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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former Polish polar station on Spitsbergen

Adam Mickiewicz University

Credit: Krzysztof Maria Różański

former Polish Arctic research station at Skottehytta on the Petuniabukta Bay on the Spitsbergen, Norway. The station is run by the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

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... that in 2013 Poland became the world's largest producer of mead made according to traditional methods (example pictured)?
... that Compendium ferculorum ("A Collection of Dishes"), the oldest cookbook in Polish, inspired the description of a traditional banquet in the Polish national epic?
... that Janina Goss has been described as the "power behind the throne" in modern Polish politics?
... that Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Auschwitz concentration camp?

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Marian Rejewski

Marian Rejewski (1905–1980) was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who, in 1932, solved the Enigma machine, the main cipher machine then in use by Germany. While studying mathematics at Poznań University, Rejewski attended a secret cryptology course conducted by the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau, which he joined full-time in 1932. Rejewski and his two colleagues then developed an assortment of techniques for the regular decryption of Enigma messages, including the cryptologic "card catalog", the "cyclometer", and the cryptologic "bomb". Five weeks before the German invasion of Poland in 1939, they presented their results on Enigma decryption to their French and British counterparts. Their success jump-started British reading of Enigma in World War II, and the intelligence so gained contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany. (Full article...)

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Poznań town hall

Poznań is the fifth largest city in Poland and one of the nation's oldest. In the early years of Poland's history, it was the seat of Polish rulers, some of whom are buried in the Poznań Cathedral. Located on the Warta river in west-central Poland, it is now the capital of Greater Poland and an important centre of education, industry, and trade, hosting regular international trade fairs. With high GDP per capita and low unemployment, it is Poland's most prosperous city after Warsaw. The city's most important cultural event is the annual Malta Theatre Festival. (Full article...)

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