(1) Poland: Political History and Notable Figures

960 - 1370 - House of Piast / Piast Dynasty (All Facts)

• First and Founding Dynasty / House of the Kingdom / Duchy of Poland

• Founded by Prince / Duke Mieszko

960 - 992 - Mieszko (All Facts)

• First Ruler of Poland and of the Piast Dynasty / House of Piast of Poland

• He established Poland into a unified and powerful state

• He defeated the Slav tribes between the Oder and Vistula Rivers

• He converted to Christianity, having accepted baptism, and thus made Poland a Christian Kingdom by the start of his reign

  • He turned to Rome, in which Poland became a diocese directly attached to the Holy See

  • He did this due to

    • fears of Otto the Great’s expansionism in Germany

    • attraction to the superior level of civilization already established by and associated with Christianity such as its

      • Books

      • Ceremonies

      • Links with the Roman past

  • His wife already had taken the lead and was already baptized prior to his own acceptance of baptism

  • This thus established a religious but also political alliance between Poland and the Holy Roman Empire

992 - 1025 - Boleslaw (All Facts)

• Second Ruler of Poland, First King of Poland (and the 2nd King of the House of Piast / Piast Dynasty)

  • He was nicknamed “The Brave”

  • He continued the Polish alliance with the Holy Roman Empire started by his predecessor

  • He was crowned having received the pope’s blessing

• He defeated Henry II of the Holy Roman Empire / Germany in a series of wars that ended with the Peace of Bautzen, conflicts during which

  • He exploited anarchy in Bohemia to attack Moravia, Silesia, and Krakow as well as Lusatia and Milsko

  • His gains were consolidated in the Peace of Batzen

• When Henry II of the Holy Roman Empire died, he established Poland as a sovereign state independent of the Holy Roman Empire, severing the alliance begun by his predecessor, and thus became Poland’s first real king

1107 - 1138 - Boleslaw III (All Facts)

• 13th Ruler of Poland and the Final Ruler of the Piast Dynasty / House of Piast of Poland

• He strengthened Poland and expanded its rule to the west and north

• His will split Poland into four principalities

1296 - 1305 - Wenceslaus II (All Facts)

• 37th Ruler of Poland

1305 - 1306 - Wenceslaus III (All Facts)

• 38th Ruler of Poland

• He was murdered

1320 - 1333 - Vladyslav (All Facts)

• 39th King of Poland

  • He was nicknamed “The Short”

  • He was already the ruler of Kujavia on the lower Vistula River

• He slowly but steadily worked to reunify Poland

• He declared war on the Teutonic Knights

1333 - 1370 - Casimir III (All Facts)

• 40th King of Poland

  • He was nicknamed “The Great”

  • Upon ascending the throne, his kingdom was threatened on all sides

• He

  • repulsed a Mongol invasion

  • created well-defined national frontiers

  • abandoned the war with the Teutonic Knights started by his predecessor

  • annexed Galicia

• He

  • encouraged the immigration of Jews

    • to serve as tax-collectors and bankers

    • who had fled from their being massacred by

      • the Flagellants

      • other groups during the Black Death

  • gave peasants the right to migrate from one place to another

• He

  • established a firm and efficient administration

  • codified the laws of the land

• Under his reign,

  • Poland experienced strong economic growth

  • The University of Krakow was founded

• He died in a hunting accident

1370 - 1382 - Louis (All Facts)

• 41st King of Poland

1384 - 1399 - Jadwiga (All Facts)

• 42nd Queen of Poland

  • She had hoped to marry a Prince of Austria, at first resisting the idea of union with the pagan Jagello, the Grand Duke of Lithuania

  • She was eventually persuaded by Polish lords and priests to sacrifice herself for Poland’s sake

• During her reign, she laid the foundations for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth via marriage to Jagello, the Grand Duke of Lithuania

  • They did this in order to unite their two kingdoms against the Teutonic Order, their common enemy

  • The marriage also ended the two kingdoms’ longstanding rivalry

  • The marriage also led to the Lithuanian adoption of Christianity

  • Despite the namesake’s youth, her royal dignity, which was legally equal that of her husband Jagello, worked out well in practice

• Under her reign,

  • Lithuanian nobbles proceeded to adopt the manners and traditions of the Polish aristocracy

1386 - 1434 - Wladyslaw II / Jagiello (All Facts)

• 42nd King of Poland

1434 - 1444 - Wladyslaw III (All Facts)

• 43rd King of Poland

• He vanished after the Battle of Varna

• He was succeeded by his namesake brother

1447 - 1492 - Casimir IV (All Facts)

• 44th King of Poland

1506 - 1529 / 1548 - Sigismund (All Facts)

• 47th King of Poland

  • He eventually co-ruled with his successor

  • He ruled for more than 40 years

  • He was Catholic and kept Poland a Catholic state in the midst of the Protestant Reformation

  • He was considered blessed with a strong character and considerable political perception

• During his reign,

  • He established serfdom in Poland

  • He implemented a series of financial reforms

  • He enforced strong measures against Lutherans, anxious to unite his realm of Poland to the Catholic Church in Rome

    • He introduced death at the stake for anyone who imported heretical books

    • He ordered all his subjects attending heretical universities abroad to return home

    • He brought in a similar penalty to burning at the stake for subjects who disobeyed his order to return home from heretical universities

    • These edicts of his, however, were widely ignored

• He attended the First Congress of Vienna, where he

  • forged an alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian and King Vladislaus II of Bohemia and King of Hungary

• He and his Polish-Lithuanian forces were defeated by Vasily III and his Muscovite forces in the Fourth Muscovite-Lithuanian War / Ten Years’ War

  • He was forced to sign an armistice treaty with Vasily III, forced to settle with Vasily III after Vasily III had made a defensive alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, creating papal concern about the conflict and having brought pressure from the Catholic Church on the namesake to settle

  • At one point during this war, however, he and his forces defeated Vasily III and his Russian forces

• He imposed his rule on Wallachia

• He stamped his authority on East Prussia

• Under his reign,

  • Poland was at its peak

  • Poland had been (profoundly) influenced by the Italian Renaissance

  • Nicolas Copernicus proposed the “Heliocentric Theory” of the Universe

• He died in Cracow, in which he was buried in his namesake monument / tomb at Wawel Cathedral

1529 / 1548 - 1572 - Sigismund II Augustus (All Facts)

• 48th King of Poland and Final King of Poland from the House of Jagiellon

  • He initially co-ruled with his predecessor

• During his reign,

  • The Union of Lublin was established

    • His lands thus stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Dniester River

• He died with no heir

1569 - 1795 - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (All Facts)

• State which stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Dniester River

• State established via the Union of Lublin, during the reign of Sigismund II Augustus

• State which was officially Catholic but which was (initially) tolerant of Orthodox and Protestant Christians as well as Jews

• State in which the King had to work through the Polish parliament despite his many various powers and prerogatives

1573 - 1575 - Henry / Henry III of France (All Facts)

• 49th King of Poland

  • He was from the House of Anjou

  • He was the brother of King Charles IX of France

  • His election in Poland was secured by Catherine de Medici (his mother)

    • She by dint of propaganda and persuasion succeeded in building up a pro-French party among the Polish nobles

  • He became the first “elected” king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

  • He was elected by some 40K Polish nobles and gentry, who assembled for the election on the Warsaw plain

  • He was considered devious, egotistical, and effeminate

  • His election by the Polish nobles and coronation was precipitated by the death of his predecessor, who had no heir

• During his reign,

  • He had to face a hostile nobility which wanted to keep effective power

  • The powers of the Polish crown were being drastically reduced, as Poland was going to be governed by its Senate, rather than the crown head on

• He eventually lost interest in Polish power as a result of the aforementioned developments

1576 - 1586 - Stephen Bathory, of Transylvania (All Facts)

• 50th King of Poland

  • He was initially the Prince of Transylvania

  • His rule was supported by the Ottoman Empire

  • He was “elected” King of Poland

  • He ruled for ten years

  • He had a forceful personality and was an experienced soldier

• He created a big Christian empire in eastern Europe which prevented Tsar Ivan IV and Russia from overtaking those territories

  • However, the Poles did not support the almost limitless personal ambitions he had

• He had the same problem as his predecessors, which was failing to banish from his mind the thought of his native country (Transylvania) which had a fear-reaching effect on both his domestic and foreign policy

• He died suddenly and was succeeded

1587 - 1632 - Sigismund III Vasa (All Facts)

• 51st King of Poland

  • He was the son of King John III of Sweden

  • He was “elected” by some 15K voters who preferred him to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II

• He and his Polish-Lithuanian forces

  • defeated

    • Tsar Vasily IV and his Russian and Swedish forces in the First Russo-Polish War

      • He had his son Ladislaus IV installed as the succeeding Tsar of Russia

  • were defeated by

    • Gustavus Adolphus and his Swedish forces in the Fourth Polish-Swedish War

    • Gustavus Adolphus and his Swedish forces in the Fifth Polish-Swedish War

• Under his reign,

  • The Confederation of Vilna made it so that various branches of the church in Poland unite against the power of the Roman (Catholic) Church

  • Protestant churches in Poznan (in Poland) were demolished, as part of his rule during the Catholic Counter-Reformation

  • The Truce of Altmark was made (with Sweden)

1632 - 1648 - Ladislaus IV (All Facts)

• 52nd King of Poland

• He and his Polish-Lithuanian forces

  • defeated the Russian forces in the Siege and War of Smolensk

    • Upon his arrival, the town was relieved

    • He obtained support of the Dnieper Cossacks, who had been disillusioned by Russia’s failure to come to their aid previously

    • He offered an armistice to the leader of the Russian forces, which he accepted and permitted the remaining 8K Russian forces to retire

1648 - 1668 - John II Casimir Vasa (All Facts)

• 53rd King of Poland

1615 - 1672 - Władysław Siciński (All Facts)

• He was a deputy of the General Sejm (Polish-Lithuanian Parliament) who exercised his veto power for the first time, voicing his disagreement with the prolongation to Sejm

  • after a vote on increased taxes

  • because he wanted to go home