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Poland

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A country of central Europe bordering on the Baltic Sea. Unified as a kingdom in the 10th century, it enjoyed a golden age under the Jagiello dynasty (1386–1572) and was a major power in the 15th and 16th centuries. National independence was lost in 1697 and it was carved up among other states in three partitions (1772, 1793, and 1795). Poland then disappeared as a geographic entity until its reconstitution as a republic in 1918. Its present boundaries date from the end of World War II. Warsaw is the capital and the largest city. Population: 38,500,000.

 

 
 

In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Polish Zloty.

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The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion.


 

Country, central Europe. Area: 120,728 sq mi (312,685 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 38,164,000. Capital: Warsaw. Most of the people are Polish; there are minorities of Ukrainians, Germans, and Belarusians. Language: Polish (official). Religion: Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholic; also Eastern Orthodox). Currency: zloty. Poland consists almost entirely of lowlands in the northern and central regions; the southern border is largely formed by the Sudeten and the Carpathian Mountains. The Vistula and Oder, the principal river systems, both drain into the Baltic Sea. Industries include mining, manufacturing, and public utilities. Poland is a republic with two legislative houses; its chief of state is the president, and its head of government is the prime minister. Established as a kingdom in 922 under Mieszko I, Poland was united with Lithuania in 1386 under the Jagiellon dynasty (1386 – 1572) to become the dominant power in east-central Europe, enjoying a prosperous golden age. In 1466 it wrested western and eastern Prussia from the Teutonic Order, and its lands eventually stretched to the Black Sea. Wars with Sweden (see First Northern War; Second Northern War) and Russia beginning in the late 17th century led to the loss of considerable territory. In 1697 the electors of Saxony became kings of Poland, virtually ending Polish independence. In the late 18th century Poland was divided between Prussia, Russia, and Austria (see partitions of Poland) and ceased to exist. After 1815 the former Polish lands came under Russian domination, and from 1863 Poland was a Russian province, subjected to intensive Russification. After World War I an independent Poland was established by the Allies. The invasion of Poland in 1939 by the U.S.S.R. and Germany precipitated World War II, during which the Nazis sought to purge Poland's culture and its large Jewish population in the Holocaust. Reoccupied by Soviet forces in 1945, Poland was controlled by a Soviet-dominated government from 1947. In the 1980s the Solidarity labour movement led by Lech Walesa achieved major political reforms, and free elections were held in 1989. An economic austerity program instituted in 1990 sped the transition to a market economy. Poland became a member of NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

For more information on Poland, visit Britannica.com.

 

Like the other arts, photography in Poland has often been influenced by politics, especially the passions aroused by desire for independence from powerful neighbours; in 1839, it should be recalled, there was no Polish state and the country was partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Images directly inspired by, or documenting, political movements have been important, especially in the 20th century; but landscapes and ethnographic photographs have also carried strong patriotic undertones.

The announcements of 1839 evoked a rapid response in Poland. Photographs taken with Talbot's process were made the same year by the engineer Maksymilian Strasz, as were daguerreotypes by Andzej Radwanski. An important early photographer was Karol Beyer (1818-77), who worked in Warsaw (where the principal early studios appeared) until 1845. Noted especially for his portraits and landscapes, Beyer also recorded events leading to the January 1863 uprising against Russian rule. While Poland experienced much the same photographic fashions as other countries (e.g. the carte de visite, stereoscopy), an interesting Polish speciality from the 1870s—again with patriotic associations—was mountain photography, linked with Awit Szubert, Stanislaw Bizanski, and others.

Polish pictorialism was, as in other countries, centred on ‘art photography’ societies created by amateurs: in Lvov, for example, the Art Photography Club (later the Lvov Photographic Society), which in 1895 launched the Photography Review, photography's first monthly journal. The Warsaw Photographic Society was created in 1901. This activity was significant both photographically and politically, in that it encouraged discussion of ideas from abroad (especially France and Austria), and because leading pictorialists such as Jan Bulhak (1876-1950) consciously used their portraits, landscapes, and architectural images as patriotic metaphors. Before 1914, Polish photographers also participated vigorously in the international salons held in Vienna, Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere.

The creation of an independent, albeit tension-ridden, Polish Republic after the First World War strengthened the political and cultural ties to Western Europe, especially France. Although pictorialism remained the dominant photographic mode, and the ‘New Vision’ photography that flourished in Germany and Czechoslovakia was relatively uninfluential in Poland, avant-garde movements such as Dada, Constructivism, and Surrealism all had their adherents in major centres like Warsaw, Lvov, and Kraków. Individuals like Wladyslaw Strzeminski and Stefan and Franciszka Themerson, and groups like the Polish Avant-Garde Film Studio in Kraków, experimented with combinations of photography and film and with photomontage and cameraless images. Documentary work embraced Aleksander Minorski's photographs of poverty in Warsaw, Roman Vishniac's, Mojzesz Worobieczk's and Stefan Kielsznia's documentation of Polish Jews, and Jozef Szymanczyk's coverage of the rural east. Notable also was the First Workers' Photographic Exhibition held in Lvov in 1936.

During the Second World War the German occupation massively inhibited all forms of cultural activity, including photography, although some illicit pictures were taken of conditions in the ghettoes by Jewish and anti-Nazi German photographers. During the 1944 Warsaw Rising, however, an extraordinary number of Polish photographers, despite the savagery of the fighting and all kinds of logistical problems, took pictures for record and propaganda purposes. Their heroic efforts were commemorated in Wladyslaw Jewsiewicki's extensively illustrated book Powstanie Warszawskie 1944, published in 1989.

With the post-war establishment of a communist regime, Socialist Realism was imposed, with veterans like Bulhak adapting pictorialism to propaganda needs. On the other hand, although conformity was a precondition for access to the media and many other kinds of work, plenty of semi-clandestine experimentation went on, partly looking back to the pre-war avant-gardes, partly responding to Western movements such as ‘Subjective Photography’ and Pop art. Even in periods of intense repression such as the years of martial law between 1981 and 1984, this activity never entirely ceased. Moreover, coverage of the rise of the Solidarity movement in the 1980s, even by approved photojournalists and film-makers, arguably helped to undermine communism's grip on power.

Since the restoration of political and cultural pluralism in 1989, the Polish photographic scene has increasingly come to resemble that in other liberal societies, with the proliferation of avant-garde groups and the expansion of commercial opportunities in photojournalism, advertising, and fashion photography. Poland has also followed the same institutional path as other countries, with the formation of numerous photographic societies, galleries, and museum collections. Several photographic schools were founded in the 1990s, and degree courses in or including photography were established at a number of academies and universities. Regular events include the Photography Biennale in Poznań (since 1988), the Polish Landscape Biennale in Kielce (since 1963), and an International Photographic Trade Fair in Miedzyzdroje (since the early 1990s).

— Lisa Ann Lavender

 

Ballet in Poland dates from the 16th century when it featured as a court entertainment. The first Polish company was founded in 1785, although it was short-lived, owing to the breakup of the country in 1794. Warsaw, which fell to Russia, became a centre of ballet activity. The French choreographers Louis Thierry (1818-23) and Maurice Pion (1825-43) worked here. Thierry (with Julia Mierzynska) created Cracow Wedding in 1823, the oldest Polish ballet still in the repertoire. F. Taglioni, who worked as director in Warsaw (1843-53), built up the repertoire and created works for the company. In the 1850s and 1860s, when Roman Turczynowicz was in charge, the company was prominent on the European dance scene and stars of the dance world, such as Grisi and Blasis, came to work in Warsaw. By the end of the 19th century, the company was heavily under the influence of the Russian ballet. Russian ballets were featured in the repertoire and Russian dancers (Pavlova and Karsavina among them) came to guest. From 1902 to 1905 Cecchetti was director of the company, and some of the dancers he taught later joined the Diaghilev company (Woizikowski and Idzikowski). In 1920 ballet began to spread outside Warsaw, with the opening of a new centre in Poznán, attached to the Grand Theatre. Between the First and Second World Wars modern dance began to take hold, under the influence of Duncan, Jaques-Dalcroze, and Wigman, whose methods were taught in private schools. In 1937 the Polish Ballet was founded to promote Polish ballet abroad. It was financed by the government and engaged Bronislava Nijinska as choreographer; the company toured throughout Europe but was disbanded in 1939 due to the outbreak of war. After the Second World War, which resulted in so much devastation to the companies and the theatres, ballet in the country had to rebuild, as did the Warsaw Grand Theatre which reopened in 1965. Companies sprang up in regional opera houses, although ballet faced a major restructuring following the end of Communist rule in 1989. In 1973 the independent Polish Dance Theatre was founded in Poznán by Conrad Drzewiecki; it remains the most important company in the country.

 

Relations between Poles and Russians have never been easy. Despite their close linguistic and ethnic ties, differences rather than similarities characterize the relationship between them. In religious denomination, political tradition, worldview, even the alphabets in which they write their related languages, Poles and Russians are clearly distinct. Russia took its form of Christianity during the late ninth century from Byzantium while Poland was christened by emissaries from the pope almost a century later. Russia came to be the very essence of autocratic rule under Ivan IV and the Romanovs, while Poland developed in an opposite direction, toward a highly decentralized polity linked with Lithuania and dominated by the nobility. Throughout history, Poland has tended to see itself as the easternmost outpost of Western values and traditions: unlike Russia, Poland participated in the Renaissance and Reformation. Defining themselves as Europeans, Poles have often depicted their Eastern neighbors as barbarians and schismatics. Russians returned the favor, describing Poles as flighty, hysterical, and treacherous.

Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania

The first significant clashes between the Polish state and Muscovy occurred after the Union of Lublin (1569). During the 1550s and 1560s Muscovy had pursued an aggressive westward policy, seizing some Lithuanian lands. When Muscovite political authority dissolved into anarchy during the Time of Troubles during the early seventeenth century, Poland was ready to fish in troubled Russian waters. Polish nobles and Jesuits supported the first "False Dmitry," who claimed to be Ivan IV's son and triumphantly entered Moscow in 1605. In great part because of the large Polish retinue and openly Catholic sympathies of "Dmitry," he was soon deposed and murdered. But Polish interference in confused Muscovite politics continued. Most spectacularly, King Sigismund III of Poland succeeded in having his son Wladyslaw proclaimed tsar in 1610. The Polish presence in Moscow was not to last; by 1613 the Poles had been slaughtered or forced to flee, and Mikhail Romanov was elected tsar.

As Russia recovered and expanded under the Romanovs, Poland grew weaker. Poland's highly decentralized government and elected king meant that the central government could not impose its will on the provinces. Increasingly, power devolved to the local magnates, further weakening the center. The anti-Polish rebellion of Bohdan Khmelnitsky in 1648 allowed Muscovy to extend its power into the Ukraine with the Treaty of Pereiaslavl (1654). Additional Polish territory, including the cities of Smolensk and Kiev, was lost to the Russians during the following decade.

The Eighteenth Century

The eighteenth century witnessed further Polish descent into anarchy. Already during the 1690s Polish king Jan Sobieski had complained of his inability to force the Polish magnates to obey him. Worse was to come. The fact that Polish kings were elected allowed Poland's neighbors to put up their own candidates in the hope of influencing future policy. Poland also had the misfortune to be placed geographically between three rising absolutist states - Prussia, Russia, and Habsburg Austria. In 1764, St. Petersburg succeeded in placing its candidate on the Polish throne. Stanisl-aw-August Poniatowski, a former lover of Catherine the Great, was to be the last Polish king.

Partitions and Russian Rule

The impetus toward partition came not from Russia, but from Poland's western neighbor, Prussia. That state's ambitious ruler, Frederick II ("the Great") suggested a dividing up of Polish territory to prevent destabilizing "anarchy." In the first Partition of Poland (1772), Russia absorbed some thirteen percent of the commonwealth's territory. The shock of the partition fueled a push for serious political reforms, including a strengthening of the central government and the king. The partitioning powers, including Russia, feared a strong Poland.

They were particularly disturbed by the fruitful efforts of the Four-Years-Sejm, including the Polish constitution of May 3, 1791. Once again using the excuse of Polish anarchy, Prussia and Russia seized more Polish territory in the Second Partition of 1793, calling forth a Polish national uprising. However, the heroic efforts of insurrectionist Tadeusz Kosciuszko could not prevent the Third Partition of 1795, after which Poland disappeared from the European map for more than a century.

After the Napoleonic wars, borders between the partitioning powers were altered significantly, bringing a large portion of ethnic Poland under Russian rule. The majority of Poles thus became subjects of the Russian tsar. Tsar Alexander I afforded the Kingdom of Poland considerable rights and autonomy. The Poles enjoyed their own coinage, legal system, army, legislature, and constitution. Disagreements between Warsaw and St. Petersburg over the limits of Polish autonomy exploded into the open during the November Uprising of 1830, which lasted well into the following year. After Nicholas I put down this insurrection, he abolished the Kingdom of Poland's legislature, constitution, and army. Still, legal and administrative differences existed between Russian and Polish provinces - though these differences would be considerably narrowed after the crushing of the subsequent January 1863 uprising.

The final half century of Romanov rule over much of historic Poland has generally been characterized as a period of Russification. Certainly, St. Petersburg viewed Poles en masse as at least potentially disloyal subjects, and Polish culture was kept on a very tight leash. Poles in the Russian Empire could not use their native tongue in education at any level except the most elementary - and even here Russian was often introduced. In the so-called Western Provinces (present-day western Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus) even speaking Polish in public could lead to fines or worse. Still, there was no systematic attempt to Russify the Polish nation in the sense of total cultural (or religious) assimilation. Rather, Russification amounted to a severe limiting of Polish civil and cultural rights in this period.

World War I and Independence

The outbreak of World War I transformed relations between the partitioning powers and Poles. Now securing the loyalty of Poles became a paramount consideration for both Russia and the Central Powers. The Russian commander-in-chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, issued a manifesto in mid-August 1914, holding out the postwar promise of a unified Polish state under the Romanov scepter. In the end, force of arms decided the issue: By autumn 1915 Russian armies had for the most part been pushed out of ethnic Poland. With the Bolsheviks' coming to power in October 1917 and the subsequent Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918), all hopes of continued Russian - or Soviet - domination over Poland came to an end. In late 1918 Poland regained its independence.

Relations between Poland and the fledgling Soviet state got off to a very bad start. Moscow was vitally interested in exporting revolution to Western Europe, most likely by way of Poland. Further, the unclear borders between Poland and its neighbors to the east presented a serious potential for conflict. Historically, Poles had been very prominent as landowners and townspeople in these border regions between ethnic Poland and ethnic Russia. Thus Poles figure in early Soviet propaganda as portly mustachioed noblemen bent on enslaving Ukrainian or Belarusian peasants. Between 1919 and 1921 Soviet Russia and newly independent Poland clashed on the battlefield, the Poles occupying Kiev and, at the opposite extreme, the Red Army getting all the way to the Vistula River in central Poland. In March 1921, both sides, exhausted for the moment, signed the Peace of Riga.

The USSR was not satisfied with the treaty's terms. In particular, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Belarusians and Ukrainians ended up on the Polish side of the frontier, providing the USSR with a would-be constituency for extending the border westward. Nor did relations between Poland and the USSR improve in the interwar period. The two primary politicians of interwar Poland, Józef Pil-sudski and Roman Dmowski, both despised and feared the Soviet state. The Communist Party was outlawed in Poland, and many Polish communists fled to the USSR, often straight into the Gulag. Even Adolf Hitler's coming to power in 1933 did not bring the USSR and Poland closer. Rather, the later 1930s witnessed the Great Purges in the USSR and a downward spiral in Polish politics toward an increasingly vicious form of Polish chauvinism and official anti-Semitism.

Poland was stunned by the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact of August 1939. This agreement between Josef Stalin's USSR and Hitler's Germany demonstrated that their mutual enmity toward the Polish state outweighed ideological differences. The pact allowed Hitler to invade on September 1, 1939, and the Red Army, following a secret protocol, occupied eastern Poland later that month. Once again Poland disappeared from the map. When the Polish state was resurrected in 1945, it was devastated. The large and vibrant Polish Jewish community had been all but wiped out during the Holocaust, some three million non-Jewish Poles had lost their lives, and the capital city Warsaw was a wasteland, systematically destroyed by the Germans in retaliation for the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944. Polish nationalists and some Western writers contend that the Red Army, by that time nearing the eastern outskirts of the city, could have prevented the Nazi devastation of the city. Others argue that the Red Army had been successfully repulsed by the Germans. In any case, the failure of the Soviets to move into Warsaw allowed the Nazis to massacre Polish fighters who might very well have opposed the imposition of communist rule.

People's Poland

Having liberated Poland from the Nazis, Stalin was determined to see a pro-Soviet government installed there. Despite the tiny number of native Polish communists and little support for communist or pro-Soviet candidates, intimidation and rigged voting placed a Stalinist Polish government, led by Bolesl-aw Bierut, in power in 1948. Bierut launched a crash industrialization drive, attempted to collectivize Polish agriculture, and jailed many Catholic clergymen. After Bierut's death in 1956, leadership passed to the more flexible Wladyslaw Gomulka who allowed Poles a considerable amount of cultural and economic leeway while reassuring Moscow of People's Poland's stability.

Unfortunately for Gomulka, Poles compared their economic and cultural situation not with that in the USSR, but with conditions in the West. As the 1960s progressed, the relative backwardness of Poland compared with Germany or the United States only increased. Domestically, internal party tensions led to an ugly state-sponsored anti-Semitic episode in 1968, during which Poland's few remaining Jews - most highly assimilated - were hounded out of the country. Thus, Gomulka's position was already weak before the notorious price hikes on basic foodstuffs of December 1970 that led to rioting and his replacement by Edward Gierek. Gierek promised prosperity, but was never able to deliver. In 1980, price increases caused civil disturbances and his resignation.

The discontent of 1980 also spawned something quite new: the Polish trade union Solidarity. This first independent trade union in a communist bloc country appeared in late 1980, was banned just more than one year later, and was resurrected - more properly, relegalized - during the late 1980s. Solidarity represented a novel phenomenon for a People's Democracy: a popular and independent trade union that brought together intellectuals and workers. The outlawing of Solidarity by General Wojciech Jaruzelski in December 1981 was a desperate measure taken, according to Jaruzelski himself, to forestall an actual Soviet invasion of the country. One may doubt Jaruzelski's account, but tensions between the USSR and Poland certainly ran high, and the threat of invasion cannot be entirely discounted. Ultimately, however, Jaruzelski's attempt to save People's Poland failed. Early in 1989 Solidarity was relegalized and in summer of that year the communists handed over power to Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first noncommunist prime minister since the 1940s. The refusal of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to intervene in Polish affairs made possible this peaceful transfer of power.

Relations between Poland and Russia during the 1990s have been remarkably positive, considering the amazing changes brought by that decade. Despite grumbling and even saber rattling from Moscow over Poland's plans to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in the end NATO expansion took place in 1999 without a hitch. At the same time, economic and cultural links between Moscow and Warsaw have weakened considerably as Poland has turned toward the West both institutionally (NATO, European Union) and culturally (learning English instead of Russian). Still, the correct if not always cordial relations between the two countries during the 1990s give reason for hope that the two largest Slavic nations will finally be able to both live together and prosper.

Bibliography

Davies, Norman. Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland. (1984). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Gross, Jan. (1988). Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Jedlicki, Jerzy. (1999). A Suburb of Europe: Nineteenth-Century Polish Approaches to Western Civilization. Budapest: Central European University Press.

Polonsky, Antony. (1972). Politics in Independent Poland 1921 - 1939: The Crisis of Constitutional Government. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

Snyder, Timothy. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569 - 1999. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Walicki, Andrzej. (1991). Russia, Poland, and Universal Regeneration: Studies on Russian and Polish Thought of the Romantic Epoch. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Wandycz, Piotr. (1974). The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795 - 1918. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

—THEODORE R. WEEKS

 
Pol. Polska, officially Republic of Poland, republic (2005 est. pop. 38,635,000), 120,725 sq mi (312,677 sq km), central Europe. It borders on Germany in the west, on the Baltic Sea and the Kaliningrad region of Russia in the north, on Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine in the east, and on the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the south. Warsaw is the capital and largest city.

Land and People

The country is largely low-lying, except in the south, which includes the Carpathians, the Sudeten Mts., and the Małopolska Hills. The highest point is Rysy Mt. (c.8,200 ft/2,500 m), located in the High Tatra Mts. near the Slovakian border. Poland's main rivers (including the Vistula, the Oder, the Warta, and the Western Bug) are connected to the Baltic Sea and are important traffic lanes. The country has three important Baltic ports (Gdańsk, Gdynia, and Szczecin) and a dense rail network. There are many lakes, especially in the north. About 40% of Poland's land area is arable (with the best soil in the south), and about 30% is forested.

In addition to the capital and important ports, the country's major cities include Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Bytom, Częstochowa, Gdańsk, Gliwice, Katowice, Kraków, Łódź, Lublin, Poznań, Radom, Tarnowskie Góry, and Wrocław.

As a result of World War II, of the 1945 boundary treaty with the USSR, and of the emigration of most of the German-speaking population, the country has considerable ethnic homogeneity. Nearly the entire population is Polish-speaking and the vast majority of those affiliated with any creed are Roman Catholic.

Economy

Agriculture is mostly privately run and was so even during the Communist years. It accounts for 5% of the gross domestic product and occupies more than 15% of the workforce. Poland is generally self-sufficient in food; the main crops are potatoes, sugar beets, rye, wheat, and dairy products. Pigs and sheep are the main livestock. Poland is relatively rich in natural resources; the chief minerals produced are coal, sulfur, copper, silver, lead, and zinc. There is food and beverage processing, shipbuilding, and the manufacture of machinery, iron and steel products, chemicals, glass, and textiles.

Industry, which had been state controlled, began to be privatized in the early 1990s, although restructuring and privatization of the country's coal and other energy industries and the railroads has moved forward slowly, when it has progressed at all. Prices were freed, subsidies were reduced, and Poland's currency (the zloty) was made convertible as the country began the difficult transition to a free-market economy. Reforms initially resulted in high unemployment, hyperinflation, shortages of consumer goods, a large external debt, and a general drop in the standard of living. The situation later stabilized, however, and during the 1990s Poland's economy was the fastest growing in E Europe. Growth slowed significantly in 2001, and by 2006 Poland had the highest unemployment rate in the European Union. Poland exports machinery and transportation equipment, manufactured goods, food, and live animals. Imports include machinery and transportation equipment, manufactured goods, chemicals, minerals, and fuels. Germany, Russia, Italy, France, and the Netherlands are important trading partners.

Government

Poland is governed under the constitution of 1997. The president, who is the head of state, is popularly elected for a five-year term and is eligible for a second term. The prime minister, who is the head of government, is appointed by the president, as is the cabinet, with the approval of the Sejm. The bicameral National Assembly consists of a 460-seat Sejm (lower house) and a 100-seat Senate (upper house). Members of both bodies are elected for four-year terms. Administratively, Poland is divided into 16 provinces.

History

Beginnings

The territorial dimensions of Poland have varied considerably during its history. In the 9th and 10th cent., the Polians [dwellers in the field] gained hegemony over the other Slavic groups that occupied what is roughly present-day Poland. Under Duke Mieszko I (reigned 960–92) of the Piast dynasty began (966) the conversion of Poland to Christianity. Gniezno was the first capital of Poland and Poznań the first episcopal see. The Piasts expanded their domains in wars against the German emperors, Hungary, Bohemia, Pomerania, Denmark, and Kiev, and in 1025 Boleslaus I (reigned 992–1025) took the title of king.

At the death (1138) of Boleslaus III the kingdom was broken up; its reunification was begun by Ladislaus I, who was king from 1320 to 1333. During the period of disunity, the Teutonic Knights gained a foothold in the then pagan N Poland. Their power was only broken by their defeat at the hands of Polish-Lithuanian forces at Tannenberg (1410); by the second treaty of Toruń (1466) they became vassals of the Polish kings. The main line of the Piast dynasty ended with the death (1370) of Casimir III, whose enlightened economic, administrative, and social policies included the protection of the Jews. He also completed the reunification of the kingdom. After Casimir, the crown passed to his nephew, Louis I of Hungary (reigned 1370–82) and then to Louis' daughter, Jadwiga (reigned 1384–99).

The Age of Greatness

Jadwiga married Ladislaus Jagiello, grand duke of Lithuania, who became king of Poland as Ladislaus II (reigned 1386–1434). The Jagiello dynasty ruled Poland until 1572; this period—especially the 16th cent.—is considered the golden age of Poland. Although involved in frequent wars with Hungary, Moscow, Moldavia, the Tatars, and the Ottoman Turks, the closely allied Polish and Lithuanian states maintained an empire that reached from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

Ladislaus III (reigned 1434–44; after 1440 also king of Hungary), although routed and killed by the Ottoman Turks at the battle of Varna (1444), gave Poland the prestige of championing the Christian cause against the Muslim invaders. Casimir V (1447–92) placed Poland and Lithuania on equal terms and decisively defeated (1462) the Teutonic Knights. Under Sigismund I (reigned 1506–48) internal power was consolidated, the economy developed, and the culture of the Renaissance was introduced. During the reign of Sigismund II (reigned 1548–72) a unified Polish-Lithuanian state was created by the Union of Lublin (1569).

The arts and sciences flourished during the Jagiello dynasty; a towering figure of the age was the astronomer Copernicus. At the same time, however, the Jagiellos were forced to contend with the growing power of the gentry, who by the 15th cent. began to acquire considerable political influence. In 1505 the gentry forced King Alexander (reigned 1501–6) to recognize the legislative power of the Sejm, or diet, which comprised a senate (made up of representatives of the landed magnates and of the high clergy) and a chamber (consisting of the deputies of the nobility and of the gentry). The liberum veto, which allowed any representative to dissolve the Sejm and even to annul its previous decisions, was applied with growing recklessness in the 17th and 18th cent.

Class Divisions and Foreign Conflicts

The Polish kings had always been elective in theory, but in practice the choice had usually fallen on the incumbent representatives of the ruling dynasty. After the death (1572) of Sigismund II, last of the Jagiellos, the theory that the entire nobility could take part in the royal elections was newly guaranteed. In practice, this meant that internal factional rivalry prevented the establishment of any great Polish dynasty; contested elections and insurrections by the gentry were frequent. Although the state was weakened, the constitution of the royal republic created a certain democratic egalitarianism among the gentry and noble classes. The peasantry, however, had been reduced to serfdom, and its condition tended to worsen rather than improve. The middle class was largely Jewish or German.

There was considerable religious toleration in 16th-century Poland and the progress of Protestantism was arrested without coercion by the Jesuits, who introduced the Counter Reformation in 1565. Relations between the Roman Catholic ruling class and the followers of the Greek Orthodox Church in Belarus and Ukraine (then parts of Lithuania) were less harmonious and helped to involve Poland in several wars with Russia.

Much of the reigns of Stephen Báthory (1575–86) and Sigismund III (1587–1632) was occupied by attempts to conquer Russia. The outstanding figure of their reigns was Jan Zamojski (1542–1605). Sigismund III, a prince of the Swedish ruling house of Vasa, also became king of Sweden; after his deposition (1598) by his Swedish subjects he continued to advance his claims and started a long series of Polish-Swedish wars. In addition, Sigismund defeated an armed revolt (1606–7) by the gentry and fought the Ottoman Turks. He was succeeded by his sons Ladislaus IV (1632–48) and John II (1648–68).

John's reign came to be known in Polish history as the “Deluge.” During his rule discontent in Ukraine flared in the rebellion of the Cossacks under Bohdan Chmielnicki. In 1655, Charles X of Sweden overran Poland, while Czar Alexis of Russia attacked from the east. Inspired by their heroic defense of the monastery at Częstochowa, the Poles managed to regroup and to save the country from complete dismemberment. The Peace of Oliva (1660) cost Poland considerable territory (including N Livonia), and by the Treaty of Andrusov (1667) E Ukraine passed to Russia. The Vasa dynasty ended with the death of John II. John III (John Sobieski; reigned 1674–96), who defended (1683) Vienna from the Ottoman Turk invaders, temporarily restored the prestige of Poland, but with his death Poland virtually ceased to be an independent country.

Partition and Regeneration

After John III, the fate of Poland was determined with increasing cynicism by its three powerful neighbors—Russia, Prussia, and Austria. In 1697 the elector of Saxony was chosen king of Poland as Augustus II by a minority faction supported by Czar Peter I. Augustus allied himself with Russia and Denmark against Charles XII of Sweden. In the ensuing Northern War (1700–1721), during which Poland was plundered several times, Charles XII maintained Stanislaus I (Stanislaus Leszczynski) as Polish king from 1704 to 1709. The War of the Polish Succession (1733–35), precipitated by Augustus's death, resulted in the final abdication of Stanislaus and the accession of Augustus III (1734–63). Under Augustus III, the Polish economy (still largely agricultural) declined and orderly politics was undermined by feuding among the great landed families, which was evident in the frequent use of the liberum veto.

As a result of the support of Catherine II of Russia and Frederick II of Prussia, Stanislaus II (Stanislaus Poniatowski; reigned 1764–95), a member of the powerful Czartoryski family, was elected king of Poland. Prince Nikolai Repnin, the Russian minister at Warsaw, gained much influence in Polish internal affairs. Opposition to Russian domination led to the formation (with French help) in 1768 of the Confederation of the Bar, which, however, was suppressed militarily by Russia in 1772. Fearing that all Poland might fall into Russian hands, Frederick II proposed (1772) a partition plan to Catherine II, which later in the same year was modified to include Austria. Three successive partitions (1772, 1793, 1795) resulted in the disappearance (1795) of Poland from the map of Europe. Russia gained the largest share.

Despite the severe losses that the country suffered, there was a renewed spirit of national revival after 1772. It manifested itself in the thorough reform (including the abolition of the liberum veto) embodied in the May Constitution (1791) for the remaining independent part of Poland and in the heroic revolt (1794) led by Kosciusko. By the Treaty of Tilsit (1807), Napoleon I created a Polish buffer state, the grand duchy of Warsaw, under King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony. After Napoleon's defeat, the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) established a nominally independent Polish kingdom (“Congress Poland”), in personal union with the czar of Russia. The western provinces of Poland were awarded to Prussia; Galicia was given to Austria; and Kraków and its environs were made a separate republic.

A Polish nationalist revival led to a general insurrection in 1830 (known as the November Revolution) in Russian Poland. The Poles were at first successful, but their army was defeated (1831) at Ostrołęka, and the Russians reentered Warsaw. The Polish constitution was suspended, and the kingdom became virtually an integral part of Russia. Thousands of Poles emigrated, notably to Paris, which became the center of Polish nationalist activities. In 1846 an insurrection in Galicia by the peasantry against the gentry led to the annexation of Kraków by Austria. Rebellions broke out in 1848 in Prussian and Austrian Poland, and in 1863 the Poles in Russian Poland rose in the so-called January Revolution.

After crushing the revolt, the Russians began an intensive program of Russification. At the same time industry (especially the manufacture of textiles and iron goods) was developed and large estates were divided and given in freehold to peasants. A similar policy of Germanization in Prussian Poland was linked with Bismarck's Kulturkampf (see Ledóchowski, Count Mieczisław). Only in Austrian Galicia did the Poles enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy, but there the economy was very weak.

The Restoration of a Nation

In World War I the early efforts of the Polish nationalists were directed against Russia. Polish legions, led by Joseph Piłsudski, fought for two years alongside Germany and Austria. In Nov., 1916, Germany and Austria proclaimed Poland an independent kingdom, but Germany, which occupied the country, retained control over the Polish government. Piłsudski resigned and was imprisoned (July, 1917), and the independence movement from then on was centered at Paris. The defeat of the partitioning powers allowed Poland to regain its independence, which was proclaimed on Nov. 9, 1918. Piłsudski returned on Nov. 10 and was declared chief of state.

The Treaty of Versailles (1919) gave Poland access to the Baltic Sea via the Polish Corridor and forced Germany to return Prussian Poland to Poland. Gdańsk became a free city and parts of Silesia were awarded to Poland as a result of plebiscites. The Polish-Russian border proposed at the Paris Peace Conference (and later named after Lord Curzon of Great Britain) would have awarded to Russia large parts of the former eastern provinces of Poland, inhabited mainly by Belarusians and Ukrainians. However, Poland insisted on its 1772 borders. War broke out between Poland and Russia, and in 1920 the Poles drove the Russians back from Warsaw. In the Treaty of Riga (1921), Poland secured parts of its claims.

Poland also became involved in protracted disputes over Vilnius with Lithuania and over Teschen with Czechoslovakia. About one third of newly created Poland was made up of ethnic Germans, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews, and Lithuanians, and these minorities were generally treated inequitably. A republican constitution was adopted in 1921. Financial and agrarian reforms were undertaken and industrialization progressed, but the condition of the peasantry remained generally poor, and the landowning aristocracy retained most of its wealth.

In 1926 a parliamentary government was suspended by a military coup that made Piłsudski virtual dictator. After his death (1935), Marshall Edward Rydz-Śmigły assumed control, and under a new constitution (1935) parliament became a tool of the governing clique (“the colonels”). Foreign policy in the 1920s was based on alliances with France and Romania; in the 1930s, under the guidance of Col. Josef Beck, Poland attempted to steer a course among the powers of Europe (especially Germany and the USSR) by following a pragmatic policy of balance. In the economic depression of the 1930s unemployment was widespread; also, anti-Semitism became increasingly virulent.

In early 1939, after having secured guarantees against aggression from Great Britain and France, Poland rejected Germany's demand for Gdańsk. In Aug., 1939, the negotiations of Great Britain and France with the USSR for a military agreement fell through, partly because Poland would not agree to allow Soviet troops to march across Poland in case of a conflict with Germany. On Aug. 23, 1939, Germany and the USSR signed a nonaggression treaty, which included secret clauses providing for the partition of Poland between them. On Aug. 25, 1939, a treaty of alliance between Poland and England was concluded.

On Sept. 1, 1939, Germany, having refused further negotiations, invaded Poland and thus precipitated World War II. German columns advanced with spectacular speed. On Sept. 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. Polish resistance was crushed, and the country was partitioned between Germany and the USSR, except for a central portion that was annexed by neither power but was placed under German rule. After the German attack (1941) on the USSR, all Poland passed under German rule.

World War

Poland suffered tremendous losses in life and property in the war. The Nazi authorities eliminated a large part of the population by massacres and starvation and in extermination camps such as the one at Oświęcim (Auschwitz). About six million Poles were killed, and 2.5 million were deported to Germany for forced labor. Polish Jews suffered the worst fate; all but about 100,000 of the prewar Jewish population of some 3,113,900 were exterminated.

Despite German oppression, the Poles did not cease to fight for their independence. An underground resistance movement was organized, and a government in exile (led initially by General Władysław Sikorski and later by Stanislaus Mikołajczyk) was established first in France and then in London. Polish prisoners of war in the USSR were allowed to form a corps under Wladislaw Anders and fought with distinction with the Allies; other Polish units were organized in Great Britain and Canada.

The German announcement (1943) that a mass grave of some 10,000 Polish officers, allegedly executed by the Soviets, had been discovered in the Katyn forest led to a break between the Polish government in exile and the Soviet Union. (The Soviet Union admitted to the massacre in 1990.) The rift was widened by Soviet demands for the Curzon line as the new Polish-Soviet border. When Soviet troops entered Poland, a provisional Polish government was established (July, 1944) under Soviet auspices at Lublin. A Polish uprising (Aug.–Oct., 1944) at Warsaw, organized by the resistance movement and controlled by the Polish government in exile in London, was crushed by the Germans while Soviet forces remained inactive outside Warsaw. The last German troops were expelled from Poland in early 1945.

By an agreement at the Yalta Conference (Feb., 1945), Mikołajczyk joined the Lublin government, and this new government was subsequently recognized by Great Britain and the United States. The Polish-Soviet border was fixed by treaty slightly east of the Curzon line, and 15% of German reparation payments to the USSR was allotted to Poland. At the Potsdam Conference (July–Aug., 1945), the sections of Prussia east of the Oder and Neisse rivers, including Gdańsk and the southern part of East Prussia (altogether c.39,000 sq mi/101,010 sq km) were placed under Polish administration pending a general peace treaty. The expulsion of the German population from these territories was sanctioned.

The Communist Regime

A unicameral parliament was established (1946) after a referendum. Legal opposition was limited almost entirely to Mikołajczyk's Peasant party, but nationalists, rightists, and some other opponents operated as underground forces. The government-controlled elections of 1947 gave the government bloc an overwhelming majority; Mikołajczyk resigned and fled abroad. Bolesław Bierut, a Pole who was a Communist and a citizen of the USSR, was elected president of Poland by the parliament. The Sovietization of Poland was accelerated; in 1949, Soviet Marshall Konstantin Rokossovsky was made minister of defense and commander in chief of the Polish army. The constitution of 1952 made Poland a people's republic on the Soviet model.

In 1949, Poland joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), and in 1955 it became a charter member of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Polish foreign policy became identical with that of the USSR. Relations with the Vatican were severed; the church became a chief target of government persecution, which included the arrest (1953) of the primate of Poland, Cardinal Wyszynski. Partly as a result of the more relaxed atmosphere following Stalin's death (1953), workers and students in Poznań rioted (late June, 1956) in a mass demonstration against Communist and Soviet control of Poland. Discontent soon became widespread, and the government was forced to reconsider its policies.

In Oct., 1956, Władysław Gomułka, purged in 1949 from the Polish Communist party as a “rightist deviationist” and imprisoned from 1951 to early 1956, was elected leader of the Polish United Workers (Communist) party (PZPR) and became the symbol of revolt against Moscow. Gomułka denounced the terror of the Stalinist period, ousted many Stalinists from the government and the party, relieved Rokossovsky of his posts, and freed Cardinal Wyszynski from detention. Collectivization of agriculture was halted, and the Poles were given far more freedom than under the previous regime. Relations with the church improved, and economic and cultural ties with the West were broadened. However, Poland retained close ties with the USSR. By the early 1960s Gomułka was tightening the party's hold on Poland; intellectual freedom was curbed, the church again was a target of government polemics, political rhetoric was infused with an anti-Semitic nationalistic fervor, and renewed attempts were made to have peasants join state groups.

In Aug., 1968, Poland joined other East European countries and the USSR in invading Czechoslovakia. In early Dec., 1970, Poland and West Germany signed a treaty (ratified in 1972) that recognized the Oder-Neisse line as Poland's western boundary (recognized in 1950 by East Germany) and provided for normal diplomatic relations. Later in the same month, rapidly increasing food prices led to riots by workers in the Baltic ports of Gdańsk, Gdynia, and Szczecin. Gomułka was ousted and replaced by Edward Gierek, who sought, with some success, to ease the living conditions of the average citizen. By the mid-1970s, however, recession necessitated price hikes that led to strikes and the arrests of hundreds of protesters. The bishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyła, became Pope John Paul II in 1978, and his subsequent visit to Poland in June, 1979, drew several crowds of over a million people.

Solidarity and a Multiparty State

The continued shortage and expensiveness of food and housing led to strikes in 1980, first at the Lenin Shipyards in Gdańsk and then in other cities. The striking workers formed an illegal labor union, Solidarity, led by Gdańsk shipyard worker Lech Wałęsa. Granted legal status and enormously popular, Solidarity continued to strike for higher wages, lower prices, and also for the right to strike and an end to censorship. General secretary Gierek was replaced by Stanisław Kania, who in turn was replaced by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski. Martial law was declared in Dec., 1981; Solidarity was banned in 1982, and its representatives were arrested. Martial law was lifted in 1984, Jaruzelski became president in 1985, and all imprisoned Solidarity members were released by 1986. Solidarity, still outlawed, remained a popular force as the economy failed to improve.

In 1989, Solidarity was again legalized, and it participated in the negotiation of substantial political reforms that led to free elections in the same year. Solidarity won a majority in both houses of the parliament. Tadeusz Mazowiecki was named prime minister in 1989, and in 1990 Lech Wałęsa was elected president. In 1990 the Solidarity-led government adopted a radical program for transforming Poland to a market economy, but the ensuing economic hardship led to widespread discontent and political instability.

From 1990 through 1996 Poland had eight prime ministers. Hanna Suchocka became Poland's first woman to hold the post in 1992, but she lost a no-confidence vote the next year. In new elections the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and the Polish Peasants' party (PPP) together won a majority. Waldemar Pawlak of the PPP became premier, but he resigned and was succeeded in Mar., 1995, by SLD leader Józef Oleksy. In Nov., 1995, Wałęsa was defeated in his presidential reelection bid by Aleksander Kwaśniewski, the SLD candidate. Oleksy resigned in Jan., 1996, after being accused of having spied for Moscow when he was a senior Communist party official. (Although the charges were later dropped, he was convicted in 2002 of having lied about collaborating with Polish military intelligence in the late 1960s.) He was succeeded by Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz of the SLD.

Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS), the political bloc that grew out of the labor union, won a plurality in 1997 parliamentary elections, forming a coalition government with the market-oriented Freedom Union. AWS leader Jerzy Buzek was named prime minister and pledged to speed up reform of Poland's outmoded heavy industrial base. A new constitution approved in 1997 diluted the power of the presidency and strengthened the power of the parliament. Poland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999. The AWS-led coalition collapsed in June, 2000, but Buzek formed an AWS minority government and remained in power. President Kwaśniewski was reelected in Oct., 2000.

In parliamentary elections in Sept., 2001, the SLD, led by Leszek Miller, won a sizable plurality of the seats but not a majority. The SLD formed a coalition with the PPP and the Union of Labor, and Miller became prime minister. The AWS, with only 5.6% of the vote, failed to win any seats; it was badly hurt by growing unemployment and other economic problems, as well as charges of corruption. Economic conditions continued to worsen after 2001, with unemployment reaching 19% in 2003. In Mar., 2003, disagreements over policy led the SLD to expel the PPP from the coalition; the SLD continued in power with a minority government.

Government budget cuts prompted by Poland's approaching entry into the European Union eroded popular support for the SLD, leading Miller to resign as party leader early in 2004, but he remained prime minister until May, when Poland joined the European Union. Marek Belka, a former finance minister and technocrat, was confirmed as Miller's successor in June. Continuing high unemployment and a series of political scandals hurt the SLD in the Aug., 2005, parliamentary elections. The socially conservative Law and Justice party and the economically conservative Civic Platform each won roughly a third of the seats in the lower house and entered into unsuccessful negotiations on forming a new government.

The strongly conservative turn in Polish politics continued in October when, after a runoff election, Lech Kaczyński, of the Law and Justice party, was elected president; his main opponent had been Donald Tusk, the Civic Platform candidate. The Law and Justice party subsequently formed a minority government led by Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz; the government became more stable when support from two fringe parties, one far-right, the other far-left, was secured in Feb., 2006. The three parties entered into a formal coalition in Apr.–May, 2006. There were tensions, however, between the president and prime minister, and in July, 2006, Marcinkiewicz resigned, and Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the Law and Justice party and the twin brother of the president, was appointed prime minister.

The coalition collapsed in September when the leader of the leftist Self Defense party was expelled from the government for repeatedly criticizing its policies, but Self Defense rejoined the government in Oct., 2006, as it and the Law and Justice party sought to avoid new elections. Poland's Communist past returned to haunt the Roman Catholic church in early 2007 when Stanisław Wielgus, who had been appointed archbishop of Warsaw, resigned before he was consecrated after it was revealed the he had collaborated with the secret police under Communist rule. Poland's support for possibly basing U.S. antimissile facilities in its territory strained relations with Russia in early 2007. The governing coalition collapsed again in Aug., 2007, and in early elections in September the Civic Platform won a plurality of the seats in parliament.

Bibliography

See The Cambridge History of Poland, ed. by W. F. Reddaway et al. (2 vol., 1941–50, repr. 1971); H. H. Kaplan, The First Partition of Poland (1962, repr. 1972); S. Kieniewicz, The Emancipation of the Polish Peasantry (1970); L. Blit, The Origins of Polish Socialism (1971); P. W. Knoll, The Rise of the Polish Monarchy (1972); A. Polonsky, Politics in Independent Poland, 1921–29 (1972); D. S. Lane and G. Kolankiewicz, ed., Social Groups in Polish Society (1973); J. Karpinski, Countdown: The Polish Upheavals of 1956, 1968, 1970, 1976, 1980 (1982); O. Halecki, A History of Poland (1983); T. G. Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity 1980–82 (1983); N. Ascherson, The Struggles for Poland (1987); N. Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland (2 vol., rev. ed. 2003).


 

Poland was divided between Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary when psychoanalysis came into being at the beginning of the twentieth century. Ludwig Jekels, a follower of Freud, practiced psychoanalysis in Austrian Poland in the clinic he directed outside Lvov, a city that has been Ukrainian since 1945 but was Austro-Hungarian at the start of the twentieth century. Jekels was joined by Hermann Nunberg until the latter emigrated to the United States. We also have to thank him for the first publications in Polish dating from 1908. Between 1911 and 1914, three titles appeared in the Polish Psychoanalytic Library.

After World War I psychoanalysis went through a dynamic period of development in the new Polish state. As a result of its many publications and conferences, its influence extended to the medical world and the cultural life of the country. The majority of Polish analysts at the time were trained in the Berlin Institute. Two names stand out: Roman Markuszewicz and Gustav Bychowski. The first published an apologetic work in 1926 on psychoanalysis and its therapeutic function and, ten years later, a critical work: "Toward a Revision of the Fundamental Freudian Notion." Bychowski was trained in Berlin and published on methaphysics and schizophrenia there before returning to Poland to take up a position in Warsaw as a university professor. There he published on the psychoanalytic aspect of the psychoses. The following names are also worthy of note: Stefan Borowiecki, Maurycy Bornsztajn, Jan Kuchta, Rudolf Kesselring, Wladislaw Matecki, Joseph Mirski, Norbert Praeger, Adam Wisel, and Leopold Wolowicz.

Eugénie Sokolnicka deserves a special mention. She trained in Zurich, Vienna, and Budapest between 1911 and 1920 but, not being a physician, she failed to find her place in the Warsaw psychoanalytic milieu of 1920. Freud, who had been her analyst, advised her to go to Paris, where she arrived in 1921. She met with no better success in the Paris medical world, but she analyzed René Laforgue andÉdouard Pichon. She did, however, take an active part in founding the Paris Psychoanalytic Society in 1926 and became its first vice-president.

World War II and the ensuing communist régime reduced this first development to dust and it took another ten years before the Polish psychoanalytic movement again showed signs of life. Three young psychiatrists went to train in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, where psychoanalysis was leading an underground existence. The first of these, Jan Malewski, went first to Prague and then, more importantly, to Budapest, where for ten years he alternated six months of analysis with Imre Hermann and six months of activity in Poland. The second, Zbigniew Sokolik, had Theodor Dosuzkov as his analyst in Prague. The third, Michael Lapinski, was analyzed in Prague by Otakar Kucera.

Greater freedom of circulation between eastern countries and later between them and the West fostered a new period of development for psychoanalysis: Young psychiatrists and psychologists in analysis went on to become the active practitioners of contemporary Polish psychoanalysis. In this climate the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) elected two direct associate members at the 1989 Congress in Rome: Elzbieta Bohomolec, a psychiatrist who was analyzed by Michael Lapinski in Warsaw and who was in supervision in Berlin; and Katarzyna Walewska, a psychologist in analysis in Warsaw and then in Paris, and who was in supervision in Warsaw and London. They are at the root of two psychoanalytic groups. The first, the Polish Society for the Development of Psychoanalysis, was founded in 1991; the second, the Institute of Psycho-analysis and Psychotherapy, was founded in 1992. The names of these two groups clearly reflect the nuance that distinguishes them: increasing the number of practitioners for the first, the quality of the training for the second. Members from both groups work together in the Raztów Center for Psychotherapy of Neuroses, founded in 1965 by Jan Malewski. Having been prohibited during and after World War II, psychoanalysis began to be taught in the psychology faculties of Warsaw, Krakow, and Lublin in 1961. Psychotherapeutic practice has developed in these cities and in Gdansk.

Only Zbigniew Sokolik has remained in Warsaw. Michael Lapinski emigrated to Australia in 1983 and became a member of the Australian Psychoanalytic Society. Jan Malewski settled in Heidelberg in 1975 and became a member of the German Psychoanalytic Association. At the same timeémigrés who fled the Nazi persecutions, like Hanna Segal, have reestablished contacts with Poland. Analysts from the international analytic community have visited Poland to give clinical and theoretical training in psychoanalysis. The vitality of the Polish group was demonstrated in 1991 at Pototsk, near Warsaw, on the occasion of the third seminar for East Europeans, a seminar that was organized under the auspices of the European Federation of Psychoanalysis.

Bibliography

Bychowski, Gustav. (1952). Psychotherapy of psychosis. New York, London: Grune and Stratton.

——. (1954) On the handling of some schizophrenic defence mechanisms and reaction patterns. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 35, 2, 147-153.

——. (1966). Obsessive compulsive façade in schizophrenia. With commentary by M. Wexler. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 47, 2-3, 189-202.

Diatkine, Gilbert, et al. (1993). La psychanalyse en Europe orientale, in Diatkine, Gilbert; Le Goues, Gerard; and Reiss-Schimmel, Ilana (Eds.), La psychanalyse et l'Europe de 1993. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

—MICHEL VINCENT

 
Geography: Poland

Republic in central Europe, bordered by the Baltic Sea and Russia to the north, Lithuania to the northeast, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, The Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, and Germany to the west. Its capital and largest city is Warsaw.

  • Poland was a great power from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries, but in the eighteenth century it was partitioned three times among Austria, Prussia, and Russia. It was again recognized as an independent state in 1919.
  • The invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939 precipitated World War II.
  • During World War II, about six million Poles, including three million Jews, died from German massacres, starvation, and execution in concentration camps such as Auschwitz.
  • In 1952, Poland became a people's republic on the Soviet model.
  • The Solidarity movement, which demanded greater worker control in Poland, emerged in the early 1980s as one of the first signs of popular discontent with single-party rule and the communist economic system.
  • In 1989, Solidarity-backed candidates swept to victory in free elections, but Solidarity subsequently declined sharply as a political force.
  • Poland joined NATO in 1999.

 
Dialing Code: Poland
Poland

The international dialing code for Poland is:   48


 
Maps: Poland

 
Local Time: Poland

Local Time: Jul 20, 9:28 PM

 
Currency: Poland
Polish Zloty



 
Statistics: Poland
Click to enlarge

Introduction

Background:Poland is an ancient nation that was conceived near the middle of the 10th century. Its golden age occurred in the 16th century. During the following century, the strengthening of the gentry and internal disorders weakened the nation. In a series of agreements between 1772 and 1795, Russia, Prussia, and Austria partitioned Poland amongst themselves. Poland regained its independence in 1918 only to be overrun by Germany and the Soviet Union in World War II. It became a Soviet satellite state following the war, but its government was comparatively tolerant and progressive. Labor turmoil in 1980 led to the formation of the independent trade union "Solidarity" that over time became a political force and 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, but Poland still faces the lingering challenges of high unemployment, underdeveloped and dilapidated infrastructure, and a poor rural underclass. Solidarity suffered a major defeat in the 2001 parliamentary elections when it failed to elect a single deputy to the lower house of Parliament, and the new leaders of the Solidarity Trade Union subsequently pledged to reduce the Trade Union's political role. Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004. With its transformation to a democratic, market-oriented country largely completed, Poland is an increasingly active member of Euro-Atlantic organizations.

Geography

Location:Central Europe, east of Germany
Geographic coordinates:52 00 N, 20 00 E
Map references:Europe
Area:total: 312,685 sq km
land: 304,465 sq km
water: 8,220 sq km
Area - comparative:slightly smaller than New Mexico
Land boundaries:total: 3,056 km
border countries: Belarus 416 km, Czech Republic 790 km, Germany 467 km, Lithuania 103 km, Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast) 210 km, Slovakia 541 km, Ukraine 529 km
Coastline:491 km
Maritime claims:territorial sea: 12 nm
exclusive economic zone: defined by international treaties
Climate:temperate with cold, cloudy, moderately severe winters with frequent precipitation; mild summers with frequent showers and thundershowers
Terrain:mostly flat plain; mountains along southern border
Elevation extremes:lowest point: near Raczki Elblaskie -2 m
highest point: Rysy 2,499 m
Natural resources:coal, sulfur, copper, natural gas, silver, lead, salt, amber, arable land
Land use:arable land: 40.25%
permanent crops: 1%
other: 58.75% (2005)
Irrigated land:1,000 sq km (2003)
Natural hazards:flooding
Environment - current issues:situation has improved since 1989 due to decline in heavy industry and increased environmental concern by post-Communist governments; air pollution nonetheless remains serious because of sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, and the resulting acid rain has caused forest damage; water pollution from industrial and municipal sources is also a problem, as is disposal of hazardous wastes; pollution levels should continue to decrease as industrial establishments bring their facilities up to EU code, but at substantial cost to business and the government
Environment - international agreements:party to: Air Pollution, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Seals, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Kyoto Protocol, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Air Pollution-Sulfur 94
Geography - note:historically, an area of conflict because of flat terrain and the lack of natural barriers on the North European Plain

People

Population:38,518,241 (July 2007 est.)
Age structure:0-14 years: 15.5% (male 3,070,388/female 2,906,121)
15-64 years: 71.1% (male 13,639,012/female 13,761,154)
65 years and over: 13.3% (male 1,964,429/female 3,177,137) (2007 est.)
Median age:total: 37.3 years
male: 35.4 years
female: 39.3 years (2007 est.)
Population growth rate:-0.046% (2007 est.)
Birth rate:9.94 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Death rate:9.94 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Net migration rate:-0.46 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Sex ratio:at birth: 1.06 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.057 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.991 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.618 male(s)/female
total population: 0.941 male(s)/female (2007 est.)
Infant mortality rate:total: 7.07 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 7.8 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 6.3 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:total population: 75.19 years
male: 71.18 years
female: 79.44 years (2007 est.)
Total fertility rate:1.26 children born/woman (2007 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:0.1%; note - no country specific models provided (2001 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:14,000 (2003 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths:100 (2001 est.)
Nationality:noun: Pole(s)
adjective: Polish
Ethnic groups:Polish 96.7%, German 0.4%, Belarusian 0.1%, Ukrainian 0.1%, other and unspecified 2.7% (2002 census)
Religions:Roman Catholic 89.8% (about 75% practicing), Eastern Orthodox 1.3%, Protestant 0.3%, other 0.3%, unspecified 8.3% (2002)
Languages:Polish 97.8%, other and unspecified 2.2% (2002 census)
Literacy:definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99.8%
male: 99.8%
female: 99.7% (2003 est.)

Government

Country name:conventional long form: Republic of Poland
conventional short form: Poland
local long form: Rzeczpospolita Polska
local short form: Polska
Government type:republic
Capital:name: Warsaw
geographic coordinates: 52 15 N, 21 00 E
time difference: UTC+1 (6 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)
daylight saving time: +1hr, begins last Sunday in March; ends last Sunday in October
Administrative divisions:16 provinces (wojewodztwa, singular - wojewodztwo); Dolnoslaskie wojewodztwo, Kujawsko-Pomorskie wojewodztwo, Lodzkie wojewodztwo, Lubelskie wojewodztwo, Lubuskie wojewodztwo, Malopolskie wojewodztwo, Mazowieckie wojewodztwo, Opolskie wojewodztwo, Podkarpackie wojewodztwo, Podlaskie wojewodztwo, Pomorskie wojewodztwo, Slaskie wojewodztwo, Swietokrzyskie wojewodztwo, Warminsko-Mazurskie wojewodztwo, Wielkopolskie wojewodztwo, Zachodniopomorskie wojewodztwo
Independence:11 November 1918 (republic proclaimed)
National holiday:Constitution Day, 3 May (1791)
Constitution:adopted by the National Assembly 2 April 1997; passed by national referendum 25 May 1997; effective 17 October 1997
Legal system:based on a mixture of Continental (Napoleonic) civil law and holdover Communist legal theory; changes being gradually introduced as part of broader democratization process; limited judicial review of legislative acts, but rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal are final; court decisions can be appealed to the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations
Suffrage:18 years of age; universal
Executive branch:chief of state: President Lech KACZYNSKI (since 23 December 2005)
head of government: Prime Minister Donald TUSK (since 16 November 2007); Deputy Prime Ministers Waldemar PAWLAK (since 16 November 2007) and Grzegorz SCHETYNA (since 16 November 2007)
cabinet: Council of Ministers responsible to the prime minister and the Sejm; the prime minister proposes, the president appoints, and the Sejm approves the Council of Ministers
elections: president elected by popular vote for a five-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held 9 and 23 October 2005 (next to be held in the fall 2010); prime minister and deputy prime ministers appointed by the president and confirmed by the Sejm
election results: Lech KACZYNSKI elected president; percent of popular vote - Lech KACZYNSKI 54%, Donald Tusk 46%
Legislative branch:bicameral National Assembly or Zgromadzenie Narodowe consists of the Senate or Senat (upper house) (100 seats; members are elected by a majority vote on a provincial basis to serve four-year terms), and the Sejm (lower house) (460 seats; members are elected under a complex system of proportional representation to serve four-year terms); the designation of National Assembly is only used on those rare occasions when the two houses meet jointly
elections: Senate - last held 21 September 2007 (next to be held by September 2011); Sejm elections last held 21 September 2007 (next to be held by September 2011)
election results: Senate - percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - PO 60, PiS 39, independents 1; Sejm - percent of vote by party - PO 41.5%, PiS 32.1%, SLD 13.2%, PSL 8.9%, other 4.3%; seats by party - PO 209, PiS 166, SLD 53, PSL 31, German minorities 1
note: one seat is assigned to ethnic minority parties in the Sejm only
Judicial branch:Supreme Court (judges are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the National Council of the Judiciary for an indefinite period); Constitutional Tribunal (judges are chosen by the Sejm for nine-year terms)
Political parties and leaders:Catholic-National Movement or RKN [Antoni MACIEREWICZ]; Civic Platform or PO [Donald TUSK]; Conservative Peasants Party or SKL [Artur BALASZ]; Democratic Left Alliance or SLD [Wojciech OLEJNICZAK]; Democratic Party or PD [Janusz ONYSZKIEWICZ]; Dom Ojczysty (Fatherland Home); German Minority of Lower Silesia or MNSO [Henryk KROLL]; Law and Justice or PiS [Jaroslaw KACZYNSKI]; League of Polish Families or LPR [Roman GIERTYCH]; Peasant-Democratic Party or PLD [Roman JAGIELINSKI]; Polish Accord or PP [Jan LOPUSZANSKI]; Polish Peasant Party or PSL [Waldemar PAWLAK]; Ruch Patriotyczny or RP [Jan OLSZEWSKI]; Samoobrona or SO [Andrzej LEPPER]; Social Democratic Party of Poland or SDPL [Marek BOROWSKI]; Social Movement or RS [Krzysztof PIESIEWICZ]; Union of Labor or UP [Andrzej SPYCHALSKI]
Political pressure groups and leaders:All Poland Trade Union Alliance or OPZZ (trade union) [Jan GUZ]; Roman Catholic Church [Cardinal Jozef GLEMP]; Solidarity Trade Union [Janusz SNIADEK]
International organization participation:ACCT (observer), Arctic Council (observer), Australia Group, BIS, BSEC (observer), CBSS, CE, CEI, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, EIB, EU, FAO, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICCt, ICRM, IDA, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, IMSO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO, ITSO, ITU, ITUC, MIGA, MINURSO, MONUC, NAM (guest), NATO, NSG, OAS (observer), OECD, OIF (observer), OPCW, OSCE, PCA, UN, UNCTAD, UNDOF, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNIFIL, UNMEE, UNMIL, UNMIS, UNOCI, UNOMIG, UNWTO, UPU, WCL, WCO, WEU (associate), WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO, ZC
Diplomatic representation in the US:chief of mission: Ambassador Janusz REITER
chancery: 2640 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009
telephone: [1] (202) 234-3800 through 3802
FAX: [1] (202) 328-6271
consulate(s) general: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York
Diplomatic representation from the US:chief of mission: Ambassador Victor ASHE
embassy: Aleje Ujazdowskie 29/31 00-540 Warsaw
mailing address: American Embassy Warsaw, US Department of State, Washington, DC 20521-5010 (pouch)
telephone: [48] (22) 504-2000
FAX: [48] (22) 504-2688
consulate(s) general: Krakow
Flag description:two equal horizontal bands of white (top) and red; similar to the flags of Indonesia and Monaco which are red (top) and white

Economy

Economy - overview:Poland has steadfastly pursued a policy of economic liberalization since 1990 and today stands out as a success story among transition economies. In 2006, GDP grew 5.3%, based on rising private consumption, a 16.7% jump in investment, and burgeoning exports. Poland today has a thriving private sector which created more than 300,000 new jobs during 2006 alone. GDP per capita roughly equals that of the three Baltic states. Consumer price inflation - at 1.3% in 2006 - remains among the lowest in the EU. Since 2004, EU membership and access to EU structural funds has provided a major boost to the economy. Inflows of direct foreign investment exceeded $10 billion in 2006 alone - and more than $100 billion since 1990 - with major investments being announced by foreign firms in computer, consumer electronics, and automobile component production. In early 2006, Poland reached agreement with its EU partners that will permit it to benefit from EU funds totaling nearly $80 billion during 2007-13. Since 2002, even though the zloty appreciated 30%, Poland's exports more than doubled. Despite Poland's successes, more remains to be done. Unemployment, which stood at 15% in December 2006, is still the highest in the EU. An inefficient commercial court system, a rigid labor code, bureaucratic red tape, and persistent corruption keep the private sector from performing to its potential. Agriculture is handicapped by inefficient small farms and inadequate investment. Restructuring and privatization of the remaining state-owned industries, especially "sensitive sectors" such as coal, oil refining, railroads, and energy transmission and generation, have stalled due to concerns about loss of control over critical national assets and lay-offs. Reforms in health care, education, the pension system, and state administration have failed so far to reduce the government budget deficit, which was roughly 2.7 percent of GDP in 2006. Further progress in public finance depends mainly on reducing losses in Polish state enterprises, restraining entitlements, and overhauling the tax code. The previous Socialist-led government introduced a package of social and administrative spending cuts to reduce public spending by about $17 billion through 2007, but full implementation of the plan was trumped by election-year politics in 2005. The right-wing Law and Justice party won parliamentary elections in September 2005, and Lech KACZYNSKI won the presidential election in October, running on a state-interventionist fiscal and monetary platform. The new government has proceeded cautiously on economic matters, however, retaining, for example, the corporate income tax cuts initiated by the