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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Władysław Gomułka addressing a crowd in 1956

The deaths of Joseph Stalin in 1953 and Poland's hardline communist President Bolesław Bierut in 1956, as well as Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech to the 20th Party Congress, paved the way to a period of de-Stalinization in the People's Republic of Poland, known as the Polish October or Gomułka Thaw. Workers' protests against poor standards of living that started in June 1956 in Poznań were violently suppressed by the army and secret police, but forced the government to increase wages and promise economic and political reforms. Władysław Gomułka, who had been expelled from the Polish United Workers' Party and imprisoned in 1951, was rehabilitated and elected the party's First Secretary in October 1956. With much popular support, he led the country along a "Polish road to socialism" and won a degree of autonomy from the Soviet Union. Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky was sacked from his post as Polish defense minister, farm collecitivization was halted, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński was released from internment, and the following year's parliamentary election, though not entirely free, was freer than previous ones. These events inspired the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which – unlike the one in Poland – was crushed by the Soviet Army. (Full article...)

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Zalipie, Lesser Poland Voivodeship

Credit: Jakub Hałun

The village of Zalipie, near the town of Dąbrowa Tarnowska in southeastern Poland, is known for its tradition of local women decorating their houses, farm buildings and other structures with brightly-colored floral motifs.

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... that the PL-01 (pictured) is a new tank design developed in Poland?
... that the Głos magazine was closed during the revolution of 1905 in the Congress Kingdom of Poland?
... that the Treaty of Bytom and Będzin ended the fourteen-month long imprisonment of Maximilian III, Archduke of Austria, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?
... that Irena Jurgielewiczowa, a writer best known for the children's novel Ten obcy ("That Stranger"), was also an underground teacher and a resistance fighter in World War II?

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Paweł Jasienica, born Leon Lech Beynar (1909–1970), was a Polish historian, journalist and soldier. During World War II, Beynar fought in the Polish Army, and later in the Home Army resistance. Near the end of the war, he was also working with the anti-Soviet resistance, which later led to him taking up a new name to hide from the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland. He was associated with the Tygodnik Powszechny Catholic weekly and several other newspapers and magazines. He is best known for his books about pre-partition Poland, which played an important role in popularizing Polish history among several generations of readers. Jasienica became an outspoken critic of the communist censorship, and as a notable dissident, he was persecuted by the government. He was subject to invigilation by security services, and his second wife was in fact a communist secret police agent. Jasienica's books were banned during a brief period prior to his death. (Full article...)

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Palace of Culture and Science

Warsaw (Warszawa) is the capital and, with a population of over 1.7 million, the largest city of Poland. Founded in 1300 on the Vistula River, Warsaw became the seat of the dukes of Masovia in 1413. Masovia was annexed by Poland in 1526, and 70 years later, in 1596, King Sigismund III moved his seat from Kraków to Warsaw. The rise in political status was accompanied by strong economic and cultural development. Occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, Warsaw was the site of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, followed by a complete destruction of the city. Painstakingly rebuilt in the Communist era, Warsaw is now an increasingly important political and economic hub of Central Europe. (Full article...)

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Poland now

Recent events

On 21 May, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek (pictured), a composer best known for writing film scores, died at the age of 71.
On 10 May, an unusually spectacular aurora borealis was observed in large parts of Poland due to an intense solar storm.
On 8 April, local elections were held throughout Poland, with run-off votes in some municipalities held on 21 April.
On 9 January, police entered the Presidential Palace in Warsaw to arrest former Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński (Law and Justice party) and his former deputy, both of whom had been sentenced to two year's jail for abuse of power. On 23 January, they were both were pardoned by the President Andrzej Duda.