History of Poland in a pill - illustrated

Staff, thanks for reminding us about this thread. To be honest , I nearly forgot about it.

We briefly discussed Baptism and Kings/Queens before and now it is time to move to Golden Age which mostly took place in 16th century. Poland was doing well militarily (Moscow Duchy still too weak to pose a real danger), economically and culturally.

Jan Kochanowski`s poetry has been a great read till today, especially Laments written after the death of his little daughter, Urszulka.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laments_(Kochanowski)

Read their nice rendition into English here:
gutenberg.org/files/27179/27179-h/27179-h.htm

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What year was this translation to English done? Could you perhaps provide an English translation of the following passage?

Wielkieś mi uczyniła pustki w domu moim,
Moja droga Orszulo, tym zniknieniem swoim!
Pełno nas, a jakoby nikogo nie było:
Jedną maluczką duszą tak wiele ubyło.
Tyś za wszytki mówiła, za wszytki śpiewała,
Wszytkiś w domu kąciki zawżdy pobiegała.

It is Lament No 8. Yes, it is a must on most school reading lists.

Check out that gutenberg site I provided:

Thou hast made all the house an empty thing,
Dear Ursula, by this thy vanishing.
Though we are here, 'tis yet a vacant place,
One little soul had filled so great a space.
For thou didst sing thy joyousness to all,
Running through every nook of house and hall.
[.....]


VERSIFIED BY DOROTHEA PRALL

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY 1920

Sigismund Bell, the largest one in Poland for many centuries, was hung up in Wawel Cathedral in 1521.

Do you know it is wrongly called Sigismund`s Bell?

Once we talked about idiom : from the great bell, meaning rare special events.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sigismund_Bell

Hanging by Matejko

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The Golden Age came to its end at the beginning of the 17th century. Its final achievement was the occupation of Moscow by Polish troops which concluded with their defeat.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Muscovite_War_(1605%E2%80%931618)#Poles_in_Moscow_(1610)

The Poles surrender the Moscow Kremlin to Prince Pozharsky in 1612, painting by Ernst Lissner

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So far we briefly discussed 3 points
1. Baptism
2. Kings and queens
3. Golden Age

Now it is time for
4. Decline

It began in mid 17th century. Polish elites refused to introduce necessary reforms. There was a constant problem with collecting taxes and financing the regular army. Corrupt gentry and aristocracy played their dirty political games and disobeyed or openly revolted against their rulers. Invasions by foreign powers like Sweden or internal conflicts with Ukrainian cossacks brought about incredible destruction. Economy was mostly based on primitive work of peasants enslaved by their gentry owners - export of grain to Western Europe was Polish specialty. Kings couldn`t do much because of gentry`s ambitions - Parliament sessions were regularly disrupted and new laws were nullified with the use of Liberum Veto which allowed even a single parliament member to stop the legislature process. Those vetoers were often bribed by foreign countries.

The country was gradually going to the dogs, and its elites didn`t notice the rise of new powers, especially Russia under tsar Peter the Great. At the beginning of the 18th century, he and his armies were doing what they wanted in Poland and Lithuania.

Polish parliament called Sejm in 17th century

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