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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Poland
Index
In the fourteenth century, after a long period of
instability
and growing menace from without, the Polish state
experienced a
half century of recovery under the last monarchs of the
house of
Piast. By 1320 Wladyslaw Lokietek (1314-33), called the
Short,
had manipulated internal and foreign alignments and
reunited
enough territory to win acceptance abroad as king of an
independent Poland. His son Kazimierz III (1333-70) would
become
the only Polish king to gain the sobriquet "great." In
foreign
policy, Kazimierz the Great strengthened his country's
position
by combining judicious concessions to Bohemia and the
Teutonic
Knights with eastward expansion.
While using diplomacy to win Poland a respite from
external
threat, the king focused on domestic consolidation. He
earned his
singular reputation through his acumen as a builder and
administrator as well as through foreign relations. Two of
the
most important events of Kazimierz's rule were the
founding of
Poland's first university in Kraków in 1364, making that
city an
important European cultural center, and his mediation
between the
kings of Bohemia and Hungary at the Congress of Kraków
(also in
1364), signaling Poland's return to the status of a
European
power. Lacking a male heir, Kazimierz was the last ruler
in the
Piast line. The extinction of the dynasty in 1370 led to
several
years of renewed political uncertainty. Nevertheless, the
accomplishments of the fourteenth century began the ascent
of the
Polish state toward its historical zenith.
Data as of October 1992
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