Poland

a former kingdom of Europe. Toward the close of the sixteenth century the kingdom of Poland occupied a large extent of territory, extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, including 380,000 square miles of territory and 35,000,000 people. Even Bohemia and Moravia were at one time attached to Poland. About 1312 the capital was Cracow. Two centuries later it was Warsaw on the Vistula. With the rise of Prussia and Russia Polish territory was cut down repeatedly. The Turks encroached. Among the names of prominence in the list of Polish kings are Sigismund, Casimir the Great, Ladislaus, Sobieski, and Stanislaus.

Poland was subject to unfortunate factional strife that rendered the country an easy prey. In 1772, 1793, and 1795 the adjacent countries, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, agreed on what are known in history as the Three Partitions of Poland. Russia received the lion's share. The name Poland is now attached to the region only in a historical sense. It does not appear on a map of modern Europe.

The Poles are a Slavonic people. They are related to the Russians, Moravians, and Bohemians. They are an active, brave, gay, hospitable people, fond of song, music, and dancing. Their political downfall may be traced to the defenseless condition of the great plains they inhabited, and to the incessant quarrels of a nobility that cared not at all for the common people.

Although every effort has been made to get the Polish children into schools taught in other languages, 15,000,000 inhabitants still live under the flags of Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, and speak in the Polish tongue. Russian Poland has struggled hardest against the conqueror and has suffered severely. Riots and uprisings have been put down with a terrible hand. All documents must be drawn in the Russian language. Even the ancient University of Warsaw is not permitted to use the Polish language. The earlier writings of Poland were in Latin. The Poles still use the Roman alphabet. They employ ten vowels and thirty-five consonants. The most noted Polish writer of late is Henryk Sienkiewicz, the author of Quo Vadis.