604 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



they have occupied the same territory, which is located between the 

 Oder, the Carpathians, and the Baltic. They were always situated 

 centrally as regards the other Slav tribes, and the Polish philologists 

 are of the opinion that even the language corresponds to this central 

 position of the people. 



But very little is known about the ancient ethnography of present 

 Poland. It is only with the advent of the ninth century that a little 

 light begins to appear concerning these Slavs. The boundaries of 

 Poland, however, were then unsettled, and the nation itself was still 

 composed of a number of tribes or groups; nevertheless, the people 

 were already looked upon as one by the neighboring Slavs and known 

 under the common name of Liachove or Liachi. 



Toward the end of the first millenium, the Poles still consisted, as 

 far as known, of at least five tribes. Between 960 and 1025 the tribe 

 of Poles proper (Polane) succeeded in uniting all these groups, and 

 its name extended over the entire resulting unit. The principal in- 

 centives toward this unification of the tribes were wars with the 

 Germans, following the subjugation by the latter of the Slavs along 

 the Elbe. 



The tenacious struggles with the Germans, thus initiated, continued 

 and exercised a far-reaching influence on the entire internal and ex- 

 ternal development of the Polish nation. They resulted in a slow 

 retirement of the Poles on the west and in their corresponding expan- 

 sion toward the north and the east. Disastrous events to the Poles 

 in the thirteenth century were the invasion of the Tatars, and espe- 

 cially the battle of Lehnice, in 1241, which, among other effects, re- 

 sulted in the tearing apart of Poland and Silesia. 



Quite as disastrous as the above, however, were the continued, exten- 

 sive, and intense efforts at germanization, proceeding from the west. 

 It was due to these combined agencies that in the thirteenth century 

 the Polish nation was almost at the point of destruction. In these 

 extremes, however, there became manifest a great internal reaction 

 among the Poles, directed particularly against the oppressing Ger- 

 mans. This was accompanied by numerous political and other suc- 

 cesses of the nation, and finally, in 1410, in a decisive victory of the 

 Poles at the battle of Grunwald over the German Knights, the prin- 

 cipal agents of germanization. 



The provinces, however, that were meanwhile lost on the west 

 and northwest, could not be regained, and henceforth Polish expan- 

 sion was directed principally toward Lithuania and toward the east 

 and southeast into Kussian territory. The latter eventually en- 

 countered the opposition of the Russians, leading to wars and strag- 

 gles that lasted for centuries, and which were unfavorable to the 

 Poles, resulting, with other circumstances, in the years 1772, 1793, 

 and 1795, in the tri-partition of the Polish State. 



