ABSTRACT
The history of Poland in the modern era has been characterised by salient vicissitudes: outstanding victories and tragic defeats, soaring optimism and the deepest despair, heroic sacrifice and craven subservience. Underpinning all of these experiences and emotions, however, are the interrelated themes of national freedom, independence and sovereignty, which were sometimes lost, then regained, but never forgotten or abandoned. They, more than anything else, shaped Poland’s destiny in the modern era. And if there is one single, fundamental point of reference, then it is unquestionably the Partitions of the eighteenth century which resulted in Poland’s disappearance from the map of Europe for well over a century.
