In looking at the question of the Poles’ origin given the recent genetic discoveries, I think one is on relatively comfortable ground that the final genetic mix associated with the Poles coincided with the development of the Corded Ware Culture. That said, I would be cautious inasmuch as, on the one hand the genetic pool of that culture in Poland has only been examined in bits and pieces (and some of the analysis is based on the implication of dna coming from Germany) and, on the other hand, at least the mtdna (that is matrilineal dna) of present day Poles seem to have been present in Poland pre-Corded Ware.
Bronocice pot – first depiction of a wheeled wagon (3500 BC – 3350 BC)
Their physical characteristics, by that time, were likely similar (but for the later additions of Venetic and some Scandinavian) to those of today’s Poles – white “Baltic-type” (very similar to the Balts) with a range of brownish hair (interestingly, white pigmentation seems to predate the IE intrusion). (As a topic worthy of additional study, geneticists should also include Neanderthal dna as a number of Neanderthal sites exist in Poland).
In any event, the Corded Ware horizon goes from roughly 2900 BC to the early 2000s BC. After that we had the Trzciniec Culture (1900 BC – 1200 BC) and the Lusatian Culture (1300 BC – 500 BC). These are, of course, just archeological “cultures” and it should be noted that pots are, of course, not people. That said, there is some overlap between such pots and pans and peoples and since we do not have actual records for these periods, all we can point to (in addition, now, to genetics) are artifacts. At some point during this timeframe you had an introduction to Danubian cultures permeating north. This may be the migration of the Veneti. It was perhaps then that the worship of Iasion as the Sky God traveling on his horse became first prevalent in Poland. The Lusatian culture is also when the grod at Biskupin was established.
Biskupin settlement (circa 738 BC)
Some portions of Poland – Mazovia and the Prussian Masuria (as well as a portion of Belarus) seem to have been less affected by the above cultures and more connected with the Balts.
Thereafter, we have the development of the Przeworsk Culture and the passage of Scandinavian Goths who may have been responsible for some “leave behinds” of the Wielbark culture. That said, the latter culture likely included some of the ancestors of today’s Poles. This is the Roman era and, in the West of Poland, the development of names such as Lugii or Legii and, of course, the “Suevi” – later “Suavi“. The former may have something to do with the later Lechites. The latter name, as well as the main Suevic tribe name – Semnones – may be “Slavic”. Swoi just means (sua) “one’s own people”. Alternatively, Souavi may refer to the river Souava (Solawa). (For Niemcy see here). Semnones is likely cognate with siemie. That said, this period saw increased invasions by Scandinavians and the Suevi name was likely appropriated by the various invaders as hinted at by Tacitus. Alternatively, a variation may have developed along the same line up north among the future “Swedes”. Either way, it is likely that it is this name that ultimately led to the Suavi and Suavene – a people who in the East were later called, with an “l”, Slavene, that is “Slavs”. Another people that likely contributed to the creation of the Poles, further East, were the Veneti some of whom lived as far West as today’s Odra which, given its description seems to be a better fit for the Roman “Vistula.” Interestingly, the Vindelici may also have been Suavic and, likely, some of the ancestors of today’s Slovenes and, perhaps, Poles too.
At the end of the Roman era, with the Hunnic invasion and the Goths’ Ukrainian kingdom crumbling, various peoples were moved around and some ended up “compressed” in the Pannonian cauldron. It seems that some of this group then spread out – back towards Bohemia, Moravia and Poland – and, later eastwards into Belarus and Ukraine (where they called themselves Polans and founded Kiev – before that city was taken by the Khazars and then by the Varangian Rus) and then south round the Carpathians into the Byzantine Empire. This last group were the new “Slavs” that the Byzantines then saw for the first time.
Coin of Duke Mieszko I (likely pre-966 AD)
As for Poles, any further genetic admixture after this time seems insignificant. While Germans did colonize portions of Silesia and Pomerania, significant numbers of these newcomers were themselves former Suavs Teutonized by the Ottonians.
Once the modern Polish state was founded around AD 962 when the indisputable Poles are referred to as Licikaviki in Widukind’s Saxon chronicle (most likely from Lechowice, meaning the people of Lech). The name Poles appears about the year 1000. There followed an era of nearly constant wars with the Frankish Carolingian state and internal squabbles (quite purposefully exacerbated by the Franks). However, the country overall prospered and encompassed roughly the same area as it does today.
An internal division took place in 1138 AD. In that year there came the breakup of the polity among Bolesuav III’s sons – which, while intended to prevent conflict based on that ruler’s own experience with his brother – instead, unsurprisingly, furthered it and weakened the state.
The years that came after saw infighting among the various dukes, a Mongol invasion in 1241 and continued political encroachment by the Teutons coupled with the Teutonization of the population as the West Suavic Polabian polities – Obotrites, the Veleti and Sorbs became absorbed by the Frankish state (just as the Alemanni, Frisians, Turingians and eventually the Saxons had been) and the Franks turned further eastwards. Economic and family ties brought Teuton-speaking settlers into Poland proper.
Despite this, the country overall grew wealthier and more robust. At the same time the church organization remained weak at least until the 14th century, with most of the people of the lower-classes (though, seemingly, not just them) continuing to worship Polish Gods and following pre-Christian traditions.
A partial reunification took place in 1320 under Wladysuav the Short, though Silesia, much of Pomerania and Mazovia were left out. Nevertheless, it seemed things were getting back on track politically when Wladysuav’s son Casimir set Poland on a course that would prove the undoing of the state. He all but gave up looking westwards and instead started a campaign to take so-called Red Ruthenia – essentially today’s Western Ukraine. The campaign proved successful but the Polish state emerged as a weird, elongated shape that was absurdly difficult to defend. Its Western provinces were put out of mind while the long-eastern border now became the chief preoccupation. Casimir, a man of many concubines, did not produce a legitimate heir. A succession of foreign kings followed.
A later union with Lithuania in 1386 brought into the same political organism not only Lithuanians (most of whom, though close to Suavs, were not asked about the union in any event) but also all the Suavic and other nations that the Lithuanians had in the meantime conquered after the collapse of Mongol rule in the East. The Polish state grew geographically but it now held within its borders so many different peoples with different religions, agendas and cultures that it required an increased amount of time to police the same. This led to haphazard repression throughout as various interests tried to use the state polity to pursue their own particular wishes.
Meanwhile, some foreigners were settling within Poland’s borders – many Jews fleeing Spain as well as Germany and other Western European countries set up both settlements and their own internal administration within Poland – living in the vicinity of but apart from the Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians or Belarussians. Polish cities also received many Teuton burghers to the point that significant portions of the urban upper echelons of Cracow, Poznan and Wroclaw were almost exclusively Teuton in language as late as the 15th century (and Wroclaw became almost entirely so until the forced population shifts of 1945).
While some of the nobles prospered and “noble democracy” became the norm with approximately 10% or so of the population enfranchised thereby (admittedly much higher than elsewhere in Europe), most of the country-dwelling Polish, Lithuanian, Belarussian, Ruthenian (soon to be Ukrainian) was, over time, practically enslaved under progressively worse conditions of serfdom. Most of the Jewish population dwelt in small, mostly poor, towns of their own. Unlike in Western Europe, where change was slowly happening, in Poland feudalism and exploitative agriculture beat back attempts at the introduction of capitalism – with the cities being overly taxed and limited in political power. On the positive side, the persistence of the agricultural lifestyle aided in the preservation of old pagan traditions among the rural population.
At the same time, the Poles still living in Silesia and Pomerania and the other Suavs West of the Odra were ignored. By the end of the 18th century they were virtually all Teutonized (though as of such time, there were still Suavs living West of the Laba (Elbe) and, of course, the Sorbs continue as a nation even today). Ironically, because non-agricultural capitalism was replacing feudalism in the West, the lot of those Suavs, to the extent they made efforts to and were allowed to “fit in,” such as by speaking Teuton, improved – much as the lot of their Teutonic peasant neighbors.
In the meantime, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – now officially united into one state as of 1569 – the serfs of all nations were further subjugated to buttress the magnate classes’ agricultural profits – leading, in the Ukrainian case, to the bloody Khmelnytski Uprising in 1648. This persistently feudal agriculture not only managed to maintain serfdom but caused the slow down in industrial development (in a series of processes that repeats itself in human history, including much later in the American South).
While Poland chose the contortions of having to address so many disparate voices, Poland’s neighbors pursued an agenda of acculturation and uniformity – no one better than the newly formed Teutonic Prussia (the original Baltic Prussians having been mostly, though not entirely, exterminated by the Teutonic Knights). At the same time these neighbors worked to increase the diversity of the Polish state and, simultaneously, stoked the forces of division. When the state began to fail, they were ready to step in and reestablish “order”.
Hence the partitions of the country starting in 1772 and ending in 1795. A rump Polish state was reintroduced by Napoleon as the Duchy of Warsaw but lasted only so long as the French Emperor did. A series of uprisings followed in 1831, 1848 and 1863.
Though the Poles reemerged in 1918 and drove out the invaders – Germans in the West and, now, Soviets in the East – in the Spring of Nations that followed World War I, the country, after more than a century of occupation among various powers was difficult to put back together. Its leaders were reactive, dealing with the day to day problems. In the meantime, Stalin’s Soviet Union was busy exterminating its elites, the Ukrainian peasantry in the Holodomor and starting in 1937 also over a hundred thousand Poles still living within Soviet boundaries while Nazi Germany, the other neighbor, enthralled by a whack job teeming with angry resentment, was rearming for its almost-suicide mission. Somewhere between two to three million Poles lost their lives in the disaster that followed (the vast majority of them killed by the Nazis). In addition, virtually the entire Jewish population was exterminated. Most of Central and Eastern Europe was reduced to rubble.
Oddly enough it was not until after World War II and the massive movements of peoples that followed Stalin’s vision for the continent that Poland got its real second chance at life. The price was the idiotic socialist system imposed on all of Cantral and Eastern Europe. That changed starting in 1989-1992 with Solidarity, free elections being gradually implemented and the dropping of Communist economic nonsense. Becoming members of NATO and the EU allowed the Poles to relax a little bit with living standards quickly rising.
But the shock market reforms with concurrent loss of jobs and security, profiteering by former apparatchiks and an appearance of often hostile cultural consultants naturally bred some anger and resentment.A useful thing to remember for anyone interested in this topic is that no movement built solely on the negatives has ever been successful at building a lasting culture. Defining yourself as “anti-” something makes you hostage to whatever that something defines itself as and makes you hostage to a permanent confrontation.
If the Poles are to survive as a nation, they will want to focus less on what others are doing and more on maintaining and expanding on their own traditions and beliefs. Polish institutions such as the treasure that is the Church organization (thanks to whose members we still have the few mentions of Polish pagan practices) would do well to consider teaching slightly less Catholic religion in public schools and slightly more Polish history and Polish religion and tradition in church.
Where will all this lead to? What will the Poles believe or look like in a few centuries? As the Chinese proverb says “too early to tell.”
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