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The Un-Polish Poland, 1989 and the Illusion of Regained Historical Continuity pp 1–10Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

From the First to the Third Republic

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Abstract

This chapter discusses the foundational myth of the Polish national master narrative , meaning that of historical continuity between the early modern Poland–Lithuania and the present-day Polish nation-state . But Poland–Lithuania was a polity, where the ideology of nationalism was unknown. The narrow stratum of multiethnic nobility ruled over similarly multiethnic serfs, the latter constituting the vast majority of the population. It was the estate to which one was born that determined one’s place in society, not language. Today’s Poland is the nation-state of the Polish nation , defined as the speakers of Polish, irrespective of their estate origin. Furthermore, a third of modern Poland’s territory is composed of non-Polish–Lithuanian lands, while the remaining two-thirds are Polish–Lithuanian in their historical character, but account for a mere fifth of the former Commonwealth’s lands.

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  1. School of History, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

    Tomasz Kamusella

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Kamusella, T. (2017). From the First to the Third Republic. In: The Un-Polish Poland, 1989 and the Illusion of Regained Historical Continuity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60036-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60036-9_1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60035-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60036-9

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