Chronology of Polish history

The Baptism of Poland 14 April turning point The Baptism of Poland

Mieszko I is baptised, most likely through Bohemia and his Bohemian wife Dobrawa rather than through Germany — which, it is usually held, took away his neighbours’ pretext for christianisation by the sword. Poland enters Latin Europe as a participant rather than a target.

The Battle of Cedynia 24 June battle The Baptism of Poland

Margrave Hodo of the Saxon Eastern March invades Mieszko’s lands and is beaten at Cedynia by Mieszko and his brother Czcibor. It is the first battle in Polish history that we know of, and it keeps the lower Oder in Piast hands.

The Congress of Gniezno 7 March treaty The Baptism of Poland

Otto III receives Bolesław the Brave as a partner rather than a vassal, and agrees to a Polish church province of its own at Gniezno. Ecclesiastical independence meant political independence.

The Peace of Bautzen 30 January treaty The Baptism of Poland

Henry II makes a peace with Bolesław the Brave that leaves Poland Lusatia and Milsko. It ends fifteen years of war with the Empire; that same summer Bolesław marches on Kyiv.

The first royal coronation 18 April turning point The Early Piast Monarchy

Bolesław the Brave has himself crowned king months before his death. Poland stops being a duchy on the Empire’s edge and becomes a kingdom — a category the rest of Europe has to recognise.

Bretislaus sacks Gniezno loss The Early Piast Monarchy

With the country in revolt and pagan reaction, Duke Bretislaus of Bohemia sacks Poznań and Gniezno and carries Saint Adalbert’s relics off to Prague. Greater Poland is laid waste: Casimir the Restorer, on his return, rebuilds the state around Kraków.

Bolesław the Bold is crowned 25 December turning point The Early Piast Monarchy

Bolesław II, allied with Pope Gregory VII in his quarrel with the emperor, is crowned king — the first since the monarchy collapsed in the 1030s. Poland is a kingdom again, but for three years only.

Bolesław the Bold is driven out 11 April loss The Early Piast Monarchy

Three years after his coronation Bolesław II has Bishop Stanisław of Kraków put to death. The lords rise against the king, who flees to Hungary and never returns. His brother Władysław Herman rules as a duke: no one in Poland will wear a crown again for more than two hundred years.

The Testament of Bolesław Wrymouth 28 October loss Fragmentation

Bolesław III divides the country between his sons, with a rule of seniority meant to prevent a war of succession. Two centuries of fragmentation follow instead, and Poland came out of them smaller — without Silesia or Pomerania.

The Teutonic Knights are invited in loss Fragmentation

Konrad of Mazovia brings in the Teutonic Order to fight the pagan Prussians and grants it the land of Chełmno. The Order built its own state there and spent the next two centuries as Poland’s principal enemy.

The murder at Gąsawa turning point Fragmentation

At an assembly of the dukes at Gąsawa, Świętopełk of Pomerelia’s men kill Leszek the White, Duke of Kraków, and badly wound Henry the Bearded. Gdańsk Pomerania breaks away from Polish overlordship, and a struggle for Kraków begins that no duke will win for long.

The Battle of Legnica 9 April battle Fragmentation

Henry the Pious is killed and the Silesian knighthood destroyed by the Mongols. The invasion withdrew on its own, but it wrecked the one centre then capable of reuniting the country.

The Statute of Kalisz 16 August constitution Fragmentation

Duke Bolesław the Pious grants the Jews of Greater Poland a charter: protection of their persons, property and synagogues, courts of their own and freedom to trade, and anyone who accuses them of ritual murder without proving it is to be punished instead. Casimir the Great extends it to the whole kingdom, and on its footing Poland becomes for centuries the largest home of Europe’s Jews.

Przemysł II is crowned 26 June turning point Fragmentation

Archbishop Jakub Świnka crowns Przemysł II at Gniezno, the first coronation in more than two hundred years. The kingdom, though it holds only Greater Poland and Gdańsk Pomerania, exists again, and the eagle on Przemysł’s seal becomes the sign of the state.

The Teutonic Order seizes Gdańsk 13 November loss Fragmentation

Called in by Łokietek against Brandenburg, the Teutonic Knights take Gdańsk, deal bloodily with its defenders and keep the city. Within a year they hold all of Gdańsk Pomerania; Poland loses its access to the sea for more than a century and a half.

Łokietek is crowned 20 January turning point The Reunited Kingdom

After almost two centuries of fragmentation Władysław Łokietek is crowned in Kraków. The kingdom is back — without Silesia, Gdańsk Pomerania or Mazovia, but as one state under one crown.

Trenčín and Visegrád 24 August treaty The Reunited Kingdom

John of Bohemia gives up his claim to the Polish crown for twenty thousand threescore of groschen, and Casimir the Great accepts Bohemian overlordship of the Silesian dukes who had already done homage to Prague. The renunciation, ratified in 1339, keeps most of Silesia outside the Polish state until 1945.

The Peace of Kalisz 8 July treaty The Reunited Kingdom

Casimir the Great recovers Kuyavia and Dobrzyń Land from the Order and in return gives up Gdańsk Pomerania and Chełmno Land. Peace in the north leaves him free to act in Ruthenia.

The Kraków Academy 12 May constitution The Reunited Kingdom

Casimir the Great founds the second university in central Europe, to train lawyers and officials of his own. The state stops depending on foreign schools for the people who run it.

The Privilege of Koszyce 17 September constitution The Reunited Kingdom

To secure the Polish throne for one of his daughters, Louis of Hungary exempts the nobility from almost every tax but two groschen a łan. The first privilege granted to the nobility as a whole: from now on rulers win its consent with further privileges.

The Union of Krewo 14 August treaty Union with Lithuania

Jogaila undertakes to accept baptism, marry Jadwiga and bind Lithuania to the Crown; the baptism and the wedding follow in February 1386, the coronation early in March. It creates the largest political body in Europe at the time — and removes the Teutonic Order’s pretext for war.

Red Ruthenia returns to the Crown 26 September turning point Union with Lithuania

Queen Jadwiga’s expedition takes Halych Ruthenia and Lviv back from Hungary, which had held them since Casimir the Great’s death. At Lviv, Prince Petru of Moldavia does homage to Jogaila. Red Ruthenia stays Polish until the First Partition.

The Battle of Grunwald 15 July battle Union with Lithuania

The combined Polish-Lithuanian army destroys the Teutonic field army; the Grand Master and almost the entire command are killed. The Order survived another century but never regained the initiative.

The First Peace of Thorn 1 February treaty Union with Lithuania

Malbork was not taken after Grunwald, and the peace is modest: Poland regains Dobrzyń Land, Lithuania Samogitia for the lifetimes of Jogaila and Vytautas, and the Order pays a hundred thousand threescore of Prague groschen. The Order’s state survives, but its power is broken.

The Union of Horodło 2 October treaty Union with Lithuania

The union confirms the Grand Duchy as a separate state under Vytautas, and forty-seven Polish clans adopt forty-seven Catholic Lithuanian boyar families into their coats of arms. The Lithuanian elite begins to become part of the Polish nobility.

The Treaty of Melno 27 September treaty Union with Lithuania

After the short Gollub War the Order renounces Samogitia for good and gives Nieszawa to Poland. The frontier of Prussia with Poland and Lithuania, fixed by Lake Melno, will last almost five hundred years.

The Privilege of Jedlnia 4 March constitution Union with Lithuania

In return for the nobles accepting his sons as heirs to the throne, Jogaila promises that none of them will be imprisoned without a court’s sentence — neminem captivabimus nisi iure victum. Confirmed at Kraków in 1433, the privilege guarantees personal inviolability more than two centuries before England’s Habeas Corpus Act.

The Battle of Varna 10 November battle Union with Lithuania

Władysław III, King of Poland and Hungary, leads a crusade against the Ottomans and is killed at Varna; his body was never found. The union with Hungary falls apart, and Poland waits three years for his brother Casimir, Grand Duke of Lithuania, who accepts the crown only in 1447.

Prussia is incorporated 6 March turning point Union with Lithuania

At the request of the Prussian Confederation, which has renounced its allegiance to the Order, Casimir IV issues at Kraków the act incorporating Prussia into the Crown. It begins the Thirteen Years’ War, which will bring Poland Gdańsk Pomerania, Chełmno Land and Warmia.

The Statutes of Nieszawa 12 November constitution Union with Lithuania

The nobles gathered for the war with the Order extract privileges from Casimir Jagiellon; in the Greater Poland text the king promises that he will neither call out the levy nor make a new law without the consent of the land dietines. Power shifts from the magnates to the middling nobility — towards the system the general sejm will complete in 1493.

The Second Peace of Thorn 19 October treaty Union with Lithuania

After the Thirteen Years’ War Poland recovers Gdańsk Pomerania with Gdańsk and Malbork, and what is left of the Order’s state becomes a fief. For the first time since 1308 Poland holds the lower Vistula all the way to the sea.

The first two-chamber sejm 18 January constitution Union with Lithuania

The general sejm at Piotrków, traditionally counted the first to sit in two chambers (some historians argue for that of 1468): beside the senate sit envoys elected by the land dietines. So begins the parliament without whose consent the king will not be able to make law.

The Statutes of Piotrków 1 June constitution Union with Lithuania

The Piotrków sejm lets only one peasant a year leave a village and forbids townsmen to buy land. The nobility closes the way up to the other estates; later laws, such as Toruń’s of 1520 fixing a day of labour service a week, turn free rent-paying peasants into serfs.

The Truce of Moscow loss Union with Lithuania

Lithuania ends its war with Ivan III with a six-year truce, leaving Muscovy close to a third of its territory: Chernihiv, Novgorod-Siversky, Starodub and Bryansk. The frontier moves towards the Dnieper, and Moscow begins to claim all of the old Rus.

The Nihil novi statute 30 May constitution Union with Lithuania

From now on the king cannot legislate without the sejm’s consent. It is the beginning of the nobles’ democracy — a constitution that gives Poland a century of strength and then paralyses it.

Smolensk is lost 31 July loss Union with Lithuania

After a siege and an artillery bombardment the garrison of Smolensk, pressed by the townspeople, surrenders the city to Vasily III. The victory at Orsha a few weeks later does not win it back: Smolensk returns to the Commonwealth only in 1611.

The Prussian Homage 10 April treaty Union with Lithuania

Albrecht of Hohenzollern, the last Grand Master to rule in Prussia, secularises the Order’s state and pays feudal homage to Sigismund the Old as Duke of Prussia. That fief eventually became the Prussia that partitioned Poland.

Mazovia joins the Crown 10 March turning point Union with Lithuania

After the last duke, Janusz III, dies, Sigismund the Old takes Mazovia, the last Piast duchy still ruled apart; it is formally incorporated into the Crown in 1529. Warsaw becomes a royal town, and seventy years later the capital.

Livonia submits to Sigismund Augustus 28 November treaty Union with Lithuania

Threatened by Muscovy, the Livonian Order places itself under Sigismund Augustus: Livonia passes under Lithuania’s rule, and the last master, Gotthard Kettler, becomes Duke of Courland as a vassal of the king.

The Union of Lublin 1 July treaty The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Before the act is signed, Podlasie, Volhynia, Bracław and Kyiv pass from Lithuania to the Crown. A dynastic union becomes one state: a shared parliament, an elected shared king, a shared foreign policy, separate law and treasuries. The Commonwealth of Two Nations covers about 800,000 square kilometres.

The Warsaw Confederation 28 January constitution The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

In the year of the first free royal election the nobility writes religious peace into law — in a Europe that had just staged the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre. Tolerance becomes a statute rather than a royal favour.

The first free election 11 May constitution The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Outside Warsaw some forty thousand nobles vote in person and elect Henry of Valois king. The king-elect must swear to the Henrician Articles — free election, the sejm’s consent to war and taxes, a sejm every two years and the right to refuse obedience to a king who breaks them — and to pacta conventa of his own. Every king after him will swear the same.

The Truce of Jam Zapolski 15 January treaty The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

After Stephen Báthory’s three campaigns and the siege of Pskov, Ivan the Terrible gives up Livonia and Polotsk. A quarter-century of war for Livonia ends; Velikiye Luki goes back to Muscovy.

The capital moves to Warsaw turning point The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Sigismund III moves the court from Kraków to Warsaw, nearer the geographic centre of the state after the union with Lithuania. Kraków keeps the coronations and the funerals; the governing happens in Warsaw.

The Union of Brest 18 October turning point The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

A synod at Brest accepts the Pope’s authority while keeping the Eastern rite, and the Uniate Church is born. Some of the bishops and most of the Orthodox faithful reject it, and the quarrel divides the Commonwealth’s Ruthenia for half a century.

The Battle of Kircholm 27 September battle The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Chodkiewicz, with under four thousand men, destroys a Swedish army three times that size in under an hour. The high point of the winged hussars and of Polish control in Livonia.

The Battle of Klushino 4 July battle The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Żółkiewski defeats a far larger Russian and Swedish force and shortly afterwards installs a Polish garrison in the Kremlin. The only time in history that Moscow was in Polish hands.

The Truce of Deulino 11 December treaty The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The truce ends the war with Muscovy: the Commonwealth keeps the lands of Smolensk, Chernihiv and Seversk for fourteen and a half years. It is the state’s furthest reach east — though Prince Władysław, once elected tsar, never takes the Moscow throne.

The Truce of Altmark 26 September loss The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

A six-year truce ends the war for Livonia and the mouth of the Vistula: Sweden keeps most of Livonia with Riga, and for the length of the truce the Prussian ports and a share of the tolls on Gdańsk’s trade as well. The Commonwealth never recovers Livonia north of the Daugava.

The Truce of Stuhmsdorf 12 September treaty The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Sweden gives back the Prussian ports it has held since 1626 — Elbląg, Braniewo, Pillau, Memel — and its tolls on the Vistula trade; Livonia with Riga stays Swedish. The truce is for 26 years, and Sweden will break it in 1655.

Zhovti Vody, Korsun and Pyliavtsi 16 May, 26 May, 23 September uprising The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s Cossacks, allied with the Crimean Tatars, destroy the Crown armies at Zhovti Vody and Korsun, both hetmans are taken captive by the Tatars, and in the autumn the noble levy flees the field at Pyliavtsi. So begins the Khmelnytsky Uprising.

The first liberum veto 9 March turning point The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Władysław Siciński, envoy for Upytė, objects to extending the session and the sejm disperses without passing anything — the first left without resolutions by a single voice. In the next century the liberum veto breaks almost every sejm and paralyses the state.

The Pereiaslav Council 18 January loss The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

A Cossack council at Pereiaslav accepts the tsar’s overlordship. Muscovy declares a war on the Commonwealth that will take Smolensk, Kyiv and left-bank Ukraine from it.

The capitulation at Ujście 25 July loss The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Greater Poland levy surrenders to the Swedes at Ujście without a fight and places its provinces under Charles X Gustav’s protection; within months Lithuania does the same at Kėdainiai, and so does the Crown army. Sweden overruns almost the whole country. So begins the Deluge.

The Treaties of Wehlau and Bromberg 19 September, 6 November loss The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

In return for the Elector of Brandenburg abandoning his Swedish alliance, John Casimir releases him from his fealty: Ducal Prussia becomes fully sovereign. That breach grew into the Prussian kingdom that partitioned the Commonwealth more than a century later.

The Peace of Oliva 3 May treaty The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Peace with Sweden ends the Deluge. John Casimir gives up his claim to the Swedish throne, and the Commonwealth recognises Swedish Livonia north of the Daugava and the sovereignty of Ducal Prussia, granted to the Hohenzollerns three years earlier.

The Truce of Andrusovo 9 February loss The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The truce ends thirteen years of war with Muscovy: the Commonwealth gives up the lands of Smolensk and Chernihiv, Ukraine east of the Dnieper, and Kyiv — that one for two years on paper, for good in practice. The balance of power in the east tips towards Russia.

The Treaty of Buchach 18 October loss The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

After the fall of Kamianets-Podilskyi, King Michael’s envoys cede Podolia to the Ottomans, hand the southern right-bank Ukraine to Doroshenko’s Cossacks under the sultan’s overlordship, and agree to pay the sultan a yearly tribute. The sejm refuses to ratify and the war resumes, but Podolia stays Ottoman for twenty-seven years.

The Relief of Vienna 12 September battle The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

John III Sobieski commands the combined Christian armies and breaks the Ottoman siege of Vienna. The Commonwealth’s last great victory — and the last time it acted in Europe as a great power.

The Eternal Peace with Russia 6 May loss The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Krzysztof Grzymułtowski, voivode of Poznań, signs a peace in Moscow that gives Russia Kyiv, Smolensk and left-bank Ukraine for good, in return for 146,000 roubles and the tsar joining the war against the Ottomans. What Andrusovo ceded for a term is now ceded permanently.

The Treaty of Karlowitz 26 January treaty The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The peace that ends the Holy League’s war with the Ottomans gives Podolia, with Kamianets, and right-bank Ukraine back to the Commonwealth. The war that began at Vienna ends, for Poland, with the recovery of what was lost in 1672 — and for the Ottomans with the start of a long retreat from Europe.

The Silent Sejm 1 February loss The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

With Russian troops in the country, the sejm ratifies without debate the king’s settlement with the Tarnogród confederates, brokered by the tsar: an establishment of 24,000 rations, in practice an army of at most about 12,000. Russia becomes the arbiter of the Commonwealth’s affairs.

The Cardinal Laws under Russian guarantee 26 February loss The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

A sejm whose opposition leaders the ambassador Repnin has had carried off to Russia passes the Cardinal Laws — the liberum veto and the free election as unalterable law — under Catherine II’s guarantee, and grants rights to the dissenters. From now on any reform of the constitution needs Russia’s consent: the Commonwealth becomes its protectorate.

The Bar Confederation is formed 29 February uprising The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Nobles meet at Bar in Podolia to form a confederation against the king and against Russia’s tutelage over the Commonwealth. Four years of civil war end in defeat — and give the neighbours their pretext for the First Partition.

The First Partition 5 August loss The First Partition

Russia, Prussia and Austria take close to a third of the territory and over a third of the population; the following year the sejm would be forced to ratify it. A sovereign state carved up by agreement among its neighbours, with no war declared on it, had no precedent in Europe.

The Constitution of 3 May 3 May constitution The First Partition

Europe’s first modern codified constitution and the world’s second: it abolishes the liberum veto and the elective throne, and creates a hereditary crown and a government answerable to parliament. It was in force for fourteen months.

The Targowica Confederation 27 April loss The First Partition

Magnates who had signed the confederation’s act in St Petersburg call in the empress’s armies against the Constitution of 3 May. After a two-month war in which the army was not beaten, the king gives in and joins Targowica, and its name becomes the Polish byword for treason.

The Second Partition 23 January, 23 September loss The Second Partition

Russia and Prussia answer the constitution with invasion and a second partition. The sejm at Grodno ratifies it under duress: the Russian treaty in July, the Prussian one at a “silent session” where the envoys’ silence was taken for assent.

The Kościuszko Uprising 24 March, 4 April, 7 May, 10 October uprising The Second Partition

Kościuszko proclaims the rising in Kraków and wins at Racławice with peasants armed with scythes. His Połaniec Manifesto promises them personal freedom — the first appeal to the peasants as citizens with a stake in the state. In the autumn Kościuszko is wounded and captured at Maciejowice, and after Praga is stormed and its people massacred, Warsaw capitulates to Suvorov.

The Third Partition 24 October, 25 November loss Poland Erased from the Map

The third partition abolishes the state entirely; two years later the St Petersburg convention binds the signatories never to use the name of the Kingdom of Poland in their titles again. 123 years of partition begin: no independent Polish state returns until 1918.

The Duchy of Warsaw 7 July turning point The Duchy of Warsaw

At the Peace of Tilsit Napoleon carves a state out of the Prussian partition, with a constitution, a civil code and an army of its own. It lasted eight years, but it proved a Polish state could be rebuilt.

The Treaty of Schönbrunn 14 October treaty The Duchy of Warsaw

After a war with Austria in which the Duchy’s army under Poniatowski marched into Galicia, Napoleon adds Kraków, Lublin and Zamość to the Duchy of Warsaw. Its territory grows by half and its population to 4.3 million.

The Congress of Vienna 3 May, 9 June treaty The Congress Kingdom

The powers redraw the Polish lands: a Congress Kingdom in union with the tsar, a Grand Duchy of Posen for Prussia, Galicia for Austria and Kraków as a free city. The partition frontiers drawn at Vienna lasted, Kraków apart, a century.

The constitution of the Kingdom of Poland 27 November constitution The Congress Kingdom

In Warsaw Alexander I grants a constitution to the Kingdom of which he is king: its own sejm, army, treasury and courts, Polish as the language of government, offices for Poles only. One of the most liberal constitutions in Europe at the time, it was broken by the tsar and Grand Duke Constantine, and that became one of the causes of the November Uprising.

The November Night 29 November uprising The Congress Kingdom

On 29 November conspirators, civilians and officer cadets, storm the Belweder and the people of Warsaw take the Arsenal. Grand Duke Constantine withdraws from the city with the Russian troops, and an officers’ plot becomes an uprising, and soon a war between the Kingdom and Russia.

The tsar is dethroned 25 January turning point The Congress Kingdom

The Sejm of the Kingdom declares Nicholas I dethroned and the Polish throne vacant. The rising becomes an open war for independence; early in February Diebitsch’s army crosses the border.

The Organic Statute 26 February loss The Congress Kingdom

After the rising’s fall Nicholas I takes away the Kingdom’s constitution: the Organic Statute abolishes the sejm and the separate army, and Warsaw University is already closed. The Kingdom is ruled by the viceroy, Paskevich.

The Kraków Uprising and the end of the Free City 16 November loss The Congress Kingdom

The rising in the Free City of Kraków collapses after nine days, and in Galicia peasants, encouraged by some Austrian officials, massacre the nobles preparing to rise. In November Austria annexes Kraków — the last scrap of Polish land that had kept even a semblance of independence.

The Springtime of Nations 17 April, 9 May uprising The Congress Kingdom

In the Grand Duchy of Posen the National Committee raises a Polish army under Mierosławski; for all its wins at Miłosław and Sokołowo the rising surrenders in May. In Galicia Austria abolishes serfdom to forestall the Polish democrats.

The January Uprising breaks out 22 January uprising The Congress Kingdom

On the night of 22 January partisan bands attack Russian garrisons across the Kingdom, and the Central Committee declares itself the Provisional National Government. The conspirators were forced into the fight by the branka — conscription into the Russian army, by which Margrave Wielopolski meant to break the conspiracy.

The end of the Kingdom’s autonomy 2 March loss The Vistula Land

A tsarist decree gives the peasants their land, to cut them off from the rising. The dismantling of the Kingdom’s separate institutions begins straight after and is finished by 1874: it was never formally abolished, but from now on it is ten governorates of the Russian Empire, increasingly called the Vistula Land.

Galician autonomy 26 June constitution The Vistula Land

In the new constitutional Austria-Hungary Galicia gets autonomy: a Polish school board, and within a few years Polish in the offices, the courts and the universities of Kraków and Lviv. The one partition where Poles govern themselves trains the elite of the future state.

The First Cadre Company marches out 6 August turning point The Vistula Land

On 6 August Piłsudski’s riflemen set out from the Oleandry in Kraków and cross into the Russian partition. The Kingdom does not rise as they had hoped, but the company grows into the Polish Legions, and the Legions into the officer corps and the governing class of the state after 1918.

The Act of 5 November 5 November turning point The Regency Kingdom

Germany and Austria-Hungary proclaim a Kingdom of Poland on the land they have taken from the Russian partition — with no borders, no king, and an eye on Polish recruits. Even so, for the first time in a century great powers had made the Polish question an international one.

Independence regained 7 October, 11 November turning point The Second Republic

All three partitioning powers lose the war within a single year: Russia, sunk in revolution, makes a separate peace in March, and in November Austria-Hungary and Germany sign armistices. On 11 November Piłsudski takes command of the army in Warsaw; the borders of the new state still have to be won in six wars.

The Treaty of Versailles 28 June treaty The Second Republic

The peace treaty with Germany awards Poland most of Greater Poland — already held by the insurgents — and Gdańsk Pomerania, with access to the sea. Gdańsk becomes a free city, Upper Silesia, Warmia, Masuria and Powiśle are left to plebiscites, and the new borders take effect in January 1920.

The Small Constitution 26 January, 20 February constitution The Second Republic

The Legislative Sejm, chosen in January in the reborn state’s first election, passes a provisional constitution: the sejm is the supreme authority, and Piłsudski stays Chief of State, answerable to it. It stands until the March Constitution takes effect.

The Battle of Warsaw 15 August, 16 August battle The Second Republic

The Red Army is at the gates of Warsaw when Piłsudski strikes from the Wieprz into its exposed flank and breaks the front. The Bolshevik push west is stopped for twenty years.

The division of Cieszyn Silesia 28 July loss The Second Republic

With the Red Army marching on Warsaw, the Conference of Ambassadors divides Cieszyn Silesia along the Olza without a plebiscite. Czechoslovakia gets Zaolzie, with the Karviná mines and the Košice–Bohumín railway, though most of its people were Poles.

The East Prussian plebiscite 11 July loss The Second Republic

On 11 July, with the Red Army marching on Warsaw, the people of southern East Prussia and Powiśle vote on which state they belong to. More than 90 per cent vote for Germany — many Polish-speaking Masurian Protestants among them. Poland gets a handful of villages, and East Prussia stays German.

The Peace of Riga 18 March treaty The Second Republic

Peace with Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine fixes the eastern border roughly along the line of the Second Partition of 1793, well east of the Curzon Line the Allies had proposed in July 1920. Several million Ukrainians and Belarusians end up on the Polish side of it.

The March Constitution 17 March constitution The Second Republic

The Legislative Sejm passes the constitution of a parliamentary republic: a strong sejm, a weak president, equal rights for citizens whatever their faith or nationality. Amended after the May Coup, it stands until 1935.

Wilno is annexed 20 February turning point The Second Republic

The Wilno Sejm, elected on the land Żeligowski’s troops had seized in 1920, in a vote boycotted by most Lithuanians, Jews and Belarusians, calls for Central Lithuania to join Poland, and the Sejm in Warsaw confirms it. Lithuania refuses to recognise the annexation and has no diplomatic relations with Poland until 1938.

The division of Upper Silesia 20 June treaty The Second Republic

After the plebiscite and the Third Silesian Uprising of 1921, Upper Silesia is divided on the League of Nations’ recommendation, and in June 1922 the Polish army marches into the part awarded to Poland. It is under a third of the area, but it holds Katowice and most of the region’s mines and steelworks.

President Narutowicz is assassinated 16 December turning point The Second Republic

Gabriel Narutowicz, the first president, elected against the right by the votes of the left, the peasant parties and the national minorities, is shot dead in the Zachęta gallery five days after taking office. The killing, after a nationalist press campaign against him, poisons Second Republic politics for years.

The eastern border recognised 15 March treaty The Second Republic

On 15 March the Conference of Ambassadors recognises Poland’s eastern borders, Wilno and Eastern Galicia included. After four years of wars, plebiscites and arbitration every frontier of the Second Republic has international recognition — though Lithuania still refuses to accept the loss of Vilnius.

The May Coup 12 May turning point The Second Republic

Piłsudski marches troops into Warsaw and after three days of fighting brings down the lawful government. The parliamentary republic gives way to authoritarian rule, with the constitution formally intact.

The non-aggression declaration with Germany 26 January treaty The Second Republic

Two years after its non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, Poland signs a ten-year declaration with Hitler’s Germany in Berlin. It is the policy of balance between the two neighbours pursued by Piłsudski and Beck; Hitler renounces the declaration in April 1939.

The April Constitution 23 April constitution The Second Republic

The Sanacja camp pushes through parliament, bending its rules on the way, a constitution that places the president above every other branch of the state. Poland remains a republic in name, but parliament stops counting; the same constitution later gives the government in exile its legal footing.

Poland takes Zaolzie 2 October turning point The Second Republic

Less than a day after the Munich Agreement is signed Poland gives Czechoslovakia an ultimatum and takes Zaolzie, disputed since 1920, with the Czech part of Cieszyn. It comes to about 800 square kilometres, won as the third party, beside Germany and Hungary, to the carving-up of Czechoslovakia.

Germany and the Soviet Union invade 1 September, 17 September, 28 September loss Two Occupations

Germany attacks on 1 September and the Soviet Union on 17 September, under the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The country is split between two occupiers; the state carries on in exile and underground.

The Katyń massacre 5 March loss Two Occupations

The NKVD shoots close to 22,000 Polish officers, policemen and officials taken prisoner in 1939. Beria’s proposal to the Politburo called them hardened enemies of Soviet power. When Germany announced the graves in 1943 and the Polish government asked the Red Cross to investigate, Moscow broke off relations with it; the USSR admitted responsibility only in 1990.

Germany invades the Soviet Union 22 June turning point German Occupation

Within weeks the Wehrmacht takes the Second Republic’s eastern lands, and the whole of pre-war Poland is under German occupation. Eastern Galicia is added to the General Government and the Białystok district put under East Prussia. Behind the front come the units that murder Jews by the thousand.

The Sikorski–Mayski agreement 30 July treaty German Occupation

After Germany attacks the USSR, the Polish government restores relations with Moscow. The USSR declares that its 1939 treaties with Germany on territorial changes in Poland have lost their validity, announces an "amnesty" for deported Polish citizens and allows a Polish army under General Anders, which in 1942 leads more than a hundred thousand people out to Iran. The question of the future border it leaves open.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 19 April uprising German Occupation

After the deportation of more than 250,000 people to Treblinka in the summer of 1942, those left in the ghetto fight with no prospect of winning. The ghetto is burned house by house; it was the first urban revolt in occupied Europe.

The Tehran Conference 28 November treaty German Occupation

Churchill and Roosevelt agree with Stalin, without the Polish government’s knowledge, that Poland’s eastern border will follow roughly the Curzon Line and that Poland will be compensated in the west. Yalta will only confirm it.

The Warsaw Uprising 1 August, 2 October uprising German Occupation

The Home Army fights for 63 days, hoping to liberate the capital itself before the Soviets arrive. The front halted on the Vistula, the rising failed and the city was demolished — by estimates, between 150,000 and 200,000 civilians died.

The PKWN Manifesto 22 July turning point German Occupation

The communist Polish Committee of National Liberation, set up in Moscow, issues a manifesto dated at Chełm on 22 July and takes power in Lublin under the Red Army’s protection. It is the seed of People’s Poland and a rival to the government in exile.

Yalta and the shift west 11 February, 2 August, 16 August turning point People’s Poland

At Yalta and Potsdam the Allies move Poland several hundred kilometres west: the eastern borderlands go to the USSR, Silesia and Pomerania to Poland. Millions of people are resettled and the country lands in the Soviet sphere.

The West withdraws recognition from the London government 28 June, 5 July loss People’s Poland

Britain and the United States recognise the Provisional Government of National Unity — agreed in Moscow and dominated by the communists — and withdraw recognition from the Polish government in exile. That government carries on for 45 more years, recognised by a handful of states; the one the world recognises governs under Moscow’s supervision.

The Kielce pogrom 4 July turning point People’s Poland

A mob roused by a rumour of a kidnapped boy, joined by militiamen and soldiers, murders thirty-seven Jews in Kielce by the count of Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (other sources give 42); three Poles die too, and that day more Jews are killed on trains in the region. The pogrom speeds the exodus: within months tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors leave Poland.

The “Three times yes” referendum 30 June turning point People’s Poland

Instead of the promised election the communists hold a referendum on three questions: abolishing the Senate, land reform with the nationalisation of industry, and the border on the Baltic, the Oder and the Neisse. They falsify the result: 68 per cent are announced for abolishing the Senate, while in Kraków, where the true figures were published, 84 per cent voted against. The Senate returns only in 1989.

The rigged election 19 January turning point People’s Poland

The election to the Legislative Sejm, held amid terror against the Polish People’s Party and rigged, gives the communist bloc an official 80 per cent of the vote. In the autumn Mikołajczyk flees the country and legal opposition is over.

The United Workers’ Party is founded 15 December turning point People’s Poland

At a unification congress in Warsaw the communists of the Polish Workers’ Party swallow the Polish Socialist Party, purged of its opponents first. The result is the Polish United Workers’ Party, which will rule the country for forty years; Gomułka has already been pushed aside that summer, and Bierut leads the party.

The Treaty of Zgorzelec 6 July treaty People’s Poland

Poland and East Germany recognise the Oder–Neisse line as the border between them. West Germany recognises it only in 1970, and united Germany in 1990.

The border exchange with the USSR 15 February treaty People’s Poland

Poland gives the Soviet Union 480 km² on the Bug, with Belz and its coal, and gets as much in return in the Bieszczady, with Ustrzyki Dolne. It is the last major change to Poland’s borders — later adjustments with Czechoslovakia and East Germany moved only scraps of land and water; the people of both areas were resettled.

The constitution of People’s Poland 22 July constitution People’s Poland

The Sejm passes a constitution modelled on the Soviet one of 1936, with amendments in Stalin’s own hand. The state is renamed the Polish People’s Republic, and a collegial Council of State replaces the presidency.

The Warsaw Pact 14 May treaty People’s Poland

Eight Eastern Bloc states sign a treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance in Warsaw. Poland is formally bound into a military alliance under Soviet command; in 1968 Polish troops will enter Czechoslovakia under it.

Poznań June 28 June uprising People’s Poland

A strike at the Cegielski works turns into a city-wide revolt put down with tanks, killing dozens. One of the first mass workers’ protests in the Eastern Bloc, after East Berlin and Plzeň in 1953; by autumn it produces Gomułka’s thaw.

The Polish October 21 October turning point People’s Poland

Gomułka, once jailed for “right-wing nationalist deviation”, returns to lead the party despite Khrushchev flying in and Soviet troops on the move. Stalinism ends: collectivisation is dropped, Primate Wyszyński is freed and Rokossovsky goes back to the USSR.

March 1968 8 March turning point People’s Poland

The closing of a staging of Forefathers’ Eve and the expulsion of two students bring the young onto the streets, where police and party "worker activists" beat them. The regime answers with an antisemitic campaign that drives some thirteen thousand citizens of Jewish origin out of the country.

December 1970 14 December, 17 December uprising People’s Poland

A food-price rise just before Christmas puts the coastal shipyard workers on the streets; the army and the police fire into the crowds in Gdynia, Gdańsk, Szczecin and Elbląg, killing forty-five. Gomułka falls, and the memory of the dead becomes a foundation of Solidarity.

The Treaty of Warsaw with West Germany 7 December treaty People’s Poland

The Federal Republic of Germany recognises the Oder–Neisse border, though with the reservation that it binds only West Germany. On the day it is signed Chancellor Willy Brandt kneels before the Ghetto Heroes Monument.

June 1976 25 June uprising People’s Poland

Announced steep rises in food prices set off strikes across the country, fiercest in Radom, Ursus and Płock. The government withdraws the rises within a day but beats and jails the workers — and the Workers’ Defence Committee is founded to defend them, the start of an organised opposition.

A Polish pope 16 October turning point People’s Poland

Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, Archbishop of Kraków, is elected pope. A year later, on his first pilgrimage home, millions saw for themselves how many of them there were — and Solidarity put that lesson to use in August 1980.

The August Accords and Solidarity 14 August, 31 August uprising People’s Poland

The strike at the Gdańsk shipyard ends with the government conceding independent trade unions — an impossibility in the Soviet bloc. Within months Solidarity has close to ten million members.

Martial law is declared 13 December loss People’s Poland

On 13 December Jaruzelski declares martial law, interns thousands of activists and suspends Solidarity, dissolved by law in October 1982. Martial law is suspended at the end of 1982 and lifted in July 1983.

The Round Table and the June election 6 February, 5 April, 4 June, 24 August turning point The Third Republic

The government sits down with the opposition and agrees to a partly free election, expecting a controlled opening. Solidarity takes every Sejm seat it is allowed to contest and 99 of the 100 in the Senate, and on 24 August Tadeusz Mazowiecki becomes the Eastern Bloc’s first non-communist prime minister in more than forty years — and the bloc begins to come apart.

The December amendment 29 December constitution The Third Republic

The contract Sejm strikes the communist party’s leading role and the friendship with the USSR from the constitution, and the state is the Republic of Poland again. The eagle in the arms gets back its crown a few weeks later.

The border treaty with Germany 14 November treaty The Third Republic

In a treaty signed in Warsaw, newly unified Germany recognises the frontier on the Oder and the Lusatian Neisse. After forty-five years, Poland’s western border stops being an open question in international law.

The first popular presidential election 9 December turning point The Third Republic

Lech Wałęsa wins the first popular presidential election in Polish history. In December the last president in exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski, hands him the insignia of the Second Republic, and the government in exile comes to an end.

The first fully free Sejm election 27 October turning point The Third Republic

The first entirely free Sejm election since before the war, held with no threshold in the constituencies, returns members from twenty-nine lists. The fragmented parliament hastens a change in the electoral law.

The Warsaw Pact is dissolved 1 July treaty The Third Republic

In Prague the member states dissolve the Warsaw Pact; its military structures had already ceased on 31 March. Poland leaves the alliance it was bound into in 1955, eight years before it joins NATO.

The last Russian troops leave 17 September turning point The Third Republic

On 17 September, the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of 1939, Warsaw sees off the last unit of Russia’s Northern Group of Forces, whose train crosses the border the next morning. For the first time since 1944 no foreign army is stationed on Polish soil.

The Constitution of the Republic 2 April constitution The Third Republic

The first full constitution passed by a freely elected parliament since the March Constitution of 1921, and confirmed by referendum. It closes the provisional constitutional order that followed 1989.

Poland joins NATO 12 March treaty The Third Republic

Ten years after the Round Table, Poland joins the alliance its army had until recently been arrayed against. The first alliance since 1939 that Poland chose for itself.

The local government reform 1 January constitution The Third Republic

Sixteen voivodeships replace forty-nine, the counties come back, and local government gets part of the centre’s power and money. It is the administrative map in use today.

Poland joins the European Union 1 May treaty The Third Republic

Poland joins the Union alongside nine other states, in the largest enlargement in its history. The borders stay as they were drawn in 1945, but for the exchange of 1951 and minor adjustments, and they stop being barriers.

Poland joins the Schengen Area 21 December treaty The Third Republic

Checks disappear on the borders with Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania. Poland’s eastern border, the Union’s outer border since 2004, becomes the outer border of the Schengen Area.

The Smolensk air disaster 10 April loss The Third Republic

The plane carrying President Lech Kaczyński to the anniversary of the Katyń massacre crashes near Smolensk. All 96 on board are killed, among them the commanders of every branch of the armed forces, the governor of the central bank and the last president in exile; the dispute over the cause divides Polish politics for years afterwards.

Refugees from Ukraine 24 February turning point The Third Republic

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine millions of refugees cross into Poland within a few months, and more than a million stay. The country becomes the hub of military aid to Ukraine.

Bolesław the Brave’s German wars war

After Otto III’s death Bolesław the Brave seizes Lusatia, Milsko and, briefly, Meissen, and then defends them against Henry II through three wars in a row. The Peace of Bautzen leaves him Lusatia and Milsko; a few months later he rides into Kyiv.

The collapse of the first Piast monarchy crisis

A Rus and German invasion drives out Mieszko II in 1031, and after his death the state falls apart: a revolt of the lords, a popular rising and a pagan reaction, Mazovia under Masław, the Bohemian raid on Greater Poland. Rebuilding begins when Casimir the Restorer comes back with troops from the Emperor.

Settlement under German law resettlement

Dukes, bishops and monasteries bring in settlers from Germany and found hundreds of towns and thousands of villages under German law — of Magdeburg, Środa or Chełmno — local people included. The market squares of Wrocław, Poznań and Kraków come from these charters, and Silesia and Western Pomerania begin to turn German. The dates are a convention: from Złotoryja’s charter to the end of Casimir the Great’s reign.

The Teutonic conquest of Prussia war

From Chełmno Land, given it by Konrad of Mazovia, the Teutonic Order conquers the Prussian tribes in half a century — from the Pomesanians on the Vistula to the Sambians and, last, the Yotvingians — and crushes the Great Prussian Uprising of 1260–74. On the conquered land it builds its own state, a neighbour Poland will fight for two and a half centuries.

The war with the Teutonic Order war

The Order, allied with John of Bohemia, who claims the Polish crown, invades Łokietek’s lands. Płowce (1331) decides nothing: the Knights take Dobrzyń Land and Kuyavia, and Casimir the Great gets them back only at the Peace of Kalisz in 1343, in exchange for recognising the Order’s Pomerania.

The wars for Red Ruthenia war

After Prince Bolesław Yuri II is poisoned, Casimir the Great marches into Ruthenia and spends a quarter of a century contesting the inheritance with Lithuania, and at times with the Tatars. He ends with Lviv, Przemyśl and Halych, and from 1366 with Belz and Chełm too. After his death Ruthenia passes to Hungary, and the Crown recovers it only with Jadwiga’s expedition of 1387. The map does not show it: the source has no borders between 1300 and 1400, so Red Ruthenia joins the Crown’s outline in 1385.

The Great War with the Order war

A war over Samogitia in which Poland and Lithuania fight the Order together for the first time. After Grunwald Malbork cannot be taken, and the First Peace of Thorn gives little — Samogitia to Lithuania for the lifetimes of Jogaila and Vytautas, Dobrzyń Land to Poland — but the Order’s military strength is broken and the indemnity ruins its treasury.

The Lithuanian civil war civil war

After Vytautas dies, Švitrigaila, backed by the Order, and Sigismund Kęstutaitis, backed by Poland, fight for Lithuania. Wiłkomierz (1435) decides the war, and the Peace of Brześć Kujawski that year ends the war with the Order, in which Poland’s Hussite allies had reached the Baltic.

The Thirteen Years’ War war

The Prussian estates renounce their allegiance to the Order and hand the country to Casimir Jagiellon. After the defeat at Chojnice the war is decided by money and mercenaries: Poland buys Malbork from the Order’s own unpaid soldiers, and the victory at Świecino in 1462 opens the way to the Second Peace of Thorn.

The war for the Seversk lands war

Ivan III, to whom the border princes defect, routs the Lithuanians on the Vedrosha. The truce of 1503 leaves Muscovy the Chernihiv and Seversk lands, close to a third of the Grand Duchy.

The war with Muscovy over Smolensk war

Vasily III attacks Lithuania, joined to the Crown at the time in the person of Sigismund the Old, and in 1514, at the third siege, takes Smolensk. The great victory at Orsha a few weeks later reverses nothing: the truce of 1522 leaves the city to Muscovy for almost a hundred years.

The Prussian War war

Grand Master Albert of Hohenzollern refuses homage and seeks help from the Empire; the mercenaries who reach Gdańsk in 1520 melt away unpaid. The Truce of Thorn in 1521 freezes the war for four years; it ends with the Prussian Homage, in which the Order’s state becomes a secular duchy and a Polish fief.

The Livonian War war

Ivan the Terrible invades Livonia, and the last master of the Livonian Order places the country under Sigismund Augustus. Lithuania, which loses Polotsk in 1563, looks for safety in union with the Crown. Stephen Báthory retakes Polotsk, captures Velikiye Luki and besieges Pskov; the truce of Yam-Zapolsky in 1582 ends the Commonwealth’s war and leaves it Livonia. A year later Muscovy makes peace with Sweden too.

The war with Sweden over Livonia war

Sigismund III, King of Poland and deposed King of Sweden, joins Estonia to the Commonwealth, and his uncle Charles of Södermanland answers by invading Livonia. Kircholm (1605) does not end the war. It is the first of the wars over the Vasas’ Swedish crown that the Commonwealth will fight for sixty years.

Zebrzydowski’s rebellion civil war

Nobles led by Mikołaj Zebrzydowski take up arms against Sigismund III, suspected of wanting to strengthen the crown’s power. The king wins at Guzów (1607) but drops his reforms, and an amnesty in 1609 closes the affair.

The war with Muscovy in the Time of Troubles war

Sigismund III besieges Smolensk, and after Klushino Hetman Żółkiewski enters Moscow, where the boyars elect Prince Władysław tsar. The Polish garrison in the Kremlin surrenders in 1612, but Smolensk, taken the year before, stays with the Commonwealth — and the Truce of Deulino gives it the Chernihiv and Seversk lands as well.

The Ottoman war: Cecora and Khotyn war

An expedition to defend the hospodar of Moldavia ends in defeat at Cecora, where Hetman Żółkiewski is killed. A year later Osman II’s army storms the camp at Khotyn for a month and leaves with nothing; the peace keeps the border on the Dniester.

The war for the mouth of the Vistula war

Gustavus Adolphus, who took Riga from the Commonwealth in 1621, lands in Prussia and cuts off the grain trade on the Vistula. Gdańsk holds out and Koniecpolski wins at Trzciana, but the Truce of Altmark leaves Sweden most of Livonia and the Prussian ports with their tolls.

The Smolensk War war

Muscovy uses the interregnum after Sigismund III’s death to besiege Smolensk. Władysław IV surrounds the besiegers and forces them to surrender; at the Peace of Polyanovka he gives up the title of tsar and the Commonwealth keeps Smolensk.

The Khmelnytsky Uprising uprising

A Cossack revolt turns into a war for Ukraine in which the Tatars change sides, the rebels massacre nobles and Jews, and the Crown’s armies answer with terror. Berestechko (1651) does not end it; in 1654 at Pereiaslav the Cossacks put themselves under the tsar and bring a war with Muscovy down on the Commonwealth. Khmelnytsky dies in 1657.

The war with Muscovy war

Tsar Alexis, coming to the Cossacks’ aid, takes Smolensk, Vilnius and almost the whole Grand Duchy of Lithuania in two years. The Commonwealth wins much of it back after the victories of 1660, but the Truce of Andrusovo leaves Muscovy Smolensk, Ukraine east of the Dnieper, and Kyiv besides — nominally for two years, though it was never given back.

The Deluge war

Charles X Gustav invades a Commonwealth already bled by the Cossacks and Muscovy; magnates and army go over to him, and John Casimir flees to Silesia. The defence of Jasna Góra, the Tyszowce confederation and Czarniecki’s guerrilla war turn it round, but Swedes, Brandenburgers and Transylvanians plunder the country as nobody had before. The Peace of Oliva changes little on the map — yet the years 1648–67 cost the Commonwealth close to a third of its people.

Lubomirski’s rebellion civil war

Grand Marshal Jerzy Lubomirski, sentenced to banishment by the sejm court, leads the nobility against John Casimir’s plan to have a successor elected in his lifetime. At Mątwy the rebels destroy the royal army, veterans of the Swedish wars among them; the king gives way, and two years later abdicates.

The Ottoman war over Podolia war

Mehmed IV takes Kamianets-Podilskyi and imposes the Treaty of Buchach on the Commonwealth. The sejm refuses to ratify it, Sobieski routs the Turks at Khotyn (1673) and is soon king, but the truce of Żurawno leaves Podolia Ottoman for more than twenty years.

The Great Turkish War war

The relief of Vienna opens sixteen years of war between the Holy League — Austria, the Commonwealth, Venice and, from 1686, Russia — and the Ottoman Empire. Sobieski’s campaigns against Kamianets and into Moldavia win no lasting ground, but the Treaty of Karlowitz gives Podolia back to the Commonwealth.

The Great Northern War war

Augustus II, as Elector of Saxony, attacks Swedish Livonia, and Charles XII strikes back into the Commonwealth, deposes him and puts Stanisław Leszczyński on the throne. After Poltava (1709) Augustus returns, but with the tsar’s backing: Russian armies cross the country as if it were their own, and the Commonwealth comes out of the war ruined and dependent on Russia.

The War of the Polish Succession war

The nobility elects Stanisław Leszczyński a second time, but Russian troops put Augustus III on the throne, and Gdańsk, which stood by Leszczyński, surrenders after a long siege. The war moves to the Rhine and Italy, and Leszczyński is given Lorraine instead.

The Bar Confederation uprising

Four years of fighting between bands of nobles and the Russian and royal armies, from Podolia to Greater Poland. The confederates were united by opposition to Russian tutelage and to equal rights for Protestants and Orthodox; in 1770 they declare the king deposed. Jasna Góra, the confederates’ last great fortress, surrenders in August 1772, the month the powers sign the First Partition.

The Commission of National Education reform

The first ministry of education in Europe, funded from the estates of the dissolved Jesuit order. It takes over schools from the parish level to the academies of Kraków and Vilnius, writes Polish textbooks for them and teaches the sciences in them, not only Latin. The generation of the Great Sejm came out of its schools.

The Great Sejm reform

The sejm sits for four years while Russia is busy fighting the Ottomans: it votes an army of a hundred thousand (on paper), the first permanent tax on the incomes of the nobility and clergy, rights for townsmen, and in the end the Constitution of 3 May. It disperses in May 1792 as Russian armies cross the border.

The Polish Legions in Italy war

Jan Henryk Dąbrowski raises Polish legions in Lombardy at France’s side, and in their camp Dąbrowski’s Mazurka is written. They fight in Italy and on the Rhine, some die on Saint-Domingue, and their soldiers become the cadre of the Duchy of Warsaw’s army.

The Duchy of Warsaw’s wars war

From the Greater Poland rising of 1806 Poles fight at Napoleon’s side. In 1809 the Duchy’s army holds at Raszyn and takes Galicia, and in 1812 close to a hundred thousand Poles march on Moscow. Defeat in Russia ends the Duchy; Poniatowski dies at Leipzig.

The November Uprising uprising

The sejm dethrones Nicholas I, and the Kingdom’s army fights a conventional war with Russia — Olszynka Grochowska, Iganie, Ostrołęka. In September 1831 Warsaw capitulates; close to ten thousand soldiers and politicians choose the Great Emigration, and the Organic Statute replaces the Kingdom’s constitution.

The Paskevich Night repression

After the uprising falls, the viceroy Ivan Paskevich governs the Kingdom: the Organic Statute in place of the constitution, martial law from 1833, the Citadel over Warsaw, the universities of Warsaw and Vilnius closed, estates confiscated, thousands exiled or conscripted into the Russian army. It ends only with his death in 1856 and the thaw under Alexander II.

The Great Emigration resettlement

After the November Uprising falls, some ten thousand soldiers, politicians and artists go west, most of them to France: Czartoryski and the Hôtel Lambert, Lelewel’s democrats and the Democratic Society, Mickiewicz, Słowacki, Chopin. Beyond the censor’s reach they write the programmes of a future Poland and a culture that outlasts the partitions.

The January Uprising uprising

The longest Polish rising: eighteen months of guerrilla war in the Kingdom, Lithuania and Belarus with no regular army, run by an underground state with its own government, taxes and courts. The National Government falls when the Russians arrest Romuald Traugutt in April 1864; the last units fight on into the autumn.

Russification of Poles during the Partitions repression

After the January Uprising the Kingdom is folded into Russia’s system of provinces: the offices, courts and schools speak Russian, Warsaw University too from 1869, and under the school curator Apukhtin Polish is taught as a foreign language. Resistance is secret schooling; the first concessions come only with the revolution of 1905.

Emigration for bread resettlement

About three and a half million people leave the overcrowded villages of all three partitions for America, the Ruhr and Brazil. The money they send home, and those who come back, change the Polish countryside.

The Kulturkampf repression

Bismarck’s government curbs the Catholic Church, and in the Prussian partition the Polish language: German pushes Polish out of offices and schools, Archbishop Ledóchowski is imprisoned and parishes are left without priests. In Greater Poland the Church and Polishness grow together for good.

The Prussian expulsions repression

Prussia expels some thirty thousand Poles and Jews without German citizenship, most of them Russian and Austrian subjects. A year later the Settlement Commission is set up to buy Polish land for German settlers.

Germanisation in the Prussian partition repression

The Settlement Commission buys land for German settlers, school teaches only in German, and a law of 1908 allows Polish owners to be expropriated. The children of Września (1901) and the school strike of 1906–07 defend religion taught in Polish, and the banks and cooperatives of organic work compete with the Commission for land, and hold their own.

The Revolution of 1905 uprising

After Bloody Sunday in St Petersburg strikes sweep the Kingdom: the workers of Łódź and Warsaw fight for labour rights, schoolchildren for Polish schools, and in Łódź the fighting goes to the barricades. Russia answers with martial law and executions, but gives way on language in private schools and the Kingdom elects deputies to the new Duma.

The First World War war

The three partitioning powers fight each other across the Polish lands, and Poles in their armies fight each other. In 1915 Russia pulls out of the Kingdom; Piłsudski’s Legions and the Act of 5 November reopen the Polish question, and the defeat of all three partitioning powers lets it be settled.

The Polish–Ukrainian War war

A war for Lviv and Eastern Galicia: from the November fighting for the city, in which schoolboys and students were among its defenders, to July 1919, when an offensive joined by Haller’s army drives the forces of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic beyond the Zbruch.

The Greater Poland Uprising uprising

It breaks out in Poznań after Paderewski arrives in December 1918 and within weeks holds almost the whole province. The armistice of Trier in February 1919 stops the fighting, and the Treaty of Versailles gives Greater Poland to Poland.

The Polish–Soviet War war

The first clashes in February 1919, the Kyiv offensive in spring 1920, and in the summer Tukhachevsky’s army at the gates of Warsaw. After the Battle of Warsaw and the Niemen the front falls apart; the armistice of October 1920 and the Peace of Riga in March 1921 fix the eastern border for two decades.

The Silesian Uprisings uprising

Three risings of the Upper Silesian Poles: in August 1919, in August 1920 and in May 1921, after a plebiscite in which the majority voted for Germany. The third and largest forces a division of the region more favourable to Poland than the vote alone would have given.

The Great Depression crisis

In Poland the slump lasts longer than almost anywhere in Europe: industrial output falls by close to forty per cent, farm prices by more than half, and the countryside, where most of the country lives, sinks into poverty. The government holds on to a strong złoty and to austerity, which drags the collapse out.

The Central Industrial Region reform

The Second Republic’s largest investment: the steelworks at Stalowa Wola, aircraft works at Mielec and Rzeszów, a tyre factory at Dębica, in the fork of the Vistula and the San — far from the borders with Germany and the USSR. September 1939 cuts it short, before many of the plants had reached full production.

The NKVD’s Polish Operation atrocity

On Yezhov’s order the NKVD arrests Poles in the Soviet Union and everyone suspected of links with Poland: close to 140,000 are sentenced and more than 111,000 of them shot. It is the largest of the Great Terror’s national operations; its victims are Soviet citizens, many of them living in the old eastern lands of the Commonwealth.

The Soviet occupation repression

The eastern lands taken by the USSR are annexed to it after sham elections. The NKVD arrests people, shoots prisoners of war, and in four mass deportations in 1940–41 sends more than three hundred and twenty thousand Polish citizens to Siberia and Kazakhstan by its own records; older Polish estimates are much higher.

The Second World War war

Germany and the Soviet Union divide Poland; both occupiers destroy its elites, and Germany murders the Polish Jews in ghettos and death camps. The Underground State works at home, the government and army in exile fight beside the Allies — and still Poland comes out of the war in new borders, under a government the USSR imposed, and without close to six million of its citizens.

The German reign of terror repression

Germany annexes the western provinces to the Reich and expels hundreds of thousands of Poles from them; in the General Government it closes the secondary schools and the universities. Operations against the educated class, street round-ups and public executions, concentration camps, more than two million people taken for forced labour, the expulsions from the Zamość region and children kidnapped for Germanisation: by most estimates the occupation cost close to two million ethnic Poles their lives.

The Polish Underground State social movement

Under the occupation a clandestine state answers to the government in exile: the Government Delegation, an underground parliament, courts, secret schooling, a press and the Home Army, more than 300,000 sworn soldiers by 1944. Its last great effort is the Warsaw Uprising; the Home Army is disbanded in January 1945, and the Council of National Unity dissolves itself in July.

The Holocaust atrocity

After shutting them into ghettos, Germany moves on to murder: first the shootings in the east, from December 1941 Chełmno, and in 1942 Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau, all on occupied Polish soil. About three million Polish Jews are killed, nine in every ten.

The Volhynia massacres atrocity

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army murders the Polish population of Volhynia and then Eastern Galicia, to clear them from lands meant to become Ukraine’s; the peak is July 1943. Estimates of the Poles killed run from sixty to a hundred thousand; in Polish reprisals, several thousand to more than ten thousand Ukrainians.

The post-war resettlement resettlement

The new borders move people along with the state: over a million Poles leave the old eastern lands for the new Poland, Germans are expelled from the Recovered Territories, Ukrainians sent from Poland to the USSR, and in 1947 Operation Vistula scatters those who stayed across the west. A country of many nations comes out almost uniform.

The anti-communist underground uprising

Part of the underground does not lay down its arms when the Red Army arrives: Freedom and Independence, the National Armed Forces and dozens of forest units fight the NKVD, the security police and the army. Tens of thousands pass through the units in their busiest years; the amnesty of 1947 and terror break the movement, though the last partisan, Józef Franczak, is killed only in 1963.

Stalinism repression

After the Socialist Party is swallowed into the PZPR and Gomułka pushed aside, the regime rebuilds the country on the Soviet model: forced collectivisation, the Six-Year Plan, show trials, tens of thousands of political prisoners, Primate Wyszyński locked up. It ends in October 1956, when Gomułka returns to power.

The Gierek decade crisis

Under Gierek growth runs on credit: Western loans pay for factories, flats and the small Fiat. From 1976 debt and empty shelves grow — sugar rationing, price rises — and by the end of the decade the debt is over twenty billion dollars. It ends in the strikes of 1980.

The democratic opposition social movement

After the reprisals against the workers of Radom and Ursus, intellectuals found the Workers’ Defence Committee; the Movement for the Defence of Human and Civic Rights, the Free Trade Unions of the Coast, the Flying University and an underground press that dodges the censor follow. Its people advise the strikers of August 1980.

The Solidarity carnival social movement

Sixteen months between the August Accords and martial law, when a communist state has a legal, independent union with close to ten million members, and censorship, strikes and free speech are matters of daily argument rather than taboo.

Martial law repression

From 13 December 1981 to 22 July 1983: close to ten thousand interned, a curfew, militarised workplaces, dozens killed — nine miners at the Wujek colliery. Solidarity goes underground; martial law is lifted, but much of it was carried over into ordinary law.

Solidarity underground social movement

Banned in October 1982, Solidarity works in secret: a Provisional Coordinating Commission, an underground press, Radio Solidarity, help for the persecuted. The country stays in crisis — meat rationed until 1989, inflation, emigration — until the strikes of 1988 force the regime to talk, and in April 1989 the union is legal again.

The Balcerowicz Plan reform

Shock therapy: overnight, free prices, a convertible złoty, an end to subsidies and a hard budget. Hyperinflation dies away within months and the shelves fill — and the collapse of state enterprises brings unemployment People’s Poland had never known, hardest in small towns and on the state farms.

The post-accession emigration resettlement

The United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden open their labour markets on accession day and Poles leave in large numbers: by 2007 more than two million are living abroad. It is the largest wave of emigration since before the war.

The COVID-19 pandemic crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic reaches Poland in March 2020: closed borders, schools and shops, remote learning and remote work. The state of epidemic was lifted in May 2022.