Poland (Polish: Polska), is a large country in Central Europe. It has a long Baltic Sea coastline and is bordered by Belarus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast), Slovakia, and Ukraine.

History

The first cities in today's Poland, Kalisz in Wielkopolskie and Elbląg in Pomorskie on the Amber Route to the Baltic Sea, were mentioned by Roman writers in the first century AD, but the first Polish settlement in Biskupin in Wielkopolskie dates even further back to the 7th century BC.

Poland was first united as a country in the first half of the 10th century and baptized in 966 AD in Poznań, with the first capitals in Gniezno and Poznań in Wielkopolskie. In the 11th century the capital was moved to Kraków in Malopolskie. Poland experienced its golden age from 14th till 16th century, under the reign of the last Piast, Casimir the Great, and the Jagiellonian dynasty, whose rule extended from the Baltic to the Black and Adriatic seas. In the 16th century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the largest country in Europe; the capital was moved to Warsaw at the end of that century. The country attracted significant numbers of foreign migrants, including Germans, Jews, Armenians and the Dutch, thanks to the freedom of confession guaranteed by the state and the atmosphere of religious tolerance (rather exceptional in Europe at the time of the Holy Inquisition).

During the 17th and the 18th centuries, the nobility increasingly asserted its independence of the monarchy; combined with several exhausting wars, this greatly weakened the Commonwealth. Responding to the need for reform, Poland was the 1st country in Europe (and the 2nd in the world, after the US) to pass a constitution. The constitution of May 3rd, 1791 was the key reform among many progressive but belated attempts to strengthen the country during the second half of the 18th century.

With the country in political disarray, various sections of Poland were subsequently annexed by its neighbors, Russia, Prussia and Austria, in three coordinated "partitions" of 1772 and 1793, and 1795. After the last partition and a failed uprising, Poland ceased to exist as a country for 123 years.

However, this long period of foreign domination was met with fierce resistance. In the Napoleonic Wars, a semi-autonomous Duchy of Warsaw was created, before being erased from the map again in 1813. The 29 November uprising of 1830-1831 (mainly in Russian Poland), the 1848 Revolution (combat mostly took place in Austrian and Prussian Poland) and the 22 January 1863 were clear indicators that Poland showed very little tolerance of subjugation to any of these three equally autocratic powers.

Poland regained its independence on November 11th, 1918 with the end of the World War I. Soon, in 1920-21, the newly-reborn country got into territorial disputes with Czechoslovakia and, especially, Soviet Russia. The attack on Warsaw was defeated on August 10th-15th, 1920 in what is remembered today as the Miracle at the Vistula (Polish: Cud nad Wisłą) effectively ending major warfare by October, even though the agreement was finalised the next March.