(Cambridge Concise Histories) Jerzy Lukowski, Hubert Zawadzki - A Concise History of Poland-Cambridge University Press (2006)

Byzantium was too far away for its version of ‘Orthodox’ Christianity to be convenient, and similarly Kiev, which adopted Christianity in 988, saw ‘Latin’ Rome as distant and unimpressive. Mieszko preferred to receive his new faith from the Bohemians, perhaps to escape possible subordination to the planned new archdiocese for the North Mark, Magdeburg (established two years after Poland’s conversion, in 968). The unstable German politics of the time required some deft footwork: Bohemia at this time fell within the jurisdiction of the Bavarian bishopric of Regensburg. It has even been speculated that Mieszko and his immediate entourage may have been christened in Regensburg, early in 966, before the missionaries came to Poland. There was a strong Bavarian connection, so much so that in 979, Otto II launched a punitive expedition against Mieszko for the support he gave to his opponents in Bavaria. The experience seems to have convinced the Polish ruler not to go too far. He loyally supported the young Otto III in the troubles which shook his early reign, not least in the great East Elbian pagan Slav revolt of 983. His second marriage to a German princess, Ode, daughter of Dietrich of the Northern Mark, around 980, signified that his Christianity and connections with Germany were there to stay.

According to the Arab-Jewish merchant, Ibrahim ibn Yakub, Mieszko had 3,000 heavily armed cavalry and infantry at his call. Even if this is a very flattering assessment (the emperor Otto I, ruling over lands perhaps five times as populous, had an army of 5,000 mounted knights), Mieszko’s retinue of warriors was an impressive instrument, which enabled him to annex Silesia from his former Bohemian in-laws. His son, Boleslaw 1 Chrobry, ‘the Valiant’ (992-102.6), deprived them of the burgeoning commercial centre of Krakow and its southern hinterland, extending the Piast realm to the Carpathian mountains. The two rulers brought under their sway the Pomeranian lands between the Vistula and Oder deltas. It was probably Mieszko who founded the port town of Gdansk around 980 to consolidate his grip on lands at the mouth of the Vistula. Boleslaw’s western forays, into lands still peopled by fellow Slavs, took him to the Elbe. In 1018, Emperor Henry II reluctantly acknowledged his rule over Militz and Lusatia, west of the Oder. In 1018, too, Boleslaw intervened in Kiev, to secure his brother-in-law, Sviatopolk, on its throne. He was even briefly able to impose his rule over Bohemia, Moravia and much of modern-day Slovakia.

Almost annual expeditions for human and material plunder were essential to the ‘economy’ of the early medieval state. But Piast Poland, with a population of well below a million in lands densely-tangled by forests, swamps and heaths, could not sustain such efforts indefinitely. The aggressive reigns of Mieszko II (1025-34), Boleslaw II (1058-81) and Boleslaw III (1102-38) were interwoven with periods of revolt, foreign invasion and recovery. Even Chrobry faced serious rebellions in 1022 and 1025. He had to pull out of Bohemia and his successors had to abandon Moravia and Slovakia. His protege, Sviatopolk, was driven out of Kiev by his brother, Yaroslav ‘the Wise’, as soon as Polish forces withdrew. Mieszko II had to abandon Militz and Lusatia; he lost his kingdom and his life to domestic revolt. Between 1034 and 1039, Poland may have been without a ruler at all (some chroniclers tried to fill the gap with a Boleslaw the Forgotten, but he is just as likely to have been a Boleslaw the Non-Existent), as it threatened to disintegrate under the pressures of pagan reaction and Bohemian invasion. Mieszko IPs son, Casimir (Kazimierz) ‘the Restorer’ (1039-58), needed at least fifteen years to stitch his lands back together with Imperial and Kievan help. It was during his reign that Krakow began to establish itself as Poland’s capital: the old political and metropolitan centre of Gniezno was so devastated by the disorders as to be temporarily uninhabitable.

Few, if any, of the Slav tribes east of the Elbe accepted Christianity gracefully. It was only in the course of the twelfth century that their marcherlands were effectively brought under the authority of German rulers. Only in 1157 did Slav Brunabor become German Brandenburg. The Polanie and their associated tribes were no exception. Christianity was the price that had to be paid to escape the fate of their more obdurate fellow Slavs to the west, such as the Wends, who kept faith with the pagan ways and suffered one murderous Christian onslaught after another, until they lost their gods, their independence and their identity. Today, between the Elbe and the Oder, some 50,000 Sorbs survive with their language, an ethnic and linguistic reminder that the peoples who lived in these lands were once nor German but Slav.