The Complete History of Poland | Compilation

if you live in Central or Eastern Europe you probably grew up hearing the folk tale of the Three Brothers Le cze and Rose the three legendary Patriarchs of the Slavic peoples while out on a hunting trip the brothers had a disagreement as brothers do on which prey to follow leading them to split up Czech the eldest of the brothers followed his prey to the Czech Clans Roose the youngest went East and became the founder of Russia and Le in the middle founded Poland because who cares about consistency the taale differs slightly from place to place but many include that LE traveled North as he followed a beautiful white eagle the eagle landed in its nest at Sunset and looked very breathtaking against the Red Sky Le took this for an omen and decided that the land would be his new home the White Eagle is still a symbol of Poland blazed against the Red Sky of their flag [Music] indeed Poland did begin with Slavic settlements the slaves are likely a civilization that emerged as remnants of the early Indo European peoples who had migrated out of the caucuses from their Homeland in Central Europe they began to expand and migrate in response to the weakening of the Roman Empire you'll remember remember this from previous episodes as The Great Migration period the Poes loveed their new home which they shared with Germanic tribes from Scandinavia and the occasional Asian nomadic Raiders the slaves of Poland were organized into smaller tribes living in and around the Baltic Sea and the Vista River delta they United under Poland's first official leader Mesko Mesko was a Duke of the polands this was a good gig to have since the tribe eventually became the name of the whole country Poland meso was a member of the Noble House of piast whose Dynasty would rule Poland for Centuries with his baptism in 966 the country slowly abandoned traditional Slavic paganism and adopted Western Christianity maska's son balesa the brave expanded the territory South into what he hoped would be a strong Regional power but alas it was a bit too early for that still he established the Metropolitan sea at gno forming the headquarters of what would become the Catholic church in Poland his consolidation of power led him to be crowned Poland's first official King and then he died all in the same year which is great the PS dynasty was somewhat up and down and internal conflicts often plagued with the Royal Court until this guy kir the restorer restored the monarchy's control which come to think of it is probably why they called him the restorer he modernized Poland into a feudalist society which came with all those cool things like Knights and Lords and castles this helped secure the borders who up until now had changed depending on who was King the early Kingdom somewhat weaker than its neighbors and strapped for cash did however hold the Mongol invasion into Europe Europe having been sacked twice before notable of this time was the Polish relationship with the Germans whose dukes and Lords had come to possess large amounts of the West and the tonic Knights who had carved out a significant state for themselves in lonia and Prussia a land inhabited by pagans frequently raided by Crusaders by the time P drule ended with Kashmir the great Poland had lost much of its territory to its neighbors but with a period of Peace the state soon began to prosper and attract Jewish settlement the county in this area became a source of contention between the Kings of Poland and the Holy Roman Empire who fought over the local Lords for FY and Allegiance this resulted in these counties being very mixed with populations of people from both kingdoms the whole thing was very un Bohemian really the Jews first settled Poland as merchants on popular trade routes by this Century the Jewish people had settled in great numbers over many kingdoms in Europe and began their long and very sad history they were expelled by the masses in all the countries they settled and were often victims of massacres and worse Crusades successive expulsions led the population in Poland to swell which was a comparatively more tolerant society which became a center of judaic learning and culture as the centuries continued however things weren't always super peachy and anti-jewish rs often erupted in Polish towns and synagogues were frequently burned King kajmir the great dying without an air left his kingdom to his nephew Lewis the king of Hungary Lewis left his now Three Kingdoms to his his daughters one of whom died unexpectedly the other who was supposed to inherit Poland but inherited Hungary instead and the last one yva who got Poland the Nobles of Poland welcomed Lewis's daughter and crowned her King yes King not Queen Don't Ask yet via's life would not be unlike a medieval television drama as she was simultaneously engaged to both the Grand Duke of Lithuania yala whose kingdom was huge and powerful and the hapsburg Duke of Austria who was inbred and fat I think she made the right choice the union of yva and vladislav formed the Polish Lithuanian Union which is now the largest country in Europe under a single monarchy the lithuanians had become a strong military power in the previous Century capturing large amounts of Russian and Mongol land the now combined countries spread from the Baltic to the Black Sea the lithuanians with their far smaller population never ventured too far from their castles why would you and prefer to rule renia from Leonia instead so by the time of the Union the much larger polish population came to dominate the ruthenian lands spreading the language and the culture eventually dwarfing their leonian allies the tonic order that German State on the Baltic had become somewhat of a bad neighbor leading raids Crusades and plundering castles or otherwise stumbling drunk into polish Lithuanian territory starting fires and whatnot the union of the two states proved beneficial handing the knights a crushing defeated at the Battle of granal in 1410 they also fought numerous Wars with the muscovites tartars and noteworthy of the eelan period was the efficiency of the feudal system and the pseudo Democratic nature of the parliament who set up sophisticated bureaucracy for King approval or disapproval if you are unlucky within just a few decades the tonic order had completely lost their state with the Western half being annexed directly into Poland and the rest becoming a faith of the Polish Crown this gave access of Poland to the prosperous Baltic Sea port and an explosion in trade keep your eye on this it becomes important later the Prussian Faith would later be inherited by Duke from Brandenburg a state within the Holy Roman Empire a trend which would become ever more Troublesome as Lords within the hre would increasingly inherit lands outside the Imperial borders the hre was weird don't worry about it acquiring Dan go Kad had huge economic benefits and cities swelled in size in response to the trade boom like pnan lau and the capital kov and most notably Warsaw Warsaw or vva in Polish was up to this point just a small fishing Village legend haszard that a fisherman named vsh happened upon a mermaid in the Vistula River named Shava the two married and found the town of ARA the Poes like most Europeans were often embroiled in wars and this made famous their heavy Cavalry the winged hasar which I'm sure I'll be mobbed and lynched if I don't talk about initially a contingent of Hungarian mercenaries the hassar soon became an elite shock Cavalry so powerful they allowed the polls to win many otherwise hopeless battles the hassar became the Envy of Europe the most powerful and disciplined heavy cavalry the Middle Ages had ever known and are still a matter of intense National symbolism of Poland the 16th century was a really big one and included the Protestant Reformation affecting mostly German parts of the Kingdom Wars against the encroaching Ottomans invading Europe advancing in science and literature with cernus devising the holocentric model of the solar system the Nationwide codification of the Polish language and the biggest one the changing of the Polish Lithuanian Union into the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth a single political entity ified by the Polish Parliament or same with elected rather than hereditary Kings the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth or just Poland for short became a center of power and commerce and a bullwark against invading Turks would become a larger and larger problem for the European powers since their humble beginnings in Central Asia during the Polish musite War the Poes became involved in the Russian succession crisis or the time of troubles and began flexing their muscles with their famous hassar they even occupied Moscow for a short period but were soon driven out because invading Russia is simply impossible unless you are the Mongols the series of Northern Wars and the Russa polish War left the Commonwealth in a very precarious and weakened State this was aggravated by the election of Polish Kings which opened the door for other nations to medal in Polish Affairs which they did a lot during the wars the Commonwealth lost the territory of Leonia and was devastated by the So-Cal Swedish Deluge leaving much of the nation in Ruins Poland became weakened during the Great Northern war war against Sweden and during the war of the Polish succession it became increasingly clear that Poland's fate was going to be decided by its neighbors the Polish Parliament became ineffective due to complicated veto laws which made passing reforms or mounting resistance to Invasion nothing if not impossible the political limbo and the sheer size of the Commonwealth started to make cutting pieces out of it look pretty attractive the last king of Poland stanislav II was elected in 1764 as a puppet of the Russian Empire AED great L by the fact that he was in bed with Katherine the Great stanislav did attempt reform to try and save face but was aware the kingdom was on its last breath before long the first partition of Poland was enacted dividing the outlying provinces between Austria Prussia and Russia in D Straits the parliament was powerless to stop the invading troops and forced to ratify the new borders the great same tried once more to reform by drafting a former Constitution inspired by the Liberties of the French Revolution but it was to provoke Russia again who saw France as an enemy and Poland as a sympathizer to anti-monarchical Sentiments Pro and anti-constitutional forces became embroiled in a war and Russian forces invaded to broker a defeat to the Republican movement with an agreement signed with Prussia the two Nations annexed more territory in the second partition reducing Poland to 1/3 its size and population the King was horrifically unpopular the Army was in shambles the parliament was divided and Powerless the common people were Furious and interactions led to the National rebellion led by the military veteran tados kushko after an initial success the rebels failed to Gar a support from many other nations and were defeated by the surrounding powers in 1795 the austrians prussians and Russians decided to put an end to the rebellious poles and invaded them from three sides the third partition of Poland as it became known wiped Poland off the face of the map for the next century millions of poles now found themselves subject to whichever Nation they were divided into isolated from one another and Poland ceased to exist a Poland left beaten a Poland left broken stripped of their right to assembly and the right to their language a multiethnic population now absorbed into three separate Empires with tensions with France rising in the west and all three of these nations coming into Napoleon's crosshairs what was the future of Poland to be the turn of the century brought with it uncertainty rebellion and hiding beneath it all a spark of nationalism ready to be stoked life under Imperial rule wasn't great and the polls began searching for a way out almost immediately restrictions had been placed on their language and religion they were treated as second class citizens many musicians Artisans poets and Engineers all fled political persecution and lived out their days in Exile a people hard to Quest well a people in search of solidarity if only they could get help from someone on the outside Napoleon A desperate a tyrant a threat to the monarchy or a champion of the Republic a breaker of subjugations a military genius with bold ambition Napoleon was all of these things and none of them but to the polls to the polls he was hope Poland ended up being an important Ally ofp during his Coalition Wars and he had granted them autonomy under the duy of Warsaw in gratitude for their help but after the failed invasion of Russia the poles found themselves once again occupied by the advancing Russians who then annexed more territory than they had in the partitions the brief Rebellion by the Polish people now vanished with Napoleon's Exile so was it all for nothing then well not really the age of rebellion kept alive the spark that had burned brightly with Napoleon Uprising after Uprising was fought and each generation was taught of the one that had preceded it inspiring new resentment and new Rebellion the polls found solidarity in their religion their language and their Customs eventually forming a romantic nationalism that would not be snuffed out instead of being successful militarily they were successful in keeping the Polish Spirit Alive along with influential people like mkich and shopin as the decades crept by and the hope for Poland seemed lost there began to appear some light on the horizon the prussians and austrians had gone to war for supremacy of a German nation state and Germany had been born out of the rubble this for many reasons was not good suddenly Europe's intricate balance of power had been destroyed a war for dominance over the continent seems inevitable in hindsight to us now but in those days it was diplomats who saw the coming danger pressure was building diplomacy was failing power was imbalanced something had to give but what World War I had begun with Austria and Serbia but soon turned into a multi- Alliance paneuropean War fought on every part of the continent the former allies of Austria Germany and Russia were now enemies the former polish lands were the epicenter of the Eastern front and polish armies fought on both sides and both sides were promising the polls their freedom in exchange for their help eventually the Russians and Romanians would be defeated and forced to hand over all their polish lands to Germany in a peace treaty setting up an occupied piece of territory for Polish people they more than likely had no intention of letting them keep but with Russia knocked out of the war the Americans had ented it and one of woodro Wilson's 14 Points was support for a liberated Poland with the defeat of Germany in 1918 polish officials reclaimed much of their former territory and ysf pki was installed as the new leader of Poland after 123 years of foreign rule but the fight was not over the Bolshevik Revolution had left Russia to fight a brutal Civil War and once it was over the Red Army set its sights on the Polish lands they had recently lost the brave polish armies lined up to defend their Homeland defending their capital of Warsaw they stood ready for battle against all the odds the poles would go on to lead a seemingly miraculous defeat of the Red Army in a stunning display of incredible bravery and Military prowess the second polish Republic was here to stay polish leader ysf pudi envisioned the recreation of the Multicultural Poland of the past and reflected in this the second polish Republic was among the most diverse in the world at the time the next few years usually called the interwar period was dominated by strong political rhetoric radical ideas and a high focus on foreign policy that being being said it wasn't the most stable government there were even a couple of coups here and there across the border in Germany things were pretty bad as well the crippled economy and political turmoil had allowed a radical like Adolf Hitler to come to power in 1933 introducing sweeping reforms of government and seizing dictatorial like Powers it was not long before Poland came into Hitler's crosshairs invading the Republic would allow Hitler to attain many of his short-term goals such as seizing the industrial hardland and reaffirming Germany as a military power but also his long-term goals of eradicating Jews and other undesirables and invading his arch Rivals the Communist USSR but in a completely unexpected move the Germans signed the molotov ribbon Tru pact secretly dividing Poland into two spheres of influence hoping to buy their time and not fight a two-front war good job guys I think that'll work out the German Army invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939 beginning the second world war they were the first to taste the German Blitz Creek a radical new form of lightning Warfare designed to punch deep into Enemy Lines and surround them cutting off their defenses Poland was not ready for this Europe was not ready for this the world was not ready for the blitz C Poland fought bravely in defense of their Homeland but they were defeated in a few short weeks or saw being heavily bombed until September 27th just to briefly clear something up one myth spread by German propaganda was the ineptitude of the Polish Army using sabered Cavalry against the German panzas which is completely false there is no record of this ever happening and both sides had highly armed Cavalry units it wasn't that uncommon the fall of Warsaw however would not be the end of the fight thousands of troops Evac evacuated and joined the armies of the Allied powers and continue to fight throughout the war many thousands more civilians and soldiers went into underground resistance in towns and forests to continue fighting the Germans and the Russians Poland was one of the worst faed nations in World War II combined military and civilian casualties Poland lost the highest percentage of any population in the war with 1/5th of Polish citizens dying in combat or in Mass executions of the 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust half of them were polish as the Red Army Advanced into polish territory in 1944 the Army in warsa rebelled against the German occupiers they hoped that the Soviets would join them to retake the city from the Nazis but this would not happen the Soviets were not their allies nor did they come as liberators and stopped outside of Warsaw and watched and waited as the German orted the Polish resistance ignoring their Radio Calls for help once the Polish Army was killed and the Germans had retreated the Red Army marched into the pile of rubble where warsa had once stood the Red Army had also uncovered the brutal death camps in Poland set up to exterminate Jews and other minority groups by the Nazis news of this horror would soon spread throughout the world with the Polish foreign army and the domestic Army now fighting on both fronts the European theater ended with the joint occupation of Germany by the Allied armies in the west and the Red Army in the east in 1945 Poland lay in waste and ruins swapping out one occupying army with another and one madman dictator for another For Better or Worse the Red Army was once again on polish soil and the atrocities and war crimes they committed on their Advance meant that their stay would likely be an unpleasant one uncertainty was on everyone's mind the citizens of this central European nation could feel Stalin's cold clammy hands at their throat would their sovereignty stay intact would they remain a people inspired by Liberty and stoicism how could they face the challenge of rebuilding their nation and come to terms with the brutality of the Holocaust as the British French and Americans strained their eyes to watch and see what the Soviet government was going to do next their view became obscured by a giant iron curtain Poland's post 1945 state was one that was pretty unrecognizable from anything that came before it the most glaring detail was the new Republic's borders the Soviet Union forcibly annexed the eastern half of the nation that had originally invaded in September of 1939 in compensation for this they awarded Poland the territories of cesia Pomerania and Prussia from Germany multiples of millions of Poes and Germans were forcibly expelled from their respective homes in the largest ethnic redistribution in history after the war the infamous nurmberg trials tried the Nazi leaders for the Holocaust and war crimes committed on polish soil the Soviets escaped similar trials for their own war crimes since they joined the Allies in the late stages of the war the Soviet regime would never answer for the Katan Massacre of 22,000 polish officers the deportation of 1.6 million PS to Stalin's gulags or the rape and pillage committed by the Red Army Poland remained behind the Iron Curtain as a puppet state for the Soviet Union the Soviet regime set up the Polish United Workers Party a Communist Party creating what we now call the Polish People's Republic an important Eastern block member and buffer state to the West the Warsaw Pact signed in 1955 as an opposition to Nato gave the Bolsheviks greater control over Poland's Army the government of pre-war Poland remained in Exile in the UK and was refused to be recognized by Stalin the Cold War loomed as both East and West became nuclear Powers the Western allies secretly began talks of starting a third war to defeat the Soviet Union called operation Unthinkable however this was a abandoned as nuclear bombs changed the nature of War completely the first few years were the most brutal land industry and infrastructure were seized by the government and rather than wealth distribution and prosperity the resulting brand of socialism simply created a method of resource and value extraction to the Soviet Union this was called the stalinist era an era characterized by Untold poverty in true Iron Curtain fashion Poland stood close to the front lines of a clash of ideology the student strike in 1968 against the regime was brutally suppressed this decade would also see what remained of Poland's Jewish population immigrate in Mass to Israel ending the Jewish chapter in Polish history by 1970 the PO cities of gadin Ginia and schin exploded in protests as these areas were subject to particularly harsh working and living conditions the government would crack down and protests would continue in 1976 and again in 1980 by which point the government was $20 billion in debt Le vowa started the first Workers Union called solidarity quickly becoming a political lobbyist group for change solidarity organized the first Nationwide worker strike in 1981 the Government tried in vain to enact martial law to stop the spread of chaos however the Winds of Change were upon the Eastern block and in the 1989 election the Communists lost nearly all of the allowable contested seats in Parliament the wheel began turning and change was inevitable the Communist party was disbanded the Constitution amended and the centralized control of the economy was abolished the government in Exile was finally allowed to return home since then things have changed pretty drastically in 1999 the third polish Republic officially joined NATO signaling a huge Westward shift in foreign policy by 2004 they became part of the European Union helping stabilize the growing economy it has been a very long and hard Road for Poland the very center of World War II tensions in Poland had left the nation in rubble only to be then absorbed into the oppressive regime of Stalin's communist block a common observation made by no less than Winston Churchill is that while the war had brought an end to totalitarianism and tyranny in Western Europe in Eastern Europe it had really only just begun and sometimes it's important to remember that Poland's postcommunist Prosperity has made it one of the Eastern block success stories and who knows maybe one day Poland can into space [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Suibhne

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Id: bcYvYyQN29c

Length: 25min 30sec (1530 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 23 2024