anchor: Over a millennium, Poland evolved from a huge and imposing, economically powerful kingdom to a partitioned nation that ceased to exist on world maps for over 120 years, and finally to a people and land at the center of the 20th century's greatest wars and most horrific human tragedies.
positive: Poland had been a huge, economically powerful kingdom.
negative: Poland had been carefully insulated from the 20th century's greatest wars.