Ponizej dany artykul napewno jest po polsku w Panoramie Historii Polski,
Interpress, Warszawa, 1992.
15go lutego 1955 r. artykul ukazal sie po angielsku w gazecie Warsaw
Voice pod tytulem "The White Eagle's Flight of Fancy". Przedrukowany
byl w 1995 r. w Polish-American Journal, dokladna data nie znana.
Tutejszy przepis jest z Polish American Journal. Orzel jest pokazany w
pierwszej rubryce z szesciokatna gwiazda w skrzydlach. Nie wiadomo, w
ktorej publikacji gwiazda zostala dodana.
POLAND'S WHITE EAGLE TURNS 700
The national symbols of Poland - its emblem, flag and anthem - have a
long history. Like the country they represent, their history is rich in
both grand and tragic moments.
The oldest of all Poland's symbols is its emblem, her coat of arms. The
famed Polish eagle design is 700 years old this month.
The icon is the effigy of a white eagle on a red field. The origins of
this emblem date back to the Piast era, the formative period of Polish
statehood. Scholars are unable to explain with absolute certainty the
reasons for this choice of emblem. The prevailing opinion is that the
heraldic effigy of the eagle, appearing as early as the first quarter of
the 13th century on the seals of provincial princes of the Piast
dynasty, was their personal sign. It was a sign chosen independently,
although within the broader framework of heraldic customs that had
earlier taken shape in Western Europe.
According to the political and legal doctrine of the Middle Ages, the
monarch symbolized the state. Consequently, the personal sign of the
ruler became the symbol of the lands and people under his authority.
The attempts to reunify Poland's territories made by the Piast
Przemyslaw II, Prince of Great Poland, secured his personal sign - the
white eagle - the symbol of state unity. When Prince Przemyslaw II was
crowned on June 26, 1295, he introduced a crowned eagle to the royal
seal as an emblem of the united Kingdom of Poland. It was in this sense
that the kings who unified Poland - Przemyslaw II and those after him,
Ladislaus the Short and Casimir the Great - placed their seals on a
crowned eagle as a symbol of royal dignity. The feeling of national
consciouncess which was then taking shape helped to strengthen the role
of that symbol.
How great a moral force was already at the time associated with the
emblem of the Kingdom can be seen from the description of Poland's most
eminent chronicler, Jan Dlugosz, of the fight to defend the grand banner
bearing the eagle during the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.
The shape of the Polish official eagle was finally fixed around the
middle of the 14th century. The eagle of those days - its silhouette
dramatically outlined - is impressive: its crowned head proudly raised,
the beak sharply delineated and the wings adorned by a bandeau. It
breathed strength and majesty.
Later on, the Polish eagle changed its shape more than once as tastes
varied in different periods. The Gothic form of the emblem of the
Piasts and first Jagiellonians was replaced by the Renaissance design of
the eagles of Sigismund I and Sigismund Augustus. In the 18th century,
the eagle assumed the classicist form which proved to be the most
durable. Yet, in spite of its changing forms, the symbol always
remained the same.
Under the Jagiellonians and in the later period as well, the Polish
eagle used to appear on the same escutcheon together with Lithuania's
emblem - the Pogon (Pursuit) - as a sign of the dynastic union binding
the two countries. Apart from the officially adopted state emblem, the
effigy of the eagle also appeared with the cipher or coat of arms of the
current king on its breast. The white-feathered eagle with a crown
became fixed in the national consciousness as the Pole's own sign, the
symbol of the Polish State and of the continuity of its independent
political existance. No wonder, therefore, that when Poland lost her
political independence as a result of partitions, the foreign
authorities banned the use of the eagle. It was replaced by
artificially created signs - first, the emblem of the Duchy of Warsaw
created by Napoleon (the coat of arms of the Saxon dynasty on a shield
combined with the Polish eagle), and, later on, the emblem of the
Kingdom of Poland (Russia's double-headed black eagle with the Polish
eagle on its breast).
After the defeat of the January Uprising of 1863-64, even that
substitute for the country's ancient emblem was removed and the Polish
eagle was placed on the wings of the Tsar's eagle, among the coats of
arms of other provinces. In the Prussian- and Austrian-riled parts of
Poland, the eagle of the Republic was supplanted by the symbols of
foreign monarchies.
The partitions of Poland and the loss of independence at the same time
stimulated and accelerated the development of Polish national thought.
The white eagle as an officially banned sign became a greater symbol of
the highest patriotic feeling, a reminder of the former glory of the
Polish State, the embodiment of dreams of freedom.
The image of the eagle played an important role in each insurrectionary
outburst in Polish liberation movements. During the November Uprising
of 1830-31, the official emblem of the Kingdom of Poland was
spontaneously rejected and the Eagle-and-Pursuit was restored. The
Pursuit was meant to symbolize the rebirth of the Polish State in its
former boundaries. Similar intentions motivated the insurrectionary
government of 1863 when it placed on its seals the Eagle and the Pursuit
as well as the Archangel, symbolizing Poland's former Ruthenian
territory.
Besides the idea of independence, the liberation movements of the 19th
century also advanced a program of social reforms and democratic
freedoms. As a result, some questioned the role of the crown on the
eagle.
A crownless eagle appeared on the flag of the Polish Democratic Society
formed in 1832 in exile. In 1848, it appeared on the standards of
Polish troops fighting in defiance of the Hungarian revolution. It was
also the emblem of the Legion formed in Italy by Adam Mickiewicz. In
Poland, the crownless eagle was adopted in the days of the 1846 Krakow
Insurrection. It also adorned the flags of some insurgent units in 1863
and 1864.
The symbol of the crownless eagle was used by Polish military units
formed in various countries of Europe and the United States during the
First World War. At that time, some military units formed in Poland
used - at first - the eagle without a crown. The Polish State, reborn
in 1981, adopted as its emblem the crowned eagle, although the
short-lived socialist government tried to adopt the crownless eagle.
In 1919, the official design of the state emblem was approved; it was a
white eagle with its crown, beak and claws in gold, on a field of red.
In 1927, a new model was introduced, designed by Professor Zygmunt
Kaminski. Still a white eagle on a red field, it is undoubtedly the
most recognized version of the symbol of Poland to this day.
The emblem and Poland's other national symbols were brutally trampled
underfoot by Nazi invaders. The Polish people lifted them as signs of
struggle. The eagle, banned under the occupation, became a visible
symbol of the underground front and of the Polish forces organized
abroad. The tradition of the crownless eagle were revived in the
leftist independence movement - in the units of the People's Guard and
later of the People's Army, and in the Polish Army formed in the Soviet
Union.
The Polish People's Republic adopted as its emblem the eagle without a
crown. The decree of December 7, 1955 approved Kaminski's 1927 version
but without the crown. The design was confirmed in a law passed January
31, 1980, ironically the year the Solidarity movement in Poland began to
gain greater international attention. The subsequent events which led
to the end of a Communist-controlled Poland saw the restoration of the
crown.
SOURCES: A Panorama of Polish History, Interpress, Warsaw 1992. "The
White Eagle's Flight of Fancy", Warsaw Voice, Feb. 15, 1995.
Polish-American Journal
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