Portal:Poland

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Welcome to the Poland Portal — Witaj w Portalu o Polsce

Cityscape of Kraków, Poland's former capital

Poland is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic to the southwest, Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, Lithuania to the northeast, and the Baltic Sea and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast to the north. It is an ancient nation whose history as a state began near the middle of the 10th century. Its golden age occurred in the 16th century when it united with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to form the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the following century, the strengthening of the gentry and internal disorders weakened the nation. In a series of agreements in the late 18th century, Russia, Prussia and Austria partitioned Poland amongst themselves. It regained independence as the Second Polish Republic in the aftermath of World War I only to lose it again when it was occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in World War II. The nation lost over six million citizens in the war, following which it emerged as the communist Polish People's Republic under strong Soviet influence within the Eastern Bloc. A westward border shift followed by forced population transfers after the war turned a once multiethnic country into a mostly homogeneous nation state. Labor turmoil in 1980 led to the formation of the independent trade union called Solidarity (Solidarność) that over time became a political force which by 1990 had swept parliamentary elections and the presidency. A shock therapy program during the early 1990s enabled the country to transform its economy into one of the most robust in Central Europe. With its transformation to a democratic, market-oriented country completed, Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, but has experienced a constitutional crisis and democratic backsliding since 2015.

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Monument to Polish soldiers in Crostwitz near Bautzen

The Battle of Bautzen was one of the last battles on the Eastern Front of World War II. It took place on the extreme southern flank of the Spremberg-Torgau Offensive, seeing days of pitched street fighting between forces of the Polish Second Army together with elements of the Soviet 52nd Army and 5th Guards Army on one side and remnants of the German 4th Panzer and 17th Armies on the other. Part of Marshal Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front push toward Berlin, the battle was fought in the town of Bautzen and its environs along the Bautzen–Niesky line. Major combat took place from 21 to 26 April 1945, but isolated engagements continued until 30 April. The Polish Second Army under General Karol Świerczewski suffered heavy losses, but with the aid of Soviet reinforcements prevented the German forces from breaking through to their rear. According to one historian, the Battle of Bautzen was one of the Polish Army's bloodiest. Both sides claimed victory and modern views as to who won the battle remain contradictory. After the fall of communism, Polish historians became critical of Świerczewski's command, blaming the near destruction of the Polish force on his incompetence and desire to capture Dresden. (Full article...)

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Gorals

Credit: Jan Mehlich

Przemysław Ficek, the leading member of the folk band Fickowo Pokusa, plays the bagpipes during the 43rd Beskidy Mountain Folk Week of Culture, a festival promoting the culture and lifestyle of the Gorals, or mountain folk, of the Beskid Mountains along Poland's southern border. Ficek represents an ethnic group known as górale żywieccy, living in the Żywiec Beskids around the town of Żywiec.

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... that during the 1950s, Communist propaganda for the war against the potato beetle alleged that the insect (pictured) was introduced into East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia by the United States as a form of entomological warfare?
... that Polish-Jewish publisher Samuel Orgelbrand financed the printing of his Encyklopedia Powszechna ("Universal Encyclopedia"), the first modern Polish encyclopedia, with proceeds from sales of the Babylonian Talmud?
... that Polish nationalism is more restrictive in terms of ethnicity and religion than the earlier Polish-Lithuanian identity?

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Frédéric Chopin as portrayed by Eugène Delacroix

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849), was a Romantic-era composer born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw of a Polish mother and a French father. A child prodigy, he grew up in Warsaw, where he completed his musical education and composed many of his works before leaving Poland less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. At the age of 21 he settled in Paris, where he gained renown as a leading piano virtuoso of his generation despite giving only some 30 public performances during the remaining 18 years of his sickly life. Chopin was a good friend of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer George Sand. All of Chopin's compositions include the piano; most are for solo piano, although he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some songs to Polish lyrics. His keyboard style, which is highly individual, is often technically demanding; his own performances were noted for their nuance and sensitivity. Chopin invented the concept of instrumental ballade; his major piano works also include sonatas, mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, études, impromptus, scherzos, and preludes. His innovations in style, musical form, and harmony, as well as association of his music, often blending Polish folk tunes and classical tradition, with nationalism, were influential throughout and after the late Romantic period. (Full article...)

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Aerial view of Nowa Huta

Nowa Huta is an industrial easternmost district of the city of Kraków. Its history began in 1949, when Poland's communist government started to build the Lenin Steelworks (now Tadeusz Sendzimir Steelworks owned by Mittal Steel Company) together with a town for the workers. Nowa Huta, whose name translates as "New Steelworks", was meant to be an ideal socialist and atheist proletarian town supposed to counterbalance Kraków's conservative bourgeoisie. It is Poland's foremost example of socialist realist urban planning and architecture. The workers eventually turned against the communist regime when they demanded – with the help of Archbishop Karol Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II – the right to build a church in the 1960s; and when they supported the Solidarity movement in the 1980s. (Full article...)

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