This year it is eighty years since the restoration of Poland's western and northern lands, which belonged to the heritage of the Polish Crown, notabenes celebrating this year's millennium.
Anniversity is symbolic: the title of the second of the Piasts marks the legal beginning of our sovereign statehood – we are talking about the early mediate Ages. The restoration of the Polish state's lands, which were under the authority of the Polish Crown or were an inheritance of the ruling family, was and is simply a real restitution of Poland, even in a somewhat wider shape, due to the fact that before a 1000 years the lands in the north-east (later Warmia and Mazury) were not subordinate to the Piast rulers. However, 1 can callback present the seldom repeated thesis that in 1945 the most far-reaching (so far) territorial restoration of the Polish state within the first borders of 1000 years ago took place.
Critics of this task will immediately rise the larum on the "IVth partition of Poland" of 1945, due to the fact that in the same year we lost (as if) the alleged Kresa, or east part of the Polish state within the limits of 1921. This is, of course, a political thesis, but completely a historical one. Before a 1000 years ago, the lands of the Piast rulers did not scope further east than now and only approached from the west to the so-called. Curzona Line: Our east neighbours were Russian principalities (especially the Duchy of Kiev), and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was not yet present. True, nearly 4 100 years later, Giedyminovich became the ruler of Poland, namely Olgirdowicz, Duke of Yogaiła, but contrary to the contents of the EU papers signed at the time, no (applicare) heritage of Giedyminovich was actually attached to the Polish Crown: they were 2 states connected by a individual of the ruler (personal union). It is actual that nearly 2 100 years later, the last of Jagiełła's descendants joined the Polish Crown in the confederate part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but it was a way of forcing Lithuanian masters to consent to the Lublin Union.
I will not proceed the historical theme. The conclusion is rather simple: if we build our identity on the national tradition and the Polish community, 1945 was an effective effort to recreate the Polish state in its first shape. Earlier attempts to open the no longer existing union of states – the Polish Crown and the states created on the lands of the erstwhile Grand Duchy of Lithuania failed. Not only as a consequence of 1 of the “tradings of the West” and conquests from the russian Union: most ethnically inhabited areas of the erstwhile Grand Duchy of Lithuania did not want a relation with Poland, worse, were anti-Polish (maybe but for Belarusians). Moreover, subsequent governments in Warsaw (after 1989) recognise the full right of those nations to self-determination, their own statehood and have no territorial claims to lands east of the current Polish border. Let me remind you that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (not the Crown) included the lands of Liwonia, or part of the present Latvia, and even for a time Smolenszczyzna, or part of the present Russia.
A confirmation of this state of affairs is the full support for the "fighting Ukraine" and the deficiency of support for Polish national places in Ukraine and Lithuania, which are frequently in deep dispute over their number rights with the governments of these countries. So there is something to celebrate: the millennium of the Polish Crown and full restitution of the Polish state within historical limits. However, it is improbable that the celebrations will be initiated by our pro-German (officially pro-European) parliamentary majority.
Prof. Witold Modzelewski
Think Poland, No. 15-16 (13-20.04.201025)
