10 Interesting Facts about Poland

To be fair to my dear readers, I was not born in Poland. Nor raised. This country happened upon me! I did not know much about Poland before my first visit here, about 11 years ago. All I knew was that it was a post-communist country (like my homeland: Romania), that the capital was in Warsaw, that Helena Rubinstein lived here and made amazing cosmetics, that the Schindler’s List was filmed here and that Auschwitz was just a stone throw away from Krakow. You could say… quite limited knowledge!

I moved here 10 years ago, during summertime, and I never regret that step since. Of course, as we live we learn and we absorb information from around us, so I thought I might share with you 10 Interesting Facts about Poland – my adoptive Homeland.

1. Poland Constitution is the 1st in Europe and 2nd in the World

 Date Ratified: May 3, 1791
 Last Amended: October 21, 2009
 Author(s): Historical – Ignacy Potocki, Hugo Kołłątaj, King Stanisław August Poniatowski, Stanisław Małachowski, Stanisław Staszic, and Scipione Piattoli; Modern – Komisja Konstytucyjna and Zgromadzenia Narodowego
 Government Type: Unitary semi-presidential constitutional republic

Although the Constitution of San Marino is technically older, Poland’s Constitution of 3 May 1791 is generally considered the world’s 2nd-oldest modern constitution and the oldest in Europe.

2. Marie Curie was NOT French, but Polish!

Her original name was Maria Salomea Sklodowska before she married a Frenchman named Pierre Curie. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different fields.

Born in Warsaw (7th November 1867), at the age of 16 she won a gold medal on the completion of her secondary education at the Russian lyceum. Due to the fact that at that time women could not join the University in Poland, she moved in 1891 to Paris. Married Pierre Curie in July 1895 and they started their partnership – discovering polonium (Maria calling it after her native homeland).

3. Holds the biggest castle in the world: Malbork Castle

UNESCO designated the “Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork” and the Malbork Castle Museum a World Heritage Site in December 1997. The Malbork Castle is the largest castle in the world measured by land area. Build some time in the 13th century, it was meant to be a fortress for the Teutonic Order. The purpose was to strengthen the Order’s control of the area, following the Order’s suppression of the Great Prussian Uprising of 1274 (of the Baltic tribes). The castle is now a museum and can be visited – it is also a stone’s throw away from the Tri-City (Gdansk, Gdynia, Sopot).

4. Nicolaus Copernicus was Polish too!

Yes, you read that right! Like Marie Curie, Nicolaus Copernicus was Polish too! Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a region that had been part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. Born on the 19th of February 1473 in the city of Torun, he attended the University of Krakow (now Jagiellonian University).

Copernicus’ 4 years at Kraków played an important role in the development of his critical faculties and initiated his analysis of logical contradictions in the two “official” systems of astronomy—Aristotle’s theory of homocentric spheres, and Ptolemy‘s mechanism of eccentrics and epicycles—the surmounting and discarding of which would be the first step toward the creation of Copernicus’ own doctrine of the structure of the universe.

5. Poland has the second oldest University in Europe

The Jagiellonian University was founded by King Casimir III the Great in 1364. It means that it’s the second University in Europe as the first one was created in Prague sixteen years before. Founded in 1364 by the King of Poland Casimir III the Great, the Jagiellonian University is the oldest university in Poland, the oldest Slavic university, the second oldest university in Central Europe, and one of the oldest surviving universities in the world.

Notable alumni of the Jagiellonian University

Notable alumni include astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, poet Jan Kochanowski, Polish King John III Sobieski, constitutional reformer Hugo Kołłątaj, chemist Karol Olszewski, anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, writer Stanisław Lem, and President of Poland Andrzej Duda. Students at the University who did not earn diplomas included Nobel laureates Ivo Andrić and Wisława Szymborska. Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) enrolled in the Jagiellonian University of Krakow in 1938 to study Polish Studies at the JU Faculty of Philosophy, but shortly after enrollment, his studies were interrupted by Sonderaktion Krakau. In 1953, Father Wojtyła presented a dissertation at the Jagiellonian University of Krakow on the possibility of grounding a Christian ethic on the ethical system developed by Max Scheler.

6. Auschwitz – the largest Holocaust tool

#LestWeForget I will always remind myself and my readers of the horrors of the Second World War and the destruction that Nazi Germany brought. Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi death camps and it was comprised of actually 3 camps (closely connected to each other): Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), and Auschwitz III. It was originally created to be a prison for Polish prisoners but then Auschwitz II was built in the vicinity and… well… it’s all history! Auschwitz II became the mass killing site for Jews, gypsies, and unwanted human beings.

Auschwitz II was created specifically to be part of the “Final Solution” – Nazi Germany’s plan to annihilate all European Jews. The older people, women that were weak, and the children were immediately taken from the cattle carts and killed in the immense gas chambers (multiple) built there. Men were used for hard labor until they dropped dead on the spot. Even with the gas chambers, they were evil… disguising them as shower houses so that the prisoners would not try and fight their way out of it.

More than 1.1 million people were killed in Auschwitz! Overall estimates state that around 6 million European Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

7. Warsaw was not the first Polish capital

Everyone knows that nowadays the capital of Poland is Warsaw, however… did you know that Gniezno was the first Polish capital? Gniezno is a town in central-western Poland which was among the earliest Polish settlements. Alongside places like Poznań and Ostrów Lednicki, it was one of the primary places of residence of Poland’s first historical ruler, Mieszko I, who lived in the 10th century (his birthdate is unknown, but he passed away in the year 992).

The second one was Krakow. Kraków was the capital of Poland from 1039 until 1079 +  from the year 1138, the city once more enjoyed the status of the capital of Poland until the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Kraków became the capital of a monarchy that extended over natively Polish lands as well as vast Lithuanian-Ruthenian areas. The royal court played an important part in the shaping of cultural and artistic life. (…) The Wawel Castle became a pearl of Renaissance architecture; (…) it proudly served as the residence of the rulers of a modern and strong state. At the end of the 16th century, the capital was moved to Warsaw, Kraków lost its importance, retaining only its representative role as the city of royal coronations and funerals.

From ‘Historia Krakowa’ (Kraków’s History), www.krakow.pl, trans. MK

8. Pope John Paul the 2nd was also Polish 😉

Pope John Paul the 2nd was born Karol Józef Wojtyła – John Paul II was the second-longest-serving pope in modern history after Pope Pius IX. Born in Poland, John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since the 16th-century Pope Adrian VI. To be fair, he lived a pretty amazing life!

Born in Wadowice, moved to Krakow, enrolled at the Jagiellonian University. He volunteered there as a librarian and did the compulsory military training in the Academic Legion – where he always refused to fire a weapon. He had a talent with languages – learning as many as 15! Karol worked as a messenger for a restaurant, manual labourer in the limestone quarry in Krakow. He also was the very first pope to visit a mosque AND the White House!

9. Polish King Kazimierz Jagiellończyk is the “Father of Europe”

Casimir IV (in full Casimir IV Andrew Jagiellon; Polish: Kazimierz IV Andrzej Jagiellończyk ; 30 November 1427 – 7 June 1492) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1440 and King of Poland from 1447, until his death.

Of his 9 children, one became a cardinal, 4 became kings, one was canonized, and the 3 daughters were married off to become mothers of the heirs of the greatest dynasties in Western Europe (Sophie (6 May 1464 – 5 October 1512); married to Margrave Frederick V of Brandenburg-Ansbach + Anna Jagiellon (12 March 1476 – 12 August 1503); married Bogislaw X, Duke of Pomerania; they had eight children, including Sophie of Pomerania, who became queen of Denmark + Barbara (15 July 1478 – 15 February 1534); married Duke Georg dem Bärtigen of the Saxony )

10. The last Polish monarch died in prison 🙁

Stanisław Poniatowski was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1764 to 1795, and the last monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. A controversial figure in Poland’s history, he is criticized primarily for his failure to resolutely stand against and prevent the partitions, which led to the destruction of the Polish state. On the other hand, he is remembered as a great patron of the arts and sciences who laid the foundation for the Commission of National Education, the first institution of its kind in the world and sponsored many architectural landmarks. To be noted that during his rule the famous Polish Constitution of the 3rd of May was written!

He died in semi-captivity in 1798 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Well… I do hope you enjoyed my facts about Poland 🙂 Do let me know how many you knew before and what surprised you the most from what was written here. And don’t forget: Sharing is Caring!

Yours always truly,

The Twisted Red LadyBug