The Polish question ( or ) was the issue, in international politics, of the existence of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

as an independent state. Raised soon after the

partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partition (politics), partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place between 1772 and 1795, toward the end of the 18th century. They ended the existence of the state, resulting in the eli ...

in the late 18th century, it became a question current in European and American diplomacy throughout the 19th and parts of the 20th centuries. Historian

Norman Davies Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a British and Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Profes ...

notes that the Polish question is the primary lens through which most histories of Europe discuss the

history of Poland The history of Poland spans over a thousand years, from Lechites, medieval tribes, Christianization of Poland, Christianization and Kingdom of Poland, monarchy; through Polish Golden Age, Poland's Golden Age, Polonization, expansionism and be ...

, and was one of the most common topics of European politics for close to two centuries. The Polish question was a major topic at all major European peace conferences: at the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...

in 1815, at the

Versailles Conference The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...

in 1919, and at the

Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (), held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three sta ...

and the Potsdam Conference in 1945. As Piotr Wandycz writes, "What to the Poles was the Polish cause, to the outside world was the Polish question."

History

After late-18th-century

, the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

ceased to exist, divided between the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...

, the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

and the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. Poland’s erasure from

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

became a key to maintaining the European balance of power over the next century. The term "Polish question" came into use shortly afterwards, as some Great Powers took interest in upsetting this ''

status quo is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, economic, legal, environmental, political, religious, scientific or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the curren ...

'', hoping to benefit from the recreation of the Polish state, starting with

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

under

Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

, who considered the Poles useful recruits in his wars with Poland's occupying powers. The term "Polish question" was heard again after the failed

November Uprising The November Uprising (1830–31) (), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in Russian Partition, the heartland of Partitions of Poland, partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. ...

of 1831, during the " Spring of Nations" in 1848–49, and again after the unsuccessful

January Uprising The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last i ...

of 1863, in which Poles and Lithuanians rebelled against the Russian Empire, trying to restore their country's independence. In the era of rising

nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...

, the question of whether an independent Poland should be restored, and also what it meant to be a Pole, gained increasing notoriety. In the decades that followed, the term became less used, as no new major uprisings occurred in Poland to draw the world's attention. The issue was further assuaged by the fact that the three partitioning powers were common allies for over a century (cf. League of the Three Emperors), and their diplomacy successfully kept the issue suppressed so that no serious solution appeared in sight. Out of the three partitioning powers, for Prussia the Polish question was one of fundamental importance, as Prussia's existence was connected to the Polish state being vanquished. The Polish question resurfaced with force during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, when the partitioning powers fought one another, leading them to attempts to court their respective Polish citizens. In his memorandum of 20 January 1914, Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov proposed the restoration of an autonomous Kingdom of Poland with the Polish language used in schools and local administration, to which eastern Silesia, Western Galicia and eastern Poznan would be attached after the war, and on 16 August 1914 he persuaded the Tsar that Russia should seek reintegration of a unified Polish state as one of its war aims. In 1916, Germany, with the

Act of 5th November The Act of 5th November of 1916 was a declaration of Emperors Wilhelm II of Germany and Franz Joseph of Austria. This act promised the creation of the Kingdom of Poland out of territory of Congress Poland, envisioned by its authors as a puppet s ...

, publicly promised to create the Regency Kingdom of Poland, while secretly planning to annex up to 35,000 square kilometres of its territory and ethnically cleanse up to 3 million Poles and Jews to make room for German settlers after the war. This caused the French parliament to comment that the manifesto "stamped the Polish question with an international character". Russia protested the move, as it saw its own rump Polish state, the

Congress Kingdom Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...

(or

Vistula Land Vistula Land, also known as Vistula Country (; ), was the name applied to the lands of Congress Poland from 1867, following the defeats of the November Uprising (1830–1831) and January Uprising (1863–1864) as it was increasingly stripped of ...

) as the only "Poland" that mattered. Soon, however, the Russians followed the German move, and promised the Poles increased autonomy. This offer was mentioned in the United States in

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...

's "Peace Without Victory" speech of 1917. The Polish question was temporarily solved with the restoration of Polish independence after World War I. The term became once again relevant before and during World War II. According to a conversation in August 1939 before the outbreak of World War II, published in the British War Blue Book, Hitler told British ambassador

Nevile Henderson Sir Nevile Meyrick Henderson (10 June 1882 – 30 December 1942) was a British diplomat who served as the ambassador of the United Kingdom to Nazi Germany, Germany from 1937 to 1939. Early life and education Henderson was born at Sedgwick, Wes ...

, "I am an artist and not a politician. Once the Polish question is settled, I want to end my life as an artist." After the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

the future of

occupied Poland ' (Norwegian language, Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV 2 (Norway), TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. ...

became once again an issue of debate between the

Great Powers A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power ...

of the time, namely the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union. The term was also used later in the 20th century, in the 1980s during the

Solidarność Solidarity (, ), full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" ( , abbreviated ''NSZZ „Solidarność”''), is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Gdańsk Shipyard, Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Polish People's Rep ...

period, when opposition activists struggled to free the

People's Republic of Poland The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...

from the domination of the

Soviet Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite book, author1=Michael Bernhard, author2=

Henryk Szlajfer Henryk Szlajfer (born 7 November 1947, Wrocław) – Polish economist and Political science, political scientist of Jews, Jewish origin, professor at the University of Warsaw, in the years 1993–2008, director of the Department of Strategy and P ...

, title=From the Polish Underground: Selections from Krytyka, 1978-1993, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YE29dvVxvdgC&pg=PA91, accessdate=4 August 2013, date=1 November 2010, publisher=Penn State Press, isbn=978-0-271-04427-9, page=91 {{cite book, author=Mieczysław B. Biskupski, title=The History of Poland, url=https://archive.org/details/historyofpoland00bisk, url-access=registration, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=2000, publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group, isbn=978-0-313-30571-9, pag
22
} {{cite book, author=Mieczysław B. Biskupski, title=The History of Poland, url=https://archive.org/details/historyofpoland00bisk, url-access=registration, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=2000, publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group, isbn=978-0-313-30571-9, pag
45
} {{cite book, author1=Manfred F. Boemeke, author2=Gerald D. Feldman, author3=Roger Chickering , author4=Stig Förster , author5=Elisabeth Gläser, title=The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment After 75 Years, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zqj-oHp4KsgC&pg=PA313, accessdate=4 August 2013, date=13 September 1998, publisher=Cambridge University Press, isbn=978-0-521-62132-8, pages=313– {{cite book, author=Norman Davies, title=God's Playground A History of Poland: Volume II: 1795 to the Present, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9Tbed6iMNLEC&pg=PA11, accessdate=4 August 2013, date=24 February 2005, publisher=Oxford University Press, isbn=978-0-19-925340-1, page=11 {{cite book, author=Norman Davies, title=God's Playground A History of Poland: Volume II: 1795 to the Present, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9Tbed6iMNLEC&pg=PA216, accessdate=4 August 2013, date=24 February 2005, publisher=Oxford University Press, isbn=978-0-19-925340-1, page=216 {{cite book, author=Norman Davies, title=God's Playground A History of Poland: Volume II: 1795 to the Present, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9Tbed6iMNLEC&pg=PA79, accessdate=4 August 2013, date=24 February 2005, publisher=Oxford University Press, isbn=978-0-19-925340-1, page=79 {{cite book, author=Dieter Dowe, title=Europe in 1848: Revolution and Reform, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B3qRFCn5CHoC&pg=PA174, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=2001, publisher=Berghahn Books, isbn=978-1-57181-164-6, pages=174–175 {{cite book, editor=David L. Ransel, editor2=Bożena Shallcross, author=Andrzej Walicki, chapter=The Slavophile Thinkers and the Polish Question in 1863, title=Polish Encounters, Russian Identity, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZhWR_QrNxF8C&pg=PA89, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=2005, publisher=Indiana University Press, isbn=978-0-253-21771-4, pages=89–93 {{cite book, author=William Fiddian Reddaway, title=The Cambridge History of Poland, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=As43AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA336, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=1971, publisher=CUP Archive, pages=336–337, id=GGKEY:2G7C1LPZ3RN {{cite book, author=William Fiddian Reddaway, title=The Cambridge History of Poland, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=As43AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA481, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=1971, publisher=CUP Archive, page=481, id=GGKEY:2G7C1LPZ3RN {{cite book, author=William Fiddian Reddaway, title=The Cambridge History of Poland, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=As43AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA489, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=1971, publisher=CUP Archive, page=489, id=GGKEY:2G7C1LPZ3RN Immanuel Geiss "Tzw. polski pas graniczny 1914-1918". Warszawa 1964 {{cite book, author=Piotr Stefan Wandycz, title=The United States and Poland, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_XaFaNshCrkC&pg=PA104, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=1980, publisher=Harvard University Press, isbn=978-0-674-92685-1, pages=104–105 {{cite book, author=Piotr Stefan Wandycz, title=The United States and Poland, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_XaFaNshCrkC&pg=PA107, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=1980, publisher=Harvard University Press, isbn=978-0-674-92685-1, page=107 {{cite book, author=Piotr Stefan Wandycz, title=The United States and Poland, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_XaFaNshCrkC&pg=PA112, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=1980, publisher=Harvard University Press, isbn=978-0-674-92685-1, page=112 {{cite book, author=Piotr Stefan Wandycz, title=The United States and Poland, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_XaFaNshCrkC&pg=PA272, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=1980, publisher=Harvard University Press, isbn=978-0-674-92685-1, pages=272–275 {{cite book, author=Piotr Stefan Wandycz, title=The United States and Poland, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_XaFaNshCrkC&pg=PA58, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=1980, publisher=Harvard University Press, isbn=978-0-674-92685-1, pages=58–61 {{cite book, author=Piotr Stefan Wandycz, title=The United States and Poland, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_XaFaNshCrkC&pg=PA60, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=1980, publisher=Harvard University Press, isbn=978-0-674-92685-1, page=60 {{cite book, author=Piotr Stefan Wandycz, title=The United States and Poland, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_XaFaNshCrkC&pg=PA84, accessdate=4 August 2013, year=1980, publisher=Harvard University Press, isbn=978-0-674-92685-1, pages=84–85 Poland and the Poles Alexander Bruce Boswell Dodd, Mead, 1919pp. 78-9. Poland and the Poles Truth or conjecture?: German civilian war losses in the East, page 366 Stanisław Schimitzek Zachodnia Agencia Prasowa, 1966 Absolute Destruction: Military Culture And The Practices Of War In Imperial Germany Isabel V. Hull page 233 Cornell University Press, 2005 To the Threshold of Power, 1922/33: Origins and Dynamics of the Fascist and Nationalist Socialist Dictatorships, page 151-152 The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke By Timothy Snyder "On the annexations and ethnic cleansing, see Geiss, Der Polnische Grenzstreifen" The History of Poland Since 1863, R. F. Leslie page 98 Companion to International History 1900-2001 – Page 126 Russia's International Relations in the Twentieth Century. Alastair Kocho-Williams, p. 18 Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands by Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz page 55 Indiana University Press 2013 Gordon Martel – 2008, Sazonov claimed the lower Niemen basin from Germany and eastern Galicia from Austria-Hungary. Poland would receive eastern Posen and southern Silesia from Germany and western Galicia from the Habsburg Empire.

History

See also

References

Further reading