Why is Polish history significant?

The Kingdom of Poland was formed in 10^th century and initially ruled by the Piast dynasty. They had their ups and downs, but generally the history at that time is not really special. In 1370, however, the last of the dynasty—Casimir the Great (he really was a good king: there is a proverb, that he “found Poland wooden and left her masoned”, he also funded the first university in the country—now known as the Jagiellonian University—in 1364, more than twenty years before the first was established in Germany) died without a heir. A great king, he wouldn’t leave his country without a monarch, so Casimir had made arrangements with Louis, the king of Hungary and a close relative, that the latter would take over, and in return, Hungary agreed to support the international politics and conquers of the Kingdom of Poland. So far, nothing spectacular, right? But, the two kings, weren’t the only parties in this agreement. For the first time, the nation had to be consulted ¹, and promised, that the taxes would be lowered, the king would cover his travelling expenses, that he would pay during the war duty, and finally—that from then on, the monarchs in Poland would always need to be approved by the people.

The last promise was soon to be verified. When it became apparent, that Louis wouldn’t have a son either. He then negotiated with the people again, and they agreed, that one of his daughters could take over following his death. When Louis died and his oldest daughter was to take the crown, the nobles denied her because they wanted more attention for Poland and didn’t think, that it is possible with the king that reigns in Hungary at the same time. They instead agreed for the younger daughter—Jadwiga—to be their king, and started looking for a good husband for her.

At that time, behind the eastern border of the Kingdom, a small, pagan, and quite wild Duchy of Lithuania had conquered much more developed, Orthodox Christian Ruthenia (now Ukraine) and feared, that the more advanced state might overwhelm them (Ukrainian was the official language of Lithuania, for example). Moreover, a Teutonic Order ruling Prussia ² kept attacking Lithuania under the pretences of Christianisation, at the same time challenging Poland over access to the sea, so we had a common enemy. All that led to decision, that the Great Duke of Lithuania, Jogalia, should be baptised (together with his country) in western Christianity, and marry our Lady King. This seemed like a one-time solution, but the nobles kept agreeing for all the heirs of Jagiellonian dynasty (named after Jogalia) which led to the long-lasting political union of nations.

And now the interesting part…

So far, we’ve seen, that the king in Poland had to be approved by szlachta (the nobles) and his powers were limited by the promises of his predecessors (sometimes the nobles could lift some of the limitations, in the parliamentary gathering called Sejm). In times of Jagiellonian dynasty, the elections were quite obvious—they just kept electing the heirs—although the nobles were always negotiating hard, usually demanding more responsible government. Then, in 1572, the last Jagiellonian king—Zygmunt August—died and with no obvious candidate to follow. The nobles from all the nations of Rzeczpospolita ³ agreed that temporarily the Catholic Primate should act as the head of state, local governments should be in force, and some voluntary military forces were protecting the borders in case, any of the neighbours wanted to take advantage of the instability of the country. All that was necessary while they were trying to find a new king. Once they made sure, the country was safe and running, all the nobles gathered near Warsaw to settle on requirements for the new monarch. Then they selected their nominee, the French candidate—Henri Valois—a brother of Charles IX, who then was the king of France.

To many the selection was controversial, as Rzeczpospolita was a country of many religions and the French ruling family’s involvement in St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre made the public opinion rather reluctant to accept the king. For that reason szlachta decided to set certain conditions, without agreeing to which the king wouldn’t be appointed.

Two documents were formulated: Henrician articles played a role of constitution, which the king had to acknowledge. It stressed the role of two houses of Parliament, the limitations of the King (in taxes and policies), the religious freedoms, it even codified the rightful disobedience called rokosz — a truly democratic custom coming from Hungary–if the monarch acts against the privileges of szlachta. The second document—pacta conventa was crafted especially for each election and contained special expectations the elected king had to promise to fulfil. In case of Henry, it was expected that he took special care of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, created Polish Navy on Baltic sea and paid country’s debts with his own money.

The set of these demands was sent with a delegation to France, and it was expected, that as an example of good will, the French king will cease the siege of two Huguenot cities (one was La Rochelle), which indeed happened. They also demanded, that the king wouldn’t support any religious discrimination, neither in Poland nor in his homeland and that France would introduce religious freedom as well. The situation was very tense, while Henry tried to avoid making decisions going that far, but he was sharply informed:

«Nisi id feceris, Rex in Polonia non eris» (Without signing it you won’t be a Polish king)

Henri Valois didn’t stay in Poland for too long, he returned to France following the death of his brother and took French throne. What he saw in my country, he probably viewed as an anarchy (as many historians do). I think however, that the fact, that every elected king from then on, had to sign a contract with those, who elected him, was ahead of that times ⁴.

Let’s get back to 13^th century

In 1264, Poland was fragmented as a consequence of a process that was typical to many European countries at that time (for some, like Germany, this state was permanent until mid 19^th century). There were very many insignificant duchies fighting with each other for pieces of land. One of the insignificant dukes—Bolesław the Pious—we would probably have never heard about, like we haven’t about all the others, but, for the particular interests of his small duchy he introduced a law that has changed Polish society to these days.

Around that time, in Western Europe, the tensions had risen as an effect of Crusades and ignited unprecedented violence towards numerous Jewish population in France and Germany. Polish kings and dukes saw that as an opportunity — they needed smart people to build economy, especially after Mongol Invasions — and the smartest communities in the West had to run for their lives. What the latter only needed was assurance that here they would be safe. Bolesław the Pious was not the only one to give such an assurance, nor was he the first. The dukes were very eager to organize Jewish communities in the towns of their lands, so they introduced a lot of laws to make it happen. The one that Bolesław wrote was however quite unprecedented in its tolerance. I strongly encourage the reader to read the excerpts on Wikipedia.

When the country was finally unified under the rule of Polish king, it didn’t take long for the Statute to be ratified in the whole country. In fact it was done by the second king after the unification—Casimir the Great (haven’t we heard that name already?). He has even made few more steps. King Casimir decided, that Jewish quarters in the cities would have their own laws, because the German laws, that were used for urban areas, were not liberal enough. The inviting policy of Poland, together with a pandemic of plague for which the Jews were persecuted again caused entire communities from England, France, Germany and Czechia flee to our country (and to Hungary).

And three hundred years forward again…

The freedom of Polish Jews was progressing ⁵. It probably reached its highest during the reign of Stefan Batory—the best of all our kings — who was elected after Henri Valois’ departure. He came from Hungary (Transylvania) which had similar traditions of freedom, and that made him much better suited for the throne than the French. He knew well, how to deal with the nobles and was able to convince the Sejm to impose taxes for the necessary wars. He also knew, what to answer, when a starosta (senior) of the city of Lwów declined a lawsuit filled by a Jew:

Just like a Jew, is the starosta King’s people

Under the reign of Batory, Rzeczpospolita (also called “Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth”) was at its best. It reached the greatest area (of around million square kilometres) later, but Stefan’s country was large enough, with roughly 6.5 million population, among them 10% were nobles (szlachta), 4% Jews, 20% Burgess, some clergy, few thousand Ukrainian Cossacks and the remainder of peasants. (only class that couldn’t own or relocate freely, they leased the land belonging to the nobles, and in return needed to work for the owners for two days every week or pay rent). It contained nations of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia and Prussia (Germans), as well as Jews, Armenians, Tatars (a Muslim community that lives peacefully in Poland to this days). In central areas Catholicism was dominant, but the German-speaking regions usually followed Lutheran faith, in some areas Calvinism was more popular among the nobles, there were islands of Arians or Bohemian Brethen (Hussites) and large areas (now Ukraine and Belarus) with dominant Orthodox and Greek Catholic churches. The economy was based mostly on export of cereal and wood to whole Europe, which was enough for the country to prosper well at the time. Almost all of the trade took place in a harbour of Gdańsk, which in turn became a very prosperous and beautiful city with large autonomy (that also belonged to the Hanseatic League).

Where did the greatness go?

Well, that’s a fair question. It seems now, three main issues appeared at some point and weren’t addressed properly. Firstly, the mainly agrarian economy was gradually bringing less profit. The farming efficiency was mainly maintained by increasing the workload of the peasants. The stagnation was never rapid enough that it would call for a modernisation of farming technology, and the weight put on the peasants’ backs was never big enough, that they would migrate to the cities in large numbers (like it happened in the West).

The second factor was geopolitical. Poland was surrounded by empires with rising ambitions in 17^th century. Since different faiths were coexisting in Rzeczpospolita harmoniously, we did not take part in Thirty Years' War, but afterwards warmed-up Sweden invaded seeking control over entire Baltic Sea. The war called Swedish Deluge followed by Russian invasions ended with no immediate territorial losses, however a third of the population was killed, most of the wealth was stolen (that’s why the works of a famous Polish astronomer—Copernicus—can now be found in Sweden), and 188 cities were completely destroyed together with defensive infrastructure. The resulting decline of economic status of Polish citizens also limited their connection with the west. They stopped travelling and sending their children to European universities—which had before been a common practice—and that certainly contributed to the inability to modernise. Surviving the wars also led the country to some unpleasant concessions. In one of them the Polish king allowed for personal union in reign of Prussia (then part of Rzeczpospolita) and Brandenburg. The merger Prussia-Brandenburg quickly rose to challenge Poland, Austria, and later the rest of Europe, starting two world wars in 20^th century.

The third accompanying factor, in 18^th century was decision-making. The Commonwealth, with its democratic system, was surrounded by absolute monarchies. A common pattern is, that a democratic society is much more peaceful then an autocratic regime. Our neighbours were using corruption and propaganda to disable the country from defending and reforming itself (much alike Soviet efforts to promote pacifism in the West during the cold war). The 18^th century was a time of growing power of Prussia, Russia and still strong Austrian empire. At that time, Polish elected kings were either completely tied in reform by the democratic mechanisms, or openly supporting one of the neighbours. The last king — Stanisław August Poniatowski was elected in sight of Russian army and backing of German-born Tsar Catherine (who happened to be his lover). His reign is still very controversial: Poniatowski’s times mark a very vivid political life in Poland, when unimaginable volumes of press were printed and many modern institutions were created, including secular system of education (replacing Jesuit schools) or modern army. Many of the reforms, like a constitution of 3rd May 1791, the first such document in Europe were passed rather despite than thanks to the King’s efforts. Soon after the constitution had given a light of hope that the country could survive, the three surrounding empires split it among themselves, starting a 123-years-long sad period of partitions.

Is there anything left?

It would be unfair to compare the current size of Poland or Lithuania to the area of 16^th century Rzeczpospolita. Being big wasn’t the greatest cultural achievement of our history. What definitely is still with us, is a great deal of sympathy to other nations of the Commonwealth, and even a generation ago many Poles (like Czesław Miłosz or Jerzy Giedroyć) had a complex national identity of Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For modern Europeans, usually carrying a simple idea of a nation formed in 19^th-century Germany, it is hard to understand, that the most important Polish poet and writer, Adam Mickiewicz, started his most important book (Pan Tadeusz, written in Paris in 1834) with the words:

«Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie,
Kto cię stracił…»
Lithuania, my fatherland! You are like health;
How much you must be valued, will only discover
The one who has lost you.

How could he feel a Polish and Lithuanian patriot at the same time? For Mickiewicz, coming from Lithuania was just a special way of being the Commonwealth’s citizen.

The creation of modern Ukrainian nationalism also ignited a debate on a Polish role in it, a discussion which is still alive. On one hand, there are some bad memories: the cities in western Ukraine were mainly populated by Poles, while the countryside was in majority Ukrainian (the nationalities could only be decided by self-declaration or religion however). After the World War I, the status of this land was uncertain. It was the intention of Józef Piłsudski, our great leader at that time, to create a federalist state, where Ukraine and Lithuania would be members. A solution like this was very natural for him, a Polish patriot born in Vilnius. He found an ally in Ukraine, the plans were however unfortunately halted by an outbreak of Polish-Soviet war in which Poland defended itself (and possibly whole Europe) from yet another barbarian deluge coming from the east, but great parts of Ukraine were lost to Russia. After Piłsudski’s death in 1935, Polish governments were gradually antagonising Ukrainian population. At the same time eastern Ukrainians suffered a Stalin’s attempt to exterminate a whole nation through famine. The growing tensions in Polish-controlled western Ukraine resulted in a Volhynian slaughter of around 90,000 Polish civilians in 1943 by the Ukrainian partisans, when the area was occupied by Nazi Germany. For many people in Poland, this is a defining moment in our long history.

On the other hand, Piłsudski wasn’t alone in his idea of building a federation. He has formed an idea of Intermarium — a strong coalition of eastern European countries, who share a lot of common interests and need to address the same threats. This idea is still seriously considered by intellectuals over the years, and pursued by our current government ⁶. It does not limit to politicians—there is a positive trend between the nations now, when Ukraine is again defending its territory from Russia. An immigration of over a million Ukrainians is also building on good relations. When the new Ukrainian president was speaking in our Sejm in December 2014, he referred to our common roots, similar cultures, said few words in our language (which is fairly similar to his own) and ended his wise speech with:

«Слава Речі Посполитій і Польському народові! Слава нашій міцній дружбі! Слава Україні!» Glory to Rzeczpospolita and the Polish nation! Glory to our constant friendship! Glory to Ukraine!)