Mazovia
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Mazovia or Masovia is a historical region in mid-north-eastern Poland. It spans the North European Plain, roughly between Łódź and Białystok, with Warsaw being the unofficial capital and largest city. Throughout the centuries, Mazovia developed a separate sub-culture featuring diverse folk songs, architecture, dress and traditions different from those of other Poles.
Image: Płock panorama
Image: Nieborów Pałac elewacja ogrodowa MZW3342
Image: Castle Square in Warsaw (8842631175)
Image: Rynek w Pułtusku widok z wieży zamku
Szlachta
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The szlachta were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and, as a social class, dominated those states by exercising political rights and power. Szlachta as a class differed significantly from the feudal nobility of Western Europe. The estate was officially abolished in 1921 by the March Constitution.
Szlachcic sejmik representative Tadeusz Rejtan (lower right), with szlachta republican right of ending any Senate (Sejm) session and nullifying any legislation passed (Liberum veto), defying Russian, Prussian, and Austrian autocratic might to cease legalization of the First Partition of Poland, by halting the Partition Sejm's exit from the Senate chamber on 30 September 1773, in effect proclaiming, "Murder me, not Poland." Painting by Jan Matejko, 1866
A Polish peasant in stocks in a 16th-century Polish woodcut
Lech I
Polish Armor