The predecessor territories of the Kingdom of Poland were formed in the 9th and 10th centuries under the Piast dynasty. The kingdom was Christianized in the 10th and 11th centuries. In the 11th century, the monarchy was consolidated, whereby the kingdom was divided into several principalities in the 12th century, and from 1227 the seniority had only formal significance. In 1320, the principalities reunited to form the Kingdom of Poland. This kingdom entered into a personal union with Lithuania in 1386 and then merged with Lithuania in 1569 to form a real union.
In the 10th century, Poland was called Civitas Schinesghe (roughly "Gnesner Land"). Until 1025, partly in the 11th-13th century, the documents refer to the country as Ducatus Poloniae ("Duchy of Poland"). Between 1386 and 1795, the Kingdom of Poland was part of the dual monarchy of Poland-Lithuania.
The territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was settled by Baltic Lithuanians as early as the 11th century. These different "tribes" formed the Grand Duchy in the 13th century. The expansion of the Grand Duchy was mostly positioned to the east, as the Teutonic Order blocked the access to the Baltic Sea from the 13th century. In 1320, Grand Duke Gediminas conquered Kiev. From 1386, the Grand Duchy was under the same ruler as the Polish Kingdom (personal union) in order to be able to assert itself against the strengthening Teutonic Order in the region. In 1569, Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania also became unified states.
The Kingdom of Prussia existed from 1701 to 1918 and was reigned by the Hohenzollern dynasty. The country was an absolute monarchy from its founding until 1848 and a constitutional monarchy from 1848 until its dissolution. The capital of the Kingdom of Prussia was Berlin. The land was inhabited by about 40 million people. After the November Revolution of 1918 and the abdication of Wilhelm II, the Kingdom dissolved and formed the Free State of Prussia.
The Russian Empire (also Russian Empire or Empire of Russia) was a state that existed from 1721 to 1917 in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and North America. The country was the largest contiguous empire in modern history in the mid-19th century. It was dissolved after the February Revolution in 1917. The state was regarded as autocratically ruled and was inhabited by about 181 million people.
The Habsburg Empire refers to the territories and countries that were ruled by the rulers of the House of Habsburg or Habsburg-Lorraine in personal union from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century - but for a long time did not form a unified state in the strict sense. It was not until 1804 that the Austrian Empire was founded as such, from which Austria-Hungary and the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy evolved in 1867.
The Habsburg Empire included a large number of smaller and larger lands and territories, most of which were grouped together. In addition to the Archduchy of Austria and its neighboring lands (including the duchies of Carinthia, Carniola, Salzburg and others), these included above all the so-called “Lands of the Bohemian Crown” and the “Lands of the Hungarian Crown”. As part of the expansionist policy of the 19th century, further territories and parts of the country were added, also in the Balkans (including Bosnia and Herzegovina). Due to the numerous border shifts, territorial reorganizations and temporary territorial gains and losses, the Habsburg Empire was practically constantly subject to border and territorial changes.
From the late 18th century, most of the constituent states of the Habsburg Empire formed the so-called crown lands, which later received their own provincial orders. With the transformation of the empire into a dual Austro-Hungarian state (dual monarchy), the Kingdom of Hungary and the other lands of the Hungarian crown also ceased to be crown lands. Subsequently, they were also referred to as Transleithania in official parlance, all others (excluding Bosnia and Herzegovina) as Cisleithania.
As early as 1386, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were united by a personal union. Poland-Lithuania existed as a multi-ethnic state and a great power in Eastern Europe from 1569 to 1795. In the state, also called Rzeczpospolita, the king was elected by the nobles.
The German Empire was a state in Central Europe that existed from 1871 to 1945. The period from its founding until 1918 is called the German Empire, then followed the period of the Weimar Republic (1918/1919-1933) and the National Socialism (so-called Third Reich) from 1933 to 1945. 01.01.1871 is considered the day of the foundation of the German Reich.
The Soviet Union (SU or USSR) was a state in Eastern Europe, Central and Northern Asia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It emerged from the so-called Soviet Russia, the successor state of the Russian Empire. The Russian Soviet Republic formed the core of the union and at the same time its largest part, with further constituent republics added. Their number varied over time and was related to the occupation of other countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Soviet republics that existed only for a short time (Karelo-Finlandia) or the division or merger of Soviet republics. In addition, there were numerous autonomous republics or other territorial units with an autonomy status that was essentially limited to linguistic autonomy for minorities.
Before its formal dissolution, the USSR consisted of 15 Soviet republics with a population of approximately 290 million people. At around 22.4 million km², it was the largest territorial state in the world at the time. The Soviet Union was a socialist soviet republic with a one-party system and an absence of separation of powers.
Scholars who attempt to methodically address this colonial difference often cite Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s provocative question: “Can the Subaltern Speak?”3 In view of the colonial, power-based production of writing, she argues that we should also identify and trace the oral traditions of the colonized. Spivak has thus attributed to the colonized people the ability to act on their own authority – agency in postcolonial theory – and thus identified them as active subjects. For her, the subalterns are not simply colonized people who are completely or partially excluded from participation in social life, but a social construction that is designed to enforce their object status.
Ruthenia is the Latinized German term for the Rus', i.e. roughly all areas of Eastern Europe that once belonged to the territory of Kyiv Rus' and/or had a Rus' (East Slavic and Orthodox) majority. Due to the expansions of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th century, many of these areas came under Polish and Lithuanian rule. “Ruthenia” or ‘the Ruthenian lands’ is therefore also a term used to distinguish these areas from those under Muscovite rule.
The historical region is named after the Baltic tribe of the Prussians. In the course of the establishment of the Teutonic Order, this tribe was subjugated, but the name of the region was retained. The Prussian Confederation, founded in 1440 and consisting of both nobles and towns, broke away from the Teutonic Order and submitted to the Polish king. The territory of the Confederation has since been known as Royal Prussia. The remaining part of the former territory of the Teutonic Order was finally transferred to the Duchy of Prussia in 1525, from which the later Kingdom of Prussia emerged.
The historical landscape of Mazovia lies around Warsaw on the Vistula and Bug rivers. Initially part of Piast Poland in the Middle Ages, from the 12th century it was a duchy temporarily connected to Poland only as a fiefdom. In the 16th century Mazovia was reincorporated into the kingdom and divided into three voivodeships. There is also a voivodeship of Mazovia in today's Poland.
Samogitia is a historical region in what is now western Lithuania. Originally settled by Baltic tribes, the region has been the scene of conflict between the Teutonic Order and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the 13th century. Following the Order's military defeats at the beginning of the 15th century, it ceded the region to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It remained as such until the partitions of Poland-Lithuania at the end of the 18th century.
Kiev is located on the Dnieper River and has been the capital of Ukraine since 1991. According to the oldest Russian chronicle, the Nestor Chronicle, Kiev was first mentioned in 862. It was the main settlement of Kievan Rus' until 1362, when it fell to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, becoming part of the Polish-Lithuanian noble republic in 1569. In 1667, after the uprising under Cossack leader Bogdan Chmel'nyc'kyj and the ensuing Polish-Russian War, Kiev became part of Russia. In 1917 Kiev became the capital of the Ukrainian People's Republic, in 1918 of the Ukrainian National Republic, and in 1934 of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Kiev was also called the "Mother of all Russian Cities", "Jerusalem of the East", "Capital of the Golden Domes" and "Heart of Ukraine".
Kiev is heavily contested in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Due to the war in Ukraine, it is possible that this information is no longer up to date.
The historical landscape of Volhynia is located in northwestern Ukraine on the border with Poland and Belarus. Already in the late Middle Ages the region fell to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and from 1569 on belonged to the united Polish-Lithuanian noble republic for more than two centuries. After the partitions of Poland-Lithuania at the end of the 18th century, the region came under the Russian Empire and became the name of the Volhynia Governorate, which lasted until the early 20th century. The Russian period also saw the immigration of German-speaking population (the so-called Volhyniendeutsche), which peaked in the second half of the 19th century. After the First World War Volhynia was divided between Poland and the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, from 1939, as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, completely Soviet and already in 1941 occupied by the Wehrmacht. Under German occupation there was systematic persecution and murder of the Jewish population as well as other parts of the population.
After World War II, Volhynia again belonged to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and since 1992 to Ukraine. The landscape gives its name to the present-day Ukrainian oblast with its capital Luzk (ukr. Луцьк), which is not exactly congruent.
Podlaskie is located in the east of Poland and is bordered by the rivers Bug and Memel. The territory was incorporated by conquest first into the Polish Kingdom in 1569 and later into the Polish-Lithuanian Union.
Livonia (Livonija in Latvian, Liivimaa in Estonian) is a historical landscape in the Baltic States. It comprises the southern part of present-day Estonia and the part of present-day Latvia north of the Daugava River. The landscape was named after the Livonians, a population group that hardly exists today.
Historically, the name Livonia can refer to other, different contexts. The governorate of the same name, which was one of the three Baltic Sea governorates of the Russian Empire, is particularly influential for today's understanding of the historical region. It existed from the beginning of the 18th century until 1918 and its capital was Riga, located at the mouth of the Duna.
Livonia had previously given its name to other states and confederations, most notably the Livonian Confederation, which had existed since the High Middle Ages. The Livonian part of the Teutonic Order as well as regional ecclesiastical states belonged to the confederation. The confederation also included large parts of the present-day states of Latvia and Estonia. After the dissolution of the confederation and the Teutonic Order state in the 16th century, sovereignty changed several times. Without the southern and northern areas, Livonia initially came under Polish-Lithuanian rule, later also under Swedish suzerainty, before coming under Russian rule in the course of the Great Northern War (1700-1721). Until the beginning of the 20th century, the central role of the landowning German-speaking nobility was particularly influential in the internal social organization of the rural area.
Lublin (population 2023: 329,565) is the capital of the same-named voivodeship in eastern Poland. The city is one of the most important political centers and industrial sites in eastern Poland as well as one of the most important educational centers in the country. In addition to the state Maria Curie Skłodowska University, Lublin is also home to the renowned Catholic University of Lublin John Paul II. In 1569, the real union of the dual monarchy of Poland and Lithuania was established in the Union of Lublin. Lublin was briefly the capital of Poland in 1809, 1918 and 1944/45. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the city was a stronghold of Protestantism in Poland. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Lublin was the heart of Judaism in the country, and from the end of the 18th century it was the most important place for Hasidism. In 1930, the largest Talmud school in the world at the time was opened in Lublin, but had to close after the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Between 1939 and 1942, most of the city's Jewish population, initially imprisoned in the ghetto and later deported to concentration camps, including in the Lublin concentration camp in the Majdanek district, were murdered. After the Second World War, Lublin was an important location for the automotive industry. In 1980, the city was one of the most important centers of resistance against the Communist rulers.
The medieval and early modern history of Poland-Lithuania was often characterized by violent conquests and power struggles between the crown, the nobility and the various legal-religious communities. However, it was only the authors of the 19th century who reshaped this history in nationalist and colonialist terms.20 This is all the more remarkable given that Poland itself was the object of imperial rule at the time. The thought patterns of the turn of the century continued into the interwar period, when the Polish Republic itself was striving to become a colonial power.21 In addition, Polish activists tried to attribute a civilizing mission to Poland vis-à-vis the Ukrainians.22 To some extent, these attitudes still shape research today. For example, the practice of often reproducing East Slavic names and places solely in polonized form testifies to the still tangible tendency to mentally assimilate eastern Poland-Lithuania (Kresy) as Polish.
