Mazovia
Mazovia is a historical region in mid-north-eastern Poland. It spans the North European Plain between Lodz and Bialystok, with Warsaw being the unofficial capital and largest city. Throughout the centuries, Mazovia developed a separate sub-culture featuring diverse folk songs, architecture and traditions different to those of other Poles. Historical Mazovia existed from the Middle Ages until the partitions of Poland and consisted of three voivodeships with the capitals in Warsaw, Płock and Rawa; the main city of the region was Płock, however, in the Early Modern Times it lost its importance to Warsaw, which became the capital of Poland. From 1138, Mazovia was governed by a separate branch of the Piast dynasty and when the last ruler of the independent Duchy of Mazovia died, it was incorporated to the Polish Crown in 1526. During the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth over 20% of Mazovian population was categorized as petty nobility. Between 1816 and 1844, the Mazovian Governorate was established, which encompassed the south of the region along with Łęczyca Land and south-eastern Kuyavia.
The former inhabitants of Mazovia are the Masurians, who, as Protestants, took refuge in neighboring East Prussia in the so-called region of Masuria. The borders of contemporary Mazovian Voivodeship, created in 1999, do not reflect its original size as they don't include the Mazovian cities of Łomża and Łowicz, but include the Lesser Polish Radom and Siedlce. Mazovia has a landscape without lakes, it is spread over the Mazovian Lowland, on both sides of the Vistula river and its confluence with Narew and Bug. Forests cover one-fifth of the region, with the large Kampinos Forest, Puszcza Biała and Puszcza Zielona. In the north Mazovia borders on the Masurian subregion of former Prussia, in the east on Podlachia, in the south on Lesser Poland and in the west on Greater Poland; the area of Mazovia is 33,500 km2. It has population of 5 million; when the Slavs came to this region from the surrounding area of Polesie, they mingled with the descendants of Vistula Veneti and with other people who had settled here such as the Wielbark people.
This created a Lechitic tribe: Mazovians. The historical region of Mazovia in the beginning encompassed only the territories on the right bank of Vistula near Płock and had strong connections with Greater Poland. In the period of the rule of the first monarchs of the Piast State, Płock was one of their seats, on the Cathedral Hill they raised palatium. In the period 1037 -- 1047 it was the capital of the Mazovian state of Masław. Between 1079 and 1138 this city was de facto the capital of Poland. Since 1075 it has been the seat of the diocese encompassing northern Mazovia. During the 9th century Mazovia was inhabited by the tribe of Mazovians, it was incorporated into the Polish state in the second half of 10th century under the Piast ruler Mieszko I. In 1138 the duchy of Mazovia was established, during the 12th and 13th centuries it joined temporarily various adjacent lands and endured invasions of Prussians and Ruthenians. To protect its northern section Conrad I of Mazovia called in the Teutonic Knights in 1226 and granted them the Chełmno Land.
After the reunification of the Polish state by Władysław I in the early 14th century, Mazovia became its fief in 1351. In the second half of 15th century western Mazovia and in 1526/1529 the main part was incorporated into the Polish state. In the 15th century the eastern part of the region was settled by the yeomanry. Mazovia was considered underdeveloped in comparison with Greater Poland and Lesser Poland, with the lowest urban population. In the Early Modern Times Mazovia was known for exporting grain and fur, it was distinct because there was no reformation here. Mazovia was divided into three voivodeships, each of them divided into lands, each of them divided into counties; the Polish-Lithuanian Union of Lublin established Mazovia as the central region of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, with Warsaw rising to prominence as the seat of the state legislature. In 1596 King Sigismund III Vasa moved the Polish capital from Kraków to Warsaw. During the 17th and 18th centuries Swedish, Transylvanian and Russian invasions wreaked havoc on the region.
In 1793 western Mazovia, two years the rest of the region became part of Prussia. In 1807 it became part of the Duchy of Warsaw. In 1815 the region was incorporated into the Congress Kingdom of Poland, dependent on Russia. In the 19th century Mazovia was the site of Polish rebellions against Russian rule. In that era pre-partition Mazovia was divided among Płock and Augustów. Since 1918 Mazovia has been a part of the resurrected Poland, being equivalent to the Warsaw Voivodeship. Under the German occupation of Warsaw during World War II, the city’s population decreased as a result of executions, the extermination of the city’s Jews, the deaths of some 200,000 inhabitants during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the deportation of the city’s left-bank population following the uprising. Shortly after
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg, its total length is 1,094 kilometres. The Elbe's major tributaries include the rivers Vltava, Havel, Schwarze Elster, Ohře; the Elbe river basin, comprising the Elbe and its tributaries, has a catchment area of 148,268 square kilometres, the fourth largest in Europe. The basin spans four countries, with its largest parts in the Czech Republic. Much smaller parts lie in Poland; the basin is inhabited by 24.4 million people. The Elbe rises at an elevation of about 1,400 metres in the Krkonoše on the northwest borders of the Czech Republic near Labská bouda. Of the numerous small streams whose waters compose the infant river, the most important is the Bílé Labe, or White Elbe. After plunging down the 60 metres of the Labský vodopád, or Elbe Falls, the latter stream unites with the steeply torrential Malé Labe, thereafter the united stream of the Elbe pursues a southerly course, emerging from the mountain glens at Jaroměř, where it receives Úpa and Metuje.
Here the Elbe enters the vast vale named Polabí, continues on southwards through Hradec Králové and to Pardubice, where it turns to the west. At Kolín some 43 kilometres further on, it bends towards the north-west. At the village of Káraný, a little above Brandýs nad Labem, it picks up the Jizera. At Mělník its stream is more than doubled in volume by the Vltava, or Moldau, a major river which winds northwards through Bohemia. Upstream from the confluence the Vltava is in fact much longer, has a greater discharge and a larger drainage basin. Nonetheless, for historical reasons the river retains the name Elbe because at the confluence point it is the Elbe that flows through the main, wider valley while the Vltava flows into the valley to meet the Elbe at a right angle, thus appears to be the tributary river; some distance lower down, at Litoměřice, the waters of the Elbe are tinted by the reddish Ohře. Thus augmented, swollen into a stream 140 metres wide, the Elbe carves a path through the basaltic mass of the České Středohoří, churning its way through a picturesque, deep and curved rocky gorge.
Shortly after crossing the Czech-German frontier, passing through the sandstone defiles of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, the stream assumes a north-westerly direction, which on the whole it preserves right to the North Sea. The river rolls through Dresden and beyond Meißen, enters on its long journey across the North German Plain passing along the former western border of East Germany, touching Torgau, Dessau, Magdeburg and Hamburg on the way, taking on the waters of the Mulde and Saale from the west, those of the Schwarze Elster and Elde from the east. In its northern section both banks of the Elbe are characterised by flat fertile marshlands, former flood plains of the Elbe now diked. At Magdeburg there is a viaduct, the Magdeburg Water Bridge, that carries a canal and its shipping traffic over the Elbe and its banks, allowing shipping traffic to pass under it unhindered. From the sluice of Geesthacht on downstream the Elbe is subject to the tides, the tidal Elbe section is called the Low Elbe.
Soon the Elbe reaches Hamburg. Within the city-state the Unterelbe has a number of branch streams, such as Dove Elbe, Gose Elbe, Köhlbrand, Northern Elbe, Southern Elbe; some of which have been disconnected for vessels from the main stream by dikes. In 1390 the Gose Elbe was separated from the main stream by a dike connecting the two then-islands of Kirchwerder and Neuengamme; the Dove Elbe was diked off in 1437/38 at Gammer Ort. These hydraulic engineering works were carried out to protect marshlands from inundation, to improve the water supply of the Port of Hamburg. After the heavy inundation by the North Sea flood of 1962 the western section of the Southern Elbe was separated, becoming the Old Southern Elbe, while the waters of the eastern Southern Elbe now merge into the Köhlbrand, bridged by the Köhlbrandbrücke, the last bridge over the Elbe before the North Sea; the Northern Elbe passes the Elbe Philharmonic Hall and is crossed under by the old Elbe Tunnel, both in Hamburg's city centre.
A bit more downstream the Low Elbe's two main anabranches Northern Elbe and the Köhlbrand reunite south of Altona-Altstadt, a locality of Hamburg. Right after both anabranches reunited the Low Elbe is passed under by the New Elbe Tunnel, the last structural road link crossing the river before the North Sea. At the bay Mühlenberger Loch in Hamburg at kilometre 634, the Northern Elbe and the Southern Elbe used to reunite, why the bay is seen as the starting point of the Lower Elbe. Leaving the city-state the Lower Elbe passes between Holstein and the Elbe-Weser Triangle with Stade until it flows into the North Sea at Cuxhaven. Near its mouth it passes the entrance to the Kiel Canal at Brunsbüttel before it debouches into the North Sea; the Elbe has been navigable by commercial ve
Łeba
Łeba is a town in the Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland. It is located in the Gdańsk Pomeranian region, near Łebsko Lake and the mouth of the river Łeba on the coast of the Baltic Sea; the Pomerelian settlement of Łeba was first mentioned in a 1282 deed. At that time the village was located about two kilometers west from the present mouth of the Łeba River. Łeba received municipal rights by the State of the Teutonic Order in 1357. Located at the Łebsko Lake at the Baltic Sea, it developed to a wood marketplace. With Lauenburg Land it became a Polish fief during the Thirteen Years' War in 1454, held by the Dukes of Pomerania. Old Leba was threatened for many centuries by floods and expanding sand dunes and therefore was rebuilt in a safer location after 1558; the town fell back to the Polish Crown after the death of the last Pomeranian duke Bogislaw XIV until King John II Casimir Vasa enfeoffed Elector Frederick William I of Brandenburg-Prussia with Lauenburg Land by the 1657 Treaty of Bromberg.
With the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772, Leba was incorporated into Prussia. Soon after a large port was built on instruction of the Prussian king, whereby a 34-metre broad channel between the Leba lake and the Baltic Sea was dug, which however did not weather the storms on the coast. Due to its picturesque setting, the Leba seaside after World War I became a popular resort for German bohémiens; the painter Max Pechstein and other expressionists frequented the place. In the proximity of Leba there is a large former testing area for long-range rocket weapons operated by the Rheinmetall company. On the Leba spit the German long-range rocket Rheinbote was tested between 1941 and 1945; the V-1 flying bomb was tested here from 1943 to 1945. Between 1963 and 1973 33 Polish sounding rockets of the type Meteor were launched in Łeba. In March 1945, shortly before the end of World War II, the region was occupied by the Red Army. According to the Potsdam Conference, after the end of the war the town was put together with Farther Pomerania under Polish administration.
The local populace was expelled and replaced by Poles. There is an abundance of architectural and natural attractions near Łeba, above all the Słowiński National Park with its moving sand dunes, about 8 kilometres west of the city. Further objects of interest include: ruins of the Nikolaikirche west of the city on the way to the beach fishermen's church of 1683 with a painting by Max Pechstein fishermen's dwellings from the 19th century in Kosciuszki street the 19th century casino on Nadmorska street, today the Hotel Neptun former rocket test site near Pletka the dinosaur park south of the city Before World War II the inhabitants of the town were predominantly Protestants. Since the end of the war the population is predominantly composed of Roman Catholics. Łeba Slovincians Klaus Weiher, a noble of the Weyher family Martin Weiher Lutheran bishop of Cammin Łeba is twinned with: Main website Łeba accommodation Photogallery
Saints Cyril and Methodius
Saints Cyril and Methodius were two brothers who were Byzantine Christian theologians and Christian missionaries. Through their work they influenced the cultural development of all Slavs, for which they received the title "Apostles to the Slavs", they are credited with devising the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet used to transcribe Old Church Slavonic. After their deaths, their pupils continued their missionary work among other Slavs. Both brothers are venerated in the Orthodox Church as saints with the title of "equal-to-apostles". In 1880, Pope Leo XIII introduced their feast into the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1980, Pope John Paul II declared them co-patron saints of Europe, together with Benedict of Nursia; the two brothers were born in Thessalonica, in present-day Greece – Cyril in about 827–828 and Methodius about 815–820. Cyril was reputedly the youngest of seven brothers. Methodius was born Michael and was given the name Methodius upon becoming a monk at Mysian Olympus, in northwest Turkey.
Their father was Leo, a droungarios of the Byzantine theme of Thessalonica, their mother was Maria. The exact ethnic origins of the brothers are unknown, there is controversy as to whether Cyril and Methodius were of Slavic or Byzantine Greek origin, or both; the two brothers lost their father when Cyril was fourteen, the powerful minister Theoktistos, logothetes tou dromou, one of the chief ministers of the Empire, became their protector. He was responsible, along with the regent Bardas, for initiating a far-reaching educational program within the Empire which culminated in the establishment of the University of Magnaura, where Cyril was to teach. Cyril was ordained as priest some time after his education, while his brother Methodius remained a deacon until 867/868. About the year 860, Byzantine Emperor Michael III and the Patriarch of Constantinople Photius, sent Cyril on a missionary expedition to the Khazars who had requested a scholar be sent to them who could converse with both Jews and Saracens.
It has been claimed that Methodius accompanied Cyril on the mission to the Khazars, but this may be a invention. The account of his life presented in the Latin "Legenda" claims that he learned the Khazar language while in Chersonesos, in Taurica. After his return to Constantinople, Cyril assumed the role of professor of philosophy at the University while his brother had by this time become a significant player in Byzantine political and administrative affairs, an abbot of his monastery. In 862, the brothers began the work; that year Prince Rastislav of Great Moravia requested that Emperor Michael III and the Patriarch Photius send missionaries to evangelize his Slavic subjects. His motives in doing so were more political than religious. Rastislav had become king with the support of the Frankish ruler Louis the German, but subsequently sought to assert his independence from the Franks, it is a common misconception that Cyril and Methodius were the first to bring Christianity to Moravia, but the letter from Rastislav to Michael III states that Rastislav's people "had rejected paganism and adhere to the Christian law."
Rastislav is said to have expelled missionaries of the Roman Church and instead turned to Constantinople for ecclesiastical assistance and a degree of political support. The Emperor chose to send Cyril, accompanied by his brother Methodius; the request provided a convenient opportunity to expand Byzantine influence. Their first work seems to have been the training of assistants. In 863, they began the task of translating the Bible into the language now known as Old Church Slavonic and travelled to Great Moravia to promote it, they enjoyed considerable success in this endeavour. However, they came into conflict with German ecclesiastics who opposed their efforts to create a Slavic liturgy. For the purpose of this mission, they devised the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet to be used for Slavonic manuscripts; the Glagolitic alphabet was suited to match the specific features of the Slavic language. Its descendant script, the Cyrillic, is still used by many languages today; the missionaries to the East and South Slavs had great success in part because they used the people's native language rather than Latin or Greek.
In Great Moravia and Methodius encountered Frankish missionaries from Germany, representing the western or Latin branch of the Church, more representing the Holy Roman Empire as founded by Charlemagne, committed to linguistic, cultural uniformity. They insisted on the use of the Latin liturgy, they regarded Moravia and the Slavic peoples as part of their rightful mission field; when friction developed, the brothers, unwilling to be a cause of dissension among Christians, travelled to Rome to see the Pope, seeking an agreement that would avoid quarrelling between missionaries in the field. Pope Adrian II gave Methodius the title of Archbishop of Sirmium and sent him back in 869, with jurisdiction over all of Moravia and Pannonia, authorisation to use the Slavonic Liturgy. Soon, Prince Ratislav, who had invited the brothers to Moravia and his successor did not support Methodius. In 870 the Frankish king Louis and his bishops deposed Methodius at a synod at Ratisbon, imprisoned him for a little over two years.
Pope
Book of Henryków
The Book of Henryków is a Latin chronicle of the Cistercian abbey in Henryków in Lower Silesia. Created as a registry of belongings looted during the Mongol raids of 1241, with time it was extended to include the history of the monastery, it is notable as the earliest document to include a sentence written in what can be interpreted as an Old Polish language Currently the book is on exhibition in the Archdiocesan Museum in Wrocław. October 9, 2015 Book of Henryków entered in the list of UNESCO "Memory of the World"; the first part of the 100-page-long book is devoted to the early history of the abbey, from its foundation by Henry the Bearded in 1227 until 1259. The second part includes the history until 1310. In the record for 1270 a settler from the nearby village is reported to say to his wife "Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai", which could be translated as "Let me, I shall grind, you take a rest"; the circumstances under which this sentence was written reflected the cultural and literary conditions in Poland in the first centuries of its national existence.
It appeared in a Latin chronicle, written by a German abbot. The man who uttered the sentence one hundred years earlier was Bogwal, a Czech, a local settler and subject of Bolesław the Tall, as he felt compassion for his local wife, who "very stood grinding by the quern-stone"; the local village, came to be named after him. "Bogwali uxor ad molam molendo. Cui vir suus idem Bogwalus, compassus dixit: Sine, ut ego etiam molam. Hoc est in polonico: Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai." - Book of Henryków 1270 The medieval recorder of this phrase, the Cistercian monk Peter of the Henryków monastery, noted that "Hoc est in polonico". Hortulus Animae Elżbieta Olinkiewicz. Słownik Encyklopedyczny - Język polski. Europa. ISBN 83-87977-20-9. Retrieved 2006-06-22. Michał Jacek Mikoś. "Middle Ages: Literary background". Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to the End of the Eighteenth Century. A Bilingual Anthology. Warsaw: Constans. P. 683. ISBN 83-901014-3-2. Retrieved 2006-06-22. Digitalised Book of Henryków
Czech Silesia
Czech Silesia is the name given to the part of the historical region of Silesia located in present-day the Czech Republic. While not today an administrative entity in itself, Czech Silesia is, together with Bohemia and Moravia, one of the three historical Czech lands. In this context, it is mentioned as "Silesia" though it is only around one tenth of the area of the historic land of Silesia, it lies in the north-east of the Czech Republic, predominantly in the Moravian-Silesian Region, with a section in the northern Olomouc Region. It is identical in extent with the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia known as Austrian Silesia before 1918. Czech Silesia borders Poland in the north and Slovakia in the southeast. With the city of Ostrava in its geographic center, the area comprises much of the modern region of Moravian-Silesia and, in its far west, a small part of the Olomouc Region around the city of Jeseník. After Ostrava, the most important cities are Český Těšín. Český Těšín is the western part of the city of Cieszyn which nowadays lies in Poland.
Situated in the Sudetes, it is cornered by the Carpathians in the east. Its major rivers are the Opava and Olše; the first Germanic settlements were built in the second century. The Germanic tribes moved west and Slavs came into the country. Modern-day Czech Silesia derives from a small part of Silesia that remained within the Bohemian Crown and the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of the First Silesian War in 1742, when the rest of Silesia was ceded to Prussia, it was re-organised as the Duchy of Lower Silesia, with its capital at Opava. In 1900, the Duchy occupied an area of 5,140 km² and had a population of 670,000. In 1918, the former Duchy formed part of the newly created state of Czechoslovakia, except the Cieszyn Silesia, split between Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1920, Czechoslovakia gaining its western portion. Hlučín Region part of Prussian Silesia became part of Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of Versailles in 1920. Following the Munich Agreement of 1938, most of Czech Silesia became part of the Reichsgau Sudetenland and Poland occupied the Zaolzie area on the west bank of the Olza.
With the exception of the areas around Cieszyn and Hlučín, Czech Silesia was predominantly settled by German-speaking populations up until 1945. Following the Second World War, Czech Silesia and Hlučínsko were returned to Czechoslovakia and the ethnic Germans were expelled; the border with Poland was once again set along the Olza. The population speaks Czech with altered vowels; some of the native Slavic population speak Lach, classed by Ethnologue as a dialect of Czech, although it shows some similarities to Polish. In Cieszyn Silesia a unique dialect is spoken by members of the Polish minority there. Notable people from Czech Silesia include: Martin of Opava, chaplain of several popes Jiří Třanovský, pastor and hymnwriter, the "Luther of the Slavs" Heinrich Franz Boblig von Edelstadt, egregious inquisitor David Zeisberger, Moravian Missionary in North America and "Apostle to the Indians" Gregor Mendel, founder of genetics Hans Kudlich, main figure in the struggle for abolition of serfdom in Austrian Empire Paweł Stalmach and national revivalist Vincenc Prasek, historian Johann Palisa, astronomer Petr Bezruč, poet Josef Koždon, leader of Silesian autonomists, proponent of the idea of a distinct Silesian nation Helen Zelezny-Scholz, architectural sculptor Óndra Łysohorsky, creator of the literary form of the Lach dialect Joy Adamson, writer František Vláčil, film director and screenwriter Armin Delong, physicist specializing in electron microscopy Věra Chytilová, film director and screenwriter Jaromír Nohavica and poet Iva Bittová, avant-garde violinist and composer Ivan Lendl, tennis player, longtime world #1 and winner of eight Grand Slam titles Leon Koudelak classical guitarist
Greater Poland
Greater Poland known by its Polish name Wielkopolska, is a historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief city is Poznań; the boundaries of Greater Poland have varied somewhat throughout history. Since the Middle Ages, the proper or exact/strict Wielkopolska included the Poznań and Kalisz voivodeships. In the wider sense, it encompassed Sieradz, Łęczyca, Brześć Kujawski and Inowrocław voivodeships. One another meaning included Mazovia and Royal Prussia. After the Partitions of Poland, Greater Poland was identified with the Grand Duchy of Posen; the region in the proper sense coincides with the present-day Greater Poland Voivodeship. Because Greater Poland was the settlement area of the Polans and the core of the early Polish state, the region was at times called "Poland"; the more specific name is first recorded in the Latin form Polonia Maior in 1257, in Polish in 1449. Its original meaning was the Older Poland, as opposed to Lesser Poland, a region in south-eastern Poland with its capital at Kraków which became the main center of the state later.
Greater Poland comprises much of the area drained by the Warta River and its tributaries, including the Noteć River. The region is distinguished from Lesser Poland with the lowland landscape, from both Lesser Poland and Mazovia with its numerous lakes. In the strict meaning, it covers an area of about 33,000 square kilometres, has a population of 3.5 million. In the wider sense, it has 60,000 square kilometres, 7 million inhabitants; the region's main metropolis is Poznań, on the Warta. Other cities are Kalisz to the south-east, Konin to the east, Piła to the north, Ostrów Wielkopolski to the south-east, Gniezno to the north-east, Leszno to the south-west. An area of 75.84 square kilometres of forest and lakeland south of Poznań is designated the Wielkopolska National Park, established in 1957. The region contains part of Drawa National Park, several designated Landscape Parks. For example, the Rogalin Landscape Park is famous for about 2000 monumental oak trees growing on the flood plain of the river Warta, among numerous ox-bow lakes.
Greater Poland formed the heart of the 10th-century early Polish state, sometimes being called the "cradle of Poland". Poznań and Gniezno were early centres of royal power, but following devastation of the region by pagan rebellion in the 1030s, the invasion of Bretislaus I of Bohemia in 1038, the capital was moved by Casimir I the Restorer from Gniezno to Kraków. In the Testament of Bolesław III Wrymouth, which initiated the period of fragmentation of Poland, the western part of Greater Poland was granted to Mieszko III the Old; the eastern part, with Gniezno and Kalisz, was part of the Duchy of Kraków, granted to Władysław II. However, for most of the period the two parts were under a single ruler, were known as the Duchy of Greater Poland; the region came under the control of Władysław I the Elbow-high in 1314, thus became part of the reunited Poland of which Władyslaw was crowned king in 1320. In the reunited kingdom, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the country came to be divided into administrative units called voivodeships.
In the case of the Greater Poland region these were Kalisz Voivodeship. The Commonwealth had larger subdivisions known as prowincja, one of, named Greater Poland. However, this prowincja covered a larger area than the Greater Poland region itself taking in Masovia and Royal Prussia. In 1768 a new Gniezno Voivodeship was formed out of the northern part of Kalisz Voivodeship; however more far-reaching changes would come with the Partitions of Poland. In the first partition, northern parts of Greater Poland along the Noteć were taken over by Prussia, becoming the Netze District. In the second partition the whole of Greater Poland was absorbed by Prussia, becoming part of the province of South Prussia, it remained so in spite of the first Greater Poland uprising, part of the unsuccessful Kościuszko Uprising directed chiefly against Russia. More successful was the Greater Poland Uprising of 1806, which led to the region's becoming part of the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw. However, following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Greater Poland was again partitioned, with the western part going to Prussia.
The eastern part joined the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland, where it formed the Kalisz Voivodeship until 1837 the Kalisz Governorate. Within the Prussian empire, western Greater Poland became the Grand Duchy of Posen, which theoretically held some autonomy. Following an unrealized uprising in 1846, the more substantial but still unsuccessful uprising of 1848, the Grand Duchy was replaced by the Province of Pos
