In the first
centuries of its existence, the Polish nation was led by a
series of strong rulers who converted the Poles to
Christendom, created a strong Central European state, and
integrated Poland into European culture. Formidable foreign
enemies and internal fragmentation eroded this initial
structure in the thirteenth century, but consolidation in
the 1300s laid the base for the dominant Polish Kingdom that
was to follow. According to
Polish myth, the Slavic nations trace their ancestry to
three brothers who parted in the forests of Eastern Europe,
each moving in a different direction to found a family of
distinct but related peoples. Fanciful elements aside, this
tale accurately describes the westward migration and gradual
differentiation of the early West Slavic tribes following
the collapse of the Roman Empire. About twenty such tribes
formed small states between A.D. 800 and 960. One of these
tribes, the Polanie or Poliane ("people of the plain"),
settled in the flatlands that eventually formed the heart of
Poland, lending their name to the country. Over time the
modern Poles emerged as the largest of the West Slavic
groupings, establishing themselves to the east of the
Germanic regions of Europe with their ethnographic cousins,
the Czechs and Slovaks, to the south. In spite of
convincing fragmentary evidence of prior political and
social organization, national custom identifies the starting
date of Polish history as 966, when Prince Mieszko (r.
963-92) accepted Christianity in the name of the people he
ruled. In return, Poland received acknowledgment as a
separate principality owing some degree of tribute to the
German Empire (later officially known as the Holy Roman
Empire). Under Otto I, the German Empire was an expansionist
force to the West in the mid-tenth century. Mieszko accepted
baptism directly from Rome in preference to conversion by
the German church and subsequent annexation of Poland by the
German Empire. This strategy inaugurated the intimate
connection between the Polish national identity and Roman
Catholicism that became a prominent theme in the history of
the Poles. Mieszko is
considered the first ruler of the Piast Dynasty (named for
the legendary peasant founder of the family), which endured
for four centuries. Between 967 and 990, Mieszko conquered
substantial territory along the Baltic Sea and in the region
known as Little Poland to the south. By the time he
officially submitted to the authority of the Holy See in
Rome in 990, Mieszko had transformed his country into one of
the strongest powers in Eastern Europe. Mieszko's son and
successor Boleslaw I (992-1025), known as the Brave, built
on his father's achievements and became the most successful
Polish monarch of the early medieval era. Boleslaw continued
the policy of appeasing the Germans while taking advantage
of their political situation to gain territory wherever
possible. Frustrated in his efforts to form an equal
partnership with the Holy Roman Empire, Boleslaw gained some
non-Polish territory in a series of wars against his
imperial overlord in 1003 and 1004. The Polish conqueror
then turned eastward, extending the boundaries of his realm
into present-day Ukraine. Shortly before his death in 1025,
Boleslaw won international recognition as the first king of
a fully sovereign Poland (see fig. 2).
Library of Congress Country Study
The Origins of
Poland
Library of Congress Country Study
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