God's Playground

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God's Playground is a book written in 1979 by Norman Davies, covering the history of Poland.

Davies was inspired to the title by Jan Kochanowski's 1580s Boże igrzysko (Mankind: Bauble of the Gods).

The book (or two, as many editions are split into two volumes) has received good reviews in international press^[1] and is considered by many historians^[2] and other scholars^[3] to be one of the best English-language books on the subject of history of Poland. The author received several Polish honours.

Contents 1 Content 1.1 Volume I: The Origins to 1795 1.1.1 Chapter Synopses 1.1.1.1 I. Introduction: The Origins to 1572 1.1.1.2 II. The Life and Death of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic (1569-1795) 1.2 Volume II: A History of Poland: 1795 to the Present v. 2 2 Editions 3 Notes 4 External links

[edit] Content

[edit] Volume I: The Origins to 1795

God's Playground is divided into the following chapters and the chapter summaries follow these accordingly:

I. Introduction: The Origins to 1572

1. Millenium: A Thousand Years of History

2. Polska: The Polish Land

3. Piast: The Polonian Dynasty (to 1370)

4. Anjou: The Hungarian Connection (1370-1386)

5. Jogaila: The Lithuanian Union (1386-1572)

II. The Life and Death of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic (1569-1795)

6. Antemurale: The Bulwark of Christendom (Religion)

7. Szlachta: The Nobleman's Paradise (Society)

8. Handel: The Baltic Grain Trade (Economy)

9. Miasto: The Vicissitudes of Urban Life (The Cities)

10. Anarchia: The Noble Democracy (Constitution)

11. Serenissima: Diplomacy in Poland-Lithuania (Foreign Affairs)

12. Valois: The French Experiment (1572-1575)

13. Bathory: The Transylvanian Victor (1576-1586)

14. Vasa: The Swedish Connection (1587-1668)

15. Michał: The Austrian Candidate (1669-1673)

16. Sobieski: Terror of the Turk (1674-1696)

17. Wettin: The Saxon Era (1697-1763)

18. Agonia: The End of the Russian Protectorate (1764-1795)

[edit] Chapter Synopses

[edit] I. Introduction: The Origins to 1572

1. Millenium: A Thousand Years of History

In this chapter, Professor Davies explores the different methodological approaches taken towards chronicling Poland's history e.g. Naruszewicz (1780), Lelewel, Bobrzynski, Soviet History of Poland (1954), the 'Thaw ' (post 1956). Professor Jerzy Kłoczowski (b. 1924), director of the Institute of East Central European Studies of the Catholic University of Lublin published his Europa Słowiańska w XIV-XVw. (Slavonic Europe in the 14th-15th centuries) and his Młodza Europa (The Younger Europe, 1998) and propagated the viewpoint that Polish resistance was resistance in the name of basic European values and that East Central Europe needed to be considered in the context of a region of the wider Europe.

2. Polska: The Polish Land

In this chapter, Professor Davies describes the different regions that made up Poland. These included the Polish heartland of: Wielkopolska (Polonia Maior), Małopolska (Polonia Minor), Mazowsze (Mazovia), Kujawy (Cuiavia).

The Polish heartland is ringed by a circle of provinces whose associations with the centre have been somewhat elastic: Śląsk (Silesia), Pomorze (Pomerania), Prusy (Prussia, Borussia), Podlasie (Podlasia) and Wołyń (Volhynia) and Podole (Podolia). In the south-east lay Ruś Czerwona (Red Ruthenia). Ukraina (Ukraine) straddled the middle Dnieper. Two ethnically Lithuanian territories were Żmudź (Samogitia) and Aukstota. Białoruś (Byelorussia) stretched from Dvina in the north to the Pripet in the south and upper Dnieper in the east. Czarnoruś (Black Ruthenia) adjoined Białoruś to the south and south-west.

In the east, beyond Lithuania, Byelorussia and Ukraine, lay a further ring of provinces possessing still more tenuous connections with Poland. There was Inflanty (Livonia) on the Gulf of Riga, Courland (Kurlandia), Smolensk, Sieviersk and Moldavia (a Polish fief from 1387-1497).

The Slavonic heartland:

It is now generally agreed (contrary to the Polish School) that this lay on the forest-steppe which stretches along the northern slopes of the Carpathians between the middle Vistula and the lower Dnieper. Evidence suggests that:

- the Protoslavs did not disperse until relatively recently;

- they should have passed their formative years in contact not only with Germans and Balts, but also with Illyrians, Thracians and Iranians (e.g. Bóg (God) and raj (Paradise) are Sarmato-Iranian by derivation).

According to this theory, the Slav migration grew into a flood with the collapse of Avar supremacy in the seventh century - one branch headed north and east into the Baltic and Finnish territory (East Slavs), a second branch moved south into the Balkans (future Serbs, Croats, Bulgars and Slovenes). The third group turned westward into Germanic, Celtic and Baltic territory (forebears of the Czechs, Slovaks, Sorbs and Polabians and the Poles). The 'Protopoles' would have been one of the last of the Slavs to drift away from the Northern Carpathian homeland, and would have settled in the valleys of the Odra and Vistula in the course of the seventh and eighth centuries. They would have been one of the latest of many Indo-European groups who have settled on the territory of present-day Poland.

The pattern of settlement in Poland been seen to be quite characteristic even in modern times. The traditional term in Polish for the locality was gniazdo or 'nest'. It aptly expresses the strong sentimental bond, which tied people to the one small area where most of them would spend their entire lives, and where the peasants on the lord's estate felt greater affinity with the immediate neighbours of all classes, than with anyone from outside.

3. Piast: The Polonian Dynasty (to 1370)

Some of the Piast kings include: Mieszko I (c. 922-92), the first Christian prince; Boleław I Chrobry (Boleslaus the Brave (c. 967-1025), the first crowned King; Boleław II Szczodry (Boleslaus the Bold, 1039-81); Boleław III Krzywousty (Boleslaus the Wry-mouthed, 1085-1138) and Kazimierz III (Casimir the Great, 1310-70), who were the real founders of the Polish monarchy.

Under these Kings, society was organised on a military basis. At the top of the social scale stood the Drużyna or 'Team' of the prince's bodyguards (similar to the Huscarls of the Anglo-Saxon kings), and were drawn from a class of heredes (dziedzic) holding land from the prince in return for military service. At the bottom of the social scale were the slaves, organised in decades and legions, and designated in the documents as decimi. To sustain constant warfare, a complex military organisation was required. In the era of Miezko I and Bolesław Chrobry great importance was laid on the royal gród or fortress, garrisoned by a detachment of guard, and fortified with earthworks, palisades, and moats (e.g. at Poznań, Gdecz and Gniezno). Under Casimir the Great, all landholders were legally required to present themselves for war, complete with arms, armour, horses and retinue.

The Mongols, the 'scourge of God' attacked Poland. Advancing from the steppes of Central Asia, they cut a path of destruction right across Central Europe. in 1241, the Golden Horde of Batu Khan sent three armies, one of which turned north and razed Sandomierz, Kraków and Wrocław and their inhabitants put to the sword. Further Mongol incursions occurred in 1259 and 1287. In Cracow they inspired the Hejnał, or truncated 'trumpet-call' sounded every hour from St. Mary's Church.

Also, the Teutonic State was established during this period in the north of Poland. Konrad of Mazovia was engaged in a major programme of conversion and subjugation against the pagan Prussian tribes to the north of his borders, as well as trying to rule Mazovia, Kujawy, Sieradz and Łęczyca. Suffering a serious shortage of manpower, he appealed to the Teutonic Knights and in 1226 invested them with the district of Chełmno (Kulm), sealing the contract in 1228. Two years later, the knights arrived under their Landsman, Herman von Balk, and harried the Prussians for the next fifty years. By 1288, with the farthest fastness of the Prussian lands conquered, the Order had grown far beyond the control of its original patron.

Casimir III (1310-70), the only Polish ruler to be deemed 'Great', was crowned at the Wawel on 25 April 1333. In the same year he made a truce with the Teutonic Order and in 1334 made peace with the Czechs. In the spring of 1335 he met with his family's traditional ally, Charles Robert of Anjou, King of Hungary and their common rival, John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia. For 400,000 silver groats, the Bohemian renounced his claims to Poland and Mazovia.

Cracow in 1363, thirty years after Casimir's succession, was turning from a wooden town into a city of brick and stone. In the great Market Place, the Gothic Cloth Hall was under construction. The Kościoł Mariacki (St. Mary's Church) was in the eighth year of its 53-year remodelling. One mile to the east, beyond the city's walls, stood the new town of Kazimierz, named after the King. On its central square, a synagogue, a ratusz, and the Church of St. Catherine were all in the course of construction.

At the end of his life, Casimir failed in one respect: as king and ruler he had been eminently successful and as 'father of his people' he was widely loved but (similar in many ways to the English King, Henry VIII's, long-term problem) he had no acceptable male heir. He had sired his sons with a married woman, and could not therefore claim legal paternity. Hence, the two candidates for succession were Louis of Hungary, Casimir's nephew, and Każko of Słupsk, his grandson. When he died on 5 November 1370 he matter was still not settled and this marked the decline of the Piast dynasty.

4. Anjou: The Hungarian Connection (1370-1386)

Despite their different origins, the history of the Magyars was surprisingly similar to that of the Poles. They accepted Roman Christianity at Esztergom (Gran) in 1001, and the creation of the Hungarian see, coincided almost exactly with the proceedings at Gniezno several weeks earlier. Henceforth, both Hungary and Poland formed the easternmost outposts of the Roman Church, regarding themselves with equal fervour as the twin bastions of antermurale Christianitatis.

Louis of Anjou, known in Polish History as 'Ludwik Węgierski' (Louis the Hungarian) enjoyed a reign of great length and renown. To say that he was elected King of Poland is, according to Professor Davies, rather to miss the point. It would be more realistic to stress that the Polish Kingdom was tacked onto the domain of Louis of Anjou.

In Poland, he made radical concessions. Summoning Polish representatives to his residence in Slovakia, he issued the famous Statute of Košice (Koszyce) which confirmed all the previous rights and immunities awarded to the nobility by his Polish piast predecessors, and in particular the autonomy of the provinces. Following an attack by a Lithuanian army in 1376, he led a Polish-Hungarian force into Lithuania in 1377 and the territories of Chełm and Bełz were occupied and attached to Red Ruthenia.

In later centuries, the Polish-Hungarian connection remained close. Under the Jagiellonian kings, the Hungarian alliance formed a corner-stone of foreign policy. In 1440-4, and again in 1490-1516, Polish princes were elected to the Hungarian throne. In 1576-86, a Hungarian prince proved to be the most successful king in Poland's history.

5. Jogaila: The Lithuanian Union (1386-1572)

The Lithuanians prided themselves on being the last pagan people in Europe and, under their Grand Prince Gedymin (c. 1275-1341), they forged a state of enormous size and considerable power at the expense of their Christian neighbours. By the 1370s, when Louis of Anjou reigned in Poland, Lithuania already rivalled the Angevin empire. It was ruled from the ancient capital of Vilnius in the north and dominated by a pagan warrior elite who regarded their lives and estates as the prince's absolute patrimony. Its inhabitants were largely East Slavs, devoted to the Orthodox faith.

Jogaila (c. 1351-1434) succeeded to the throne of Lithuania at the age of twenty-six, in the prime of life and lived to be eighty-three. Although he had no great love of the Poles, he realized his country was under threat from a consolidated Poland under Casimir the Great as well as the relentless advance of the Teutonic State, whose Grand Master, Winrich von Kniprode (1352-1382) was bringing his charge to a peak of condition. Knowing he could not hold off two Catholic powers at once, he could only choose the manner of his conversion and Poland was the lesser of two evils. For four long generations, Jogaila and his heirs were to drive the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in harness like a coach-and-pair.

In return for the hand of Jadwiga, Louis of Anjou's second daughter, the Polish barons persuaded Jogaila to accept Christian baptism, to convert all his pagan subjects to Roman Catholicism, and to release all Polish prisoners and slaves in his possession, to co-ordinate operations against the Teutonic Knights and to associate the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with the Kingdom of Poland in a permanent union. On this basis, in February 1386, a great assembly of Polish barons and nobility at Lublin elected Jogaila, whom they knew as Jagiełło, as their king. Jadwiga turned to a life of charity, despising the barons and loving the poor. On her death in 1399, she left her entire personal fortune to the refounding of the Cracovian Academy, the Jagiellonian University.

In the so-called 'Wilno-Radom Act', Jogaila's cousin Witold (Vitovt) was to rule Lithuania for life; thereafter, it was to revert to Jogaila and his successors. If Jogaila were to die without natural heirs, the future of the realm was to be determined by common assent between the Polish and Lithuanian barons. At Horodlo in Volhynia on 2 October 1413, the Polish lords and Lithuanian boyars formed themselves into a joint estate, and it was agreed that matters of concern affecting both countries should be settled in joint assemblies of the nobility, and that the Polish lords should participate in the election of the Lithuanian Grand Duke. In this way, the strict monarchical principle, already battered, was finally abandoned.

The threat from the Teutonic Order disappeared when suddenly, in 1525, it was secularized and disbanded. The Reformation achieved at a stroke what the combined forces of Poland and Lithuania had failed to achieve over one and a half centuries. The centrepiece of the struggle with this Order was contested near the village of Grunwald in Prussia on 15 July 1410. Władysław-Jagiello and his Chief-of-Staff, Zyndram z Maszkowic, had crossed the Vistula near Czervinsk, joined by Witold and a host of the Grand Duchy, and by a contingent of Polish knights under Zawisza Czarny z Garbowa, the Black Knight. 27,000 Teutonic Knights were faced by 39,000 combined Polish forces and by the end of the day almost half were dead and fourteen thousand prisoners taken for ransom. The Grand Master, Ulrich von Jungingen, was also slain.

Also during this period the noble estate held the upper hand. It held a monopoly both in the running of the Church and the central legislative organs, and dominated the life of the royal court, army and administration. In the Jagiellonian period, membership of the szlachta (nobility) became stabilized. A small number of noblemen also started to accumulate fortunes and influence of disproportionate size, e.g. the Tęczyński, Tarnowski, Odrowąż, Górka, Firlej (-ski means 'son of'). In 1526, the Złoty System was introduced into Poland. The so-called red złoty or 'Polish ducat' was minted at 3.5 grams of gold; the silver złoty was fixed at 23.1 grams of silver on a monetary scale where 1 złoty = 5 szostaki = 10 trojaki = 30 groszy = 90 szelągi (shillings) = 180 ternarii = 540 denarii (pence).

The growth of towns and trade favoured the further expansion of the Jewish community. The Jagiellonian Kings regularly confirmed the basic Jewish Charter of 1264. As from 1515, Sigismund I encouraged Jewish immigration, especially from Austria. The large number of exclusionary charters, De non tolerandis Judeis, extended by the King to particular cities, served only to underline the fact that Jews were permitted to settle in all other parts of the realm. The foundations of Jewish autonomy were laid under royal patronage.

Władysław III Warnenczyk (Ladislaus of Varna 1425-44) is remembered almost exclusively for the way in which he died. Succeeding at the age of nine, he was later persuaded to lead a crusade against the Turks in the Balkans. In 1444, on the Black Sea coast near Varna, both he and the papal legate were killed by the Sultan's army and Constantinople was not saved.

Sigismund I Stary, the 'Elder' (1467-1548) married for a second time in 1518 to Bona Sforza. In political outlook he was decidedly conservative, preferring to rely on the great magnates of the Senate and punishing rebels and heretics alike with severity. In foreign affairs, he opted for an enterprising opening with the Habsburgs. This new departure was sealed at the Congress of Vienna in 1515, where a double marriage contract was signed. Young Louis Jagiellon, King of Hungary and Bohemia (who died at the Battle of Mohacs), was betrothed to the Emperor's daughter, Maria. The Emperor's son, Ferdinand, took Anna Jagiellonka. Owing to circumstances at the time, Sigismund was occupied with the Muscovite onslaught, first directed against Lithuania and then engulfing Poland. He also put down the rebellion of Michał Glinski in Wilno as well as repulsing the Muscovites who came to his aid.

Sigismund II Augustus (Zygmunt-August, 1520-72) was schooled for kingship from his gilded cradle. In 1529 he was formally elected to the Polish throne on the wishes of his father, and began to rule under his father's guidance as Grand Duke in Lithuania. Hence for nearly twenty years there were two King Sigismunds - the 'Elder' in Cracow, and the 'Young Augustus' in Wilno. His mother, Bona Sforza, assumed considerable influence during her husband's dotage, and, in Professor's Davies' view, 'resorted to the most desperate tactics of a Renaissance harpy' (p.115). In 1547, she took offence at his secret second marriage with the widowed Barbara Radziwiłł, daughter of the Lithuanian Hetman, and was strongly suspected of poisoning her. In 1556, she absconded to her native duchies of Bari and Rossano in Southern Italy, taking some 430,000 ducats in cash and jewels from the royal treasury.

A rift developed between the King and his Sejm, and he ended up relapsing into despair and insomnia. He locked himself into his favourite castle at Knyszyń near Białystok, and refused to receive his senators. He died on 7 July 1572, surrounded by a motley company of quacks, astrologers and witches in a room hung in black in memory of Barbara Radziwiłł and the last of the Jagiellons, just like the last of the Piasts 202 years before, was buried on Wawel Hill.

The Polish Renaissance:

During the period, the 'Polish Renaissance' came to the fore, particularly in science, literature and learning. The greatest name undoubtedly belongs to Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543). Born in Thorn (Torun), in Royal Prussia, he spent the greater part of his career as Canon of the Warmian Chapter at Frauenberg. His discovery of the Earth's motion around the Sun caused the most fundamental revolution possible in prevailing concepts of the human predicament. After Copernicus, Jan Kochanowski (1530-84) holds pride of place. As founder of Polish vernacular poetry, he showed the Poles the beauty of their language. Until at the end of his life he was smitten by personal tragedy - the death of his daughter - his poems radiate that same joy and freshness which typify his peers - Ronsard and Du Bellay in France, Petrarch in Italy and Spenser in England. Last of the Renaissance giants was Jan Zamoyski (1542-1605). The leading politician of his day, he still found time to reconstruct his native Zamość as a model city of the age.

[edit] II. The Life and Death of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic (1569-1795)

6. Antemurale: The Bulwark of Christendom (Religion)

The concept of Antemurale has been specially favoured by Catholic writers, and in recent times has been adopted by the Vatican's Institute of Polish History as the title of its distinguished journal. The ceremonial Coronation of the Matka Boska at Częstochowa as 'Queen of Poland' in 1717 was a significant milestone in Polish catholic history.

Poland was a mixture of Roman Catholicism, the Orthodox Church, Calvinism, Lutheranism and Judaism. The Tumult of Thorn in July 1724 was an episode in which a fracas broke out between Catholics and Lutherans - owing to the burning of the statue of Our Lady, the Burgomaster and his deputy were condemned to decapitation, other burghers and thirteen more were executed and a Lutheran school, chapel and printing press handed over to the Catholic Church.

Whereas in 1569, at the Union of Lublin, the Roman Catholic establishment was in a dominant minority amongst other multifarious denominational allegiances; by 1791, on the eve of the Partitions, it commanded a clear majority. The Lutherans, Orthodox, and Arians had virtually been eliminated, the Uniates reduced, the Calvinists decimated. Only the Jews had matched the Catholics in both their absolute and their relative increase.

7. Szlachta: The Nobleman's Paradise (Society)

By the time of the Union of Lublin, the social order had settled firmly into a system of estates. Four such estates - the Clergy, the Nobility, the Burghers and the Jews - enjoyed a wide measure of corporate autonomy. The fifth estate - the Peasantry - had lost much of its former independence and largely subordinate to the Crown, the Church of the Nobility.

The name szlachta came into Polish from the Czech slehta (nobility), together with all the basic vocabulary of the medieval polity - pan (lord, person with jurisdiction), król (King), sejm (diet, or assembly), and herb (inheritance, heraldic device).

In 1552, the competence of the ecclesiastical courts over the Nobility in matters of religion was withdrawn. In 1563, when the purchase of sołectwa (village jurisdiction) was regularized, the way was open to the absolute control over the population of their estates. In commerce, the Nobility was freed from duty on goods for their own use. In the dietines, they controlled the multifarious systems of weights and measures, and regulated prices. From 1573, the Nobility possessed the exclusive right to exploit the timber, potash, and minerals deriving from their land. The entire economic life of society was organised in their interest.

To this end, the Nobility also cultivated a special relationship with the numerous Jewish community. Particularly in the eastern provinces, the Jews proved to be eminently useful to noblemen who wished to avoid the troublesome regulations surrounding economic life in the towns. They were employed as craftsmen and tradesmen, earning the epithet of fuszer or 'bungler' from the guilds whose rights they circumvented.

By 1569, when the united Republic of Poland-Lithuania was formed, the supremacy of the Nobility was secure. By general European standards they were extremely numerous. Some 25,000 noble families, including at least 500,000 persons, represented some 6.6% of the total population. In the later seventeenth century, this was to rise to 9% and in the eighteenth still further (France had 1% and England 2% in contrast). The formal privileges of the Nobility also protected them from the political pretensions of the king, and from the growth of the modern state.

The economic strata within the Noble Estate (szlachta) went from the Magnates and Nobles-with-means (szlachta zamoźna) at the top to the petty nobility 'without sufficient means' (szlachta zaściankowa zaścianki) and the Rabble, landless serfs (the Hołota) at the bottom. The Magnates were immensely wealthy - for example the Bishop of Kraków owned 230 villages and 13 towns at a time when no secular magnate possessed more than 30 such properties. Among the secular magnates, most owed their elevation to the royal service. Others rose by colonising the Ruthenian lands of the east. Very typically, however, the greatest magnatial fortunes were indebted to a combination of factors - to auspicious marriages, to purchases, exchanges, conquest, to good management, royal favour, obsessive ambition, long life or a dominant male chromosome.

The purity of the Nobility was sometimes called into question. Trepka (1584-1640) was a poet and pundit and author of the Liber chamorum (Book of Hams). In this book, he exposed the people he suspected of falsely parading as nobles e.g. some nobles added a -ski to the name of a peasant their daughter married and hoped they would not be exposed; some burghers of Cracow were provided with fraudulent documents; and great nobles helped their clients to titles with impunity. Blackmail was also prevalent. A 'Ham' (Ham being the ancestor of all rascals) could count on finding a witness to his nobility by threatening a case of nagana against anyone who refused to oblige. Alternatively, he could arrange a spurious nagana against himself, which, when no witnesses came forward, would persuade the court to issue the required certification.

Throughout the centuries, the real enemy was apathy. In a system where Golden Freedom forced no-one into civic responsibilities, it was all to easy for noblemen to cultivate their estates and to revel in their petty, private concerns. Social reform was impossible to introduce as was absolute government. Whilst estate management took up most of their time, relaxation was commonly found in hunting. Sociability was also one of the szlachta's most marked characteristics, as was dancing and a love of ceremony for ceremony's sake. In winter, the kulig or 'sleigh-party' provided a suitable outlet for entertainment, enabling nobles to tour the district calling on their neighbours.

8. Handel: The Baltic Grain Trade (Economy)

The rise of the Vistula trade can be clearly dated to the middle of the fifteenth century. At the time when the entire Vistula basin, from source to seaboard, was united under one political rule, external demand for Polish corn was nicely matched. Rising prices in Western Europe sent merchants far afield, not least to the Hansa port of Danzig (now Gdansk). The influx of merchants, largely Dutchmen, buying in large quantities coincided with the new-found capacity of Polish landowners to sell. At the end of the Thirteen Years War in 1466, Danzig became the chief city of the new Polish province of Royal Prussia. It was the natural outlet of a vast Polish hinterland, the natural junction of sea-going traffic with the river-borne traffic. Although it never lost its German character, its hostility to Hohenzollern Prussia and its loyalty to its Polish protectors, rarely wavered. Danzig was a German jewel in the Polish Crown, the chief emporium and shop-window of the multinational Republic.

In the lifetime of Copernicus himself, the Vistula Trade developed by leaps and bounds. In terms of exported grain measured in lasts, it rose from 5,573 in 1491-2 to 10,000 in 1537 to 66,007 in 1563 to a peak of 118,000 in 1618. Polish grain producers engaged in the Vistula trade can be divided into three categories:

1. The great magnates, whose vast estates could produce a large and regular surplus, even in bad conditions or under poor management.

2. The landowners of lesser standing who depended on efficiency and personal supervision to produce a surplus from lesser holdings of two or three villages.

3. The casual producers - minor nobility, peasants, tenant farmers, who grew corn essentially to feed themselves but who could, on occasion, produce enough to sell.

In the sixteenth century, producers of the middle sort dominated the market. Later on, the magnates' share increased significantly.

Danzig was connected with the interior by a complex network of rivers. All the main tributaries of the Vistula - the Narew, Pilica, Bug etc. - were navigable. All possessed river ports, called pali, at Tarnów, Jarosław, Lubartów etc., where warehouses and boatyards were sited. Riverboats of the period came in six or seven varieties - they were bought or hired with their crew in the upstream ports and disposed of in Danzig at the end of the journey i.e. broken up and sold for timber. These boats included the largest - the szkuta (raft) with a maximum grain cargo of 1,140 korcy (Polish bushels) to the smallest - the berlinka (skiff) - with a maximum cargo of 300 korcy. The actual sailing of the ship was handled by a guild of boatmen whose members were available for hire at all the river ports.

Ships to the Baltic port came from as far afield as Kirkcaldy and Leith in Scotland, Amsterdam, Holland and Bordeaux. A ship out of Bordeaux might bring wine, vinegar and molasses to Danzig and return with rye. A ship from London might sail empty to return with Polish potash. Most of the ships would load up in Danzig with polish rye, wheat, soap, cloth, wool, hops, prunes, wood etc. By far the largest exported good was corn - 71.3% of foreign trade out of Danzig in 1641, followed by manufactures - 11.4% and processed food products - 8.4% . The largest imported goods were manufactures - 40.7% in 1641, followed by colonial products (e.g. herbs) 21.2% and fish and fish-oil - 10.4%.

Social effects of the Vistula Trade:

The peasants, unable in general to compete in the open market with the larger producers, gradually found that acquiescence in the new terms of serfdom was preferable to swimming against the tide in the old, free, but insecure and increasingly hungry manner. From the peasant's point of view, the key to serfdom lay in the security of possession which it promised to families unable to support themselves in a cash economy. By putting its labour at the disposition of the lord, the peasant was guaranteed possession of the family plot which otherwise he might have been obliged to sell. So long as the conditions of his submission were tolerable, serfdom was seen as an improvement, not to say a progressive development, in the peasant's fortunes. It was in the best interests, also, for both lord and serf to work together in an atmosphere of mutual understanding. However, in the course of the sixteenth century, the conditions of serfdom did deteriorate e.g. in 1521, the royal courts were closed to pleas where a peasant wished to appeal against his lord. From then on, the serfs of the nobles' estates were entirely at the mercy of their masters, dependent not only legally but economically and in almost every detail of their daily lives e.g. for permission to marry, for permission to go to market.

The Folwork developed out of earlier village communities already basedon the noble household and had predecessors in the medieval praedia militaria or 'military estate', which had been designed for the upkeep of the knighthood. It transformed the ancient strip-holdings into demense fields, leaving a separate smaller area for the peasant's individual plot. The labour force of the Folwark consisted of two distinct categories: the serf-tenants and the specialist personnel. The serfs, usually 15 to 20 families, held private plots to support themselves, and in return provided unpaid labour on the demense land. Eventually, it came about that the husband and son(s) spent most of their time working for the lord, whilst his wife and younger children were left to cultivate the family plot and beat off starvation. The specialist personnel, numbering 7 or 8 people, enjoyed less burdensome conditions. In the larger villages, there was the sołtys, an official who seems to have been more the agent of seigneurial jurisdiction than the head of a communal system of peasant self-government. A włodarz acted as foreman of the serfs. He also enjoyed land free of service. In the role of management, when the lord was away, there was the salaried dwornik (bailiff) and dwórka for the female staff. Also, the wożnica (carter), parobek (a hired skilled farm labourer), pasterz (cowherd) etc. Overall, the folwark system worked on the assumption that it gave the serf a minimum of land and security, whilst maximising the noble owner's cash profit.

The Grain Trade did not, as it happens, develop many skills, techniques or forms of organisation that did not already exist. It did not, for example, require any manufacturing process, except for milling, nor any raw materials whose import would have balanced the export of the fruits of the country's labour. It also fostered the massive import of foreign currency that was promptly spend on foreign luxuries (particularly in the magnate's households). And it did nothing to relieve the immobility of rural agrarian society, but tied the peasantry to the land even more firmly than before, strangulating the development of the towns and re-enforcing the mounting supremacy of the landowning interest in Poland. In fact the Vistula Trade, at the price of several decades of superficial prosperity, ultimately preserved and strengthened the worst aspects of the medieval economy whilst preventing the growth of that variety and flexibility which enabled stronger economies to ride out adversity and grow. The State, in particular, gained very little advantage from the Grain Trade. The producers had contrived to frame the laws of property and taxation to suit themselves. Noblemen, for example, paid no excise on their own produce nor on goods for their own use. As taxpayers, they were assessed on the land that they held, not according to what they produced or what they earned. This meant that an active prosperous producer paid the same as his idle neighbour.

The decline of the Vistula Trade after 1648 coincided with the decline of the power and prosperity of the Republic as a whole. Indices point to the conclusion that in the mid-seventeenth century the Republic of Poland-Lithuania was beset by an irreversible process of economic regression. By 1750, the economy was considerably weaker, and its inhabitants considerably poorer than two centuries earlier. Wars caused immense damage to the trade. The Swedish Flood caused immense damage in the countryside, for example, where estates were sacked and razed or ruined by confiscation of all their stock. Similar horrors recurred during the Great Northern War, the Wars of the Polish and Austrian Successions, the Seven Years War and the Wars of the Three Partitions. As such moments, sailing down the Vistula with rafts laden with grain was not a commercially viable proposition.

The eventual withdrawal of foreign demand, which had stimulated the Republic's economy so characteristically in the sixteenth century, heralded a social and economic retreat. The expansion of the towns came to a halt. The bourgeoisie and the Jews, who had thrived on the expanding commerce, fell on hard times, and into an increasing dependency on the nobility. The 'middling' noblemen in their dwórs, who had figured so prominently in the economic and political life of the proceeding period, were unable to sustain their position (rather like the decline of the English yeoman farmer). Having no good reason to exert themselves, they gradually abandoned their entrepreneurial spirit, and, as their income declined, sold off their accumulated assets. The takings fell almost exclusively to the magnets, who bypassed the cities and bought the towns; they mobilized the Jews in their own interest, and pressurized the independent gentry. In the land market they had no serious competitors and gradually amassed latifundia (land holdings) of unparalleled proportions. The scene was set for the Sarmatian idyll of the Saxon Era, where prolonged poverty bred ignorance and apathy. When the international vultures began to circle overhead, the impoverished Republic found that it was too weak to resist. In this sense, the decline of the Vistula Trade, and the decay of economic life in general, must be seen as a necessary prelude to the Partitions.

9. Miasto: The Vicissitudes of Urban Life (The Cities)

Professor Davies states that it is important to remember that, in the medieval tradition, the city - civitas in Latin, miasto in Polish - was a juridical concept rather than a geographical one. The city was in no sense equivalent to what today might be called an 'urban area'. Indeed, most of the land within the city limits was devoted to agriculture and was indistinguishable in appearance from the surrounding countryside. Most cities were minuscule by modern standards. Most contained less than two thousand inhabitants. Of the 700 chartered cities in the Kingdom of Poland in the late sixteenth century less than twenty - including Kraków, Lwów, Sandomierz, and Poznań - claimed a population of more than 10,000.

The guilds or Checy made their impact on every sector of urban life. Originally formed to protect the interests of particular specialist professions such as the Goldsmiths and the Armourers, they gradually established monopoly control over every craft and trade (e.g. Butchers, Bakers, Locksmiths, Boiler-makers, Potters, Hatters, Upholsters, Wheelwrights, Needlemakers, Saddlers and others), and their activities spread into the religious, recreational, educational, military and eventually the political sphere. In Cracow, for example, the twenty-four guilds fo the fifteenth century eventually rose to sixty; in Thorn (Torun), in 1650 there were seventy; in Lwów, according to the Lustracja of 1661, thirty-eight. The formation of rival Jewish Guilds in each of the principal trades provided the main grounds for demands to deny the Jews the right of residence. Membership of a guild involved a lifelong commitment. The guildsman worshipped in the chapel of his Guild, served in the trained band of his Guild, and frequented the Dom Bracki (Guild House) with his family. As an apprentice, he lived and worked for seven years under the roof of a master-craftsman, who was directly responsible for his training and conduct. As a young journeyman, he was sent abroad for one year and six weeks to gain experience in his trade in either a distant city or a foreign country. Finally, having completed his majstersztyk or 'masterwork' as proof of his competence, he was examined and then admitted to the ranks with all due pomp and ceremony. Once initiated, he was required to buy a house in the city, to take a wife, to swear an oath of loyalty to his Guild and to register himself as a full citizen.

It is curious to find that the cities of medieval Małopolska were largely German in character, whilst the cities of Wiełkopolska, which were nearer to Germany, were largely Polish. In the fourteenth century, not only Krakau but Tarnów, Sandomierz and Lublin for example were settled by Germans, whilst Poznań and Bydgoszcz stayed more in the hands of Poles. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, important changes also occurred when Polish noblemen deliberately sought to attract German urban settlers into new textile towns, such as Rawicz (1638) and Szamocyn (Pfaffendorf). As an overall generalization, it is probably true to say that the German element predominated in the cities of the Republic's western regions (where the rural population was mainly Polish), whilst the Polish element predominated in the cities of the eastern and southern regions where the rural population was largely Lithuanian or Ruthenian. Everywhere, Jewish communities were well established in all the urban areas.

The decision to transfer the permanent residence of the Court and Government from Cracow to Warszawa was finally taken in 1596. Zygmunt III Vasa gave orders for further reconstruction of Warsaw Castle under his architect, Santa Gucci. Although building work continued for twenty years, the new castle was ready to welcome the King on his victorious return from Smolensk in 1611, and to witness the submission of the captive Muscovite Tsar, Vazyl Szuyski. Anna Vasa, the King's sister, also built the Kazimierz Palace, now the central building of Warsaw University. Her nephew, Władysaw IV, completed the Ujazd Palace, on the southern outskirts. Sobieski was responsible for his Queen's summer residence at Marymont to the north, and for Augustyn Locci's exquisite 'Villa Nova' (Wilanów) to the south. Stanisław-August also built the delightful Łazienki Palace, which he constructed on the site of the Ujazd.

The ruin of the cities of Poland-Lithuania, like that of the Republic's economy, suffered at the hands of invading armies, particularly in the Swedish Wars of 1655-1660, and in the Great Northern War of 1700-1721. As time went on, the condition of the cities declined still further. Trade dwindled. Artistic patronage vanished. The absolute number of city dwellers constantly diminished, whilst the number of registered citizens, and of skilled craftsmen, decreased in proportion to the plebs, the poor and the Jews. In fact, the urban population sank to a mere 15 per cent of the whole. The great cities assumed the air of small towns, whilst the minor cities were reverting to the state of overgrown, country villages, not to say of ghost towns. Although this phenomenon of urban decline was not unknown elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe at this time, its manifestation in Poland-Lithuania was unusually severe.

There was also conflicts between the patricite and the commoners, and between the citizens and the plebs. There were the conflicts of religious and national character between Catholics, Protestants, Uniates and Orthodox as between Poles, Germans, Ruthenes, and Lithuanians. There was also the fundamental division between the Christian burghers and the Jewish estate. In their era of prosperity, the Guilds failed to gain adequate representation in the Sejm (like the Yeoman gentry and Parliament in England) so that, in times of adversity, they could neither protect themselves from the nobility, nor seek redress from the King, nor reform themselves.

On the initiative of the Sejm of 1764, a series of Komisje Boni Ordinis, or 'Commissions of Good Order', were instituted to investigate the plight of particular cities, and to recommend improvements. At the same time, the central organs of the Jewish autonomy, including the Council of Four Lands, were suspended, with a view to reducing Jewish separatism and to creating a unified bourgeoisie. In the following decades, no less than twenty-two commissions were formed, sometimes with important effects e.g. in Cracow, the old corporation was abolished in 1775 and replaced by a new streamlined Council of 12 elected members ruling over four public departments of Justice, Finance, Welfare and Police. However, with the Third Partition of 1795, the cities of Poland-Lithuania were handed over to the mercy of the partitioning powers whose own traditions regarding the proper place of cities within the political order was very different from those of the Republic.

10. Anarchia: The Noble Democracy (Constitution)

This is perhaps one of the most important chapters. The basic unit of constitutional life in Poland was the sejmnik or dietine (both Sejm and sejmnik meaning 'assembly' and 'little assembly' derive from the old Czech word sejmovat, 'to bring together' or 'to summon'). It crystallised in the fifteenth century out of earlier forms of meetings organized by the nobility, mainly for military purposes, and became the regular consultative institution in all the provinces of the Kingdom, and later of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic. Its decisive moment came in 1454 at Nieszawa, at the beginning of the second Teutonic War, when the King conceded the principle that he would neither summon the army nor raise taxes without prior consultation with the nobility.

By the end of the sixteenth century four types of session were held:

1. The sejmik poselski - was called to elect two 'envoys' (poseł) to transmit the 'instructions' of the province's nobility to the Sejm;

2. The sejmik deputacki - elected two 'deputies' (deputat) to serve on the Crown Tribunal;

3. The sejmik relacyjny - met to consider reports and recommendations from the Sejm and to take appropriate action;

4. The sejmik gospodarski - or 'economic session' met to administer the trade and finance of the province, and to execute the resolutions of the Sejm in relation to taxes, military service, and land-holding.

At the end of its deliberations, the dietine passed its lauda or 'resolutions' which carried the full authority of the law within the area of its competence. These resolutions did not require royal assent.

The Senate was composed from the chief officers of Church and State - 2 Archbishops, 17 Roman bishops, 4 Marshalls, 4 Chancellors, 2 Treasurers, 33 Palatines (Wojewoda), 77 Castellans (kasztelan), and the Starosta of Źmudź. It was presided over by the Marshal of the Crown, and attended by the king. It had grown out of the medieval Royal Council, and in addition to its function as a chamber of the legislature, it retained its original function as the chief executive chamber of the legislature, it retained its original function as the chief executive authority.

As a rule, the lower chamber - the Sejm - received two envoys from each of the provincial dietines, and two from the City of Cracow. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when envoys from lands lost to the Republic continued to sit and when some provinces such as Royal Prussia sent as many as eight envoys each, the original 143 members rose to 182 in 1702 and exceptionally, in 1764, to 236. The chair was taken by a 'Marshal of the Sejm', elected by the envoys at the start of each session.

On the death of the king, the Sejm was automatically convoked by the Primate acting as Interrex or 'Regent', whose task it was to prepare the election of a successor. This meeting was called the Sejm konwokacyjny or 'convocational assembly'. When the new king had been elected, the Sejm met again, first to confirm the terms of the king's contract in the Pacta Conventa at the Sejm elekcyjny (Electoral Assembly), and then to hear him swear the coronation oath at the Sejm koranacyjny (Coronation Assembly). Through the Pacta Conventa, the Lower Chamber came to hold the ultimate check on the conduct of the king. As a servant of the dietines, it expressed the will of the noble citizens of the Republic, and controlled the vital spheres of military finance and state taxation. It was the more powerful element in the Sejm, therefore, and as such, the highest authority in the sate. The arrangements, completed in the time for the accession of the first elected king in 1573, lasted until 1791.

In theory, at a Royal election in Poland, every nobleman of the Republic was entitled to attend, and in practice, anything between ten and fifteen thousand usually did. They assembled on horseback on the Wola Field near Warsaw, forming up in serried ranks round the pavilions of their respective provinces. Each of the provinces discussed the matter beforehand in the dietines, and generally came to Warsaw with some idea of their preferences. Yet the process by which this horde of armed horsemen reached a unanimous decision from dozens of candidates and viewpoints can only be described as one of collective intuition, although even this failed sometimes with parties split over their canditates and a double election ensuing (c.f. Pasek's description of the Election of Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki in 1669).

In 1573, after the first election, nine articles were drawn for Henry Valois. In subsequent reigns these 'Henrician Articles' formed a fixed constitutional contract which never varied. They insisted, amongst other things, on the nobility's right to elect their king freely in the future irrespective of the king's plans for his own family; and the final article enunciated the nobility's right of resistance, indeed their duty, to disobey the king if he contravened his oath. In 1576, at the second election, a number of additional articles, called Pacta Conventa, or 'agreed points', were negotiated by Stefan Bathory. For the rest of the Republic's history, the terms 'Pacta Conventa' and 'Henrician Articles' were used indiscrimianately. By these means the King of the Republic was appointed as a lifelong manager, working on contract to the rules of the firm. From coronation to grave, he could have had no illusions that he was the servant, and the nobility his master.

Yet parliamentary control over the royal Executive was by no means complete. As the incumbent of the Crown estates, the king directly managed one-sixth of the land and population, disposing of economic and military resources greater than those of the greatest of the magnates. As a political patron, he could offer his loyal supporters not merely the rewards of executive office but also lifelong tenancies of rich Crown properties (Pasek received some) and monopolies. He spoke with a dominant voice in all political appointments and, although he was not permitted to dismiss them unilaterally, he chose the sixteen officers of state - e.g. the Marszałek (Marshal), the Hetman (Commander), the Kanclerz (Chancellor) and the Podskarbi (Treasurer) of the Korona and of the Grand Duchy, with their deputies. He was also the natural protector of the lesser nobles against the magnates, and of the weaker estates - the burghers, Jews, peasants and clergy - against the nobility as a whole. In foreign affairs he claimed the leading role in the formuation of policy. In almost all his decisions he had to carry the resident Senators with him; but he was not necessarily obliged to accept any proposals that were put to him. In relation to the Sejm, he also convened the Sejm, as well as proroguing and dissolving it. It was also the king who directed the programmes of debates, and whose signature turned parliamentary resolutions into statutory law. He may well have been the servant of the noble Republic but he was certainly not its puppet.

The Confederation - confederatio, konfederacja - was an institution of ancient lineage in Poland, and an expression of the citizen's fundamental rights to resist. It consisted of an armed league, an association of men sworn to pursue their grievance until justice was obtained. It could be formed by the King, or against him. In 1302, for example, the towns of Wielkopolska formed a confederation to rid themselves of outlaws who were infesting the province. In the 1560s, the Army went into confederation to ensure payment of its arrears; and in 1573 the whole Sejm joined in the Confederation of Warsaw in order to establish the principle of religious toleration. Confederation, of course, should not be confused with rebellion. It was a legal procedure, undertaken in the name of the common good, by citizens acting in defence of the law, and conscious of its protection.

The Liberum Veto came into flower rather later than the Confederations, though it too was grown from very ancient roots. It was a device whereby a single member could halt the proceedings of the Sejm by the simple expression of dissent. Such was the feeling for the strength of feeling about the need for unanimity, that it was considered quite improper to continue when a single voice was raised with the words Veto (I deny) or Nie pozwalam (I do not allow it). More often than not this produced no more than a temporary delay whilst the Marshal of the Sejm and would-be objectioners worked matters out.

However, a fateful Sejm occurred in 1652 when, after six weeks of session, a single voice was heard: 'Nie pozwalam'. The Marshal called a break and the chamber emptied as it was a Saturday, and on Sunday many members started to leave for home. By Monday, the Marshal learnt that a formal state veto had been lodged with the Crown Secretariat by one Jan Siciński, envoy of Upita in Lithuania. He had also taken horse to the east without speaking to anyone and so, after lengthy consultation with lawyers and colleagues, the Marshal had no solution but to declare the whole session null and void, with no constitutions written into the Crown Register. In 1666, the Liberum Veto was invoked int the middle of the session; and in 1668 it was used for the first time on the opening day before the debates of the Sejm had begun. In the Saxon Era, the chaos accelerated. In the reign of Augustus II (1697-1733), 11 out of 20 sessions of the Sejm were broken. In the reign of August III (1733-63), only one Sejm was able to pass any legislation at all. The Republic's enemies rejoiced. Each of the Powers retained magnates who could break the Sejm at the drop of a ducat. All were intent that none of their rivals should gain control, and the Russians in particular were well satisfied. From 1717 onwards they enjoyed a virtual protectorate over the Republic and guarded their western frontier at the cost of a few magnatial pensions. By posing as champions of 'the Golden Freedom' and of the Liberum Veto, they could ensure that the Republic remained incapable of organising itself or offering resistance to Russian policy. By filling Warsaw with Russian troops on all important occasions, they 'protected the Sejm from outside interference'.

In 1768, the King's proposal to abolish the Liberum Veto, together with other restrictive practices, was rejected for fear of the one necessary voice of dissent. In May 1791, the long awaited reforms were indeed enacted; but only by virtue of the Russian's preoccupations in the Turkish War. At the Sejm of Grodno of 1793, the King was persuaded to retract the offending reforms and then to sign the Second Partition. In this way, 'the Golden Freedom' was perverted from the very special ends which it was originally designed to prevent. Meant, in theory, to ensure unity and unanimity, in practice (in Russian hands) it ensured the perpetuation of chaos.

In the course of the Middle Ages, the szlachta had developed a ritualized procedure for conducting their vendettas. A nobleman who felt aggrieved would write out a challenge in which he detailed the slights he had suffered and his terms of satisfaction. This 'challenge' (odpowiedź) was equivalent to a declaration of a private war. It was deposited in the district court, to be delivered to the usher. After that, providing that the stated justifications were judged to be genuine, all action taken was perfectly legal. It usually stated the author's intention to execute summary justice on whoever it was that had given offence, to burn down his house and crops, and not to rest until one or the other were dead. The contestants and their retainers consequently did battle with fire and sword until a decisive result was obtained. Norman Davies gives the example of Stanisław Stadnicki (c. 1560-1616), the devil of Łańcut' as an archetypal figure of the Anarchy, at once a notorious gangster and yet also one of the heroes of the Republic (a sort of Robin Hood type figure). He was a man of uncommon courage, invention and energy but devoured by some inner spite and resentment. The dungeon at Łańcut, for example, was equipped with a torture-chamber, where rumour had it that his enemies were buried alive. Travellers were also harassed and, in some cases, purposely mutilated; and trade brought increasingly to Stadnicki's own unlicensed fair at Rzeszów. He eventually met his fate at the hands of a neighbour, Łukasz Opaliński, whose Cossacks ambushed and wounded him, and he finally expired as his head was severed by a stroke of his own sword.

The whole 'Golden Freedom' situation had its critics. The first and most distinguished was Andrzej Modrzewski (1503-72) whose dominant theme was that of social justice. He fearlessly condemned the oppression of the peasants, the exclusion of the bourgeoisie and the ignorance of the clergy, as well as the luxury of the nobility. He was not in any sense a democrat but demanded only that each estate should contribute to the general good according to its means. 'We are all as passengers in one boat,' he said, 'when one of us is sick, the others cannot stay healthy.' In 1557 he reminded the Polish nobility that their arrogance and inflexibility would lead to catastrophe. 'No state was ever conquered before being weakened by internal friction,' he warned, 'beware that by your obstinacy you do not hasten your own perdition and that of the Commonwealth.' Another voice of warning was that of Piotr Skarga (1536-1612), sometime Rector of the Jesuit College and Academy at Wilno and Chaplain and Prelector at the court of Zygmunt III. In 1597 he preached a series of eight sermons before the Sejm of that year in Warsaw, which as Kazania sejmowe or 'Sermons of the Sejm' ran into several editions, and were constantly quoted and read. He stated in his first sermon that, '...everyone defends our noble freedom, whilst honest liberty is turned to disobedience and harlotry.' In his last, he took a text of the Prophets: Set thine house in order: for soon thou shalt die, and not live. His conclusion was stark. If the nobility did not repent, their Republic would suffer the fate of Sodom, of Egypt and Byzantium.

However, to the nobleman of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Poland, the benefits of a centralized state were far from apparent. Poles and Lithuanians observed the gentilities of Ivan the Terrible, the subjugation of Hungary by the Ottomans and the destruction of the Bohemian nobility by the Habsburgs. 'Absolutism' for them was indistinguishable from tyranny (also having little practical knowledge of conditions in Western Europe). All supported the view that political life under Absolutism was no more stable than life under the 'Polish Anarchy'. Foreign comment on the Poland-Lithuanian situation was also interesting. Guillaume Barclay, for example, Professor of Law at Paris, declared: 'The Poles had neither King nor Kingdom, but a sort of oligarchy concealed beneath the royal title.' Jean-Jacques Rousseau, when invited to pen his reflections on the Polish situation by Wielhorski, the agent in Paris of the Confederates of Bar, expressed a view unique in its day. In his Considérations sur le gouvernement de la Pologne, published in 1772 in the year of the First Partition, he warned: 'Think very carefully before you disturb that which has made you what you are.' He also proferred perhaps the most pertinent piece of advice on the Polish condition ever made in modern times:

'If you cannot prevent your enemies from swallowing you whole, at least you must do what you can to prevent them from digesting you.'

This one sentence was heeded in Poland long after the cumulative wisdom of all the other philosophes had been completely forgotten.

[edit] Volume II: A History of Poland: 1795 to the Present v. 2

I. Poland Destroyed and Resurrected

1. NARÓD: The Growth of the Modern Polish Nation (1772-1945)

2. ROSSIYA: The Russian Partition (1772-1918)

3. PREUSSEN: The Prussian Partition (1772-1918)

4. GALICIA: The Austrian Partition (1773-1918)

5. FABRYKA: The Process of Industrialization

6. LUD: The Rise of the Common People

7. KOŚCIÓŁ: The Catholic Church in Poland

8. KULTURA: Education and the National Heritage

9. ŻYDZI: The Jewish Community

10. WOJSKO: The Military Tradition

11. EMIGRACJA: The Polish Emigration

12. VARSOVIE: The Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1915)

13. KONGRESÓWKA: The Congress Kingdom (1815-1846)

14. CRACOVIA: The Republic of Cracow (1815-1846)

15. WIOSNA: The Springtime of Other Nations (1848)

16. REVERIES: The Thaw and the January Uprising (1855-1864)

17. REWOLUCJA: Revolution and Reaction (1904-1905)

18. FENIKS: The Rebirth of the Polish State (1914-1918)

19. NIEPODLEGŁOŚĆ: The Twenty Years of Independence (1918-1939)

20. GOLGOTA: Poland in the Second World War (1939-1945)

21. GRANICE: The Modern Polish Frontiers (1919-1945)

II. Contemporary Poland since 1944

22. PARTIA: The Communist Movement

23. POLSKA LUDOWA: The Polish People's Republic

Postcript

Note: "to the present" refers to early 1980s, when Davies have finished his work. Subsequent editions include chapters updating the book with review of the 1980s decades as well as a revised introduction. Davies also wrote a special introduction for the Polish edition.

[edit] Editions

English:

• Columbia University Press, 1979
• Oxford University Press, 1981, ISBN 0198225555 (vol. 1), ISBN 019822592X (vol. 2)
• Columbia University Press, 1982, ISBN 0231053509 (vol. 1) and ISBN 0231053525 (vol. 2)
• Columbia University Press, 1983
• Oxford University Press, 1983, ISBN 019821944X (vol. 2)
• Columbia University Press, 1984, ISBN 0231053517 (vol.1), ISBN 0231053533 (vol. 2)
• Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0199253390 (vol. 1) and ISBN 0199253404 (vol. 2)
• Columbia University Press, 2005, ISBN 0231128177 (vol. 1), ISBN 0231128193 (vol. 2)

Polish:

• bibuła edition in the 1980s
• ZNAK 1989, ISBN 8370060528
• ZNAK 1994, ISBN 8370063314
• ZNAK 1999
• ZNAK 2006, ISBN 8324006540

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• John Bayley, review of "In God's Playground", The New York Review of Books, volume 37, number 12, July 19, 1990
• Davies' reply, 'The New York Review of Books, volume 37, number 16, October 25, 1990
• Google Books online preview

v • d • e Books by Norman Davies White Eagle, Red Star · Poland, Past and Present · God's Playground · Heart of Europe · Europe: A History · The Isles: A History · Microcosm · Rising '44. The Battle for Warsaw · Europe East and West