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About Wroclaw

Wroclaw may never have lost its ancient Polish element - 20,000 Poles lived here before World War II - but Poles would never have imagined that the city would become a part of the motherland again.

Wroclaw became Polish again by default. Stalin prodded Churchill and Roosevelt into rolling Poland west in 1945. Poland lost the cities of Lwow and Vilnius and gained the bombed out shells of Breslau (Wroclaw) and Danzig (Gdansk). Neither the Germans nor the Poles wanted the move, but they had to make the best of the situation.

The Lwow connection was especially important in the development of today's Wroclaw. Thousands of Lvovians were encouraged to settle there in the late forties, and a host of cultural institutions were reborn, chief among them Lwow's Jan Casimir University.

Wroclaw has grown into a vibrant student city, and Poles from across the country are quick to compliment their Wroclavian brothers - a generosity of spirit that seems rather less pronounced in relations between Varsovians and Cracovians. As it was, Lwow was one of the most cultured and cosmopolitan cities in Old Poland, and much of its spirit has re-emerged in Wroclaw.

The earliest knowledge we have of Wroclaw dates to the ninth century, when a Slavic tribe made a fort here on the delightfully named Tum island. The tribe was soon mopped up by the Czechs, whose legendary ruler Vratislav provided the origins for the city's name.

From henceforth, Vratislavia would change hands dozens of times, with Czechs, Poles, Germans and Austrians all having a bash at conquering and reconquering the city.

The first bishopric was established here in 1000 by Polish King Boleslas the Brave, and a cathedral still stands on the spot of that first edifice. Although Polish remained one of the languages of the street for centuries to come, Wroclaw moved out of the sphere of Polish rule in 1338. Nevertheless, regular changes of regime did not prevent the city from blossoming into one of the richest cities in Central Europe.

Plague and the Thirty Years War set things back during the seventeenth century, throughout which Breslau - as it was now called - belonged to Habsburg Austria. The Prussians then took decisive control over the city after the Seven Years War (1756-63) and besides a brief era of Napoleonic rule, the city remained in the German orbit through the Prussian led unification of Germany during the late nineteenth century.

When war broke out in September 1939, Breslau's population numbered about 630, 000, of which about 20, 000 were Poles. The majority of the city's 20,000 strong Jewish population had already fled the city in the wake of Nazi rule. Those that remained would share the cruel fate of Central Europe's Jews.

The Germans did not give up their city easily. The Soviet attack was launched in January 1945, and the bombardment continued until 6th May. By this stage as much as 70% of the city lay in ruins.

Those Germans who had not already fled were compelled to do so after the Potsdam Conference ruled that Breslau should become Polish. Within a year, as many as 166,000 Poles had arrived, mainly from Lwow (now the Ukrainian city of Lviv).

Rechristened Wroclaw, the city's future was now tied to Poland. However, it would not be for another forty-four years that Poland would be a free country again.

If any trace of a silver lining can be discerned over the wreck of 1945, it must be that Europe is now experiencing its most peaceful epoch in a thousand years. Polish-German relations have been salvaged, and German tourists are warmly welcomed in today's Wroclaw. Let's hope that we don't start beating each other up again.

About Poland

The Poles belong to the Slavic peoples. The origin of the word 'Slav' has a somewhat inglorious legacy. During the twilight of the first millennium A.D, repeated raids were made into the Central European expanses. The purpose of these raids was to sell captives on the slave (Slav) markets of Constantinople.

Not that the Polish nobility claimed descent from these pagan fellows. Far from it. The Polish gentry believed that they were descended from an ancient warrior tribe known as the Sarmatians, who had swept into Central Europe from the Black Sea Steppe.

But whether or not the nobility ('szlachta') were Slavs or Sarmatians, they eventually absorbed a plethora of different peoples into their ranks, including Armenians, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Scots and even small groups of Tatars. By the close of the 16th century, Poland had evolved into a hybrid state that was for a time something of a lone democracy amidst a sea of absolutist states. During its heyday, Poland - as the largest and most progressive country in Europe - had a greater degree of religious tolerance than any other European country, a factor which made it a haven for the Jewish diaspora.

Poland was brought to its knees during the mid-seventeenth century by a series of wars on all fronts. The country never quite recovered. Weaknesses in the country's democratic laws were exploited by partisan groups, and Poland drifted into decline. During the late eighteenth century, the spirit of reform permeated large numbers of the nobility. However, this eventually proved too much for Poland's absolutist neighbours, who were wary of a resurrected force in their midst. Led by Catherine the Great of Russia, the Prussians, Austrians and Russians set about dismembering the country. The final partition was completed in 1795.

Whilst two major uprisings were made in the Russian partition (1831, 1863) as well as a brief yet ill-fated alliance with Napoleon Bonaparte, it was not until 1918 that Poland regained her independence. This came in the wake of the Second World War, during which Marshal Jozef Pilsudski (later President) emerged as the nation's champion.

The wobbly period of independence was short-lived. In September 1939, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia launched a two-pronged invasion that divided up the country. About a fifth of the country perished during the war, including vast numbers of the intelligentsia and a staggering 90% of the country's Jewish population.

After the war, the Soviets set up a communist regime, whose demise was spurred on by the Solidarity protest movement, whose leader, Lech Walesa, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.

Throughout the Cold War era the Roman Catholic Church acted as something of a shepherd of the nation (as it had done in the nineteenth century era of partitions). The country was blessed with a number of visionary spiritual leaders, chief among them Karol Wojtyla, who became the first Polish Pope in 1978. The country had originally been brought into the Christian fold as far back as 966 AD, and today it is one of Europe's most Catholic countries.

The Presidential insignia was finally brought back to Poland in 1989 by the government in exile, which had remained in London since World War II. Lech Walesa became the first democratically elected President of the new era, but his term in office was a difficult one. Poland inherited monumental debts from the Communist era, and the shock of transition was acute. Nevertheless, Poland's economy was sufficiently successful to merit its accession into the European Union in the first wave of that body's expansion in 2004. And in spite of both high levels of unemployment and a number of corruption scandals in the political arena, the country is widely considered as a leader in the region. The baptism of the new Poland may have been by fire, but her borders are now safer than they have been for centuries.