Poland

POLAND. - I. GEOGRAPHY. - Poland, as constituted after the Second World War (1945), presents great differences from the state that existed between 1918 and 1939. Poland in fact had to cede to the U.S.S.R. its eastern territories (180,000 sq. km.), obtaining in compensation from Germany part of East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia (103,000 sq. km.). The borders of the new Poland, although not yet definitive (they will be so after the peace with Germany), are formed on the W. by the Oder and the Neisse (Neisse) and on the E. by the Bug. The coastline on the Baltic is now much more extensive (497 instead of 140 km.) and the southern border rests on the Carpathians.

Poland today has an area of 312,000 sq. km. - predominantly consisting of lowlands - which even climatically forms a transitional territory between Central and Eastern Europe. Taking into account the very grave losses of human life suffered during the last war (6-7 million), and the forced population movements subsequently carried out (expulsion of the Germans and of the alloglot minorities; transfer within the new territory of the Poles living in the zones ceded to the U.S.S.R.), Poland is today a state with a rather homogeneous ethnic and religious (Catholic) structure, and certainly far more so than in 1939. In 1951 it is calculated that the population was 25 million inhabitants (80 per sq. km.); distributed rather unevenly, with regional minimums of 20-25 inhabitants per sq. km. (in the E.) and maximums of over 1000 (around the major centers). 65% of this population lives in the countryside; the cities are numerous and about twenty of them now exceed 100,000 inhabitants. Warsaw, the capital, has 650,000 (1.3 million in 1939), Łódź 660,000, Kraków, Poznań and Wrocław over 300,000.

Poland is a predominantly agricultural state with rich cereal cultivation and substantial production of potatoes, sugar beet, flax, hemp, rapeseed, tobacco and hops. The livestock patrimony, almost reconstituted, counts, among other things, over 6 million cattle, about 6 million pigs and 3 million horses; the forest patrimony (22% of the territorial area) is likewise notable. Coal (Silesia) and petroleum (Carpathians) guarantee the country the energy necessary for the strengthening of a varied and vital industry, which already has wide development there, benefiting also, in the western provinces, from the previous equipment. Iron and steel, metallurgy, textile, chemical and electrotechnical industries all allow notable surpluses for export. To commerce the new Poland offers conditions far better than the old: broader access to the sea, where there are now at least four ports (Danzig, Gdynia, Stettin and Kolberg), a more efficient network of ordinary roads and railways and a wider clientele.

Poland is constituted as a unitary republic, called people's according to communist phraseology, with an elected president and diet (Sejm); a council of State and a government constituted in different ways, the latter two being organs of executive power.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Origins and the Piast dynasty (963-1370). - The true history of P. begins with Mieszko I (963-92), of the Piast dynasty, which came from the tribe of the Polans (region of Poznań and Gniezno). Mieszko I united the other Polish tribes around the Polans and resisted the advance of the German imperial forces; defeated in 963, he took his revenge in 967 and 972. The most significant act of the reign of Mieszko I is the Christianization of P. (966), to which his wife, the Czech Dombrowka or Dubrawka, was not extraneous. Thus P. entered the sphere of Roman-Western Christianity. The first Polish bishopric is that of Poznań (968), missionary in character and directly dependent on Rome. The first Polish national document, the much-discussed "Dagome (or "Dagone") iudex", dates to 985-92, by virtue of which P. was offered to the Patrimony of St. Peter.

Mieszko I was succeeded by his son Boleslaus I (992-1025), who extended the borders of P. to the west as far as the Elbe and the Elster, to the south the Danube and to the north the Baltic; he occupied Prague (1003), entered Kiev (1018) and reannexed Red Ruthenia (region of Lviv), which had been taken from his father (981). At first at peace with the Empire, Boleslaus I met with Otto III at Gniezno in 1000, then waged war against Henry II (1002-18), which ended with the victorious peace of Budziszyn (Bautzen). He supported the mission of St. Adalbert among the Slavs, on the southern shores of the Baltic, and the Prussians. He founded many monasteries, called monks from Italy (Camaldolese of St. Romuald), from Germany, Bohemia and Hungary; at Gniezno he oversaw the foundation of the first Polish ecclesiastical province (1000), with the suffragan dioceses of Wrocław (Breslau), Kołobrzeg and Kraków; he also protected the missionary work of St. Bruno on the eastern borders of P. In 1024 Boleslaus I assumed the royal crown. The reign of his son, Mieszko II (1025-34), was unhappy. Attacked from all sides (Empire, Bohemia and Ruthenia), he had to capitulate before Emperor Conrad II (1033); he nevertheless continued his father's religious work and oversaw, it seems, the foundation of the diocese of Kuyavia (Włocławek), with its seat at Kruszwica. During the interregnum, 1034-1038, a violent pagan reaction ruined the ecclesiastical organization of the first three Piasts. It was the son of Mieszko II, Casimir I (1038-58), who restored it, with the favor of the Empire. For reasons of security the capital was moved to Kraków. At first only the two dioceses of Kraków and Wrocław were reconstituted, with clergy coming from Germany.

His son, Boleslaus II the Bold (1058-79), emulated the deeds of his ancestor Boleslaus. In the Investiture Controversy he stood decisively with Gregory VII, who in 1076 sent his legates to renew the metropolitan see of Gniezno. To this period, probably, dates the foundation of the diocese of Mazovia, with its seat at Płock. On 25 Dec. 1076 Boleslaus was consecrated king by the new metropolitan Bogumił. But Boleslaus had Stanislaus, bishop of Kraków, killed, who had probably reproached him for his cruelty toward the opponents who had taken advantage of an expedition against Kiev to rise up. The violent death of Stanislaus provoked such indignation in P. that the king had to seek refuge in Hungary. He was succeeded by his brother Władysław Herman (1079-1102). Of a peaceful nature, he was compliant with the Empire and submitted to German influence.

Boleslaus III Wrymouth (1107-38), unlike his father, renewed the deeds of his predecessors by conquering Pomerania between the Vistula, Szczecin and beyond (1109) and defeating Emperor Henry V (1110). He took great care of the interests of the Church, promoted the foundation of the diocese of Lubusz on the Oder (1124) and the restoration of that of Kuyavia, whose seat was transferred to Włocławek (Władysławów). Around 1104 Boleslaus received the papal legate Gwalon, bishop of Beauvais; following this visit a synod was held in P. that implemented the Gregorian reforms.

By the testament of Boleslaus III, P. was divided into four duchies, assigned to his sons; this disintegration of the Kingdom lasted from 1138 to 1305 with violent struggles among the sons of Boleslaus III, then among his grandsons and finally among the various branches of the dynasty, weakening it extremely.

Proof of this is the submission of Boleslaus IV to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1157), reaffirmed in 1173, and of Casimir the Just in 1184. Pomerania and Gdańsk detached from P. In 1226 Conrad, duke of Mazovia, in order to defend himself from the Prussians and carry out missionary work among them, brought the Order of the Teutonic Knights into northern P. This date marked for P. the beginning of repeated disputes with the Order. In 1241 P. suffered the great Tatar invasion, the first of ninety others until 1697, both Tatar and Turkish. The external danger made felt the need to reunify the ancient Kingdom, which seemed achieved with the election of Premislaus II in 1295. But the following year the King was assassinated. Amid new turmoil, Wenceslaus II of Bohemia occupied the Polish throne (1300-1305). At the death of the latter, Władysław the Short took power (1305-33), with whom the era of "Regional Division" ends. A politically unhappy period but fruitful from the religious point of view: the Church grew in strength and authority; the synods extended the Gregorian reforms (memorable is the work of the archbishop of Gniezno, Kietlicz). The Mendicant Orders came: the Dominicans in 1222, the Franciscans in 1236, and they established missions also on the eastern borders of P. Testimony to the deepening of religious faith is the significant number of blesseds and saints of this period (the blesseds Vincent Kadłubek and Ceslaus, St. Hyacinth, the forty Dominican martyrs of Sandomierz, the blesseds Bronisława, Salomea, Jolanta, Kinga, and St. Hedwig). The cult of St. Stanislaus became firmly established, becoming a symbol of national unity, and he was canonized by Innocent IV at Assisi in 1253. From the end of the 1300s the Catholic hierarchy arose in defense of the Polish language and customs against the encroachment of German colonists (Synod of Łęczyca of 1285, Jakub Świnka, archbishop of Gniezno). Władysław, opposing the Bohemian claims to the throne of P., assumed the royal crown at Kraków in 1320. He fought against the Teutonic Knights (Płowce, 1331) who had occupied Pomerania (massacre of Gdańsk, 1308), Kuyavia and the land of Dobrzyń, definitively establishing their seat at Malbork (1309); he did not, however, succeed in regaining the lost territory. Władysław too was faithful to the Roman Church. With his son, Casimir the Great (1333-70), a period of splendor for P. was inaugurated. A skilled diplomat, Casimir obtained from the Teutonic Knights (1343) the cession of Kuyavia and the district of Dobrzyń, abandoning Pomerania, obtained that Bohemia renounce its rights to the throne of P.; he turned Polish expansion toward Red Ruthenia and Podolia. At Halicz (1367) he founded the second Latin metropolis, which was later transferred to Lviv (1414). He codified, with the help of the clergy, the legislation of the country and established at Kraków, with the approval of Urban V, the University, modeled on that of Bologna, but without the Faculty of Theology (1364).

House of Hungary (1370-86). - With the death of Casimir the Great without heirs, the throne passed to Louis, king of Hungary, son of his sister. This personal union was not happy because Louis neglected the interests of P. To secure the Polish throne for his daughters, in contrast with the laws of the country, Louis granted the Polish nobility the first general privileges (Koszyce, 1374). The death of Louis was followed by a highly tumultuous interregnum (1382-84), brought about also by the resentment aroused by the detachment of Red Ruthenia (1378), willed by the king, and by his attempt to place a German pretender, the husband of his daughter Mary, on the throne of Kraków. The crisis was resolved by the decision of the Polish dignitaries to accept Louis's youngest daughter, Hedwig. She indeed came to Kraków and was crowned in 1384. Two years later, by decision of the nobles of Little Poland, Hedwig married the sovereign of Lithuania, Jagiello.

The Jagiellonians. Era of greatness (1386-1572). — The pacts of Krewo (1385) laid the foundations of the Polish-Lithuanian union. Having come to Kraków in 1386, Jagiello was baptized with the name Ladislaus and assumed the crown after his marriage to Hedwig. In 1387, he introduced Christianity first into Lithuania (where the Catholic bishopric of Wilno was established), and a few years later into Samogitia. At the same time Hedwig obtained the restitution of Red Ruthenia. An important event of Ladislaus's reign was the "Great War" with the Teutonic Knights, which culminated in the victory of Grunwald (1410) and which the Poles were unable to exploit, because the Teutonic Knights took up arms again between 1414 and 1424 and again between 1430 and 1433, though without success. At Horodlo (1413) the Polish nobility fraternized with the Lithuanian nobility, and the admirable preamble, dictated by the scholars of Kraków, to these pacts is a singular document of the nobility of purpose and the profound Christian spirit of the nation. In 1400 the University of Kraków was restored with the addition of the Faculty of Theology, by the explicit will of the queen, who had died the previous year in the odor of sanctity. Ladislaus was succeeded by his ten-year-old son Ladislaus, called of Varna (1434-44), under the guardianship of the great bishop of Kraków, Zbigniew Oleśnicki. The latter was a declared enemy of Bohemian Hussitism (for this reason the Czech crown was refused by Ladislaus Jagiello in 1420 and by Ladislaus of Varna in 1437) and devised a crusade against the Turks in the Balkans. When Ladislaus of Varna accepted the Hungarian crown in 1440, the struggle against the Turk began, which, after some initial successes, had a tragic outcome in the battle of Varna, in which the twenty-year-old king and the flower of the Polish and Hungarian armies fell. Casimir, Ladislaus's brother, then assumed the crown. During his long reign (1444-92) he pursued a policy of opposition to the magnates of the country in favor of the middle and lesser nobility; thus at the Convention of Nieszawa (1454) it was decreed that every law had to be approved by the small local diets, the "sejmiki," which by natural evolution progressed to the point of assembling in a first general Diet, the "sejm walný," that is, Parliament. Casimir waged a thirteen-year war against the Teutonic Order (1454-66) which ended with the Peace of Toruń, by which the master of the Order became a vassal of Poland, which recovered Pomerania with Danzig, the Culm land, Miechów, Warmia and the Marienburg region. Casimir's son later also held the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary.

Casimir was succeeded by his three sons John Albert (1492-1501), Alexander (1501-1506) and Sigismund I the Old (1506-48), as elective kings in Poland and hereditary grand dukes in Lithuania. The dynasty died out with Sigismund Augustus (1548-72), son of Sigismund I. The constitution "Nihil novi" (1505), signed by Alexander, confirmed all the privileges of the nobility and definitively sanctioned the principle that no law or military measure could be taken without the consent of the Diet (Sejm), of which the King, the Senate (the king's council) and the Chamber of Deputies elected by the sejmiki were part.

Under Sigismund the Old there was war with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which attempted an understanding with the Empire. To avert the danger the king had to consent that the sons of his brother, king of Bohemia and Hungary, should intermarry with the Habsburgs. In this period the Teutonic Order passed over to the Reformation, but Sigismund did not know how, or was unable, to exploit the favorable opportunity to occupy Prussia. The threat from Moscow induced Livonia to hand itself over to Sigismund (Treaty of Wilno, 1561). The Agreement of Lublin (1569) definitively sealed the union between Poles and Lithuanians, with the creation of the

"Rzeczpospolita": a true community of peoples (Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians) in full equality of rights and duties, with a common Polish-Lithuanian diet; it was also established that future kings would be elected by the nobility.

With the Jagiellonian dynasty, Poland reached its greatest splendor in every field. Especially the stupendous scientific, artistic and literary flowering made the Polish 16th century the "golden age" of national culture. Having overcome the infiltrations of the Hussites, the Church of Poland produced a new host of saints, such as St. John Kanty, the blessed Ladislaus of Gielniów, the blessed Simon of Lipnica, St. Casimir, son of King Casimir Jagiello, and others. It found itself unprepared, however, after 1518, when Lutheran ideas reached Poland. Soon sects began to swarm, among them Socinianism, and a good part of the nobility adhered to Calvinism; there were even demands for the establishment of a Polish national church headed by the king; Lutheranism was especially successful in the cities. The merit of having saved Poland belongs essentially to Stanislaus Hosius (f.v. 1504-79), who was aided by the Nuncio Commendone and by the best elements of the Polish clergy, among whom Karnkowski, Herburt, Solikowski and others stood out. In 1564 the king accepted the decisions and reforms of the Council of Trent brought to him by Hosius, who the following year invited the Jesuits into the kingdom. Thus the Catholic cause in Poland was saved.

Period of the elective kings (1572-1595). — When the House of the Jagiellonians died out, Poland gave itself certain constitutional norms for the election of new kings, whereby, during the vacancy, the first authority of the State (interrex) was the archbishop of Gniezno, to whom the Council of Constance had granted the primatial title; and it was decided that the nobility (siritim) should have the right to choose the new sovereign. Warsaw was designated as the place of the elections (the capital was transferred from Kraków to Warsaw only in 1596). The first elected king was Henry of Valois (1573-74), who had to swear, like his successors, the "pacta conventa" which fixed the limits of royal power.

After the very brief reign of Henry, Stephen Báthory (1575-86), described as the greatest of the Polish kings, took his seat on the throne of Kraków. Báthory pursued a far-sighted policy of tenacious firmness, aided by the excellent Polish statesman Jan Zamoyski. The king carried out internal reforms and gave full support to Catholicism, which, thanks above all to the efforts of the Jesuits, definitively defeated Protestantism. In 1578 the king transformed the Jesuit College of Wilno into an Academy. He waged a victorious war against Moscow (1579-81) and died while he was preparing an expedition against Turkey.

The Waza dynasty then came to the throne, with Sigismund III (1587-1632) and his two sons: Ladislaus IV (1632-48) and John Casimir (1648-68). In this period, even amid the exploits of the Polish hetmans, the signs of an incipient state disintegration were felt more gravely. Sigismund, a good Catholic, wishing to strengthen his power, provoked the rebellion of Zebrzydowski (1606). In attempting to seize the throne of Sweden he brought upon Poland a fruitless war with that power. Victorious in the war with Moscow, which was occupied by his army, he was unable to exploit the success. In 1596 at Brześć Litewski the union of the separate Polish Church with Rome was accomplished, of which the Polish Jesuit Peter Skarga (1536-1612) was the champion; yet there were illustrious victims, such as St. Josaphat Kuncewicz, archbishop of Polotsk (d. 1623) and the Jesuit St. Andrew Bobola (d. 1657). Ladislaus, more prudent than his father, succeeded in concluding peace with Turkey and Sweden. He dreamed of conquering the shores of the Black Sea, but the nobility did not support him. In the year of his death he saw the sudden outbreak of the Cossack rebellion under the leadership of Chmielnicki. The reign of John Casimir was tragically stormy: assailed from all sides (Cossacks, Moscow), with his territory occupied by the Swedes, the king sought refuge in Silesia; but he knew how to master adverse fortune. In 1660 the peace with Sweden was concluded at Oliwa (emancipation of Prussia) and in 1667 at Andruszów with Moscow (the Ukraine, on the left bank of the Dnieper, passed under the dominion of the Tsar). Under John Casimir there began to be exercised for the first time (1652) the so-called "liberum veto", that is, the breaking off of parliamentary debate through the opposition of even a single deputy. After the abdication of John Casimir the nobility elected the two "Piast" kings, that is, Polish ones, Michael Korybut-Wiśniowiecki (1669-73) and John III Sobieski (1673-1696), the hero of the great victories of Vienna and of Parkany in Hungary (1683), which helped to deal a mortal blow to Turkish power. After him foreigners began to lord it over the country. Indeed the last Polish kings, Augustus II of Saxony (1696-1733), his son Augustus III (1733-63) and finally Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski (1764-95) were placed on the throne with the intervention of other European powers.

In this period Poland touched the depths of its own decadence. After the battle of Poltava (1709), against the uncontested dominion of Russia and the intrigues of Prussia the Confederation of Bar (1768) sought to oppose itself, religious-national in character, whose animator was the Carmelite Marek Jandolowicz. Russia, Prussia and then also Austria responded with the first partition of Poland (1772). And when in the Four-Year Diet (1788-1792) the renewed Polish ruling class elaborated the famous Constitution known as that of 3 May (1791), judged by Herzberg, minister of Frederick William of Prussia, to be better than the English one, Russia and Prussia again opposed it and carried out the second partition (1793). Finally when the exasperated nation rose up with Kościuszko (1794), appealing to the peasant masses, Russia, Prussia and Austria sought to erase Poland definitively from the political map of Europe with the third partition (1795).

Century of slavery (1795-1918). - In the twenty years 1795-1815 the Poles looked with confidence to revolutionary France and then to Napoleon. But the latter did not fully satisfy the national aspirations. The Peace of Tilsit created only a surrogate of the ancient kingdom in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, formed from territories taken from Prussia and subsequently enlarged (1809) with some Polish regions torn from Austria. This State lived until the fall of the emperor. From the Congress of Vienna (1815) to the First World War the Polish geopolitical scheme remained by and large unchanged, with the exception only of the annexation of the free territory of Cracow by Austria in 1846 and of the two anti-Russian insurrections. The Poles lived incorporated within the borders of the three neighboring powers under different political conditions.

The part subject to Austria, called "Galicia", after the initial process of intense Germanization and insidious divisions of society (peasants stirred up against the nobles, the "Galician massacre", 1846) would enjoy, after 1866, a certain autonomy, becoming, with its cities of Cracow and Lwów and their Universities, the driving center of the nation's cultural life. The Prussian part, under the name of "Grand Duchy of Posen", through the fluctuations of Prussian policy, openly opposed by a single armed insurrection led by Mierosławski (1848), would become, after 1840, the theater of the most ruthless Germanization, accentuated under Bismarck. In the Russian part, the largest of all, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia, with the Ukraine, remained incorporated into Russia and the rest constituted the Kingdom of Poland (often called the "Congress Kingdom") with its own Parliament and army, united to the Russian imperial crown. And it was precisely here that the two successive insurrections (1830-31 and 1863-1864) would provoke profound changes. After 1831 the Statute of the Kingdom would disappear and after 1864 even the remnants of the limited autonomy would cease to exist. But precisely in these desolate conditions the Polish nation gave proof of a surprising vitality. Church and clergy were the inspirers and animators of its resistance. When Prussia attempted to weaken the primatial see of Gniezno, uniting it personally to the diocese of Posen (elevated for this purpose to archiepiscopal dignity in 1821), the clergy opposed it with extreme resolve. In the period of the Kulturkampf Archbishop Ledóchowski distinguished himself, the future cardinal of Propaganda Fide (d. 1902). Similarly in Austrian territory Catholic initiatives flourished, intended to gather the people around their clergy, in a courageous struggle of resistance against the centralizing Josephinism of the Habsburgs. The review "Przegląd powszechny" was founded, still in existence today, and the theology Faculties of Cracow and Lwów grew in prestige and authority. Russia attempted to separate the Polish Greek-Catholic Church from the Catholic Church, but found itself faced with a resolute action of resistance whose animators were the Basilians. The government showed a certain tolerance toward Catholics until the first revolution, then the situation worsened and became tragic after 1863. Felijski, archbishop of Warsaw, was deported and other bishops suffered the same fate, such as Krasinski, Popiel and Lubienski. The religious congregations were dissolved and the ecclesiastical Academy of Warsaw transferred to St. Petersburg in 1867. All these persecutions were not enough to dismember the religious unity of Poland. The emigrants, supported by the great poet Mickiewicz, gave life to the new religious Order of the Resurrectionists, which took upon itself the task of keeping high the religious conscience of their fellow countrymen. In this sense the Capuchins also worked in the territory of the "Congress Kingdom", carrying out an intense action of penetration from the bottom up.

Period of independence (from 1918 onward). - The outcome of the First World War allowed P. to regain its independence. Before and during the conflict, notable figures such as Dmowski and Pilsudski had fought for this goal. The Central Powers, teetering, in order to win the sympathies of the Poles created on Nov. 5, 1916 the Kingdom of P. with a regency council composed of the Archbishop of Warsaw Msgr. Kakowski and the princes Lubomirski and Ostrowski. Soviet Russia too declared itself in favor of independence (1917), which was made effective with the fall of the empires of Central Europe (1918). The Peace of Versailles traced the western frontiers of P., later corrected by the insurrections and the plebiscite in Silesia, which however did not secure for the country the longed-for access to the Baltic. The eastern frontiers were instead decided by the war with Russia (1918-20), which ended with the victory of the Poles in 1920, sealed by the Treaty of Riga (1921). The eastern frontiers were subsequently recognized by the western powers (1923). The early life of the Polish Republic was not easy. Nevertheless, in a short time the gravest wounds of the war were healed. In 1921 the first Constitution of the new P. was voted. 1924 is the year of the great monetary reform. With a coup d'état Pilsudski took power in May 1926. The second Constitution was drawn up in 1935.

Great too was the fervor of the religious rebirth: in 1920 a Catholic university was founded in Lublin and in 1925 the concordat with the Holy See was concluded. The architects of this awakening were, under the guidance of the Visitor, later first Apostolic Nuncio, Achille Ratti (v. 1910-21), the best personalities of the Polish episcopate, from Bilczewski, archbishop of the Latin rite in Lvov, to Msgr. Teodorovicz, archbishop of the Armenian rite in the same city, to the cardinals Hlond, primate of P., and Sapieha, archbishop of Cracow.

The outbreak of the Second World War found P. compact and united. Attacked on Sept. 1, 1939 by Germany, struck in the back by the U.S.S.R., P. fell. Millions of citizens perished in the German concentration camps, another hundreds of thousands were deported by the Russians. The supreme page of glory was written with the tragic insurrection of Warsaw (1944). Hence it is no wonder that at the Pacts of Yalta and Teheran, that is, at the umpteenth attempt at the partition of P., the nation responded with a solemn protest.

III. ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION

1. For the faithful of the Latin rite, P. has 5 metropolitan dioceses with 25 suffragan dioceses: a) Cracow, with the suffragans Częstochowa, Katowice, Kielce, Tarnów; b) Gniezno and Poznań, with the suffragans Chełmno and Włocławek; c) Lviv, with the suffragans Lutsk, Przemyśl; d) Warsaw, with the suffragans Łódź, Lublin, Płock, Sandomierz, Siedlce; e) Vilnius, with the suffragans Łomża, Pinsk. 2. For the faithful of the Armenian rite: the archdiocese of Lviv. 3. For the faithful of the Ruthenian rite: the metropolitan see of Lviv with the suffragans Przemyśl and Stanislav. 4. For the Ruthenian faithful of the Byzantine rite: the apostolic exarchate of Lemkowszczyzna.

IV. LEGAL STATUS OF THE CHURCH IN P

The juridical condition of the Church in P. is characterized by two significant facts: the denunciation of the Concordat by the provisional government in 1945 and the so-called agreement with the episcopate of 1950.

The Concordat with P. (AAS, 17 [1925], p. 273 ff.) dated back to 1925 (signed on 10 February, entered into force on 2 August) and assured the Church a broad freedom of action in the sphere of its competence, regulating, among other things, matters that were of particular interest to the country, such as, for example, the ecclesiastical circumscriptions of the various rites (art. 9), the question of ecclesiastical property (art. 24), the economic treatment by the State in favor of the clergy and ecclesiastical institutions, fixed in a special annex. The denunciation was made following a resolution of the Council of Ministers dated 12 September 1945, on the grounds of alleged violations of it by the Holy See, consisting in the appointment of an apostolic administrator for the diocese of Culm in the person of the bishop of Danzig and of an administrator (not archbishop) of Gniezno and Poznan in the person of the German Breitinger, for the Germans living in the dioceses of Gniezno and Poznan: facts which are within the common concordatory practice, especially in fluctuating situations, such as those of Poland in 1939-44.

At present, as far as is known, the condition of the Church is regulated by an agreement signed on 14 April 1950 by a mixed commission of representatives of the government and of the episcopate. In reality it is not a true agreement, nor a modus vivendi, and even less a concordat. It is known, in fact, that in the constant practice and in the law of the Church, defining the relations between hierarchy and State within the ambit of a nation falls among the causae maiores, which are of the exclusive competence of the Roman Pontiff, in relation to the primacy that he exercises over the whole Church.

The Polish bishops, to designate the document signed, made use of the term common declaration, which is perhaps the most suitable.

It consists of 19 articles, some of which, precisely articles 10 (religious practices for pupils outside of schools), 17 (religious assistance in prisons), 18 (religious assistance in hospitals), have an explanatory annex, and of an added Protocol comprising 4 articles, with two explanatory and completive annexes to articles 1 and 2.

The first 9 articles contain the demands of the government.

They sound with crude expressions (there is even talk of reason of State, art. 5) and attempt to compromise the Church with political commitments (articles 1, 2, 6, 7, 8) and territorial ones (articles 3 and 4), alien to its mission and which in their formulation are all tendentious.

The other ten represent the demands of the episcopate, all and solely directed to the good of souls (to save what can be saved in the matter of religious instruction in schools, of Catholic associations, of works of charity and beneficence, of the Catholic press and publications, of manifestations of public worship, of religious assistance to the army, in prisons and in hospitals, of freedom of action for the religious Orders and Congregations).

The added Protocol contains provisions relative to the transformation of Caritas into an association for assisting the indigent, to possible economic aid from the government to the clergy and to religious institutions, to the military service of seminarians and of priests and religious after their vows.

Pietro Palazzini

V. LITERATURE

1. The beginnings

The light of the faith did not reach P. from Byzantium, as it did other Slavic nations, but from Rome; and the Polish soul received with Baptism (966) a Catholic and Latin imprint, which is revealed in all its manifestations and first of all in literature. Flourishing, as in every other country, in the shadow of the convents and cathedrals, it was in its beginnings of an ecclesiastical character and in the Latin language: lives of saints, annals of convents, chronicles; among these the Chronicon Galli anonymi and, later, the chronicle of Magister Vincentius (Kadłubek). The first composition in the Polish language that has come down to us is the hymn Bogurodzica ("Divine Mother"), sung by the warriors who fought against the Teutonic Knights at the end of the 13th century and which became the true national song. Religious poems followed; the chronicle of Janko of Czarnków and the Rozmowa Mistrza ze Śmiercią ("Dialogue of Master Polycarp with Death"), the most interesting work of the Polish Middle Ages for its indirect description of the whole life of the time.

In the 14th century the migrations of Polish students to the University of Padua intensified; in 1364 King Casimir founded the Studium Generale of Kraków, which became an important cultural center. A pupil there was Johannes Długosz (Longinus), author of the monumental Historia Polonica. The introduction of Humanism into P. took place not only through the students who returned from Italy, but particularly through the work of Filippo Buonaccorsi (Callimachus Experiens), a humanist at the court of Kraków; while the taste for Italian art was brought by a legion of Italian artists in the retinue of Queen Bona Sforza.

2. The golden century

The magnificent flowering of literature in the 16th century harmoniously reflects in a twofold expression, Latin and Polish, a single spirit. The influence of Humanism merges with the awareness that the nation acquires of itself at the moment of its greatest prosperity. Of classical elegance are the Latin poems of Krzycki (Cricius), of Dantyszek (Dantiscus), of Hussowski (Hussovianus) and of Clemens Janicki (Ianicius), crowned with the laurel of poets. Janicki was at the University of Padua, and among other things a beautiful Ode to Italy is remembered of him. Polish poetry reaches its greatest height with Jan Kochanowski ([v.], 1530-84): Pieśni ("Songs"), Fraszki ("Trifles"), various poems, of which Proporzec ("The Standard") is the most beautiful, as well as some dramatic works. A perfect Hellenist, he drew inspiration from antiquity in the rejection of the Greek ambassadors, drew inspiration from the people for the Canto di s. Giovanni alla sobitha (a traditional feast); he drew from his paternal sorrow the subject of his masterpiece, the Treny for the death of his little daughter Ursula. Kochanowski found many imitators; among these Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński, whose sonnets are marked by profound sadness. Elegant versifiers in Polish were Sebastian Klonowicz (1545-1602) and Szymon Szymonowicz (Simon Simonides, 1558-1629), of whom the delicate idylls (Sielanki) are remembered. A wholly original and characteristic work is The Life of the Honest Man by Mikołaj Rej (1505-69), who opposes the classicizing tendencies of the time, judging them a diminishment of the national spirit, which he enhances in a simple, colorful description of the life of the Polish gentlemen of the time. To this century belongs the version that Łukasz Górnicki made of Baldassar Castiglione's Cortegiano, adapting the protagonist's figure and the setting to Polish psychology and customs, so as to make it an original work. Also to be remembered are the bold polemicist St. Orzechowski and Andrzej F. Modrzewski, creator of a project for the internal reform of P.: his Monumentum pro Reipublicae ordinatione had a wide echo throughout Europe.

The introduction of the "reformation," which had an ephemeral success in P., naturally aroused lively opposition. Sacred oratory flourished with Piotr Skarga ([v.], 1536-1612), whose Sermons to the Diet are justly celebrated not only for their high religious and political sense, but for their style.

3. Decadence and rebirth

The 17th century was a century entirely of war for P., and literature suffered the backlash. Nevertheless, even if it cannot be compared to the preceding one, works of value are not lacking. Maciej Sarbiewski (Sarbievius, 1595-1640) acquired European fame by taking up the Latin tradition again, and was crowned by the Pontiff as "the Polish Horace." Another Kochanowski, Piotr (1566-1620), translated the Gerusalemme liberata, in the manner in which Górnicki had translated Castiglione, that is, making of it a Polish work in sentiments and customs. Andrzej Morsztyn (1612-93), a delicate lyric poet, translated Marini's Adone and Corneille's Cid. The religious and warlike soul of P. manifested itself in the War of Chocim by Wacław Potocki (1625-96) and in the Psalmodja of Wespazjan Kochowski (1633-1700). In prose the most representative work of the time is constituted by the Pamiętniki ("Memoirs") of Jan Chr. Pasek, a whimsical and adventurous spirit: he took part in the war against the Swedes, quarreled all his life with his neighbors, had loves and fantastic vicissitudes which he recounted with a spontaneity and a truth that give his narrative the character of a lived novel. Under the Saxon kings all Polish life declined; and literature declined as well.

The Italian influence, which had predominated until the late 18th century, was replaced by the French influence with the accession to the throne of P. of Stanisław August Poniatowski. The new Enlightenment currents swept over literary and philosophical production, preparing the social reforms which, willed by the noblest spirits, took concrete form in the Constitution of May 3, 1791, drafted by the abbot Hugo Kołłątaj. Despite the precipitous course of historical events, in the field of thought and study there was a rebirth. Noteworthy are the figures of Ignacy Krasicki ([v.], 1735-1801), bishop of Warmia, a versatile mind, polished prose writer, dramatist, poet, author of the first Polish encyclopedia, of fables, satires, didactic works; of Stanisław Staszic (1755-1826), who wrote political works and a diary of his travels, with interesting pages on Italy; of Stanisław Trembecki (1735-1812), a vigorous mind who renewed the literary language; his principal work is the poem Zofidicka. Stanisław Konarski, a Piarist priest, concerned himself with the problems of education. Finally, mention must be made of the poets Dionizy Kniaźnin, St. Karpiński and the legionnaire Józef Wibycki (1747-1829), who in Italy wrote what was to become the national anthem of his homeland: "Poland is not dead so long as we live."

4. Classicism and Romanticism

The conditions of Poland after the partitions and the Napoleonic epic, which had reawakened and then disappointed Polish hopes, played no small part in the predominance that Romanticism won in Poland (v. ROMANTICISM), where the classical tradition flourished and had a center represented by writers such as Feliński, author of the tragedy Barbara Radziwiłłowna, Bishop Jan Paweł Woronicz and Juljan Ursyn Niemcewicz. Translations of English and German poets meanwhile created an atmosphere favorable to the development of the new tendencies; and when Brodziński (1791-1835) in 1818, six years before the preface to V. Hugo's Cromwell, published his essay on Classicism, Romanticism and the Spirit of Polish Poetry, he gathered fervent support from the most elect spirits of the time. Warsaw remained the domain of the classicists until 1820, but in Vilnius the victory of the Romantics was affirmed through the work of Adam Mickiewicz (1797-1855), and, subsequently, of Juljusz Słowacki, Zygmunt Krasiński and other most noble writers. Adam Mickiewicz gave in Dziady ("The Forefathers") his personal tragedy and that of his homeland; in Konrad Wallenrod the drama of vengeance against the oppressor; in Pan Tadeusz, masterpiece of Polish literature, the poem of Lithuania itself, with its enchanting nature, its people, its customs. The Ballads and Romances, the sonnets and the lyrics are pervaded by a lofty religious and patriotic sense. Juljusz Słowacki had rare dramatic gifts: author of numerous dramas, poems and lyrics, he is among the three greatest Romantics the one who best possessed the magic of verse. Zygmunt Krasiński was a thinker and poet; his dramas (Iridione; The Undivine Comedy) as well as his poems are marked by the sorrow that overshadowed his life and was comforted by a lofty faith. Other Romantics were Antoni Malczewski, author of the poem Marja; Seweryn Goszczynski (Zamek Kaniowski); Bohadłan Zaleski, who sang the beauties of the eastern lands; Teofil Lenartowicz (1822-1893), who lived for many years in Florence, and others. Romantic storytellers were Michał Czaykowski, a bizarre adventurer who wrote fanciful Cossack novels; Count Henryk Rzewuski, a delightful narrator of episodes from the life of old Poland, and the extremely prolific novelist Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, who brought Polish history back to life. Comedy flourished with the greatest of Poland's playwrights, Aleksander Fredro. History had an excellent cultivator in Joachim Lelewel. Finally, the profound and at times obscure Cyprian Norwid (1821-77) is linked to Romanticism and anticipates Symbolist tendencies.

5. Positivism

The reaction against Romanticism was determined not only by currents sweeping across all of Europe, but essentially by those very conditions of the homeland that had given such a strong impulse to the Romantic current. Faith in the resurrection of the homeland, the prophecies of its inspired poets had been swept away with the bloody repression of the insurrection of 1863. It seemed to weary and sorrowing spirits that salvation must come from the vision of naked reality, faced in order to solve the problems that beset the nation. Polish culture thus, like all of European culture, took its stamp from the new doctrines. The poet Adam Asnyk (1838-97) sang: "Formed in the school of harsh misfortune, we have rejected the sweetness of dreams; thirsting for truth, we seek her alone." Asnyk was one of the most eminent lyric poets of the time; to be remembered along with him is Marja Konopnicka (1842-1910), most sensitive to the beauty of nature and of art (and one of her best collections of lyrics is inspired by Italy), as she was most sensitive to the sorrow of the people who labored in the homeland and on the roads of the world (Pan Balcer in Brazil). Among the novelists of the time stand out Bolesław Prus (Aleksander Słowacki, 1847-1912), who gave with Lalka ("The Doll") a picture of Polish life in which the characters are finely drawn; with The Pharaoh he recreated the setting of ancient Egypt; and he also wrote excellent short stories.

Eliza Orzeszkowa (1841-1910), whose finest novel is Nad Niemen ("On the Niemen"), is also the author of Jewish novels (Metr); Adolf Dygasiński (1839-1902) is a fine observer of the life of nature (Gody życia, "The Festivals of Life"); Adam Szymański (1852-1916), a political exile in Siberia, drew from his experiences the living material for his Szkice ("Sketches") and for his stories in which are found again the goodness, the sorrow, the extremely harsh life of the exiles. Józef Weyssenhof (1866-1932) is a sober and elegant novelist. But the greatest of all the writers of the time was Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916), who belonged, at the beginning, to the Positivist current, from which he broke away with his grandiose historical novels (the Trilogy, The Teutonic Knights, etc.) and acquired world fame for the novel Quo vadis? which unfolds in Neronian Rome, in the contrast between the pagan setting and that of the first Christians, and has pages of warm faith. Other works of his on modern subjects are Bez dogmatu ("Without Dogma"), Rodzina Polanieckich ("The Polaniecki Family"); many short stories, among them Hania and Latarnik ("The Lighthouse Keeper"), are rightly reputed masterpieces. He also wrote travel correspondence, including from Italy.

6. Polish literature from the beginning of the present century to the German invasion

The reaction against Positivist tendencies occurred in Poland through the influence of the French poets (Mallarmé, Verlaine, Baudelaire) and of D'Annunzio; but chiefly through the impulse toward an inner liberation after the failure of the program of social and cultural reconstruction proclaimed by Positivism. The Poles moreover already had in their past the best masters, precursors of modern tendencies: Słowacki and Norwid, whose full value they were only then discovering. The reviews Życie ("Life") and Chimera grouped together the most notable personalities: Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868-1925), author of dramas, essays and novels linked to Nordic Symbolism; Stanisław Wyspiański (1869-1907), painter, poet, musician, renewer of typographic art, playwright, who by his intellectual formation recalls certain great figures of the Renaissance. His torment as an artist, his patriotic passion, the lofty religious sense of life inform his vast production in every field. To the "Young Poland" poetic school of the beginning of the century belong Jan Kasprowicz (1860-1926), whose inspiration reveals profound religiosity, broad humanity, love of nature; Kazimierz Tetmajer (1865-1940), a delicate lyric poet of beauty and love; and Leopold Staff (living), who is considered one of the greatest Polish poets. Eminent prose writers of this period: Stefan Żerowski (1864-1928), in whose work patriotic passion prevails; Popioły ("Ashes") is the epic of Poland in Napoleonic times; short stories and dramas reflect the intimate torment of the search for national freedom. Władysław Reymont (1868-1925) stands out for a humane, serene consideration of social themes. Chłopy ("The Peasants"), Nobel Prize 1924, represents the poem of the land through the turning of the seasons: men are depicted there in the labors of daily life, with their faults and their qualities. Ziemia obiecana ("The Promised Land") shows the rise of industrial power in all that is most at odds with the simple and spontaneous life of the spirit, itself swallowed up by the machine that absorbs all of man's activities. Eminent prose writers are Wacław Berent (b. 1872) and Wacław Sieroszewski (1860-1940), who, exiled at a very young age to the Far East, drew inspiration, as Szymański had before him, from his memories in novels on exotic subjects; Juljusz Kaden Bandrowski (1885-1944, shot by the Germans) was a most noble temper of a writer.

After the First World War, having risen again to freedom, P. enjoyed a broad flowering of poets and prose writers, among whom it is difficult to choose. The major ones group around the journal Shamander: Julian Tuwim, Antoni Słominski, Jan Lechón, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, all living; Maria Pawlikowska, who chiseled her brief lyrics, similar to Spanish coplas. To the strapaesano group Czartiak belongs Emil Zegadłowicz; the Pawlikowskis, a true literary dynasty, founded a publishing house for their works and also published there those of Maryla Wolska, a poetess luminous for her serene vein and religious faith. Finally Kazimiera Illakowicz has a place apart among the modern lyric poets; most remarkable is her short poem Storia del Martire di Mosca, a moving evocation of the Polish priest Budkiewicz killed in Russia. Distinguished in the novel are: Marja Dąbrowska (Nocy i dnie, "The Nights and the Days"); Zofia Kossak, who prefers the historical genre; Andrzej Strug; Ferdynand Goetel and others.

7. War and after the war

1939 marked the beginning of a catastrophe in the Polish world: it seemed that the war would extinguish every manifestation of the spirit. Scholars and artists deported, universities closed, libraries destroyed. But P., accustomed by centuries-old traditions to invasions and wars on its territory, offered a marvelous example of resistance: a clandestine university arose; countless were the clandestine newspapers and publications, among which, very well known, Kamienie na szaniec ("Stones on the Rampart") by Gorecki (pseudonym of A. Kaminski). Many Poles took refuge abroad, forming intellectual centers of a new emigration in Hungary, Italy, France, England, Persia, Palestine.

Among the war correspondences one should remember: Bitwa o Montecassino ("The Battle of Montecassino") by Melchior Wańkowicz; the testimonies on the concentration camps: Z. orchłani (translated under the title "The Camp of Death") by Zofia Kossak and Wspomnienie Starobielskie ("Recollections of Starobielsk") by Józef Czapski, all of a chronicle character; while notable literary value have: Droga wiodła przez Narwich ("The Road Passed through Narwich") by Ksawery Pruszynski; Dymy nad Birchenau ("Smoke over Birchenau") by Szmaglewska; Listy z pod morwi ("Letters Written under the Mulberry Tree") by Gustaw Morcinek.

Two collections of verse by Marja Pawlikowska, published in England, are to be noted; verses by Illakowicz, printed in Hungary; the beautiful poem Kwiaty polskie by Julian Tuwim and the novel Srebrne Orły ("Silver Eagles") by Teodor Parniki.

The profound political and social change begun in P. with 1945 will not fail to influence its literature as well; but the events are too recent for one to foresee with exactness how much the Poles will be able to save of the Western cultural tradition, to which they are indeed profoundly bound.

Marina Bersano Begey

VI. CHRISTIAN ART

The premises of medieval art in P. are characterized by an absolute lack of Byzantine influences. Since P. accepted Christianity from the West in the second half of the 10th century, the formation of its civilization was also entirely educated by the Latin centers. Only fleeting traces of a slight contact with Byzantine art are noted in P., not before the beginning of the 15th century, when, with the arrival in power of the Lithuanian dynasty of the Jagiellonians, P. found itself in relations with the Ruthenian civilization of the banks of the Dnieper.

The first to import into P. the models of Western art were the Benedictines; their oldest Polish abbeys, of the 11th and 12th centuries, especially that of Tyniec, have a Romanesque character. The Cistercian abbeys (Sulejow), very widespread in P. from the 13th century, orient their forms toward the models of French Gothic; and the first churches of the Dominicans (Sandomir, Kraków), which had a great development in P. following the apostolate of St. Hyacinth, are inspired by the so-called Gothic of the Mendicant Orders.

The Gothic architecture of the 14th century succeeds in P. in realizing its own individual character, the so-called "Vistula Gothic," in buildings where red brick dominates, at times projecting fan-like around slender columns. As major examples of the Gothic of markedly local Polish character, one may cite the churches of St. John and of the Virgin Mary at Toruń, the cathedral of Gniezno, and that of Kraków, both rebuilt in the 14th century, that of Chelmno, the two-naved collegiate church of Wislica, the churches of the Virgin Mary and of St. Catherine in Kraków, those of the Virgin Mary in Starograd and in Poznań, the courtyard of the old University of Kraków, the Town Hall of Toruń and the chapter hall in the Castle of Malbork. To this stylistic cycle belonged also the grandiose church of the Virgin Mary in Danzig and the church of the Virgin Mary of Nowe Miasto in Warsaw, both destroyed during the Second World War.

In the course of the entire Middle Ages the models of painting in P. are provided by prototypes of Western Europe; they arrive through Bohemia, in a version often reformed there. With the Angevin court the artistic activity in P. of the late 14th century is enlivened by models of the International Gothic, which arrive then through Hungary.

The 15th century marks in P. a greater artistic dependence on German concepts, united with bourgeois culture. Church painting and sculpture are then more strongly influenced by the late Gothic of Nuremberg, the apogee of which is revealed in P. in the magnificent altar with the Stories of the Virgin, carved in wood by Veit Stoss around 1490, a masterpiece that adorns the apse of the church of the Virgin Mary in Kraków. On the other hand, the 15th century has left in P. some traces of Ruthenian Byzantine-style painting, e.g., the frescoes of the cathedral of Sandomir, those of 1415 in the chapel of the Most Holy Trinity in the Castle of Lublin and those of 1470 in the chapel of the Holy Cross of the cathedral of Kraków; they form the only Byzantine exceptions in the entire course of the history of art in P. It is also noted that the expansion of Polish civilization, spreading from the 15th century and in a particular way in the 16th century into the Ruthenian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, carried there together the artistic forms of Western Europe, and that, on these border lands of P. with the East, Byzantine art found itself in regression through the work of Polish civilization, entirely of Latin content. The Italian Renaissance taste arrives in P. in the very early 16th century. It is protected by the court of King Sigismund I, husband of Bona Sforza, and intensely diffused by the personages of the court, in particular by the grand chancellor Krzysztof Szydłowiecki. The construction of the Royal Palace of Wawel in Kraków, a castle entirely rebuilt between 1502-30 by the Italian architects Francesco Italo and Bartolomeo Berecci, then became in P. the major center of Italian artistic culture; which, soon, with Gian Maria Mosca, called il Padovano, architect of the Cloth Hall (Sukiennice) in Kraków and of the episcopal palace (of 1550), dominates the taste of 16th-century Polish architecture and sculpture. Subsequently, between 1600 and 1650, the long and very industrious stay in P. of the Venetian mannerist Tommaso Dolabella of Belluno also gave to 17th-century Polish painting a stylistic aspect of Italianizing character.

The transfer of the capital from Kraków to Warsaw with the kings of the Vasa dynasty made the latter city the cradle of the Baroque in P., which spread having there as prototypes the churches of the Jesuits. After some Baroque ecclesiastical buildings, conceived in the pure Italian taste, e.g., the church of St. Peter in Kraków, the work of the Italian architect Giovanni Trevani, executed between 1597 and 1619, a local Polish Baroque style is created, the product of a compromise between the new Italian decorative tendencies and the structural forms of Gothic tradition, adapted to climatic needs. Several 17th-century Polish churches demonstrate such an artistic compromise, e.g., that of Kazimierz of 1613 and that of Radzyn of 1641. The richest examples of this kind of church, such as that that of the Holy Cross in Warsaw and that of the missionaries in Vilna, usually have facades adorned on the sides by two towers.

The florid Baroque of the late seventeenth century left some fine monuments in Poland; among them, the suburban villa of Wilanów near Warsaw, built for King John III Sobieski, the church of Antokol in Vilna and the Krasiński Palace in Warsaw. The Baroque, marked more strongly by the Italian spirit, was succeeded in eighteenth-century Poland by the Rococo, oriented rather by the taste of Dresden, where the then common Saxon and Polish court chiefly resided. As a typical product of this aesthetic orientation one may cite the Brühl Palace in Warsaw. In this period the fantastic decorations of altars are quite characteristic. In Polish painting of the first half of the eighteenth century, however, the Italianizing tendency always manifests itself, represented there above all by Szymon Czechowicz (1689-1776), a Polish painter educated in Rome, regarded by tradition as the last pupil of Carlo Maratta and a faithful imitator of him in his numerous altarpieces, scattered in various churches throughout the whole of Poland.

The reign of Neoclassical taste arrived in Poland in 1764, with the accession to the throne of Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, a patron and protector of the arts. It had its first brilliant period throughout the reign of this last King from 1764 to 1795; a second flourishing period under the Duchy of Warsaw (1807-15); and a third, weighed down, after the Congress of Vienna. In its brilliant eighteenth-century period, Neoclassical architecture in Poland was led by Domenico Merlini (1731-97) and his pupil Jan Kamsetzer (1753-95), to whom are due first of all the interior reconstruction of the Royal Castle Zamek in Warsaw (destroyed during the Second World War) and the construction of the most graceful Villa Łazienki in Warsaw, an architectural jewel of this era. The Polish architect Wawrzyniec Gucewicz then gave a Neoclassical appearance to the monuments of Vilna: to the Cathedral in 1777 and to the Town Hall in 1781-83. Painting under the reign of Stanislaus Augustus was brought to its notable level for the most part through the work of Italian culture, whether through Polish painters educated in Rome, such as Taddeo Konicz (d. in Rome in 1796), a follower of Pompeo Batoni, and Franciszek Smuglewicz (1745-1807), or indeed by Italian masters settled in Poland, among whom the first was the Venetian view painter Bernardo Bellotto, called Canaletto, summoned by Stanislaus Augustus to Warsaw in 1767 and then remaining there uninterruptedly until his death in 1780. The true head of the school of Neoclassical painting in Poland, however, was Marcello Bacciarelli (b. in Rome in 1731, d. in

(courtesy of Comm. Leone Siemiradzki)

Warsaw in 1818), a painter of sacred, allegorical, mythological and historical scenes and also a portraitist, whose activity in Poland was much appreciated by his contemporaries, as is shown by the fact that he was ennobled by the Diet of Poland, before the last partition of that State. The Trentine G. B. Lampi (1751-1830) and Giuseppe Grassi (1758-1838), son of Italian parents abroad, worked in the late eighteenth century in Poland, leaving there some excellent examples of their portrait work. French culture also contributed to the artistic effort in Poland, having there in this era an exquisite representative in the painter Jean-Pierre Norblin de La Gourdaine (1745-1830), a worthy follower of Fragonard. At the dawn of the nineteenth century one should note the activity of the portraitist Kazimierz Wojniakowski (1772-1812). In this era a typical style of furniture was then created in Poland, in which classicizing forms were adapted to the local material, especially ash. Architecture of Neoclassical taste persisted in Poland beyond 1850; its forms became ever heavier and exuberantly decorated. The major architects of this late Neoclassical period are two Italians active in Warsaw: the Tuscan Antonio Corazzi (1792-1877), designer of the Opera Theater in Warsaw, and the Roman Enrico Marconi (1792-1863), to whom are due very numerous palaces and the first railway station in Poland, that of Warsaw, called the "Vienna line", built between 1838 and 1840.

Romantic painting in Poland had its representatives in Aleksander Orłowski (1777-1832), a Pole also active in Russia, and in Piotr Michałowski (1801-55), a precursor of the modern twentieth-century pictorial language, a master of high synthetic quality, derived somewhat from Goya.

The second half of the nineteenth century marks a fruitful pictorial development in Poland; it is seen opened by the graceful Winterhalter-like portraitist Józef Simmler (1832-68). Excellent illustrators follow: the tragic Artur Grottger (1837-67), inspired by the sad end of the Polish insurrection of 1863, the battle painter Juliusz Kossak (1829-1899) and the lyrical draughtsman Elwiro Michał Andriolli (1836-93), son of an Italian and a Pole, born in Poland but educated in Lucca. With the powerful personality of Jan Matejko (1838-93), Kraków became the most important artistic center of the Polish lands in the second half of the nineteenth century; among Matejko's numerous pupils only the two most notable are remembered: the painter, poet and playwright Stanisław Wyspiański (1869-1907) and Józef Mehoffer (1869-1940), both excellent designers of stained glass for churches; the latter also worked outside Poland, mainly in the cathedral of Fribourg in Switzerland. The realistic current of Polish painting was chiefly inspired in the late nineteenth century by the Munich school, where a large array of Polish masters studied; the most notable among them are Józef Brandt (1841-1910), Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski (1849-1915), Władysław Czachórski (1850-1912), the brothers Maksymilian (1846-74) and Aleksander Gierymski (1849-1901), the latter in his late period somewhat influenced by the Florentine Macchiaioli. The exquisite landscape painter Józef Chełmoński (1850-1912), although also a pupil of the Munich school, oriented his art rather according to French pictorial taste. Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902), a painter of high classical culture, an evoker of ancient scenes, is linked to Italian art. Jacek Malczewski represents Symbolism, translated into a language of admirable chromatic sensitivity. The art of Julian Fałat (1853-1929) and of Leon Wyczółkowski (1852-1936) has a markedly Impressionist formation, of Parisian origin: nonetheless it is expressed in a very individual manner.

Witold Wehr

VII. SCHOOL SYSTEM

The Polish school was reformed and reorganized in the years 1945-50. It aims to impart to the young a purely practical education and to educate them according to socialist principles.

The Council for School Affairs, created on 28 Oct. 1947, oversees instruction in collaboration with the Parents' Committees and with the Student Coordinating Committee, founded on 6 Nov. 1947. Students have been granted the right to take part in the teachers' meetings whenever school matters are on the agenda. The Parents' Committees, founded on 26 Febr. 1949, take on particular importance in general and in school education. They have the following tasks: to procure scholarships and books, to oversee the school meals and summer camps, to take an interest in socialist education and to keep watch over the curricula and teaching methods. Since 29 Sept. 1950, meetings of the Parents' Committees of the individual city centers with the teachers of those same centers are compulsory. Instruction is divided into preschool, school and postschool. Through this complex organization the State and the Party fully dominate the entire development of instruction. - See plates CXIV-CXV.