History of Poland The historically recorded Polish state begins with Mieszko I in the second half of the 10th century. Mieszko I chose to be baptized in the Western Latin Rite in 966.Mieszko's son Bolesław I Chrobry (ruled 992-1025) established a Polish Church province, pursued territorial conquests and was officially crowned at the end of his life in 1025, becoming the first King of Poland. During the Congress of Gniezno in the year 1000, Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor authorized the founding of the Archbishopric of Gniezno. Bolesław III Wrymouth divided Poland among his sons in 1138, internal fragmentation eroded the initial Piast monarchy structure in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Piast Kingdom was effectively restored under Władysław I the Elbow-high (1306-1333), crowned in 1320. Nest king, King Casimir III the Great (1333-1370), Władysław's son and the last of the Piast rulers, significantly strengthened and expanded the country. Progress was made in the recovery of the central province of Mazovia and in 1340 the conquest of Red Ruthenia began, marking Poland's expansion to the east. The Congress of Kraków took place in 1364 and the future Jagiellonian University was founded that year. The Kingdom continued under Louis I of Hungary (ruled Poland 1370-1382) of the Angevin dynasty. Beginning with the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila (King Władysław II Jagiełło 1386-1434), the Jagiellonian dynasty (1386–1572) formed the Polish–Lithuanian union. In the Baltic Sea region, Poland's struggle with the Teutonic Knights continued and culminated in the Battle of Grunwald (1410). The reign of the young Władysław III (1434–44),[14] a king of Poland and Hungary, was cut short by his death at the Battle of Varna, fought against the forces of the Ottoman Empire. Central to the Jagiellonian period was the long reign of Casimir IV Jagiellon (1447-1492). In 1454 Royal Prussia was incorporated by Poland and the Thirteen Years' War with the Teutonic state ensued.he European Renaissance currents evoked in late Jagiellonian Poland (kings Sigismund I the Old and Sigismund II Augustus) an immense cultural and scientific flowering (the Golden Age), of which the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (died 1543) is the best known representative.
Battle of Grunwald
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I Reczpospolita and rulers of elective - Federal State composed of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, existing in years 1569-1795 : - Sigismund III Vasa (1587-1632) and his sons - Władysław IV (1632-1648) and John Casimir (1648-1668) led to the war with Sweden , Russia, Turkey , and reporting to the Tartars . Country enfeebled the creation of a Cossack . This led to the destruction and decline in the international position of the state , the loss of large territories and growing anarchy , chaos and lawlessness internal magnates . Real , but short-lived success then was to get Moscow (1610) . The situation deteriorated even brief reign of Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki ( 1669-1673 ) . Only John III Sobieski (1674-1696) , the great leader and politician , he started repairing the state. European fame brought him many victories over the Turks (including the relief of Vienna in 1683 ) . In view of the opposition magnates lay in ruins his plans to reform the anarchic system and recover the power position of the Republic . This led to the partition and the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian in the eighteenth century. - Saxon times in the first half of the eighteenth century, the Republic experienced a period of serious political crisis .It was a time when Poland was ruled by the kings of the Saxon Wettin dynasty , Augustus II (1697-1733) and Augustus III ( 1733-1763 ) .Their reign , however, was caused weakness and
the economic crisis of the Republic and the dependence of Tsarist Russia.
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Polish Armed Conflict - The war with Turkey. The Ottoman Empire maintained peaceful relations with the Republic until 1619 , when he made a diversionary action lisowczycy in Transylvania. Hetman Żółkiewski , ahead of the Turkish attack , marched into Moldavia. Republic forces were defeated - . In 1621 , in the camp of Chocim forces Jan Karol Chodkiewicz resisted Turkish forces . Also, there was signed a truce , but the Turks have to commit to stop the marauding invasions of Tatars . 1673 at the Battle of a Chocim Turks were defeated . Forces of the Republic led hetman Jan Sobieski , who in 1674 was elected king. After the victory of the Republic regained some land Sobieski dealt a decisive blow to the Turks on September 12th, 1683 , under the Vienna. The peace treaty signed in Karłowice after the death of Sobieski in 1699 the Republic regained Podolia .On June 17th, 1696 ,Jan III Sobieski died.
- Khmelnytsky Uprising 1648-1667 Discord in the Sejm and the use of the peasants by the nobility in Ukraine advantage of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who organized the Cossack uprisings against the Commonwealth. He entered into an alliance with the Tatar khan . Nierejestrowi rebellious Cossacks and the Registry , which is in arrears with the payment of their pay , backed Tartar troops under the command of Tuhaj Bey defeated the forces of the Republic of the Yellow Waters and Korsun . In August 1649 Jeremy Wiśniowiecki forces were besieged in the fort Zbaraj . Cossack forces were surrounded by the troops of King John Casimir Ladislas brother , who died in 1648 . Only by George Ossoliński , who bribed the Tartar Khan , an agreement was reached with the Khmelnitsky . He received the title of captain of the host Zaporojian and the number of registered Cossacks twice raised from 20 to 40,000 . In 1651 years of John Casimir army , numbering 60,000 soldiers , Cossacks army smashed Beresteczko . As a result of this victory was to reduce the record to 20,000 and reducing the Cossack land to the province of Kiev . Settlement was signed in the White Church. But it did not last long. In 1652 there was a battle Batoh culminating in the victory of the Cossacks and the pogrom in the Polish army . In 1654 the Cossacks entered into an arrangement with Russia in Pereyaslav . Thus, the Polish - Cossack war became a war Polish - Cossack and Russian .
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- Swedish Deluge 1655-1660 Swedish invasion of Poland in 1655 during the Second Northern War (1655-1660). Formally ended his room in Oliwa included in 1660. This war was carried out not only by Sweden, during the war changed both alliances and forces on both sides. It was a continuation of previous wars waged by the Republic, was also rooted in a dispute over the throne of Sweden has initiated by King Sigismund III Vasa. Swedish Deluge showed weakness organizational Republic, and its efficiency invader received such through collaboration and bribery in the Republic. And although the Swedes were finally driven out, it incurred losses and expenses peace concessions were high, and some material damage, particularly Swedish Polish cultural plunder, are visible today.
- War with Russia, 1654-1667
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Tsar's army of 200,000 soldiers took Smolensk , Belarus and Minsk , and part of Lithuania's Vilnius and Grodno . Cossack troops backed by Russian meals surrounded Lviv, took Lublin and reached all the way to the river. Follow-up to the invasion of the Russians stopped the Swedes. Russia feared the rise of Sweden in the Baltic Sea and decided to call a truce with the Republic . Settlement signed in Niemierzy . Khmelnytsky had ambitious plans . He wanted to become independent from Russia, sought an agreement with the Swedes and Siedmiogrodzianami . Khmelnytsky's successor John ( Ivan ) Wyhowski entered into an arrangement with the Republic of the Hadziaczu . Under the agreement was to be formed Cossack state of three provinces: Kiev , Chernihiv and Bracław with their officials and liberties of the Church hierarchy for noble Cossack elders , but the agreement never took effect , and Wyhowski was overthrown . The fight for control of Ukraine resumed Russia . The Polish army defeated the Russian forces under Połonka and Cudnów and regained Vilnius and took all of Ukraine . Wins have not been used because there was insufficient funds to pay the outstanding salaries of the army and declared a confederation .The truce was signed in Moscow in 1667 Andrusovo . Enlightenment in Poland In Poland, the ideas of the Enlightenment were adopted later than in Western Europe, which was connected with the fact that the middle class has gained greater importance only in the second half. Eighteenth of the century assumed that the time frame of the Polish Enlightenment covers the period from the 40s Eighteenth century until 1822. The Enlightenment guided many prominent contemporary artists of the eighteenth century. Thanks to them, there is a rapid development of education, science, political and cultural life. Through activities such as Stanislaw Kostka Potocki, Ignacy Potocki. Poland became the first they country in Europe to obtain a modern constitution. Then also were trying to build a country on the principles of the Enlightenment, which interrupted by partitions. Classicism in Poland is sometimes called the style of Stanislaus (from King Stanisław August Poniatowski). In these times of Stanislaus there was an attempted to reform the university teaching. Universities have become substantially higher vocational schools. In 1765 King Stanisław August Poniatowski founded the School Knights, created the Permanent Council and the Commission of National Education. The Society was set up to Elementary Books, and at the initiative of the king the meeting arose which various Polish thinkers called "Thursday dinners". Four reforms: -reform of the military-increasing number of troops fiscal-reform-nobles will have to pay taxes, -participation of 24 representatives from cities in the Parliament, but only in an advisory, -formed government in the cities (the city), -town people will be able to purchase goods of the earth, -integrity of the person (personal freedom town people), -will be able to hold lower offices. The Constitution of 3 May 1791, - Polish hereditary monarchy, - Abolished the liberum veto and free election, - Separation of powers, - Legislative power in the hands of parliament - The judicial power in the hands of a neighbors earthly city and the Crown Court
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- Peasants under the care of the right - Abolished the division of the Republic and made a joint government, the treasury and the army. Partitions of Polish - the period in Polish history in the years 1772-1795, when the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth through Russia, Prussia and Austria made an assignment for the benefit of part of its territory as a result of losing the war or the threat of force. The cause of partition was the inability of the country to reform that could improve Polish military power. Dabrowski's Mazurka-Polish patriotic song of 1797 from 26th February 1927 was the official national anthem of the Polish Republic.
The Constitution of 3 May 1791 King Stanisław August Poniatowski
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The Age of Partitions Poles rebelled several times against the partitioners, particularly near the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. One of the most famous and successful attempts at securing renewed Polish independence took place in 1794, during the Kościuszko Uprising, at the Racławice where Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a popular and distinguished general who had served under Washington in America, led peasants and some Polish regulars into battle against numerically superior Russian forces. In 1807, Napoleon I of France recreated a Polish state, the Duchy of Warsaw, but after the Napoleonic Wars, Poland was again divided by the victorious Allies at the Congress of Vienna of 1815. The eastern part was ruled by the Russian tsar as a Congress Kingdom which possessed a very liberal constitution. However, the tsars soon reduced Polish freedoms, and Russia annexed the country in virtually all but name. Thus in the latter half of the 19th century, only Austrian-ruled Galicia, and particularly the Free City of Kraków, created good environment for free Polish cultural life to flourish. Throughout the period of the partitions, political and cultural repression of the Polish nation led to the organisation of a number of uprisings against the authorities of the occupying Russian, Prussian and Austrian governments. Notable among these are the November Uprising of 1830 and January Uprising of 1863, both of which were attempts to free Poland from the rule of tsarist Russia. The November uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when, led by Lieutenant Piotr Wysocki, young non-commissioned officers at the Imperial Russian Army's military academy in that city revolted. They were soon joined by large segments of Polish society, and together forced Warsaw's Russian garrison to withdraw north of the city. Over the course of the next seven months, Polish forces successfully defeated the Russian armies of Field Marshal Hans Karl von Diebitsch and a number of other Russian commanders; however, finding themselves in a position unsupported by any other foreign powers, save distant France and the newborn United States, and with Prussia and Austria refusing to allow the import of military supplies through their territories, the Poles accepted that the uprising was doomed to failure. Upon the surrender of Warsaw to General Ivan Paskievich, many Polish troops, feeling they could not go on, withdrew into Germany and there laid down their arms. Poles would have to wait another 32 years for another opportunity to free their homeland. When in January 1863 a new Polish uprising against Russian rule began, it did so as a spontaneous protest by young Poles against conscription into the Imperial Russian Army.
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However, the insurrectionists, despite being joined by high-ranking Polish-Lithuanian officers and numerous politicians were still severely outnumbered and lacking in foreign support. They were forced to resort to guerrilla warfare tactics and ultimately failed to win any major military victories. Afterwards no major uprising was witnessed in the Russian controlled Congress Poland and Poles resorted instead to fostering economic and cultural self-improvement. Despite the political unrest experienced during the partitions, Poland did benefit from large scale industrialisation and modernisation programs, instituted by the occupying powers, which helped it develop into a more economically coherent and viable entity. This was particularly true in the Greater Poland, Pomerania and Warmia annexed by Prussia (later becoming a part of the German Empire); an area which eventually, thanks largely to the Greater Poland Uprising, was reconstituted as a part of the Second Polish Republic and became one of its most productive regions. World War I and World War II World War I and the political turbulence that was sweeping Europe in 1914 offered the Polish nation hopes for regaining independence. On the outbreak of war the Poles found themselves conscripted into the armies of Germany, Austria and Russia, and forced to fight each other in a war that was not theirs. In the Act of 5th November 1916, the Kingdom of Poland (Królestwo Regencyjne) was recreated by Germany and Austria on the formerly Russian-controlled territory. This puppet, but increasingly autonomous state existed until November 1918, when it was replaced by the newly established Republic of Poland. Józef Piłsudski was a Polish statesman and "First Marshal" (from 1920), and leader (1926–35) of the Second Polish Republic. On September 1, 1939 Hitler ordered his troops into Poland and World War II began. Poland had signed a pact with Britain (as recently as August 25) and France and the two western powers soon declared a war on Germany, but remained rather inactive and extended no aid to the attacked country. On September 17, the Soviet troops moved in and took control of most of the areas of eastern Poland with heavy Ukrainian and Belarusian populations under the terms of the German-Soviet agreement. In regard to actual military campaigns, some Polish historians have argued that fighting the initial "September Campaign" was the greatest Polish contribution in the war, despite its defeat. The Poles formed an underground resistance movement and a Polish government in exile, first in Paris and later in London.
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Poles provided crucial help to the Allies throughout the war, fighting on land, on the seas and in the air. Notable was the service of the Polish Air Force, not only in the Allied victory in the Battle of Britain but also the subsequent war in the air. Polish ground troops were present in the North Africa Campaign (siege of Tobruk); the Italian campaign (including the capture of the monastery hill at the Battle of Monte Cassino); and in battles following the invasion of France (the battle of the Falaise pocket; an airborne brigade parachute drop during Operation Market Garden and one division in the Western Allied invasion of Germany).
Postwar communist Poland At the insistence of Joseph Stalin, the Yalta Conference sanctioned the formation of a new Polish provisional and pro-Communist coalition government in Moscow, which ignored the Polish government-in-exile based in London; a move which angered many Poles who considered it a betrayal by the Allies. In 1944, Stalin had made guarantees to Churchill and Roosevelt that he would maintain Poland's sovereignty and allow democratic elections to take place; however, upon achieving victory in 1945, the occupying Soviet authorities organised an election which constituted nothing more than a sham and was ultimately used to claim the 'legitimacy' of Soviet hegemony over Polish affairs. The Soviet Union instituted a new communist government in Poland, analogous to much of the rest of the Eastern Bloc. As elsewhere in Communist Europe the Soviet occupation of Poland met with armed resistance from the outset which continued into the fifties. Despite widespread objections, the new Polish government accepted the Soviet annexation of the pre-war eastern regions of Poland[46] (in particular the cities of Wilno and Lw贸w) and agreed to the permanent garrisoning of Red Army units on Poland's territory. Military alignment within the Warsaw Pact throughout the Cold War came about as a direct result of this change in Poland's political culture and in the European scene came to characterise the full-
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fledged integration of Poland into the brotherhood of communist nations. 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. 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. Labour turmoil in 1980 led to the formation of the independent trade union "Solidarity" ("Solidarność"), which over time became a political force. Despite persecution and imposition of martial law in 1981, it eroded the dominance of the Communist Party and by 1989 had triumphed in Poland's first partially free and democratic parliamentary elections since the end of the Second World War. Lech Wałęsa, a Solidarity candidate, eventually won the presidency in 1990. The Solidarity movement heralded the collapse of communist regimes and parties across Europe.
Present-day Poland Poland joined NATO in 1999 and since 2004 has been a member of the European Union. A shock therapy programme, initiated by Leszek Balcerowicz in the early 1990s enabled the country to transform its socialist-style planned economy into a market economy. As with all other post-communist countries, Poland suffered temporary slumps in social and economic standards, but it became the first post-communist country to reach its pre-1989 GDP levels, which it achieved by 1995 largely thanks to its booming economy. Most visibly, there were numerous improvements in human rights, such as the freedom of speech, civil liberties (1st class) and political rights (1st class), according to Freedom House. In 1991, Poland became a member of the Visegrád Group and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance in 1999 along with the Czech Republic and Hungary. Poles then voted to join the European Union in a referendum in June 2003, with Poland becoming a full member on 1 May 2004. Subsequently Poland joined the Schengen Area in 2007, as a result of which, the country's borders with other member states of the European Union have been dismantled, allowing for full freedom of movement within most of the EU. In contrast to this, the section of Poland's eastern border now comprising the external EU border with Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, has become increasingly well protected, and has led in part to the coining of the phrase 'Fortress Europe', in reference to the seeming 'impossibility' of gaining entry to the EU for citizens of the former Soviet Union. In 1995-2005, the presidency included Aleksander
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Kwaśniewski. In the years 2005-2010 the president was Lech Kaczynski. Since 2010, the president is Bronisław Komorowski. On 10 April 2010, the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, along with 89 other high-ranking Polish officials died in a plane crash near Smolensk, Russia. The president's party were on their way to attend an annual service of commemoration for the victims of the Katyń massacre when the tragedy took place.
Lech Wałęsa
Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Lech Kaczyński
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Bronisław Komorowski