Introduction

There are few countries in Europe whose history has been as turbulent and indeed sometimes tragic as that of Poland. The first Polish kingdom was founded in 966, but after having played an important and sometimes a decisive role in the politics of Europe, Poland disappeared from the political map at the end of the eighteenth century. Despite various uprisings and other more peaceful endeavours aimed at achieving national independence in the nineteenth century, it was not until 1918 that a Polish state was recreated. The new Poland which emerged at the end of World War One was a very different state from its predecessor. The old Poland had been a multiethnic monarchical commonwealth, in which the nobility had enjoyed great autonomy from the sovereign. The new Poland was forged in the crucible of modern nationalist doctrine and leaned to the principles of statecraft which had been popularised by the French Revolution.