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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Christmas in Poland

A szopka krakowska (example pictured left) is a nativity scene traditionally constructed in Kraków during the Christmas season. Its distinctive feature is the use of architectural details of Kraków's historical landmarks as a backdrop for the nativity of Jesus.

Christmas carol singing has long been a popular tradition in Poland. The oldest known Polish carols date back to the 15th century. Among the most beloved (recordings listed right) are the lulling "Lulajże, Jezuniu" ("Sleep, Little Jesus"), the joyful "Dzisiaj w Betlejem" ("Tonight in Bethlehem"), and the majestic "Bóg się rodzi" ("God is Born").

Media related to Polish Christmas carols at Wikimedia Commons

Lulajże, Jezuniu

Dzisiaj w Betlejem

Bóg się rodzi

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From Polish history – show another

The "Cake of Kings", a 1773 engraving by Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune

The First Partition of Poland took place in 1772 as the first of three partitions that ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. Growth in the Russian Empire's power, threatening the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg Austrian Empire, was the primary motive behind this first partition. The weakened Commonwealth's land, including that already controlled by Russia, was apportioned among its more powerful neighbors—Austria, Russia and Prussia—so as to restore the regional balance of power in Eastern Europe among those three countries. With Poland unable to effectively defend itself and with foreign troops already inside the country, the Polish parliament ratified the partition in 1773 during the Partition Sejm convened by the three powers. (Full article...)

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Stanisław Ulam

Stanisław Ulam (1909–1984) was a Polish-American mathematician. Born into a wealthy Polish Jewish family, Ulam earned his D.Sc. in mathematics at the Lwów Polytechnic Institute in 1933. He then worked on the ergodic theory at Harvard University, shuttling between Poland and America, and ultimately settled in the United States after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, becoming an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1943, Ulam joined the Manhattan Project, where he made hydrodynamic calculations to predict the behavior of explosive lenses for an implosion-type nuclear weapon. After the war, he became an associate professor at the University of Southern California, but returned to Los Alamos in 1946 to help Edward Teller develop the Teller–Ulam design of thermonuclear weapons. Ulam contributed to such fields of mathematics as set theory, topology, transformation theory, group theory, projective algebra, number theory, combinatorics, and graph theory. With Enrico Fermi and John Pasta, he studied the Fermi–Pasta–Ulam problem, which became the inspiration for the vast field of nonlinear science. Ulam is perhaps best known for realising that electronic computers made it practical to apply statistical methods to functions without known solutions, and as computers have developed, the Monte Carlo method he invented has become a standard approach to many physical and mathematical problems. (Full article...)

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Słupsk town hall

Słupsk is a city on the Słupia River, 18 km away from the Baltic Sea coast. It dates back to a medieval Slavic settlement on a ford along a trade route connecting eastern and western parts of Pomerania. Incorporated in 1265, the town gradually fell under Brandenburgian rule, becoming a German town known as Stolp. In Polish hands since the end of World War II, Słupsk is developing thanks to local footwear industry and a bus factory owned by Scania. With the election of Robert Biedroń in 2014, it became the first town in Poland with an openly gay mayor. (Full article...)

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Did you know – show different entries

... that the National Museum of Wrocław (pictured) holds one of the largest collections of contemporary art in Poland, extending even to the museum's remodelled attic?
... that hundreds of thousands of art pieces were looted from Poland during World War II by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
... that Solidarity trade union leader Lech Wałęsa was a target of fake police reports produced by the Communist secret service in the People's Republic of Poland?
... that the Keret House in Warsaw is the world's narrowest residential building?

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Poland now

Recent events

On 6 December, Stanisław Tym (pictured), 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.
On 14 September, southwestern Poland was hit by severe floods caused by heavy rains brought by Storm Boris.

Ongoing
Constitutional crisis • Belarus–EU border crisis • Ukrainian refugee crisis • Polish presidency of the Council of the EU

Holidays and observances in January 2025
(statutory public holidays in bold)

New Year, 1 January
Three Kings' Day (carolers pictured), 6 January

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Lubiąż Abbey

Credit: P.R.Schreyner

Baroque interior of the main refectory of a Cistercian abbey in Lubiąż (German: Leubus), Lower Silesia. The abbey, dating back to the 12th century, is one of the world's largest Christian architectural complexes.