Poles (West Slavs)

The Slavic nations according to Polish myth 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 had formed small states between 800 and 960.

One of these tribes, the Polanie or Poliane ("people of the plain"), had settled in the flatlands that eventually formed the heart of Poland, lending their name to the country.

Over time the modern Poles have 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.

Polish national custom identifies the starting date of Polish history as 966, when Prince Mieszko (r. 963-92) accepts Christianity in the name of the people he rules, in spite of convincing fragmentary evidence in Poland of prior political and social organization.

In return, Poland receives 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 is an expansionist force to the West in the mid-tenth century.

Mieszko accepts baptism directly from Rome in preference to conversion by the German church and subsequent annexation of Poland by the German Empire.

This strategy inaugurates the intimate connection between the Polish national identity and Roman Catholicism that will become a prominent theme in the history of the Poles.

Mieszko is considered the first ruler of Poland's Piast Dynasty (named for the legendary peasant founder of the family), which will endure for four centuries.

Between 967 and 990, Mieszko conquers substantial territory along the Baltic Sea and in the region known as Little Poland to the south.

By the time he officially submits to the authority of the Holy See in Rome in 990, Mieszko has transformed his country into one of the strongest powers in Eastern Europe.

Mieszko's son and successor Boleslaw I (r. 992-1025), known as the Brave, builds on his father's achievements and becomes the most successful Polish monarch of the early medieval era.

Boleslaw continues 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 gains some non-Polish territory in a series of wars against his imperial overlord in 1003 and 1004.

The Polish conqueror then turns eastward, extending the boundaries of his realm into present-day Ukraine.

Shortly before his death in 1025, Boleslaw wins international recognition as the first king of a fully sovereign Poland.

The Poles possess one of the richest and most venerable historical traditions of all European peoples.

Convention fixes the origins of Poland as a nation near the middle of the tenth century, contemporaneous with the Carolingians, Vikings, and Saracens, and a full hundred years before the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066.

Throughout the subsequent centuries, the Poles will manage despite great obstacles to build and maintain an unbroken cultural heritage.

The same cannot be said of Polish statehood, which is notoriously precarious and episodic.

Periods of independence and prosperity will alternate with phases of foreign domination and disaster.

Especially in more recent centuries, frequent adversity will subject the Poles to hardships scarcely equaled in European history.

Many foreign observers perceive Poland as a perennial victim of history, whose survival through perseverance and a dogged sense of national identity has left a mixed legacy of indomitable courage and intolerance toward outsiders.

To Poles, their history includes brighter recollections of Poland as a highly cultured kingdom, uniquely indulgent of ethnic and religious diversity and precociously supportive of human liberty and the fundamental values of Western civilization.

The contrast between these images reflects the extremes of fortune experienced by Poland.

The two visions of history combine in uneasy coexistence in the Polish consciousness.

One striking feature of Polish culture is its fascination with the national past; the unusual variety and intensity of that past defy tidy conclusions and produce energetic debate among Poles themselves on the meaning of their history.

In the first centuries of its existence, the Polish nation is led by a series of strong rulers who convert the Poles to Christendom, created a strong Central European state, and integrate Poland into European culture.

Formidable foreign enemies and internal fragmentation will erode this initial structure in the thirteenth century, but consolidation in the 1300s will lay the base for the dominant Polish Kingdom that is to follow.

 

The building of the Polish state continues during the eleventh century and the first half of the twelfth century under a series of successors to Boleslaw I, but by 1150, the state will be divided among the sons of Boleslaw III, beginning two centuries of fragmentation that will bring Poland to the brink of dissolution.

The most fabled event of the period is the murder in 1079 of Stanislaw, the bishop of Krakow.

A participant in uprisings by the aristocracy against King Boleslaw II, Stanislaw is killed by order of the king.

This incident, which leads to open rebellion and ends the reign of Boleslaw, is a Polish counterpart to the later, more famous assassination of Thomas á Becket on behalf of King Henry II of England.

Although historians still debate the circumstances of the death, after his canonization the martyred St. Stanislaw will enter national lore as a potent symbol of resistance to illegitimate state authority—an allegorical weapon that will prove especially effective against the communist regime in the post-Second World War era.

The nascent Polish state is born on the European Plains in vassalage to the German Empire.

Construction of a church had begun in Poznan (Posen), the residence of the Polish royal dynasty, in 966; it is raised to the status of a cathedral in 968 when the first missionary, Bishop Jordan, comes to Poland.

Saint Peter becomes the patron of the church because, as the first cathedral in the country, it has the right to have the same patron as St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

(The pre-Romanesque church built at this time is about forty-eight meters in length; remains of this building are still visible in the basements of today's basilica.

The first church will survive for about seventy years, until the period of the pagan reaction and the raid of the Bohemian duke Bretislav in the 1030s.

The cathedral will be rebuilt in the Romanesque style, remains of which are visible in the southern tower.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the church would be rebuilt in the Gothic style, at which time, a crown of chapels will be added.

A fire in 1622 will do such serious damage that the cathedral needs a complete renovation, which will be carried out in the Baroque style.

After another major fire in 1772, the church will be rebuilt in the Neo-Classical style.

In 1821, Pope Pius VII will raise the cathedral to the status of a Metropolitan Archcathedral and add the second patron: Saint Paul.

The last of the great fires will occur on February 15, 1945, during the liberation of the city from the Germans.

The damage is serious enough that the conservators will decide to return to the Gothic style, using as a base medieval relics revealed by the fire.

The cathedral will be reopened on June 29, 1956.

Pope John XXIII will give the church the title of minor basilica in 1962.)

Much of Mieszko’s military activity is along the Baltic coast, in the territory later called Pomerania, fighting with the tribes of Wieletes and Volinians south of the Baltic Sea, and their ally, the Saxon count Wichman.

He defeats Dietrich of Haldensleben, the first Margrave of the Northern March, at Cedynia in 972.

Dietrich, a harsh overlord, had helped Adalbert, Archbishop of Magdeburg, plot the downfall of Count Gero of Alselben.

The energetic Boleslaus the Cruel, the Czech Przemysl dynasty’s prince of Bohemia from 929 or 935, is notorious for the murder of his brother (Saint) Wenceslas, through which he had become prince of Bohemia.

Boleslaus may never have become a vassal of the German king, but it is known that he led a Czech force in alliance with Otto at the great victory over the Magyars at the Lech river on August 10, 955.

He had also helped Otto to crush an uprising of Slavs on the Lower Elbe in 953.

Seeing the growth of Polish strength to the north of his borders, he had accordingly arranged for his daughter Dubrawka to marry the Piast prince Mieszko I in 965.

Dying two years later, he is succeeded by his son, Boleslaus II, whose reign is most notable for founding of the diocese of Prague in 973, which has been placed within the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Mainz.

Called ”The Pious”, Boleslaus maintains good relations with the Ottonian German kings, and in 975 supports Otto II during his civil war against Henry II, Duke of Bavaria.