) and dissolved the National Party in 2001.
History of Poland (1945–1989)
The Constitution of the Polish People's Republic was promulgated in July 1952 and the state officially became the Polish People's Republic. Among the rights it guaranteed was universal free health care. The large state-owned enterprises provided to employees an extensive range of welfare and leisure activities, including housing, sports facilities and hospitals, which started to diminish in the 1970s. In the early 1950s, the Stalinist regime also carried out major changes to the education system. The program of free and compulsory school education for all and the establishment of free institutions of higher learning received much support. The communists screened out what facts and interpretations were to be taught; history and other sciences had to follow Marxist views approved by ideological censorship. During 1951–53, a large number of prewar professors who were perceived by the regime as reactionary was dismissed from universities. Government control over art and artists deepened. The Soviet-style socialist realism became the only formula accepted by the authorities after 1949. Most works of art and literature represented propaganda of the party or had to be in line with its views. (See also: Socialist realism in Poland)
History of Poland
Poland was established as a state under the Piast dynasty, which ruled the country between the 10th and 14th centuries. Historical records referring to the Polish state begin with the rule of Duke Mieszko I. Mieszko, whose reign commenced sometime before 963 and who continued as the Polish monarch until his death in 992, chose to be baptized in the Western Latin Rite, probably on 14 April 966, following his marriage to Princess Doubravka of Bohemia, a fervent Christian. This event has become known as the baptism of Poland, and its date is often used to mark a symbolic beginning of Polish statehood. Mieszko completed a unification of the West Slavic tribal lands that was fundamental to the new country's existence. Following its emergence, Poland was led by a series of rulers who converted the population to Christianity, created a strong kingdom and fostered a distinctive Polish culture that was integrated into the broader European culture.
Polish Underground State
In many respects, the history of the Polish Underground State mirrors that of the Polish non-communist resistance in general. The Underground State traces its origins to the Service for Poland's Victory (Służba Zwycięstwu Polski, SZP) organization, which was founded on 27 September 1939, one day before the surrender of the Polish capital of Warsaw, at a time when the Polish defeat in the German invasion of Poland (accompanied by the Soviet one) appeared inevitable. SZP founder General Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski received orders from Polish Commander-in-Chief Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły to organize and carry out the struggle in occupied Poland. Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski decided that the organization he was creating needed to move beyond a strictly military format; and in line with the traditions of the underground 19th-century Polish National Government and World War I-era Polish Military Organization, it would need to encompass various aspects of civilian life. Hence, the SZP, in contact with (and subordinate to) the Polish Government in Exile, envisioned itself not only as an armed resistance organization, but also as a vehicle through which the Polish state continued to administer its occupied territories.
Formation of the Eastern Bloc
Fraudulent Polish elections held in January 1947 resulted in Poland's official transformation to a non-democratic Communist state by 1949, the People's Republic of Poland. Resistance fighters continued to battle Soviet forces in the Ukrainian annexed portions of eastern Poland, the Soviet response to which included the arrest of as many as 600,000 people between 1944 and 1952, with about one third executed and the rest imprisoned or exiled.
History of Poland
Although no sovereign Polish state existed between 1795 and 1918, the idea of Polish independence was kept alive throughout the 19th century. There were a number of uprisings and other armed undertakings waged against the partitioning powers. Military efforts after the partitions were first based on the alliances of Polish émigrés with post-revolutionary France. Jan Henryk Dąbrowski's Polish Legions fought in French campaigns outside of Poland between 1797 and 1802 in hopes that their involvement and contribution would be rewarded with the liberation of their Polish homeland. The Polish national anthem, "Poland Is Not Yet Lost", or "Dąbrowski's Mazurka", was written in praise of his actions by Józef Wybicki in 1797.
Polish People's Republic
The Polish People's Republic was a one-party state characterized by constant internal struggles for democracy and better living conditions. The Polish United Workers' Party became the dominant political faction, officially making Poland a socialist country, but with more liberal policies than other states of the Eastern Bloc. Throughout its existence, economic hardships and social unrest were common almost in every decade. The nation was split between those who supported the party, those who were opposed to it and those who refused to engage in political activity. Despite this, some groundbreaking achievements have been established during the People's Republic such as rapid industrialization, urbanization of smaller or larger cities and access to free healthcare and education was made available. The birth rate was high and the population almost doubled between 1947 and 1989. The party's most successful accomplishment, however, was the rebuilding of ruined Warsaw after World War II and the complete riddance of illiteracy, which stood at 30% in 1931 and at 2% in 1988.
Poland
The People's Republic of Poland ("Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa") was officially proclaimed in 1952. In 1956, after the death of Bolesław Bierut, the régime of Władysław Gomułka became temporarily more liberal, freeing many people from prison and expanding some personal freedoms. Collectivization in the Polish People's Republic failed. A similar situation repeated itself in the 1970s under Edward Gierek, but most of the time persecution of anti-communist opposition groups persisted. Despite this, Poland was at the time considered to be one of the least oppressive states of the Soviet Bloc.
Greater Poland uprising (1918–19)
After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, the Polish nation had ceased to exist as an independent state. From 1795 through the beginning of World War I, several unsuccessful uprisings to regain independence took place. A 1806 uprising was followed by the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw which lasted for eight years before being partitioned again between Prussia and Russia. Under German rule Poles faced systematic discrimination and oppression. The Poles living in the region of Greater Poland were subjected to Germanisation and land confiscations to make way for German colonization.
Polish People's Republic
The Polish People's Army (LWP) was initially formed during World War II as the Polish 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division, but more commonly known as the Berling Army. Almost half of the soldiers and recruits in the Polish People's Army were Soviet. In March 1945, Red Army officers accounted for approximately 52% of the entire corps (15,492 out of 29,372). Around 4,600 of them remained by July 1946.
Invasion of Poland
Emerging in 1918 as an independent country after 123 years after the Partitions of Poland - The Second Polish Republic, when compared with countries such as United Kingdom or Germany, was a relatively indigent and mostly agricultural country. The partitioning powers did not invest in the development of industry, especially in the armaments industry in ethnically Polish areas. Between 1936 and 1939, Poland invested heavily in the newly created Central Industrial Region. Preparations for a defensive war with Germany were ongoing for many years, but most plans assumed fighting would not begin before 1942. To raise funds for industrial development, Poland sold much of the modern equipment it produced. In 1936, a National Defence Fund was set up to collect funds necessary for strengthening the Polish Armed forces. The Polish Army had approximately a million soldiers,but not all were mobilized by 1 September. Latecomers sustained significant casualties when public transport became targets of the "Luftwaffe". The Polish military had fewer armored forces than the Germans, and these units, dispersed within the infantry, were unable to effectively engage the Germans.
Polish Workers' Party
Under PPR rule, the Republic of Poland was a declared "people's democracy" and was not officially considered a socialist entity. Private property and free market functionality were tolerated and the role of the state was not overly exposed. All this had changed with the establishment of the PZPR: the Six-Year Plan of heavy industrial development was imposed and the building of state socialist system and society commenced in earnest.
Territorial evolution of Poland
The non-historical West Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed on November 1, 1918, with Lviv as its capital. The Republic claimed sovereignty over Eastern Galicia, including the Carpathians up to the city of Nowy Sącz in the west, as well as Volhynia, Carpathian Ruthenia and Bukovina. Although the majority of the population of the Western-Ukrainian People's Republic were Ukrainians, hereto an unknown nationality, large parts of the claimed territory were considered Polish by the Poles. In Lviv the Ukrainian residents supported the proclamation, the city's significant Jewish minority accepted or remained neutral towards the Ukrainian proclamation, and the Polish majority was shocked to find themselves in a proclaimed Ukrainian state.
Polish People's Republic
The government and politics of the Polish People's Republic were governed by the Polish United Workers' Party ("Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR"). Despite the presence of two minor parties, the United People's Party and the Democratic Party, the country was generally reckoned by western nations as a one-party state because these two parties were supposedly completely subservient to the Communists and had to accept the PZPR's "leading role" as a condition of their existence. It was dependent on the USSR to the extent of being its satellite state. From 1952 the PRP's highest law was the Constitution of the Polish People's Republic, and the Polish Council of State replaced the presidency of Poland. Elections were held on the single lists of the Front of National Unity.
1946 Polish people's referendum
The People's Referendum () of 1946, also known as the Three Times Yes referendum (Trzy razy tak, often abbreviated as 3×TAK), was a referendum held in Poland on 30 June 1946 on the authority of the State National Council (order of 27 April 1946). The referendum presented an opportunity for the forces vying for political control of Poland following World War II to test their popularity among the general population. However, the results were forged and the referendum failed to meet democratic standards.
Milicja Obywatelska
Milicja Obywatelska (; Citizens' Militia), commonly abbreviated to MO, was the national police organization of the Polish People's Republic. It was created on 7 October 1944 by the Soviet-sponsored Polish Committee of National Liberation, effectively replacing the pre-war police force. The Citizen's Militia would remain the predominant means of policing in Poland until 6 April 1990, when it was transformed back into "Policja".
Polish National Alliance
The Polish National Alliance was founded on February 15, 1880 in Philadelphia under the influence of Polish patriot Agaton Giller. Its first president was Juliusz Andrzejkowicz. In 1886, the PNA inaugurated the first fraternal insurance program kind in the Polish-American community; by 2000 PNA members held over $800 million of insurance coverage. In 1891, the PNA organized the first Polish Constitution Day parade in Chicago, to generate interest in Polish independence; it has been held annually in Chicago since 1894. The PNA founded a number of publishing and educational institutions. From 1912 to 1991 it owned Alliance College in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. The organization founded the Polish Library in Chicago and Immigrants House in New York. In 1910 it built the monument of Tadeusz Kościuszko in Washington, D.C.. One prominent alumnus of the PNA is the humanitarian physician Leon S. Talaska, M.D.
Revolutions of 1989
In 1990, Jaruzelski resigned as Poland's president and was succeeded by Wałęsa, who won the 1990 presidential elections held in two rounds on 25 November and 9 December. Wałęsa's inauguration as president on 21 December 1990 is thought by many to be the formal end of the Communist People's Republic of Poland and the beginning of the modern Republic of Poland. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved on 1 July 1991. On 27 October 1991 the first entirely free Polish parliamentary elections since 1945 took place. This completed Poland's transition from Communist Party rule to a Western-style liberal democratic political system. The last Russian troops left Poland on 18 September 1993.
History of Poland (1918–1939)
Poland re-emerged in November 1918 after more than a century of partitions by Austria-Hungary, the German, and the Russian Empires. Its independence was confirmed by the victorious powers through the Treaty of Versailles of June 1919, and most of the territory won in a series of border wars fought from 1918 to 1921. Poland's frontiers were settled in 1922 and internationally recognized in 1923.
The Polish political scene was democratic, but was chaotic until Józef Piłsudski (1867–1935) seized power in May 1926 and democracy ended. The policy of agrarianism led to the redistribution of lands to peasants and the country achieved significant economic growth between 1921 and 1939. A third of the population consisted of minorities—Ukrainians, Jews, Belarusians and Germans—who were either hostile towards the existence of the Polish state because of the lack of privileges or often discriminated against in the case of Ukrainians and Belarusians who faced Polonization. There were treaties that supposedly protected them but the government in Warsaw was not interested in their enforcement.
History of Poland
The final push for independence of Poland took place on the ground in October–November 1918. Near the end of the war, Austro-Hungarian and German units were being disarmed, and the Austrian army's collapse freed Cieszyn and Kraków at the end of October. Lviv was then contested in the Polish–Ukrainian War of 1918–1919. Ignacy Daszyński headed the first short-lived independent Polish government in Lublin from 7 November, the leftist Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland, proclaimed as a democracy. Germany, now defeated, was forced by the Allies to stand down its large military forces in Poland. Overtaken by the German Revolution of 1918–1919 at home, the Germans released Piłsudski from prison. He arrived in Warsaw on 10 November and was granted extensive authority by the Regency Council; Piłsudski's authority was also recognized by the Lublin government. On 22 November, he became the temporary head of state. Piłsudski was held by many in high regard, but was resented by the right-wing National Democrats. The emerging Polish state was internally divided, heavily war-damaged and economically dysfunctional.
Vistula Land
As the Russians retreated, the Central Powers occupied the area (1915); subsequently they proposed the establishment of the Kingdom of Poland (1916–1918). In the March 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia (by then embroiled in a civil war), effectively ceded all Polish territories it had formerly possessed to the German Empire and Austria-Hungary.a Sources agree that after the fall of the January Uprising in 1864, the autonomy of Congress Poland was drastically reduced. However, they disagree on whether the state of the Kingdom of Poland (colloquially known as Congress Poland) was officially replaced by the Vistula land as a province of the Russian Empire, as many sources still use the term Congress Poland for the post-1864 period. The sources are also unclear as to when the Kingdom of Poland (or Vistula land) officially ceased to exist; some argue it ended with the assumption of control by the German and Austro-Hungarian occupying authorities; others, that it ended with the proclamation of the Regency Kingdom of Poland in 1916; finally, some argue that it occurred only with the creation of the independent Second Polish Republic in 1918. Examples:
Legislative Sejm (Second Polish Republic)
The Legislative Sejm was formed in the aftermath of World War I on the territories of the newly independent Second Polish Republic. In late 1918 Polish state was governed by Józef Piłsudski, who quickly begun the work to organize election to the first Polish national parliament (Sejm) since the Grodno Sejm of 1793, held two years before partitions of Poland ended the independent existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Armia Ludowa
Seven months after it came into existence, on 21 July 1944, the People's Army was integrated into the Polish Military in the USSR and formed the new People's Army of Poland ("Ludowe Wojsko Polskie", "LWP"). After the Red Army and the Soviet-organized 1st Polish Army entered Poland late in 1944 and early 1945, most People's Army members joined the communist 1st Polish Army. After the war, many of its members joined the ranks of the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of Poland, or the "Milicja Obywatelska" (police).
Prehistory and protohistory of Poland
The prehistory and protohistory of Poland can be traced from the first appearance of Homo species on the territory of modern-day Poland, to the establishment of the Polish state in the 10th century AD, a span of roughly 500,000 years.
Jan Henryk Dąbrowski
After the failure of the uprising he remained in partitioned Poland for a while, attempting to convince the Prussian authorities that they needed Poland as an ally against Austria and Russia. He was unsuccessful, and with the Third Partition of Poland between Russia, Prussia and Austria, Poland disappeared from the map of Europe. Dąbrowski's next solution was to convince the French Republic that it should support a Polish cause, and create a Polish military formation. This proved to be more successful, and indeed Dąbrowski is remembered in the history of Poland as the organiser of Polish Legions in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. (These Legions are also often known as the "Dąbrowski's Legions".) This event gave hope to contemporary Poles, and is still remembered in the Polish national anthem, named after Dąbrowski. He began his work in 1796, when he came to Paris and soon afterwards met Napoleon Bonaparte in Milan. On January 7, 1797, he was authorized by the Cisalpine Republic to create Polish legions, which would be part of the army of the newly created Republic of Lombardy.
Kingdom of Poland (1917–1918)
However, another Polish government based in Lublin arose to challenge the Regency's authority: on 6 November Ignacy Daszyński proclaimed the "Polish People's Republic" ("Tymczasowy Rząd Ludowy Republiki Polskiej" - literally: "Temporary People's Council of the Polish Republic"), with Daszyński himself (a Socialist politician and formerly a member of the Austrian parliament) as Prime Minister and Colonel Edward Rydz-Śmigły as military commander. Moderates in Warsaw, who now hoped for a return of General Piłsudski, who was still held in custody at Magdeburg, repudiated Lublin's declaration of the deposition of the Regency to be deposed and its plans for radical social reforms. Already in October the Regency Council had requested Piłsudski's release, and after negotiations through Harry Graf Kessler the General was allowed to return to Warsaw, where he arrived on 10 November. The following day Germany signed the armistice and German troops in Warsaw were disarmed as they refused to fire on Polish insurgents. Both the Regency Council and the Daszyński government ceded all authority to Piłsudski. The Regency dissolved itself three days later.
Polish People's Party &quot;Piast&quot; (1913–31)
PSL Piast was an important political party in the Second Polish Republic. It was created in 1913 and, after Poland regained independence in 1918, it formed a part of several governments, most notably after the Lanckorona Pact and in the Chjeno-Piast coalition. In 1931 it formed the People's Party. Its major politicians included Wincenty Witos, Jakub Bojko, Jan Dąbski, Maciej Rataj and Władysław Kiernik.
Poland
During World War I, all the Allies agreed on the reconstitution of Poland that United States President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed in Point 13 of his Fourteen Points. A total of 2 million Polish troops fought with the armies of the three occupying powers, and 450,000 died. Shortly after the armistice with Germany in November 1918, Poland regained its independence as the Second Polish Republic ("II Rzeczpospolita Polska"). It reaffirmed its independence after a series of military conflicts, the most notable being the Polish–Soviet War (1919–21) when Poland inflicted a crushing defeat on the Red Army at the Battle of Warsaw, an event which is considered to have halted the advance of Communism into Europe and forced Vladimir Lenin to rethink his objective of achieving global socialism. The event is often referred to as the "Miracle at the Vistula".
Partitions of Poland
Poland would be briefly resurrected—if in a smaller frame—in 1807, when Napoleon set up the Duchy of Warsaw. After his defeat and the implementation of the Congress of Vienna treaty in 1815, the Russian-dominated Congress Kingdom of Poland was created in its place. After the Congress, Russia gained a larger share of Poland (with Warsaw) and, after crushing an insurrection in 1831, the Congress Kingdom's autonomy was abolished and Poles faced confiscation of property, deportation, forced military service, and the closure of their own universities. After the uprising of 1863, Russification of Polish secondary schools was imposed and the literacy rate dropped dramatically. In the Austrian portion, Poles fared better, and were allowed to have representation in Parliament and to form their own universities, and Kraków and Lemberg (Lwów/Lviv) became centers of Polish culture and education. Meanwhile, Prussia Germanized the entire school system of its Polish subjects, and had no more respect for Polish culture and institutions than the Russian Empire. In 1915 a client state of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary was proposed and accepted by the Central Powers of World War I: the Regency Kingdom of Poland. After the end of World War I, the Central Powers' surrender to the Western Allies, the chaos of the Russian Revolution and the Treaty of Versailles finally allowed and helped the restoration of Poland's full independence after 123 years.
Polish question
In 1916, Germany, with the Act of 5th November, publicly promised to create the Regency Kingdom of Poland, while secretly planning to annex up to 35,000 square kilometres of its territory and ethnically cleanse up to 3 million Poles and Jews to make room for German settlers after the war. This caused the French parliament to comment that the manifesto "stamped the Polish question with an international character". Russia protested the move, as it saw its own rump Polish state, the Congress Kingdom (or Vistula Land) as the only "Poland" that mattered. Soon, however, the Russians followed the German move suit, and promised the Poles increased autonomy. This offer was mentioned in the United States in Woodrow Wilson's "Peace Without Victory" speech of 1917. The Polish question was temporarily solved with the restoration of Polish independence after World War I.
Postage stamps and postal history of Poland
Poczta Polska, the Polish postal service, was founded in 1558 and postal markings were first introduced in 1764. The three partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795 saw the independent nation of Poland disappear. The postal services in the areas occupied by Germany and Austria were absorbed into those countries' postal services. In 1772 the area occupied by Austria was created into the Kingdom of Galicia, a part of the Austrian Empire. This lasted till 1918. The Duchy of Warsaw was created briefly, between 1807 and 1813, by Napoleon I of France, from Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. In 1815, following Napoleons’ defeat in 1813, the Congress of Vienna, created Congress Poland out of the Duchy of Warsaw and also established the Free City of Kraków. Congress Poland was placed under the control of Russia and the postal service was given autonomy in 1815. In 1851 the postal service was put under the control of the Russian post office department regional office in St Petersburg. In 1855 control was restored for a while to the Congress Kingdom but following the uprising in 1863 again came under Russian control from 1866 and continued until World War I. In November 1918 the Second Polish Republic was created.
History of Poland
In November 1990, Lech Wałęsa was elected president for a five-year term; in December, he became the first popularly elected president of Poland. Poland's first free parliamentary election was held in October 1991. 18 parties entered the new Sejm, but the largest representation received only 12% of the total vote.
History of Poland (1989–present)
On August 19, President Jaruzelski asked journalist/Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki to form a government; on September 12, the Sejm voted approval of Prime Minister Mazowiecki and his cabinet. For the first time in more than 40 years, Poland had a government led by non-communists.
In December 1989, the Sejm approved the government's reform program to transform the Polish economy rapidly from centrally planned to free-market, amended the constitution to eliminate references to the "leading role" of the Communist Party, and renamed the country the "Republic of Poland". The communist Polish United Workers' Party dissolved itself in January 1990, creating in its place a new party, Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland. Most of the property of the former Communist Party was turned over to the state.
Polish National Organization
Polish National Organization () was a Polish political organisation formed by Józef Piłsudski after the split of Supreme National Committee ("Naczelny Komitet Narodowy") on 5 September 1914. NKN, heavily influenced by the Austrian government, vied with more independent Piłsudski over the control of Polish armed forces. When ordered to limit recruitment to his Legions, Piłsudski disobeyed those orders and created the PON. Temporarily supported in this by the Germans, soon (after German military failure to capture Warsaw) Piłsudski was forced to subjugate PON to NKN.
Administrative division of the Second Polish Republic
Administrative division of the Second Polish Republic became an issue immediately after Poland regained independence in the aftermath of the First World War, 1918. Poland had been partitioned in the late 18th century, and various parts of new Polish territory had belonged to different administrative structures of Austrian Empire, Imperial Germany and Russian Empire.
Philippines–Poland relations
With Philippine independence from the United States in 1946 and the eventual establishment of the communist People's Republic of Poland in 1952, relations between the two countries were severed owing to political differences. However, following Soviet–American détente, relations between the two countries were normalized with the formal establishment of diplomatic relations on September 22, 1973, which culminated with the visit of former President Diosdado Macapagal to Poland in 1974, the first visit to the country by any member of the Philippine government.
Polish–Prussian alliance
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (also known as the Republic of Poland) had been a major European power since its formation in the late 16th century and was still one of the largest states on the European continent in the latter part of the 18th century. Over time, its state machinery had become increasingly dysfunctional. By the early 17th century, the magnates of Poland and Lithuania controlled the state—or rather, they managed to ensure that no reforms would be carried out that might weaken their privileged status (the so-called "Golden Freedoms"). Tentative reforms began in the late 18th century; however, any idea of reforming the Commonwealth was viewed with suspicion not only by its magnates but also by neighboring countries, which were content with the state of the Commonwealth's affairs and abhorred the thought of a resurgent and democratic power on their borders. With the Commonwealth Army only numbering around 16,000, it was easy for its neighbors to intervene directly: the Imperial Russian Army numbered 300,000; the Prussian Army and Imperial Austrian Army, 200,000. All of those powers had already annexed about a third of the Commonwealth territory and population ( and four to five million people) in the First Partition of Poland in 1772–1773.
Administrative division of the Polish People's Republic
Administrative division of Polish People's Republic was subject to several reforms. The first of those established administrative division over the Polish territories that had shifted significantly westwardly. The Polish People's Republic administrative division was reformed in: 1946, 1950, 1957 and 1975. The 1975 division survived the fall of communism in 1990 and was replaced only in 1999 by the most current administrative division of Poland, which closely resembles the 1945-75 scheme but with different names (the Communists tended to simply name the voivodeships after their capitals, whereas the current ones use more historical names) and changes in the borders in certain areas.
Kingdom of Poland (1917–1918)
In the meantime, General von Beseler had managed to gain support among pro-Austrian Poles and the followers of Józef Piłsudski. The Narodowa Demokracja party (centred in Paris), however, rejected any cooperation with the Central Powers. After the German Emperor and Chancellor met with a Polish delegation led by Józef Brudziński, the final details were arranged. On November 5, 1916, Governor von Beseler at Warsaw issued an Act of November 5, in which he promised that a Polish state would be created, without specifying any future Polish ruler, Polish borders or system of governance and, for the first time since 1831, had the Royal Castle decorated with Polish flags. The Austrian Governor-General Kuk issued a similar proclamation at Lublin. A pro-German faction led by Władysław Studnicki existed but didn't gain any significant backing among Polish population.
History of Poland (1945–1989)
By 1946, all rightist parties had been outlawed, and a new pro-government Democratic Bloc was formed in 1947 which included only the Polish Workers' Party and its leftist allies. On 19 January 1947, the first parliamentary elections took place featuring primarily the PPR and allied candidates and a potentially politically potent opposition from the Polish People's Party. However, the PSL's strength and role had already been seriously compromised due to government control and persecution. Election results were adjusted by Stalin to suit the communists, whose bloc claimed 80% of the votes. The British and American governments protested the poll for its blatant violations of the Yalta and Potsdam accords. The rigged elections effectively ended the multiparty system in Poland's politics. After the referendum dress rehearsal, this time the vote fraud was much better concealed and spread into various forms and stages and its actual scale is not known. With all the pressure and manipulations, an NKVD colonel charged with election supervision reported to Stalin that about 50% of the vote was cast for the regime's Democratic Bloc nationwide. In the new Sejm, out of 444 seats, 27 were given to the Polish People's Party of Stanisław Mikołajczyk. He, having declared the results to be falsified, was threatened with arrest or worse and fled the country in October 1947, helped by the US Embassy; other opposition leaders also left. In February, the new Sejm created the Small Constitution of 1947. Over the next two years, the communists monopolized political power in Poland.
Flag of Poland
White-and-red flags were first waved during a patriotic demonstration on 3 May 1916 in Warsaw. The organizing committee advised participants about the correct alignment of the colors, that is with the white stripe above the red one. Still, many demonstrators brought flags with the red stripe on top. On 1 August 1919, almost a year after Poland regained independence in November 1918, the Sejm officially introduced a white-and-red bicolor as the Polish national flag. In order to avoid confusion with the white-and-red maritime signal flag used internationally by harbor pilots and tugboats, the same act of Sejm introduced a variant of the flag with the coat of arms in the white stripe for use as a civil ensign and by Polish diplomats and consuls abroad.
Apart from changes in the legal specifications of the shades of the national colors (see the section below), the basic design of the Polish flag, including the 5:8 ratio, has remained unchanged to this day. The flag with coat of arms was only modified to adjust to the changes in the coat of arms itself. Major modifications included a change in the stylization of the eagle from Classicist to Baroque in 1927 and the removal of the crown from the eagle's head during the Communist rule from 1944 to 1990. In that period, Poland was one of the few socialist states in the Eastern Bloc (apart from the Flag of Cuba) not to adorn communist symbolism on its flag.
Third Partition of Poland
Following the First Partition of Poland in 1772, in an attempt to strengthen the greatly weakened Commonwealth, King Stanislaus Augustus put into effect a series of reforms to strengthen Poland's military, political system, economy, and society. These reforms reached their climax with the enactment of the May Constitution in 1791, which established a constitutional monarchy with separation into three branches of government, strengthened the bourgeoisie and abolished many of the privileges of the nobility as well as many of the old laws of serfdom. In addition, to strengthen Poland's international standings, King Stanislaus signed the Polish-Prussian Pact of 1790, ceding further territories to Prussia in exchange for a military alliance. Angered by what was seen as dangerous, Jacobin-style reforms, Russia invaded Poland in 1792, beginning the War in Defense of the Constitution. Abandoned by her Prussian allies and betrayed by Polish nobles who desired to restore the privileges they had lost under the May Constitution, Poland was forced to sign the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, which ceded Dobrzyn, Kujavia, and a large portion of Greater Poland to Prussia and all of Poland’s eastern provinces from Moldavia to Livonia to Russia, reducing Poland to one third of her original size prior to the First Partition.
History of Poland
Critical developments of the Jagiellonian period were concentrated during Casimir IV's long reign, which lasted until 1492. In 1454, Royal Prussia was incorporated by Poland and the Thirteen Years' War of 1454–66 with the Teutonic state ensued. In 1466, the milestone Peace of Thorn was concluded. This treaty divided Prussia to create East Prussia, the future Duchy of Prussia, a separate entity that functioned as a fief of Poland under the administration of the Teutonic Knights. Poland also confronted the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Tatars in the south, and in the east helped Lithuania fight the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The country was developing as a feudal state, with a predominantly agricultural economy and an increasingly dominant landed nobility. Kraków, the royal capital, was turning into a major academic and cultural center, and in 1473 the first printing press began operating there. With the growing importance of "szlachta" (middle and lower nobility), the king's council evolved to become by 1493 a bicameral General Sejm (parliament) that no longer represented exclusively top dignitaries of the realm.
Poles
The period of Polish Enlightenment began in the 1730s–40s and peaked in the second half of the 18th century during the reign of Poland's last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski. It went into sharp decline with the Third and final Partition of Poland (1795), followed by political, cultural and economic destruction of the country, and leading to the Great Emigration of Polish elites. The Enlightenment ended around 1822, and was replaced by Polish Romanticism at home and abroad. The crowning achievements of Polish Enlightenment include the adoption of the Constitution of 3 May 1791, Europe's oldest written constitution as well as the creation of the Commission of National Education, the world's first ministry of education.
Congress Poland
The "Kingdom of Poland" was created out of the Duchy of Warsaw, a French client state, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 when the great powers reorganized Europe following the Napoleonic wars. The Kingdom was created on part of the Polish territory that had been partitioned by Russia, Austria and Prussia replacing, after Napoleon's defeat, the Duchy of Warsaw, set up by Napoleon in 1807. After Napoleon's 1812 defeat, the fate of the Duchy of Warsaw was 
dependent on Russia. Prussia insisted on the Duchy being completely eliminated, but after Russian troops reached Paris in 1812, Tsar Alexander I originally intended to annex to the Duchy the Lithuanian-Belarusian lands, now controlled by the Tsardom, which used to be a part of the First Polish Republic and to unite thus created Polish country with Russia. Both Austria and England did not approve of that idea, Austria issuing a memorandum on returning to the 1795 resolutions, this idea supported by England under George IV and Prime Minister Robert Jenkinson and the English delegate to the Congress, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, so in effect the Tsar, after the so-called Hundred Days, established the Kingdom of Poland and the 1815 Congress of Vienna approved. After the Congress, Russia gained a larger share of Poland (with Warsaw) and, after crushing an insurrection in 1831, the Congress Kingdom's autonomy was abolished and Poles faced confiscation of property, deportation, forced military service, and the closure of their own universities. The Congress was important enough in the creation of the state to cause the new country to be named for it. The Kingdom lost its status as a sovereign state in 1831 and the administrative divisions were reorganized. It was sufficiently distinct that its name remained in official Russian use, although in the later years of Russian rule it was replaced with the "Privislinsky Krai" (Russian: Привислинский Край). Following the defeat of the November Uprising its separate institutions and administrative arrangements were abolished as part of increased Russification to be more closely integrated with the Russian Empire. However, even after this formalized annexation, the territory retained some degree of distinctiveness and continued to be referred to informally as Congress Poland until the Russian rule there ended as a result of the advance by the armies of the Central Powers in 1915 during World War I.
Communism in Poland
In 1939, World War II began and Poland was conquered by Nazi Germany. The government of the Polish Republic went into exile. In 1942, Polish communists in German-occupied Poland established a new Polish communist party, the Polish Workers' Party ("Polska Partia Robotnicza", PPR). Władysław Gomułka soon became its leader. But in the Soviet Union, Stalin and Wanda Wasilewska created the Union of Polish Patriots as a communist organization under Soviet control. As Germany was being defeated, the Polish communists cooperated with the Soviet Union, in opposition to the Polish government-in-exile, to establish a Soviet-dependent Polish state. This led to the creation of the Polish People's Republic. The PPR merged with the Polish Socialist Party ("Polska Partia Socjalistyczna", PPS), to form the Polish United Workers' Party ("Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza", PZPR), which ruled Poland until 1989. In post-World War II Poland, the communists initially enjoyed significant popular support due to the land reform, a mass scale rebuilding program and progressive social policies. The popular support eroded because of repressions, economic difficulties, and the lack of freedoms, but the PZPR was kept in power for four decades under the Soviet influence.
Representative Central Band of the Polish Armed Forces
The history of the Representative Band of the Polish Army goes back to the time of the Polish Legions and 1918. The band was founded in 1963 as part of the Polish People's Army. has been performing representation duties since 1963. In 1984, it obtained its current status as the "Representative Band" of the armed forces, and in 1993, in accordance with the order from the Minister of National Defense, it was given the honorary name Representative Central Band of the Polish Armed Forces "Józef Wybicki", in honor of the author of the Polish national anthem.The band usually performs in the uniform of the 1st Guards Battalion, Representative Honor Guard Regiment, while on special holidays and military tattoo performances the musicians of the central band dress up in historical uniforms from the era of the Duchy of Warsaw.
Polish People's Party &quot;Wyzwolenie&quot;
Polish Peasant Party "Wyzwolenie" or Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie""' (Polish: "Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe "Wyzwolenie"", abbreviated as PSL Wyzwolenie) was a political party from the interwar period of the Second Polish Republic (1915–1931).
Poland
More than a century after the Partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, Poland regained its independence in 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Germany, followed by the Soviet Union invading Poland in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. More than six million Polish citizens, including 90% of the country's Jews, perished in the war. In 1947, the Polish People's Republic was established as a satellite state under Soviet influence. In the aftermath of the Revolutions of 1989, most notably through the emergence of the Solidarity movement, the sovereign state of Poland reestablished itself as a presidential democratic republic.
History of Poland (1795–1918)
In 1795 the third and the last of the three 18th-century partitions of Poland ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Nevertheless, events both within and outside the Polish lands kept hopes for restoration of Polish independence alive throughout the 19th century. Poland's geopolitical location on the Northern European Lowlands became especially important in a period when its expansionist neighbors, the Kingdom of Prussia and Imperial Russia, involved themselves intensely in European rivalries and alliances as modern nation-states took form over the entire continent.
Polish culture during World War II
On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, initiating World War II in Europe, and on 17 September, pursuant to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Poland was invaded by the Soviet Union. Subsequently, Poland was partitioned again – between these two powers – and remained under occupation for most of the war. By 1 October, Germany and the Soviet Union had completely overrun Poland, although the Polish government never formally surrendered, and the Polish Underground State, subordinate to the Polish government-in-exile, was soon formed. On 8 October, Nazi Germany annexed the western areas of pre-war Poland and, in the remainder of the occupied area, established the General Government. The Soviet Union had to temporarily give up the territorial gains it made in 1939 due to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, but permanently re-annexed much of this territory after winning it back in mid-1944. Over the course of the war, Poland lost over 20% of its pre-war population amid an occupation that marked the end of the Second Polish Republic.
History of Poland during World War I
In 1916, attempting to increase Polish support for the Central Powers and to raise a Polish army, the German and Austrian emperors declared that a new state called the Kingdom of Poland would be created. The new Kingdom in reality was to be a client state under military, economical and political control by the German Reich. Its territory was to be created after the war of only a small part of the old Commonwealth, i.e. the territory of Kingdom of Poland (Privislinsky Krai), with around 30,000 square kilometers of its western areas to be annexed by Germany. Polish and Jewish population in those areas was to be expelled and replaced by German colonists. A Regency Council was established in preparation for this, forming a proto-Government, and issuing currency, called the Polish mark. German efforts to create an army serving the Central Powers however met with failure, as it lacked expected volunteers for the German cause.
National Independence Day (Poland)
The restoration of Poland's independence was gradual. The date of November 11 is the one on which Marshal Józef Piłsudski assumed control of Poland. It was a day of military ceremony since 1920. The holiday was constituted in 1937 and was celebrated only twice before World War II. After the war, the communist authorities of the People's Republic removed Independence Day from the calendar, though reclamation of independence continued to be celebrated informally on 11 November. The holiday was officially replaced by the National Day of Poland's Revival as Poland's National Day, celebrated on 22 July anniversary of the communist PKWN Manifesto under Joseph Stalin. In particular, during the 1980s, in many cities, including Warsaw, informal marches and celebrations were held, with the outlawed Solidarity Movement supporters participating. Typically these marches were brutally dispersed by the communist militarized police forces, with many participants arrested and often tortured by the security police. During this time the 11 November Independence Day marches, alongside the Constitution Day on 3 May celebration gatherings, also banned by the communist authorities, were the customary dates of demonstrations by the opponents of the communist regime. As Poland emerged from communism in 1989, the original holiday—on its original 11 November date—was restored.
Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland
The Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland (Polish: "Rząd Tymczasowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej" or RTRP) was created by the State National Council ("Krajowa Rada Narodowa") on the night of 31 December 1944.