Kingdoms of Central Europe

The modern 'Third Republic' of Poland was formed out of the various post-First World War conflicts, and was then further redefined after the Second World War - both on a fairly heavy scale. The country is located in eastern Central Europe, with the Baltic Sea forming its northern edge.

With a thousand years of history behind it, Poland is bordered to the north-east by Kaliningrad and Lithuania, to the east by Belarus, to the south-east by Ukraine, to the south by Slovakia and Czechia, and to the west by Germany.

The country's pre-Slavic history is a long one, covering several Bronze Age and Iron Age Early Cultures, the latter of which saw the settlement of various Belgic groups, northern or eastern Celts or Celtic-influenced people with an additional Germanic influence from southern Scandinavia, while the Vistula Venedi to the east may also have played a part here, from settlements along the river which became subsumed by the duchy of Mazovia.

In the last two centuries BC Germanic settlement from Scandinavia formed minor (tribal) states on the southern coast of the Early Baltics and west bank of the Vistula. Of these, the Buri and Lugii occupied areas of what is now southern Poland, the Burgundians and Goths were located centrally, while the Gepids and Rugii were on the northern coast.

Once outward migration had depleted most of them during the Willenberg phase, they were gradually replaced by the Slavic settlements of the Western Polans, Masovians, Polabii, and others. However, the movements of those West Slavic peoples who became the Poles is highly uncertain. It seems likely that they entered the area thanks to long association with the neighbouring Balts, then settling alongside some of them on the Vistula.

As these West Slavic Polish tribes emerged as masters of the region, they formed petty kingdoms which were unified in the tenth century, when the duchy of Poland emerged into history at the same time as it accepted Christianity. A Polish state survived to blossom as the Polish Commonwealth, prior to partition at the end of the eighteenth century. The brief subsequent grand duchy of Warsaw was replaced by subject states such as that of Congress Poland.

It was not until the end of the First World War that the Polish people could unite to declare a free and independent republic of Poland, on 7 November 1918. With various territorial and civil wars raging across vast areas of Eastern Europe, the Poles had to fight off German irregular troops in the west and Bolshevik Russian troops in the east as they attempted to solidify and even expand their borders.

The Nazi German invasion on 1 September 1939 not only triggered the Second World War, it also eventually resulted in Soviet occupation in 1944-1945 as the German forces were pushed back. Poland gained the southern half of former East Prussia to its territory, including the regions of Pomesania, Culm, and Warmia, once the seats of medieval bishops.

Poland's western border, though, was drawn farther west, to the Oder-Neisse line. Its eastern border was also moved westwards, losing it a vast swathe of eastern territory to Byelorussia, most of Galicia to Ukraine, and Vilnius to Lithuania. As a result, Poland's total territory fell by twenty percent and the country remained an occupied satellite state of the Soviet empire, known as the 'People's Republic of Poland'.

Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare its renewed independence from the now-decaying Soviet Union, on 11 March 1990. The following year the declaration became fact as Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus finally regained their independence. On Christmas Day 1991 communist USSR President Gorbachev announced the termination of the Soviet communist state.

The Soviet republics become independent sovereign states (if they had not already become so since 1989), including Belarus, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, North Ossetia, Poland, Romania, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

Since independence, Poland has embraced western culture and technology, but in a somewhat uneasy relationship. Still recovering in many ways from the traumas of the twentieth century, it has a deep undercurrent of conservatism which wants to push against the country's newfound trends. It is also deeply Catholic Christian, which tends to support a spirit of conservatism.

The recent re-emergence of right-wing populism (a trend which was not unique to Poland in the later 2010s) saw some steps being taken to turn back the clock, on occasion placing the country in the European Union's bad books. Centrist success in the elections of 2023 halted and began to reverse this process.

Culturally and architecturally, Warsaw remains the country's capital but is largely a collection of post-war concrete constructions which are only more recently being upgraded or replaced. The war left it heavily damaged, and Soviet planned building filled in the vast gaps between surviving buildings. The centre of Kraków, however, is widely acknowledged as being one of Europe's greatest surviving examples of a medieval city. The heart of Poland's second city was included on the first list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1978.

Poland does not have any claimants to the lost commonwealth throne. The elective monarchy of the commonwealth meant that no particular royal house could claim to be the hereditary king of Poland, although the Saxon Wettins are the most likely candidates should a Polish kingship ever be considered again.

On 3 May 1791, the constitution had given formal sanction to the Polish union with Lithuania, removing the process of electing kings and making the crown hereditary again under the ruling Saxon dynasty. The commonwealth was rapidly dying by this time though, so the sanction had little real effect and the constitution itself may be of dubious legal status as it was forcibly cancelled in 1792.

European Kingdoms

Central Europe

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