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Poland The Origins of Poland
According to Polish myth, the Slavic nations trace
their
ancestry to three brothers who parted in the forests of
Eastern
Europe, each moving in a different direction to found a
family of
distinct but related peoples. Fanciful elements aside,
this tale
accurately describes the westward migration and gradual
differentiation of the early West Slavic tribes following
the
collapse of the Roman Empire. About twenty such tribes
formed
small states between A.D. 800 and 960. One of these
tribes, the
Polanie or Poliane ("people of the plain"), settled in the
flatlands that eventually formed the heart of Poland,
lending
their name to the country. Over time the modern Poles
emerged as
the largest of the West Slavic groupings, establishing
themselves
to the east of the Germanic regions of Europe with their
ethnographic cousins, the Czechs and Slovaks, to the
south.
In spite of convincing fragmentary evidence of prior
political and social organization, national custom
identifies the
starting date of Polish history as 966, when Prince
Mieszko (r.
963-92) accepted Christianity in the name of the people he
ruled.
In return, Poland received acknowledgment as a separate
principality owing some degree of tribute to the German
Empire
(later officially known as the
Holy Roman Empire--see Glossary).
Under Otto I, the German Empire was an expansionist force
to the
West in the mid-tenth century. Mieszko accepted baptism
directly
from Rome in preference to conversion by the German church
and
subsequent annexation of Poland by the German Empire. This
strategy inaugurated the intimate connection between the
Polish
national identity and Roman Catholicism that became a
prominent
theme in the history of the Poles.
Mieszko is considered the first ruler of the Piast
Dynasty
(named for the legendary peasant founder of the family),
which
endured for four centuries. Between 967 and 990, Mieszko
conquered substantial territory along the Baltic Sea and
in the
region known as Little Poland to the south. By the time he
officially submitted to the authority of the Holy See in
Rome in
990, Mieszko had transformed his country into one of the
strongest powers in Eastern Europe.
Mieszko's son and successor Boleslaw I (992-1025),
known as
the Brave, built on his father's achievements and became
the most
successful Polish monarch of the early medieval era.
Boleslaw
continued the policy of appeasing the Germans while taking
advantage of their political situation to gain territory
wherever
possible. Frustrated in his efforts to form an equal
partnership
with the Holy Roman Empire, Boleslaw gained some
non-Polish
territory in a series of wars against his imperial
overlord in
1003 and 1004. The Polish conqueror then turned eastward,
extending the boundaries of his realm into present-day
Ukraine.
Shortly before his death in 1025, Boleslaw won
international
recognition as the first king of a fully sovereign Poland
(see
fig. 2).
Data as of October 1992
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