596 



POLAND (HISTORY.) 



it is still the land of the Poles, although its detach- 

 ed fragments have become Austrian, Prussian, or 

 Kussiuii provinces, containing about 20,000,000 

 Poles. (See Galicia, Cracow, Posen, Lithuania, &ic., 

 and the following article.) After the annexation of 

 Lithuania in the end of the 14th century, the whole 

 Polish territory comprised an extent of 284,000 

 square miles, and was divided into Great and Little 

 Poland on the west, Mazovia and Podlachia in the 

 centre, with Volhynia, Podolia, and the Ukraine 

 towards the east, and Lithuania in the north-east. 

 The inferior divisions were thirty-one palatinates 

 ami starostys. The face of the country is almost 

 everywhere low and level, and in many places mar- 

 shy. All the great rivers, except the Nieinen, run in 

 shallow channels, and overflow their banks. After 

 a rainy season, whole provinces appear inundated, 

 and the waters of distant streams flow into each 

 other. The Carpathian mountains form the south- 

 western boundary of the country, and another low 

 ridge penetrates it from Silesia. In the rest of the 

 country, the ground is highest along a curved line 

 extending throughout the middle of the (old) king- 

 dom from II ungary to Lithuania, and indicated not 

 by conspicuous elevations, but by the course of the 

 waters ; the rivers on the west side flowing into 

 the Baltic, and those on the east into the Euxine. 

 Of the former, the principal are the Vistula, the 

 Bug, the Niemen, the Pregel, the Dwina ; of the 

 latter, the Przypiec, the Dnieper and the Dniester. 

 The east winds from the frozen plains of Russia, and 

 the south winds from the Carpathians, render the 

 winters as severe in Poland as in Sweden, although 

 there is a difference of 10 of latitude. Vegetation 

 is a month later than in the same latitudes on the 

 western shore of the continent. The humidity and 

 cold of the climate, joined to the exhalations from 

 the marshes and vast forests, render the Polish 

 countries unhealthy. (See Plica Polonica). The 

 most pleasant and fertile part is the south-east (See. 

 Ukraine). The country abounds in iron, but of in- 

 different quality ; lead, gold and silver are also found. 

 There are very rich salt mines at Bochnia and 

 Wieliczka, both situated in Galicia. The state of 

 cultivation is extremely wretched ; yet the climate 

 is so regular, and the soil so productive, that the 

 average annual export of corn has been estimated at 

 4,000,000 English quarters. The export of cattle is 

 also of considerable extent. Poland is poor in fruits ; 

 flax and hemp are raised, and in some of the provin- 

 ces there is a great abundance of wood. The peas- 

 antry are in a wretched condition, dirty, improvident, 

 indolent, addicted to intoxication, and of course poor. 

 The general aspect of the country is rude and back- 

 ward ; the roads are bad, and the inns miserable. 

 The Russian kingdom of Poland, which, before the 

 cessions at Andrussow in 1667, contained 1 6,000,000 

 inhabitants, now contains on a surface of 48,600 

 square miles, in 482 towns (viz. 211 immediate and 

 271 mediate towns), and 22,694 villages, 3,850,000 

 inhabitants (in 1818, the number was 2,734,000), 

 among which are 212,944 Jews. Thecapital, Warsaw, 

 contained, previous to the late insurrection, 135,000 

 inhabitants. Poland was divided, in 1816, into eight 

 way wodeships Masovia (capital, Warsaw,) Kalisch, 

 Cracow (chief town, Miechow), Sandomir (capital, 

 Radom), Lublin, Podlachia (capital, Siedlce), Plock, 

 and Augustow (capital, Suwalki). 



Constitution. The state received a constitution 

 from the emperor Alexander, signed by him at 

 Warsaw, Nov. 27, 1815. According to this, the 

 executive power was vested in the king, but the ex- 

 ercise of it intrusted to a council of state, the gover- 

 nor and five ministers. The diet, which the king 

 was to convene every other year, and whose session 



lasted thirty days, consisted, 1. of the chamber of the 

 senate (thirty members, viz. ten bishops, ten way woiies 

 and ten castellans) ; 2. of the chamber of nuncios, in 

 which seventy-seven nuncios, appointed by the seven- 

 ty-seven assemblies of the nobles of the seventy- 

 seven districts, and fifty- onedeputies(fromeightassem- 

 blies for the city of Warsaw, and forty-three for the 

 rest of the country) as well as the members of the 

 council of state, had a seat and vote. But in this 

 chamber, the five ministers, and the members of the 

 three committees, appointed by the chamber for 

 financial, civil and criminal laws (the first of five 

 members), could alone speak ; the other nuncios 

 voted by ballot. '1 he diet examined the projects of 

 laws, framed in the council of state. By this con- 

 stitution, all Christian denominations enjoyed equal 

 religious and political privileges ; the freedom of the 

 press was acknowledged, and all public officers, the 

 members of the council of state, the ministers, &c., 

 were made responsible. The archbishop of Warsaw 

 was primate of the kingdom. The Polish diet was 

 convened, for the first time for twenty-three years, 

 in 1818, and again in 1820, 1825, and 1830. 



History. This country, for a thousand years, has 

 been remarkable for its miserable condition. Prior 

 to 1772, this country, the most extensive plain in 

 Europe, contained, with Lithuania, 284,000 square 

 miles, supporting a population of at most 11,500,000 

 (according to Busching, 8,000,000or9 .000,000) inhab- 

 itants, who, under 100,000 petty masters, derived as 

 little benefit from the freedom of the republic as from 

 the fertility of the soil. Corn and wheat, flax, wood, 

 honey and wax, excellent horses, large herds of fine 

 cattle, and an inexhaustible supply of salt, constitut- 

 ed the natural and commercial wealth of the country, 

 which was easily conveyed to the Baltic and Black 

 seas, by rivers abounding in fish ; but, excepting in 

 Warsaw, Bromberg, Posen, and some towns of the 

 Silesian frontier, industry was torpid ; the whip of 

 the noble was the only stimulus of agriculture, and 

 the Jew drowned in brandy all activity of mind ; for 

 the sentiment of the Polish serf is, ' ' Only what I 

 drink is mine." The least of the evils of the country 

 was legions of wolves and other rapacious animals. 

 In the great convulsions produced by the incursions 

 of the Goths and Huns, and still more in its 200 

 years' struggles with the Germans, and in its internal 

 troubles, this people (a branch of the Sarmatians 

 of the river Borysthenes) acquired a most won- 

 derful elasticity of character, compounded of pliancy 

 and obstinacy, of submission and defiance, of ser- 

 vility and patriotic pride. The first Sclavonic tribes 

 who, in the sixth century, expelled the old Finnish 

 tribes, marched up the Dnieper, and followed down 

 the course of the Vistula. Here they settled on one 

 side, under the name of Lithuanians, and, on the 

 other, around the shores of the Baltic, under those of 

 Prussians and Lettians ; they were followed, in the 

 seventh century, by the Leches, another Sclavonic 

 tribe. These last, more civilized than the other wild 

 hordes, received Christianity about 960, and, at the 

 same time, the art of writing, and, towards the end 

 of the tenth century, were called Poles (i. e. Sclavo- 

 nians of the plain). It was the fate of this new 

 people to be continually at variance with its neigh- 

 bours. In 840, those between the Vistula and 

 Warta had been united under Piast, a prince of their 

 own choice ; but they were afterwards again divided 

 into smaller principalities among his male heirs, so 

 that there remained no other bond of union than 

 affinity of origin, a common reigning family (the 

 Piasts), and a common name. This unity, rather the 

 result of opinion and feeling than of legal arrange- 

 ments, had, however, a powerful influence on the 

 imagination of the Poles, and inspired them with the 



