History of Poland

The history of Poland results from the migrations of Slavs who established permanent settlements on the Polish lands during the Early Middle Ages. In 966 AD, Duke Mieszko I of the Piast dynasty adopted Western Christianity; in 1025 Mieszko's son Bolesław I Chrobry formally established a medieval kingdom. The period of the Jagiellonian dynasty in the 14th-16th centuries brought close ties with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a cultural Renaissance in Poland and territorial expansion that culminated in the establishment of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569.
The Commonwealth in its early phase represented a continuation of Jagiellonian prosperity, with its remarkable development of a sophisticated noble democracy. From the mid-17th century the huge state entered a period of decline caused by devastating wars and by the deterioration of the country's political system. Significant internal reforms were introduced during the later part of the 18th century, especially in the Constitution of May 3, 1791, but neighboring powers did not allow the reform process to continue. The independent existence of the Commonwealth ended in 1795 after a series of invasions and partitions of Polish territory carried out by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy.
From 1795 until 1918 no truly independent Polish state existed, although strong Polish resistance movements operated. After the failure of the last military uprising against the Russian Empire, the January Uprising of 1863, the nation preserved its identity through educational initiatives and through the program of "organic work" intended to modernize the economy and society. The opportunity to regain independence only materialized after World War I, when the three partitioning imperial powers suffered decline in the wake of war and revolution.
The Second Polish Republic, established in 1918, existed as an independent state until 1939, when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union destroyed it in their invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II. Millions of Polish citizens perished in the course of the Nazi occupation of Poland between 1939 and 1945 as Germany classified ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Jews and Romani (Gypsies) as subhuman. Nazi authorities targeted the last two groups for extermination in the short term, deferring the extermination and/or enslavement of the Slavs as part of the "Generalplan Ost" ("General Plan for the East") conceived by the Nazi régime. A Polish government-in-exile nonetheless functioned throughout the war and the Poles contributed to the Allied victory through participation in military campaigns, including the final anti-German offensives, on both the eastern and western fronts. The westward advances of the Soviet Red Army in 1944 and 1945 compelled Nazi Germany's forces to retreat from Poland, which led to the establishment of a communist satellite state of the Soviet Union, known from 1952 as the Polish People's Republic.
As a result of territorial adjustments mandated by the victorious Allies at the end of World War II in 1945, Poland's geographic centre of gravity shifted towards the west and the re-defined Polish lands largely lost their traditional multi-ethnic character through the extermination, expulsion and migration of the various nationalities during and after the war.
By the late 1980s the Polish reform movement Solidarity became crucial in bringing about a peaceful transition from a communist state to the capitalist economic system and to liberal parliamentary democracy. This process resulted in the creation of the modern Polish state—the Polish Third Republic.
Members of the "Homo" genus have lived in north Central Europe for thousands of years since its environment was altered by prehistoric glaciation. In prehistoric and protohistoric times, over a period of at least 500,000 years, the area of present-day Poland went through the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age stages of development, along with the nearby regions. The Neolithic period ushered in the Linear Pottery culture, whose founders migrated from the Danube River area beginning about 5,500 BC. This culture was distinguished by the establishment of the first settled agricultural communities in modern Polish territory. Later, between about 4,400 and 2,000 BC, the native post-Mesolithic populations would also adopt and further develop the agricultural way of life.
Poland's Early Bronze Age began around 2300–2400 BC, whereas its Iron Age commenced c. 700–750 BC. One of the many cultures that have been uncovered, the Lusatian culture, spanned the Bronze and Iron Ages and left notable settlement sites. Around 400 BC, Poland was settled by La Tène culture Celtic arrivals. They were soon followed by emerging cultures with a strong Germanic component, influenced first by the Celts and then by the Roman Empire. The Germanic peoples migrated out of the area by about 500 AD during the great Migration Period of the European Dark Ages. Wooded regions to the north and east were settled by Balts.
According to mainstream archaeological research, Slavs have resided in modern Polish territories for over 1500 years. Recent genetic studies, however, determined that people who live in the current territory of Poland include the descendants of people who inhabited the area for thousands of years, beginning in the early Neolithic period.
Slavs on the territory of Poland were organized into tribal units, of which the larger ones were later known as the Polish tribes; the names of many tribes are found on the list compiled by the anonymous Bavarian Geographer in the 9th century. In the 9th and 10th centuries, these tribes gave rise to developed regions along the upper Vistula, the coast of the Baltic Sea and in Greater Poland. This latest tribal undertaking resulted in the formation of a lasting political structure in the 10th century that became the state of Poland, one of the West Slavic nations.
Poland was established as a nation state under the Piast dynasty, which ruled the country between the 10th and 14th centuries. Historical records of an official Polish state begin with Duke Mieszko I in the second half of the 10th century. Mieszko, who began his rule sometime before 963 and continued as the Polish monarch until his death in 992, chose to be baptized in the Western Latin Rite, probably on 14 April 966, following his marriage to Princess Dobrawa of Bohemia. This event became known as the baptism of Poland, and its date is often used to mark the beginning of Polish statehood symbolically. Mieszko completed a unification of the West Slavic tribal lands that was fundamental to the new country's existence. The "Dagome iudex", a document from the year 991 AD, places Mieszko's country under the protection of the pope. Following its emergence, the Polish nation was led by a series of rulers who converted the population to Christianity, created a strong Kingdom of Poland and fostered a distinctive Polish culture that was integrated into broader European culture.
Mieszko's son, Duke Bolesław I Chrobry (r. 992–1025), established a Polish Church structure, pursued territorial conquests and was officially crowned the first king of Poland in 1025, near the end of his life. Bolesław also sought to spread Christianity to parts of eastern Europe that remained pagan, but suffered a setback when his greatest missionary, Adalbert of Prague, was killed in Prussia in 997. During the Congress of Gniezno in the year 1000, Holy Roman Emperor Otto III recognized the Archbishopric of Gniezno, an institution crucial for the continuing existence of the sovereign Polish state. During the reign of Otto's successor, Holy Roman Emperor Henry II, Bolesław fought prolonged wars with the Kingdom of Germany between 1002 and 1018.
Bolesław's expansive rule overstretched the military resources of the early Polish state, and it was followed by a collapse of the monarchy. Restoration took place under Casimir I (r. 1039–58). Casimir's son Bolesław II the Bold (r. 1058–79) became involved in a conflict with Bishop Stanislaus of Szczepanów that seriously marred his reign. Bolesław had the bishop murdered in 1079 after being excommunicated by the Polish church on charges of adultery. This act sparked a revolt of Polish nobles that led to Bolesław's deposition and expulsion from the country. Around 1116, Gallus Anonymous wrote a seminal chronicle, the "Gesta principum Polonorum", intended as a glorification of his patron Bolesław III Wrymouth (r. 1107–38), a ruler who revived the tradition of military prowess of Bolesław I's time. Gallus' work became important as a key source for the early history of Poland.
After Bolesław III divided Poland among his sons in his Testament of 1138, internal fragmentation eroded the Piast monarchical structures in the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1180, Casimir II, who sought papal confirmation of his status as a senior duke, granted immunities and additional privileges to the Polish Church at the Congress of Łęczyca. Around 1220, Wincenty Kadłubek wrote his "Chronica seu originale regum et principum Poloniae", another major source for early Polish history. In 1226, one of the regional Piast dukes, Konrad I of Masovia, invited the Teutonic Knights to help him fight the Baltic Prussian pagans. Konrad's move caused centuries of warfare between Poland and the Teutonic Knights, and later between Poland and the German Prussian state. The first Mongol invasion of Poland began in 1240; it culminated in the defeat of Polish and allied Christian forces and the death of the Silesian Piast Duke Henry II at the Battle of Legnica in 1241. In 1242, Wrocław became the first Polish municipality to be incorporated, as the period of fragmentation brought economic development and growth of towns. In 1264, Bolesław the Pious granted Jewish liberties in the Statute of Kalisz.
Attempts to reunite the Polish lands gained momentum in the 13th century, and in 1295, Duke Przemysł II of Greater Poland managed to become the first ruler since Bolesław II to be crowned king of Poland. He ruled over a limited territory and was soon killed. In 1300–05 the Czech ruler Václav II also reigned as king of Poland. The Piast Kingdom was effectively restored under Władysław I the Elbow-high (r. 1306–33), who was crowned king in 1320. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights seized Gdańsk and the surrounding region (Pomerelia).
King Casimir III the Great (r. 1333–70), Władysław's son and the last of the Piast rulers, strengthened and expanded the restored Kingdom of Poland, but the western provinces of Silesia (formally ceded by Casimir in 1339) and most of Pomerania were lost to the Polish state for centuries to come. Progress was made in the recovery of the central province of Mazovia, however, and in 1340, the conquest of Red Ruthenia began, marking Poland's expansion to the east. The Congress of Kraków, a vast convocation of central, eastern, and northern European rulers probably assembled to plan an anti-Turkish crusade, took place in 1364, the same year that the future Jagiellonian University, one of the oldest European universities, was founded.
After the Polish royal line and Piast junior branch died out in 1370, Poland came under the rule of Louis I of Hungary of the Angevin dynasty, who presided over a union of Hungary and Poland that lasted until 1382. In 1374, Louis granted the Polish nobility the Privilege of Koszyce to assure the succession of one of his daughters in Poland. His youngest daughter Jadwiga (died 1399) assumed the Polish throne in 1384.
In 1386, Grand Duke Jogaila of Lithuania became also a king of Poland, to rule as Władysław II Jagiełło until 1434. The act established a Polish–Lithuanian union ruled by the Jagiellonian dynasty. The first in a series of formal "unions" was the Union of Krewo of 1385, whereby arrangements were made for the marriage of Jogaila and Queen Jadwiga. The Polish-Lithuanian partnership brought vast areas of Ruthenia controlled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into Poland's sphere of influence and proved beneficial for the nationals of both countries, who coexisted and cooperated in one of the largest political entities in Europe for the next four centuries (also after the extinction of the Jagellonian dynasty in 1572). When Queen Jadwiga died in 1399, the Kingdom of Poland fell to her husband's sole possession; her gifts helped to renew the activities of the University in 1400.
In the Baltic Sea region, Poland's struggle with the Teutonic Knights continued and culminated in the Battle of Grunwald (1410), a great victory that the Poles and Lithuanians were unable to follow up with a decisive strike against the main seat of the Order at Malbork Castle. The Union of Horodło of 1413 further defined the evolving relationship between the Crown of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and their elites.
The privileges of the "szlachta" (nobility) kept growing and in 1425 the rule of "Neminem captivabimus", which protected the noblemen from arbitrary royal arrests, was formulated.
The reign of the young Władysław III (1434–44), 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.
Critical developments of the Jagiellonian period were concentrated in the long reign of Casimir IV Jagiellon (1447–92). In 1454, Royal Prussia was incorporated by Poland and the Thirteen Years' War of 1454–66 with the Teutonic state ensued. In 1466, the milestone Peace of Thorn was concluded. This treaty divided Prussia to create East Prussia, the future Duchy of Prussia, a separate entity that functioned as a fief of Poland under the administration of the Teutonic Knights. Poland also confronted the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Tatars in the south, and in the east helped Lithuania fight the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The country was developing as a feudal state, with a predominantly agricultural economy and an increasingly dominant landed nobility. Kraków, the royal capital, was turning into a major academic and cultural center, and in 1473 the first printing press began operating there. With the growing importance of the "szlachta", the king's council evolved to become by 1493 a bicameral General Sejm (parliament) that no longer represented only the top dignitaries of the realm.
The "Nihil novi" act, adopted in 1505 by the Sejm, transferred most of the legislative power from the monarch to the Sejm. This event marked the beginning of the period known as "Golden Liberty", when the state was ruled in principle by the "free and equal" Polish nobility. In the 16th century, the massive development of folwark agribusinesses operated by the nobility led to increasingly abusive conditions for the peasant serfs who worked them. The political monopoly of the nobles also stifled the development of cities, some of which were thriving during the late Jagiellonian era, and limited the rights of townspeople, effectively holding back the emergence of a middle class.
Protestant Reformation movements made deep inroads into Polish Christianity and the resulting Reformation in Poland phenomenon involved a number of different denominations. The policies of religious tolerance that developed were nearly unique in Europe at that time and many who fled regions torn by religious strife found refuge in Poland. The reigns of King Sigismund I and King Sigismund II Augustus witnessed an intense cultivation of culture and science (a Golden Age of the Renaissance in Poland), of which the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (died 1543) is the best known representative. In 1525, during the reign of Sigismud I (1506–48), the Teutonic Order was secularized and Duke Albrecht von Hohenzollern performed an act of homage before the Polish king (the Prussian Homage) for his fief, the Duchy of Prussia. Mazovia was finally fully incorporated into the Polish Crown in 1529.
The reign of Sigismund II (1548–72) ended the Jagiellonian period, but gave rise to the Union of Lublin (1569), the ultimate fulfillment of the union with Lithuania. This agreement transferred Ukraine from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to Poland and transformed the Polish-Lithuanian polity into a real union, preserving it beyond the death of the childless Sigismund II, whose active involvement made the completion of this process possible.
Livonia in the far northeast was incorporated by Poland in 1561 and Poland entered the Livonian War against Russia. The executionist movement (an attempt to prevent domination by the magnate families of Poland and Lithuania) peaked at the Sejm in Piotrków in 1562–63. On the religious front, the Polish Brethren split from the Calvinists, and the Protestant Brest Bible was published in 1563. The Jesuits, who arrived in 1564, were destined to make a major impact on Poland's history.
The Union of Lublin of 1569 established the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a more closely unified federal state than the earlier political arrangement between Poland and Lithuania. The Union was largely run by the nobility through the system of a central parliament and local assemblies, but was led by elected kings. The formal rule of the nobility, who were proportionally more numerous than in other European countries, constituted an early democratic system ("a sophisticated noble democracy"), in contrast to the absolute monarchies prevalent at that time in the rest of Europe. The beginning of the Commonwealth coincided with a period in Polish history of great political power, advancements in civilization and prosperity. The Polish–Lithuanian Union became an influential player in Europe and a vital cultural entity that spread Western culture (with Polish characteristics) eastward. In the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century, the Commonwealth was one of the largest and most populous states in contemporary Europe, with an area approaching and a population of about ten million. Its economy was dominated by export-focused agriculture. Nationwide religious toleration was guaranteed at the Warsaw Confederation in 1573.
After the rule of the Jagiellonian dynasty had ended, Henry of Valois (later King Henry III of France) was the winner of the first "free election" by the Polish nobility in 1573. He had to agree to the restrictive "pacta conventa" obligations, but soon fled Poland when news arrived of the vacancy of the French throne, to which he was the heir presumptive. From the start, the royal elections increased foreign influence in the Commonwealth as foreign powers sought to manipulate the Polish nobility to place candidates amicable to their interests.
The reign of Stephen Báthory of Hungary (1576–86) followed; he was militarily and domestically assertive. The establishment of the legal Crown Tribunal in 1578 meant a transfer of many appellate cases from the royal to noble jurisdiction. Jan Kochanowski, a poet and the premier artistic personality of the Polish Renaissance, died in 1584.
The Commonwealth suffered from dynastic distractions (the Vasa kings unsuccessfully attempted to obtain the Swedish crown and prioritized this activity) during the reigns of the Swedish House of Vasa kings Sigismund III (1587–1632) and Władysław IV (1632–48). The Catholic Church embarked on an ideological counter-offensive and the Counter-Reformation claimed many converts from Polish and Lithuanian Protestant circles. In 1596, the Union of Brest split the Eastern Christians of the Commonwealth to create the Uniate Church of the Eastern Rite, but subject to the authority of the pope. The Zebrzydowski Rebellion against Sigismund III unfolded in 1606–8.
The Commonwealth fought wars between 1605 and 1618 with Russia for supremacy in Eastern Europe in the wake of Russia's Time of Troubles, a period referred to as the Polish–Muscovite War (or the "Dymitriads"). The efforts resulted in expansion of the eastern territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but the goal of taking over the Russian throne for the Polish ruling dynasty was not achieved. Sweden sought supremacy in the Baltic during the Polish–Swedish wars of 1617–29, and the Ottoman Empire pressed from the south in the Battles at Cecora in 1620 and Khotyn in 1621. The agricultural expansion and serfdom policies in Polish Ukraine resulted in a series of Cossack uprisings. Allied with the Habsburg Monarchy, the Commonwealth did not directly participate in the Thirty Years' War. Władysław's IV reign was mostly peaceful, with a Russian invasion in the form of the Smolensk War of 1632–34 successfully repelled. The Orthodox Church hierarchy, banned in Poland after the Union of Brest, was re-established in 1635.
During the reign of John II Casimir Vasa (1648–68), the nobles' democracy fell into decline as a result of foreign invasions and domestic disorder. These calamities multiplied rather suddenly and marked the end of the Polish Golden Age. Their effect was to render the once powerful Commonwealth increasingly vulnerable to foreign intervention.
The Cossack Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648–57 engulfed the south-eastern regions of the Polish crown; its long-term effects were disastrous for the Commonwealth. The first "liberum veto" (a parliamentary device that allowed any member of the Sejm to dissolve a current session immediately) was exercised by a deputy in 1652. This practice would eventually weaken Poland's central government critically. In the Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654), the Ukrainian rebels declared themselves subjects of the Tsar of Russia. The Second Northern War raged through the core Polish lands in 1655–60, including an invasion of Poland so brutal and devastating that it is referred to as the Swedish Deluge. The war ended in 1660 with the Treaty of Oliva, which resulted in the loss of some of Poland's northern possessions. In 1657 the Treaty of Wehlau-Bromberg established the independence of the Duchy of Prussia. The Commonwealth forces did well in the Russo-Polish War of 1654–67, but the end result was the permanent division of Ukraine between Poland and Russia, as agreed to in the Truce of Andrusovo (1667). Towards the end of the war, the Rokosz of Lubomirski, a major magnate rebellion against the king, destabilized and weakened the country. The large-scale slave raids of the Crimean Tatars also had highly deleterious effects on the Polish economy. "Merkuriusz Polski", the first Polish newspaper, was published in 1661.
The Second Polish–Ottoman War (1672–76) broke out during the reign of King Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki (1669–73) and continued under his successor, John III Sobieski (1674–96). Sobieski intended to pursue Baltic area expansion (and to this end he signed the secret Treaty of Jaworów with France in 1675), but was forced instead to fight protracted wars with the Ottoman Empire. By doing so the hetman who became king briefly revived the Commonwealth's military might. He defeated the expanding Muslims at the Battle of Khotyn in 1673 and decisively helped deliver Vienna from a Turkish onslaught at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Sobieski's reign marked the last high point in the history of the Commonwealth: in the first half of the 18th century Poland ceased to be an active player in international politics. The Eternal Peace Treaty with Russia of 1686 was the final border settlement between the two countries before the First Partition of Poland in 1772.
The Commonwealth, subjected to almost constant warfare until 1720, suffered enormous population losses and massive damage to its economy and social structure. The government became ineffective in the wake of large-scale internal conflicts, corrupted legislative processes and manipulation by foreign interests. The nobility fell under the control of a handful of feuding magnate families with established territorial domains. The urban population and infrastructure fell into ruin, together with most peasant farms, whose inhabitants were subjected to increasingly extreme forms of serfdom. The development of science, culture and education came to a halt or regressed.
The royal election of 1697 brought a ruler of the Saxon House of Wettin to the Polish throne: Augustus II, "the Strong" (r. 1697–1733), who was able to assume the throne only by agreeing to convert to Roman Catholicism. He was succeeded eventually by his son Augustus III (r. 1734–63). The reigns of the Saxon kings (who were both simultaneously prince-electors of Saxony) were disrupted by competing candidates for the throne and witnessed further disintegration of the Commonwealth. The Great Northern War (1700–21), a period seen by the contemporaries as a temporary eclipse, may have been the fatal blow that brought down the Polish political system. Stanisław Leszczyński was installed as king in 1704 under Swedish protection, but lasted only a few years. The Silent Sejm of 1717 marked the beginning of the Commonwealth's existence as a Russian protectorate: the Tsardom would guarantee the reform-impeding Golden Liberty of the nobility from that time on in order to cement the Commonwealth's weak central authority and a state of perpetual political impotence. In a resounding break with traditions of religious tolerance, Protestants were executed during the Tumult of Thorn in 1724. In 1732 Russia, Austria and Prussia, Poland's three increasingly powerful and scheming neighbors, entered into the secret Treaty of the Three Black Eagles with the intention of controlling the future royal succession in the Commonwealth. The War of the Polish Succession was fought in 1733–35 to assist Leszczyński in assuming the throne of Poland for a second time. Amidst considerable foreign involvement, his efforts were unsuccessful. The Kingdom of Prussia became a strong regional power and succeeded in wresting the historically Polish province of Silesia from the Habsburg Monarchy in the Silesian Wars; it thus became an ever-greater threat to Poland's security. The personal union between the Commonwealth and the Electorate of Saxony did give rise to the emergence of a reform movement in the Commonwealth and the beginnings of the Polish Enlightenment culture, the major positive developments of this era. The first Polish public library was the Załuski Library in Warsaw, opened to the public in 1747.
During the later part of the 18th century, fundamental internal reforms were attempted in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as it slid into extinction. The reform activity, initially promoted by the magnate Czartoryski family faction known as the "Familia", provoked a hostile reaction and eventually a military response on the part of neighboring powers—yet it created conditions that fostered economic improvement. The most populous urban center, the capital city of Warsaw, replaced Danzig (Gdańsk) as the leading trade center, and the importance of the more prosperous urban strata increased. The last decades of the independent Commonwealth's existence were characterized by intense reform movements and far-reaching progress in the areas of education, intellectual life, art, and, especially toward the end of the period, in the evolution of the social and political system.
The royal election of 1764 resulted in the elevation of Stanisław August Poniatowski, a refined and worldly aristocrat connected to the Czartoryski family, but hand-picked and imposed by Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, who expected him to be her obedient follower. Stanisław August ruled the Polish–Lithuanian state until its dissolution in 1795. The king spent his reign torn between his desire to implement reforms necessary to save the failing state and the perceived necessity of remaining in a subordinate relationship to his Russian sponsors.
The Bar Confederation (1768–72) was a noble rebellion directed against Russia's influence in general and Stanisław August, who was seen as its representative, in particular. It was fought to preserve Poland's independence and the nobility's traditional interests. After several years, it was brought under control by forces loyal to the king and those of the Russian Empire.
Following the suppression of the Bar Confederation, at the instigation of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Poland was divided up among Prussia, Austria and Russia in 1772, with only a rump state remaining. In what became known as the First Partition of Poland, the outer provinces of the Commonwealth were seized by agreement among the country's three powerful neighbors. In 1773, the Partition Sejm "ratified" under duress the partition as a "fait accompli". However, it also established the Commission of National Education, a pioneering in Europe education authority often called the world's first ministry of education.
The long-lasting Sejm convened by Stanisław August in 1788 is known as the Great Sejm, or "Four-Year" Sejm. Its landmark achievement was the passing of the Constitution of May 3, 1791, the first singular pronouncement of a supreme law of the state in modern Europe, also characterized as the world's third oldest constitution. A reformist but moderate document condemned by detractors as being of French revolutionary sympathies, it soon generated strong opposition from the conservative circles of the Commonwealth's upper nobility and the Russian Empress Catherine, who was determined to prevent the rebirth of a strong Commonwealth. The nobility's Targowica Confederation, formed in Russian imperial capital of Saint Petersburg, appealed to Catherine for help, and in May 1792, the Russian army entered the Commonwealth's territory. The Polish–Russian War of 1792, a defensive war fought by the forces of the Commonwealth against Russian invaders, ended when the Polish king, convinced of the futility of resistance, capitulated by joining the Targowica Confederation. The Confederation took over the government, but Russia and Prussia in 1793 arranged for the Second Partition of Poland, which left the country with a critically reduced territory that rendered it essentially incapable of an independent existence. The Commonwealth's Grodno Sejm of 1793, the last Sejm of its existence, was compelled to confirm the new partition.
Radicalized by recent events, Polish reformers (whether in exile or still resident in the reduced area remaining to the Commonwealth) were soon working on preparations for a national insurrection. Tadeusz Kościuszko, a popular general and a veteran of the American Revolution, was chosen as its leader. He returned from abroad and issued Kościuszko's proclamation in Kraków on March 24, 1794. It called for a national uprising under his supreme command. Kościuszko emancipated many peasants in order to enroll them as "kosynierzy" in his army, but the hard-fought insurrection, despite widespread national support, proved incapable of generating the foreign assistance necessary for its success. In the end it was suppressed by the combined forces of Russia and Prussia, with Warsaw captured in November 1794 at the Battle of Praga. In 1795, a Third Partition of Poland was undertaken by all three of the partitioning powers (Russia, Prussia and Austria) as a final division of territory that resulted in the effective dissolution of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish king was escorted to Grodno, forced to abdicate, and retired to Saint Petersburg. Kościuszko, initially imprisoned, was allowed to emigrate to the United States in 1796.
The response of the Polish leadership to the last partition is a matter of historical debate. Literary scholars found that the dominant emotion of the first decade was despair that produced a moral desert ruled by violence and treason. On the other hand, historians have looked for signs of resistance to foreign rule. Apart from those who went into exile, the nobility took oaths of loyalty to their new rulers and served as officers in their armies.
Although no sovereign Polish state existed between 1795 and 1918, the idea of Polish independence was kept alive throughout the 19th century. There were a number of uprisings and other military conflicts against the partitioning powers. Military efforts after the partitions were first based on the alliances of Polish émigrés with post-revolutionary France. Jan Henryk Dąbrowski's Polish Legions fought in French campaigns outside of Poland between 1797 and 1802 in hopes that their involvement and contribution would be rewarded with the liberation of their Polish homeland. The Polish national anthem, "Poland Is Not Yet Lost", or "Dąbrowski's Mazurka", was written in praise of his actions by Józef Wybicki in 1797.
The Duchy of Warsaw, a small, semi-independent Polish state, was created in 1807 by Napoleon Bonaparte in the wake of his defeat of Prussia and the signing of the Peace of Tilsit with Emperor Alexander I of Russia. The Army of the Duchy of Warsaw, led by Józef Poniatowski, participated in numerous campaigns in alliance with France, including the successful Polish–Austrian War of 1809, which, combined with the outcomes of other theaters of the War of the Fifth Coalition, resulted in an enlargement of the Duchy's territory. The French invasion of Russia in 1812 and the German campaign of 1813 saw the Duchy's last military engagements. The Constitution of the Duchy of Warsaw abolished serfdom as a reflection of the ideals of the French Revolution, but it did not promote land reform.
After Napoleon's defeat, a new European order was established at the Congress of Vienna. Adam Czartoryski, a former close associate of Alexander I, became the leading advocate for the Polish national cause. The Congress implemented a new partition scheme, which took into account some of the gains realized by the Poles during the Napoleonic period. The Duchy of Warsaw was replaced in 1815 with a new Kingdom of Poland, unofficially known as Congress Poland. The residual Polish kingdom was joined to the Russian Empire in a personal union under the Russian tsar, and it was allowed its own constitution and military. East of the Kingdom, large areas of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth remained directly incorporated into the Russian Empire as the Western Krai; both these territories are generally referred to as the Russian Partition. The Russian, Prussian, and Austrian "partitions" were the lands of the former Commonwealth, not actual units of its administrative division. The Prussian Partition was formed from territories acquired from Poland and included a portion separated as the Grand Duchy of Posen. Peasants under the Prussian administration were gradually enfranchised under the reforms of 1811 and 1823. The limited legal reforms in the Austrian Partition were overshadowed by its rural poverty. The Free City of Kraków was a tiny republic newly created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 under the joint supervision of the three partitioning powers. As bleak as the new political divisions of the former Commonwealth were to Polish patriots, economic progress was made because the period after the Congress of Vienna witnessed a significant development in the building of early industry in the lands taken over by foreign powers.
The increasingly repressive policies of the partitioning powers led to resistance movements in partitioned Poland, and in 1830 Polish patriots staged the November Uprising. This revolt developed into a full-scale war with Russia, but the leadership was taken over by Polish conservatives who were reluctant to challenge the Empire and hostile to broadening the independence movement's social base through measures such as land reform. Despite the significant resources mobilized, a series of mistakes by several successive chief commanders appointed by the Polish government who were either reluctant to serve or performed incompetently in battle led to the defeat of the insurgents by the Russian army in 1831. Congress Poland lost its constitution and military, but formally remained a separate administrative unit within the Russian Empire.
After the defeat of the November Uprising, thousands of former Polish combatants and other activists emigrated to Western Europe. This phenomenon, known as the Great Emigration, soon dominated Polish political and intellectual life. Together with the leaders of the independence movement, the Polish community abroad included the greatest Polish literary and artistic minds, including the Romantic poets Adam Mickiewicz (traditionally considered Poland's greatest poet, who died as an émigré in 1855), Juliusz Słowacki, Cyprian Norwid, and the composer Frédéric Chopin. In occupied and repressed Poland, some sought progress through nonviolent activism focused on education and economy, known as organic work; others, in cooperation with emigrant circles, organized conspiracies and prepared for the next armed insurrection.
After the authorities in the partitions had found out about secret preparations, the planned national uprising failed to materialize. The Greater Poland Uprising ended in a fiasco in early 1846. In the Kraków Uprising of February 1846, patriotic action was combined with revolutionary demands, but the result was the incorporation of the Republic of Kraków into the Austrian Partition. The Austrian officials took advantage of peasant discontent and incited villagers against the noble-dominated insurgent units. This resulted in the Galician slaughter (1846), a large-scale rebellion of serfs seeking relief from their post-feudal "folwark" condition of slavery. The uprising freed many from bondage and hastened decisions that led to peasant enfranchisement in the Austrian Empire (1848). A new wave of Polish military and other involvement, in the partitions and in other parts of Europe (e.g. Józef Bem in Austria and Hungary), soon took place in the context of the 1848 Spring of Nations revolutions. In particular, the events in Berlin precipitated the Greater Poland Uprising, where peasants in the Prussian Partition, who were by then largely enfranchised, played a prominent role.
Despite the limited liberalization measures allowed in the Kingdom of Poland under the rule of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, a renewal of popular liberation activities took place in 1860–61. he Russian autocracy gave the Polish artisans and gentry reason to rebel in 1863 by assailing national core values of language, religion, culture. During large-scale demonstrations in Warsaw, Russian forces inflicted numerous casualties on the civilian participants. The "Red", or left-wing faction, which promoted peasant enfranchisement and cooperated with the Russian revolutionaries, became involved in immediate preparations for a national uprising. The "White", or right-wing faction, was inclined to cooperate with the Russian authorities and countered with partial reform proposals. In order to cripple the manpower potential of the Reds, Aleksander Wielopolski, the conservative leader of the Kingdom's government, arranged for a partial selective conscription of young Poles for the Russian army in the years 1862 and 1863. This action hastened the outbreak of hostilities. The January Uprising, joined and led after the initial period by the Whites, was fought by partisan units against an overwhelmingly advantaged enemy. The war lasted from January 1863 to the spring of 1864, when Romuald Traugutt, the last supreme commander of the insurgency, was captured by the tsarist police.
On 2 March 1864, the Russian authority, compelled by the Uprising to compete for the loyalty of Polish peasants, officially published an enfranchisement decree in Congress Poland along the lines of an earlier land reform proclamation of the insurgents. The act created the conditions necessary for the development of the capitalist system on central Polish lands. At the time when the futility of armed resistance without external support was realized by most Poles, the various sections of Polish society were undergoing deep and far-reaching social, economic and cultural changes.
The failure of the January Uprising in Poland caused a major psychological trauma and became a historic watershed; indeed, it sparked the development of modern Polish nationalism. The Poles, subjected within the territories under the Russian and Prussian administrations to still stricter controls and increased persecution, preserved their identity in non-violent ways. After the Uprising, Congress Poland was downgraded in official usage from the "Kingdom of Poland" to the "Vistula Land" and was more fully integrated into Russia proper, but not entirely obliterated. The Russian and German languages were imposed in all public communication, and the Catholic Church was not spared from severe repression; public education was increasingly subjected to Russification and Germanization measures. Illiteracy was reduced, most effectively in the Prussian partition, but education in Polish was preserved mostly through unofficial efforts. The Prussian government pursued German colonization, including the purchase of Polish-owned land. On the other hand, the region of Galicia in western Ukraine and southern Poland, experienced a gradual relaxation of authoritarian policies and even a Polish cultural revival. Economically and socially backward, it was under the milder rule of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and from 1867 allowed increasingly limited autonomy. "Stańczycy", a conservative Polish pro-Austrian faction led by great land owners, dominated the Galician government. The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in Kraków in 1872. Positivism replaced Romanticism as the leading intellectual, social and literary trend.
Social activities termed "organic work" consisted of self-help organizations that promoted economic advancement and worked on improving the competitiveness of Polish-owned businesses: industrial, agricultural or other. New commercial methods and ways of generating higher productivity were discussed and implemented through trade associations and special interest groups, while Polish banking and cooperative financial institutions made the necessary business loans available. The other major area of effort in organic work was the educational and intellectual development of the common people. Many libraries and reading rooms were established in small towns and villages, and numerous printed periodicals reflected the growing interest in popular education. Scientific and educational societies were active in a number of cities. Such activities were most pronounced in the Prussian Partition.
Under the partitioning powers, large-scale industrialization, economic diversification and progress were introduced in the traditionally agrarian Polish lands, but this development turned out to be very uneven. In the Prussian Partition, advanced agriculture was practiced, except for Upper Silesia, where the coal-mining industry created a large labor force. The densest network of railroads was built in German-ruled western Poland. In Russian Congress Poland, a striking growth of industry, railways and towns was taking place, all against the background of an extensive, but less productive agriculture. Warsaw (a metallurgical center) and Łódź (a textiles center) grew rapidly, as did the total proportion of the urban population, making the region the most advanced in the Russian Empire (industrial production exceeded agricultural production by 1909). The coming of the railways spurred some industrial growth even in the vast Russian Partition territories outside Congress Poland. The Austrian Partition was rural and poor, except for the industrialized Cieszyn Silesia area. Galician economic expansion after 1890 included oil extraction and resulted in the growth of Lemberg (Lwów, Lviv) and Kraków.
Economic and social changes involving land reform and industrialization, combined with the effects of foreign domination, altered the centuries-old social structure of Polish society. Among the newly emergent strata were wealthy industrialists and financiers, distinct from the traditional, but still critically important landed aristocracy. The intelligentsia, an educated, professional or business middle class, often originated from lower gentry, landless or alienated from their rural possessions, and from urban people. Many smaller agricultural enterprises based on serfdom did not survive the land reforms. The industrial proletariat, a new underprivileged class, was composed mainly of poor peasants or townspeople forced by deteriorating conditions to migrate and search for work in urban centers in their countries of origin or abroad. Millions of residents of the former Commonwealth of various ethnic groups worked or settled in Europe and in North and South America.
Social and economic changes were partial and gradual, and the degree of (fast-paced in some areas) industrialization generally lagged behind the advanced regions of western Europe. The three partitions developed different economies and were more economically integrated with their mother states than with each other (for example the Prussian Partition's agricultural production depended heavily on the German market, whereas the industrial sector of Congress Poland relied more on the Russian market).
In the 1870s–90s, large-scale socialist, nationalist, agrarian and other political movements of great ideological fervor became established in partitioned Poland and Lithuania, along with corresponding political parties to promote them. Of the major parties, the socialist First Proletariat was founded in 1882, the Polish League (precursor of National Democracy) in 1887, the Polish Social Democratic Party of Galicia and Silesia in 1890, the Polish Socialist Party in 1892, the Marxist SDKPiL in 1893, the agrarian People's Party of Galicia in 1895 and the Jewish socialist Bund in 1897. Christian democracy regional associations allied with the Catholic Church were also active; they united into the Polish Christian Democratic Party in 1919. The main minority ethnic groups of the former Commonwealth, including Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Belarusians and Jews, were getting involved in their own national movements and plans, which met with disapproval on the part of those Polish independence activists who counted on an eventual rebirth of the Commonwealth or the rise of a Commonwealth-inspired federal structure (a political movement referred to as Prometheism).
Around the start of the 20th century, the Young Poland cultural movement, centered in Galicia, took advantage of a milieu conducive to liberal expression in that region and was the source of Poland's finest artistic and literary productions. In this same era, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, a pioneer radiation scientist, performed her groundbreaking research in Paris.
The Revolution of 1905–07 in Russian Poland, the result of many years of pent-up political frustrations and stifled national ambitions, was marked by political maneuvering, strikes and rebellion. The revolt was part of much broader disturbances throughout the Russian Empire associated with the general Revolution of 1905. In Poland, the principal revolutionary figures were Roman Dmowski and Józef Piłsudski. Dmowski was associated with the right-wing nationalist movement National Democracy, whereas Piłsudski was associated with the Polish Socialist Party. As the authorities re-established control within the Russian Empire, the revolt in Congress Poland, placed under martial law, withered as well, partially as a result of tsarist concessions in the areas of national and workers' rights, including Polish representation in the newly created Russian Duma. Some of the acquired gains were, however, rolled back, which coupled with intensified Germanization in the Prussian Partition, left Austrian Galicia as the territory most amenable to patriotic action.
In the Austrian Partition, Polish culture was openly cultivated, and in the Prussian Partition, higher standards of developed civilization were achieved, but the Russian Partition remained of primary importance for the Polish nation and its aspirations. About 15.5 million Polish-speakers lived in core central and western Poland, over a relatively small and compact territory. Much fewer were spread in the east: 1.3 million in Austrian Eastern Galicia and about 2 million along Russia's western districts, with the heaviest concentration in the Vilnius Region.
Polish paramilitary organizations oriented toward independence, such as the Union of Active Struggle, were being formed in 1908–14, mainly in Galicia. The Poles were divided, and their political parties fragmented on the eve of World War I, with Dmowski's National Democracy (pro-Entente) and Piłsudski's faction assuming opposing positions.
The outbreak of World War I in the Polish lands offered Poles unexpected hopes for achieving independence as a result of the turbulence that engulfed the empires of the partitioning powers. All three of the monarchies that had benefited from the partition of Polish territories (Germany, Austria and Russia) were dissolved by the end of the war, and many of their territories were dispersed into new political units. At the start of the war, the Poles found themselves conscripted into the armies of the partitioning powers in a war that was not theirs. Furthermore, they were frequently forced to fight each other, since the armies of Germany and Austria were allied against Russia. Piłsudski's paramilitary units stationed in Galicia were turned into the Polish Legions in 1914, and as a part of the Austro-Hungarian Army, they fought on the Russian front until 1917, when the formation was disbanded. Piłsudski, who refused the demands that his men fight under German command, was arrested and imprisoned by the Germans and became a heroic symbol of Polish nationalism.
Due to a series of German victories on the Eastern Front, the area of Congress Poland became occupied by the Central Powers of Germany and Austria; Warsaw was captured by the Germans on 5 August 1915. In the Act of 5th November 1916, a fresh incarnation of the Kingdom of Poland ("Królestwo Regencyjne") was created by Germany and Austria on formerly Russian-controlled territories within the German Mitteleuropa scheme. The sponsor states were never able to agree on a candidate to assume the throne, however; rather, it was governed in turn by German and Austrian Governor-Generals, a Provisional Council of State, and a Regency Council. This puppet, but increasingly autonomous state existed until November 1918, when it was replaced by the newly established Republic of Poland. The existence of this "kingdom" and its planned Polish army had a positive effect on the Polish national efforts on the Allied side. But the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) between Germany and defeated Russia ignored Polish interests.
The independence of Poland had been campaigned for in Russia and in the West by Dmowski and in the West by Ignacy Paderewski. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and then the leaders of the February Revolution and the October Revolution of 1917, installed governments who declared in turn their support for Polish independence. In 1917, France formed the Blue Army (placed under Józef Haller) that comprised about 70,000 Poles by the end of the war, including men captured from German and Austrian units and 20,000 volunteers from the U.S. There was also a 30,000-men strong Polish anti-German army in Russia. Dmowski, operating from Paris as head of the Polish National Committee (KNP), became the spokesman for Polish nationalism in the Allied camp. On the initiative of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, Polish independence was officially endorsed by the Allies in June 1918.
In all, about two million Poles served in the war, counting both sides, and about 400–450,000 died. Much of the fighting on the Eastern Front took place in Poland, and civilian casualties and devastation were high. Total World War I casualties from 1914 to 1918, military and civilian, within the 1919–39 borders of Poland, were estimated at 1,128,000.
The final upsurge of the push for independence of Poland took place on the ground in October–November 1918. With the end of the war, Austro-Hungarian and German units were being disarmed, and the Austrian army's collapse freed Cieszyn and Kraków at the end of October. Lviv was then contested in the Polish–Ukrainian War of 1918–19. Ignacy Daszyński headed the first short-lived independent Polish government in Lublin from November 7, the leftist Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland, which was proclaimed as a democracy. Germany, now defeated, was forced by the Allies to stand down its large military forces in Poland. Overtaken by the German Revolution of 1918–19 at home, the Germans released Piłsudski from prison. He arrived in Warsaw on November 10 and was granted extensive authority by the Kingdom's Regency Council, which was also recognized by the Lublin government. On November 22 Piłsudski became the temporary head of state. He was held by many in high regard, but was resented by the right-wing National Democrats. The emerging Polish state was internally divided, heavily war-damaged and economically dysfunctional.
After more than a century of foreign rule, Poland regained its independence at the end of World War I as one of the outcomes of the negotiations that took place at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The Treaty of Versailles that emerged from the conference set up an independent nation with an outlet to the sea, but left some of its boundaries to be decided by plebiscites. The largely German Free City of Danzig was granted a separate status that guaranteed its use as a port by Poland. In the end, the settlement of the German-Polish border turned out to be a prolonged and convoluted process. It helped engender the Greater Poland Uprising of 1918–19, the three Silesian Uprisings of 1919–21, the East Prussian plebiscite of 1920, the Upper Silesia plebiscite of 1921 and the 1922 Silesian Convention in Geneva.
Other boundaries were settled by war and subsequent treaties. A total of six border wars were fought in 1918–21, including the Polish–Czechoslovak border conflicts over Cieszyn Silesia in January 1919.
As distressing as these border conflicts were, the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–21 was the most important conflict of the era. Piłsudski had entertained far-reaching anti-Russian cooperative designs in Eastern Europe, and in 1919 the Polish forces pushed eastward into Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine by taking advantage of the Russian preoccupation with the civil war, but they were soon confronted with the Soviet westward offensive of 1918–19. Western Ukraine was already a theater of the Polish–Ukrainian War, which eliminated the proclaimed West Ukrainian People's Republic in July 1919. In the autumn of 1919, Piłsudski rejected urgent pleas from the former Entente powers to support Anton Denikin's White movement in its advance on Moscow. The Polish–Soviet War proper began with the Polish Kiev Offensive in April 1920. Allied with the Directorate of Ukraine of the Ukrainian People's Republic, by June the Polish armies had advanced past Vilnius, Minsk and Kiev. At that time, a massive Soviet counter-offensive pushed the Poles out of most of Ukraine. On the northern front, the Soviet army reached the outskirts of Warsaw in early August. A Soviet triumph and the quick end of Poland seemed inevitable. However, the Poles scored a stunning victory at the Battle of Warsaw. Afterwards, more Polish military successes followed, the Soviets had to pull back and left swathes of territory occupied largely by Belarusians or Ukrainians to Polish rule. The new eastern boundary was finalized by the Peace of Riga in 1921.
The defeat of the Russian armies forced Vladimir Lenin and the Soviet leadership to postpone their strategic objective of linking up with the German and other European revolutionary-minded comrades and spread communist revolution. Lenin's hope of generating support for the Red Army in Poland had already failed to materialize. Piłsudski's seizure of Vilnius in October 1920 (known as Żeligowski's Mutiny) was a nail in the coffin of the already poor Polish–Lithuanian relations that had been strained by the Polish–Lithuanian War of 1919–20; both states would remain hostile to one another for the remainder of the interwar period. Piłsudski's planned Intermarium (an East European federation of states inspired by the tradition of the multiethnic Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that would include a hypothetical multinational successor state to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) thus became incompatible with his assumption of Polish domination and encroachment on neighboring peoples' lands and aspirations at the time of rising national movements. It soon ceased to be a feature of Poland's politics. A larger federated structure was also opposed by Dmowski's National Democrats. Their representative at the Peace of Riga talks, Stanisław Grabski, opted for leaving Minsk, Berdychiv, Kamianets-Podilskyi and the surrounding areas on the Soviet side of the border, since the National Democrats did not want to permit population shifts that they considered politically undesirable, especially if the transfers would result in a reduced proportion of citizens who were ethnically Polish.
The Peace of Riga settled the eastern border by preserving for Poland a substantial portion of the old Commonwealth's eastern territories, at the cost of partitioning the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Lithuania and Belarus) and Ukraine. The Ukrainians ended up with no state of their own and felt betrayed by the Riga arrangements; their resentment gave rise to extreme nationalism and anti-Polish hostility. The Kresy (or borderland) territories in the east won by 1921 would form the basis for a swap arranged and carried out by the Soviets in 1943–45, who at that time compensated the re-emerging Polish state for the eastern lands lost to the Soviet Union with conquered areas of eastern Germany.
The successful outcome of the Polish–Soviet War gave Poland a false sense of its prowess as a self-sufficient military power and encouraged the government to try to resolve international problems through imposed unilateral solutions. The territorial and ethnic policies of the interwar period contributed to bad relations with most of Poland's neighbors and to uneasy cooperation with the more distant centers of power, including France, Britain and the League of Nations.
Among the chief difficulties faced by the government of the new Polish republic was the lack of an integrated infrastructure among the formerly separate partitions, a deficiency that disrupted industry, transportation, trade and other areas.
The first Polish legislative election for the re-established Sejm of the Republic of Poland took place in January 1919. A temporary Small Constitution was passed by the body the following month.
The rapidly growing population of Poland within its new boundaries was ¾ agricultural and ¼ urban; Polish was the primary language of only ⅔ of the inhabitants of the new country. The minorities had very little voice in the government. The permanent March Constitution of Poland was adopted in March 1921. At the insistence of the National Democrats, who were concerned how aggressively Józef Piłsudski might exercise presidential powers if he were elected to office, the constitution mandated limited prerogatives for the presidency.
The proclamation of the March Constitution was followed by a short and turbulent period of constitutional order and parliamentary democracy that lasted until 1926. The legislature remained fragmented, without stable majorities, and governments changed frequently. The open-minded Gabriel Narutowicz was elected president constitutionally (without a popular vote) by the National Assembly in 1922. However, members of the nationalist right-wing faction did not regard his elevation as legitimate. They viewed Narutowicz rather as a traitor whose election was pushed through by the votes of alien minorities. Narutowicz and his supporters were subjected to an intense harassment campaign, and the president was assassinated on December 16, 1922, after serving only five days in office.
Corruption was held to be commonplace in the political culture of the early Polish Republic. However, the investigations conducted by the new regime after the 1926 May Coup failed to uncover any major affair or corruption scheme within the state apparatus of its predecessors.
Land reform measures were passed in 1919 and 1925 under pressure from an impoverished peasantry. They were partially implemented, but resulted in the parcellation of only 20% of the great agricultural estates. Poland endured numerous economic calamities and disruptions in the early 1920s, including waves of workers' strikes such as the 1923 Kraków riot. The German–Polish customs war, initiated by Germany in 1925, was one of the most damaging external factors that put a strain on Poland's economy. On the other hand, there were also signs of progress and stabilization, for example a critical reform of finances carried out by the competent government of Władysław Grabski, which lasted almost two years. Certain other achievements of the democratic period having to do with the management of governmental and civic institutions necessary to the functioning of the reunited state and nation, were too easily overlooked. Lurking on the sidelines was a disgusted army officer corps, unwilling to subject itself to civilian control but ready to follow the retired Piłsudski, who was highly popular with Poles and just as dissatisfied with the Polish system of government as his former colleagues in the military.
On May 12, 1926, Piłsudski staged the May Coup, a military overthrow of the civilian government mounted against President Stanisław Wojciechowski and the troops loyal to the legitimate government. Hundreds died in fratricidal fighting. Piłsudski was supported by several leftist factions, who ensured the success of his coup by blocking the railway transportation of government forces. He also had the support of the conservative great landowners, which left the right-wing National Democrats as the only major social force opposed to the takeover.
Following the coup, the new regime initially respected many parliamentary formalities, but gradually tightened its control and abandoned pretenses. Centrolew, a coalition of center-left parties, was formed in 1929, and in 1930 called for the "abolition of dictatorship". In 1930 the Sejm was dissolved and a number of opposition deputies were imprisoned at the Brest Fortress. Five thousand political opponents were arrested ahead of the Polish legislative election of 1930, which was rigged to award a majority of seats to the pro-regime Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government (BBWR).
The authoritarian "Sanation" regime (meant to denote a "healing" regime) that Piłsudski led until his death in 1935 (and would remain in place until 1939) reflected the dictator's evolution from his center-left past to conservative alliances. Political institutions and parties were allowed to function, but the electoral process was manipulated and those not willing to cooperate submissively were subjected to repression. From 1930, persistent opponents of the regime, many of the leftist persuasion, were imprisoned and subjected to staged legal processes with harsh sentences, such as the Brest trials, or else detained in the Bereza Kartuska prison and similar camps for political prisoners. About three thousand were detained without trial at different times at the Bereza concentration camp between 1934 and 1939. In 1936 for example, 369 activists were taken there, including 342 Polish communists. Rebellious peasants staged riots in 1932, 1933 and the 1937 peasant strike in Poland. Other civil disturbances were caused by striking industrial workers (e.g. events of the "Bloody Spring" of 1936), nationalist Ukrainians and the activists of the incipient Belarusian movement. All became targets of ruthless police-military pacification. Besides sponsoring political repression, the regime also fostered the Piłsudski cult of personality that had already existed long before he assumed dictatorial powers.
Piłsudski signed the Soviet–Polish Non-Aggression Pact in 1932 and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact in 1934, but in 1933 he insisted that there was no threat from the East or West and said that Poland's politics were focused on becoming fully independent without serving foreign interests. He initiated the policy of maintaining an equal distance and an adjustable middle course regarding the two great neighbors, later continued by Józef Beck. Piłsudski kept personal control of the army, but it was poorly equipped, poorly trained and had poor preparations in place for possible future conflicts. His only war plan was a defensive war against a Soviet invasion. The slow modernization after Piłsudski's death fell far behind the progress made by Poland's neighbors and measures to protect the western border, discontinued by Piłsudski from 1926, were not undertaken until March 1939.
Sanation deputies in the Sejm used a parliamentary maneuver to abolish the democratic March Constitution and push through a more authoritarian April Constitution in 1935; it reduced the powers of the Sejm, which Piłsudski despised. The process and the resulting document were seen as illegitimate by the anti-Sanation opposition, but during World War II, the Polish government-in-exile recognized the April Constitution in order to uphold the legal continuity of the Polish state.
When Marshal Piłsudski died in 1935, he retained the support of the main sections of Polish society even though he never risked testing his popularity in an honest election. His regime was dictatorial, but at that time only Czechoslovakia remained democratic in all of the regions neighboring Poland. Historians have taken widely divergent views of the meaning and consequences of the coup he perpetrated and his personal rule that followed.
Independence stimulated the development of Polish culture in the Interbellum and intellectual achievement was high. Warsaw, whose population had almost doubled between World War I and World War II, was a restless, burgeoning metropolis. It outpaced Kraków, Lwów and Wilno, the other major population centers of the country.
Mainstream Polish society was not affected by the repressions of the Sanation authorities overall; many Poles enjoyed relative stability, and the economy improved markedly between 1926 and 1929, only to become caught up in the global Great Depression. After 1929, the country's industrial production and gross national income slumped by about 50%.
The Great Depression brought low prices for farmers and unemployment for workers. Social tensions increased, including rising antisemitism. A major economic transformation and multi-year state plan to achieve national industrial development, as embodied in the Central Industrial Region initiative launched in 1936, was led by Minister Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski. Motivated primarily by the need for a native arms industry, it was in progress at the time of the outbreak of World War II. Kwiatkowski was also the main architect of the earlier Gdynia seaport project.
The prevalent nationalism in political circles was fueled by the large size of Poland's minority populations and their separate agendas. According to the language criterion of the Polish census of 1931, the Poles constituted 69% of the population, Ukrainians 15%, Jews (defined as speakers of the Yiddish language) 8.5%, Belarusians 4.7%, Germans 2.2%, Lithuanians 0.25%, Russians 0.25% and Czechs 0.09%, with some geographical areas dominated by a particular minority. In time, the ethnic conflicts intensified, and the Polish state grew less tolerant of the interests of its national minorities. In interwar Poland, compulsory free general education substantially reduced illiteracy rates, but discrimination was practiced in a way that resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of Ukrainian language schools and official restrictions on Jewish attendance at selected schools in the late 1930s.
The population grew steadily, reaching 35 million in 1939. However, the overall economic situation in the interwar period was one of stagnation. There was little money for investment inside Poland, and few foreigners were interested in investing there. Total industrial production barely increased between 1913 and 1939 (within the area delimited by the 1939 borders), but because of population growth (from 26.3 millions in 1919 to 34.8 millions in 1939), the "per capita" output actually decreased by 18%.
Conditions in the predominant agricultural sector kept deteriorating between 1929 and 1939, which resulted in rural unrest and a progressive radicalization of the Polish peasant movement that became increasingly inclined toward militant anti-state activities. It was firmly repressed by the authorities. According to Norman Davies, the failures of the Sanation regime (combined with the objective economic realities) caused a radicalization of the Polish masses by the end of the 1930s, but he warns against drawing parallels with the incomparably more destructive precedents of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin.
After Piłsudski's death in 1935, Poland was governed until the German invasion of 1939 by old allies and subordinates known as "Piłsudski's colonels". They had neither the vision nor the resources to cope with the perilous situation facing Poland in the late 1930s. The colonels had gradually assumed greater powers during Piłsudski's life by manipulating the ailing marshal behind the scenes. Eventually they achieved an overt politicization of the army that did nothing to help prepare the country for war.
Foreign policy was the responsibility of Józef Beck, under whom Polish diplomacy attempted balanced approaches toward Germany and the Soviet Union, unfortunately without success, on the basis of a flawed understanding of the European geopolitics of his day. Beck had numerous foreign policy schemes and harbored illusions of Poland's status as a great power. He alienated most of Poland's neighbors, but is not blamed by historians for the ultimate failure of relations with Germany. The principal events of his tenure were concentrated in its last two years. In the case of the 1938 Polish ultimatum to Lithuania, the Polish action nearly resulted in a German takeover of southwest Lithuania. Also in 1938, the Polish government opportunistically undertook a hostile action against the Czechoslovak state as weakened by the Munich Agreement and annexed a small piece of territory on its borders. In this case, Beck's understanding of the consequences of the Polish military move turned out to be completely mistaken. In the end, the German occupation of Czechoslovakia ushered in by the Munich Agreement markedly weakened Poland's own position. Furthermore, Beck mistakenly believed that Nazi-Soviet ideological contradictions would preclude their cooperation.
At home, increasingly alienated minorities threatened unrest and violence and were suppressed. Extreme nationalist circles such as the National Radical Camp grew more outspoken. One of the groups, the Camp of National Unity, combined many nationalists with Sanation supporters and was connected to the new strongman, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, whose faction of the Sanation ruling movement was increasingly nationalistic.
In the late 1930s, the exile bloc Front Morges united several major Polish anti-Sanation figures, including Ignacy Paderewski, Władysław Sikorski, Wincenty Witos, Wojciech Korfanty and Józef Haller. It gained little influence inside Poland, but its spirit soon reappeared during World War II, within the Polish government-in-exile.
In October 1938, Joachim von Ribbentrop first proposed German-Polish territorial adjustments and Poland's participation in the Anti-Comintern Pact against the Soviet Union. The status of the Free City of Danzig was one of the key bones of contention. Approached by Ribbentrop again in March 1939, the Polish government expressed willingness to address issues causing German concern, but effectively rejected Germany's stated demands and thus refused to allow Poland to be turned by Adolf Hitler into a German puppet state. Hitler, incensed by the British and French declarations of support for Poland, abrogated the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact in late April 1939.
To protect itself from an increasingly aggressive Nazi Germany, already responsible for the annexations of Austria (in the Anschluss of 1938), Czechoslovakia (in 1939) and a part of Lithuania after the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania, Poland entered into a military alliance with Britain and France (the 1939 Anglo-Polish military alliance and the earlier Franco-Polish military alliance of 1921, as updated in 1939). However, the two Western powers were defense-oriented and not in a strong position, either geographically or in terms of resources, to assist Poland. Attempts were therefore made by them to induce Soviet-Polish cooperation, which they viewed as the only militarily viable possibility. Diplomatic manoeuvers continued in the spring and summer of 1939, but in their final attempts, the Franco-British talks with the Soviets in Moscow on forming an anti-Nazi defensive military alliance failed. Warsaw's refusal to allow the Red Army to operate on Polish territory doomed the Western efforts. The final contentious Allied-Soviet exchanges took place on August 21 and 23, 1939. Stalin's regime was the target of an intense German counter-initiative and was concurrently involved in increasingly effective negotiations with Hitler's agents. On August 23, an outcome contrary to the exertions of the Allies became a reality: in Moscow, Germany and the Soviet Union hurriedly signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, which secretly provided for the dismemberment of Poland into Nazi and Soviet-controlled zones.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland, the opening event of World War II. Poland had signed an Anglo-Polish military alliance as recently as August 25, and had long been in alliance with France. The two Western powers soon declared war on Germany, but they remained largely inactive (the period early in the conflict became known as the Phoney War) and extended no aid to the attacked country. The numerically and technically superior "Wehrmacht" formations rapidly advanced eastwards and engaged massively in the murder of Polish civilians over the entire occupied territory. On September 17, a Soviet invasion of Poland began. The Soviet Union quickly occupied most of the areas of eastern Poland that contained large populations of Ukrainians and Belarusians. The two invading powers divided up the country as they had agreed in the secret provisions of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Poland's top government officials and military high command fled the war zone and arrived at the Romanian Bridgehead in mid-September. After the Soviet entry they sought refuge in Romania.
Among the military operations in which Poles held out the longest (until late September or early October) were the Siege of Warsaw, the Battle of Hel and the resistance of the Independent Operational Group Polesie. Warsaw fell on 27 September after a heavy German bombardment that killed about 40,000 civilians. Poland was ultimately partitioned between Germany and the Soviet Union according to the terms of the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation signed by the two powers in Moscow on September 29.
Gerhard Weinberg has argued that the most significant Polish contribution to World War II was sharing its code-breaking results. This allowed the British to perform the cryptanalysis of the Enigma and decipher the main German military code, which gave the Allies a major advantage in the conflict. As regards actual military campaigns, some Polish historians have argued that simply resisting the initial invasion of Poland was the country's greatest contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany, despite its defeat. The Polish Army of nearly one million men significantly delayed the start of the Battle of France, planned for 1939. When the Nazi offensive in the West did happen, the delay caused it to be less effective, a possibly crucial factor in the victory of the Battle of Britain.
After Germany invaded the Soviet Union as part of its Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the whole of pre-war Poland was overrun and occupied by German troops.
German-occupied Poland was divided from 1939 into two regions: Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany directly into the German Reich and areas ruled under a so-called General Government of occupation. The Poles formed an underground resistance movement and a Polish government-in-exile that operated first in Paris, then, from July 1940, in London. Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations, broken since September 1939, were resumed in July 1941 under the Sikorski–Mayski agreement, which facilitated the formation of a Polish army (the Anders' Army) in the Soviet Union.