Portal:Poland

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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From Polish history – show another

An ethnic Polish military band in Karviná welcoming Poland's annexation of Zaolzie in 1938. The banner reads, "We have awaited you for 600 years."

Zaolzie (Czech: Zaolší) is a historical region on the left bank of the Olza River on the Czech–Polish border. Historically part of the Duchy of Teschen (Cieszyn, Těšín), it belonged to Austria-Hungary until its dissolution in 1918. Afterwards, it became a bone of contention between the nascent republics of Poland and Czechoslovakia. The region, inhabited by ethnic Poles, Czechs and Jews, was rich in coal and crossed by a strategic railway linking Czech Silesia with Slovakia. Agreements between local authorities, armed fighting and an ettempted plebiscite proved inconclusive and in 1920 the Council of Ambassadors settled the matter at the Spa Conference by awarding Zaolzie to Czechoslovakia. In 1938, Poland issued an ultimatum to its southern neighbor to withdraw from Zaolzie within 24 hours, and the following day Czechoslovakia complied. Poland annexed the region and became seen as an accomplice in the partition of Czechoslovakia resulting from the Munich Agreement. Zaolzie was annexed by Nazi Germany after the German invasion of Poland a year later and returned to Czechoslovak hands with the end of World War II. Today the area is part of the Czech Republic and home to about 37,000 ethnic Poles. After 2001, several villages in the region have erected bilingual signs in Czech and Polish. (Full article...)

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Marie Curie

Marie Curie (1867–1934) was a Polish-French physicist and chemist. Born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw, she studied at the clandestine Floating University and began her practical scientific training in the same city. In 1891, she followed her older sister to study in Paris, where she earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work, becoming the first female professor at the University of Paris (La Sorbonne). Her achievements included a theory of radioactivity (a term that she coined), techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium (which she named for her native country) and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms, using radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw, which remain major centres of medical research today. During World War I, she established the first military field radiological centres. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize (in Physics, shared with her husband, Pierre Curie, and with her doctoral advisor, Henri Becquerel, in 1903), the only woman to win it in two fields (the other being Chemistry, in 1911), and the only person to win in multiple sciences. Curie died in 1934 of aplastic anemia brought on by years of her exposure to radiation. (Full article...)

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Aerial view of Nowa Huta

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

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Did you know – show different entries

... that scholars are not sure who is portrayed in Rembrandt's painting A Polish Nobleman (pictured)?
... that the Old City of Zamość, one of the World Heritage Sites in Poland, is recognized as an "outstanding example of a Renaissance planned town"?
... that the German libretto of Boris Blacher's last opera, Yvonne, Prinzessin von Burgund was based on a Polish play by Witold Gombrowicz?
... that a photograph of the execution of Jews near Ivanhorod, Ukraine, by members of the SS Einsatzgruppe was intercepted by the Polish resistance in 1942?

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Poland now

Recent events

On 27 March, Poland suspended the right to claim asylum by people who cross the border from Belarus (border fence pictured).
On 18 February, Marian Turski, a historian, journalist and Holocaust survivor, died at the age of 98.
On 6 December, Stanisław Tym, a prominent comedian and satirist, died at the age of 87.
On 27 October, the discovery of a previously unknown waltz in A minor attributed to Frédéric Chopin, found at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, was announced.