Prussian barbarians murdering crippled children, Turks and Tatars carrying an Islamic storm, brutal pagans from Lithuania - it was against them that Poland defended Europe, becoming the bulwark of Christianity. No other country has been the frontier of civilization for a thousand years. But did our ancestors really play this historical role?
Poland was not the only country called the bulwark of Christianity - at one point it was called antemurale christianitatis Byzantium and Hungary were also referred to. But it was the Commonwealth that went down in history as the last bastion of Western civilization, which - defending its borders against the pagans from Prussia and Lithuania and the Islamic storm - stood guard over Christian Europe.
The significant role of the Polish barrier was praised not only by our 16th and 17th century diplomats, but also by eminent Western humanists, such as Sebastian Brant, Niccolò Machiavelli and Erasmus of Rotterdam, as well as by Filip Buonacorsi called Kallimach.
Was Poland really a bulwark of Christianity?
On the other hand, many contemporary authors believe that Poland was a bulwark ... only in the minds of Poles . For example, the medievalist Benedykt Zientara is convinced that the Tatar invasion in the 13th century was stopped not by the battle of Legnica (by the way, by the Silesian knights), but by the death of the great Khan Ugedaj.
So where did this one of the most famous slogans in our history come from? And is it really just a hackneyed phrase? Or maybe on the contrary - Poles actually played the role of the guardian of civilization? To answer these questions, one must first analyze what our ancestors faced.
Prussian storm
As Michael Morys-Twarowski writes in his latest book, "The Ramparts of Civilization":"The Piasts had a war with Prussia in their genes. For generations they have dreamed of conquering the lands of peoples from the north. At the beginning of the 11th century, Bolesław I the Brave, the greatest conqueror in the history of the family, managed to do this. " One hundred years later, Krzywousty tried to repeat this success, followed by his son - Bolesław Kędzierzawy.
In the following years, the next lords of fire and sword led the mission of Christianizing Prussia. They did it with the papal blessing. In 1218, Honorius II even issued a bull in which he appealed for financial support - collected funds for the redemption of Prussian girls sentenced to death . At that time, the Prussians were already carrying out regular raids on Polish territory.
Christian Europe was shocked by their barbaric customs. Morys-Twarowski describes:
No chance to be sober with them. They don't have wine or beer, but mead and fermented mare's milk can turn heads. The host sets the drinking pace and no one is allowed to miss the line:as a result, everyone ends up drunk, including the children.
Exactly, children. They were all healthy, not like in Poland or other countries of Christian Europe. The Prusai had their own way - they killed weak or crippled. In addition, from time to time they sacrificed girls who were dressed in flowers and then burned to the gods.
Eventually, the pagan Prussia was conquered by the Teutonic Knights (with whom our ancestors also had a hard time). Interestingly, many pagan converts from the north fled to Mazovia, and years later their descendants in the ranks of the Polish army fought themselves in defense of Christian values.
The last pagans in Europe
Lithuania was the last large country on the Old Continent to be baptized. Before this happened, in the 13th century Lithuanians attacked Poland again and again. In the book "Ramparts of civilization", Morys-Twarowski reports:" The warriors from the Nemunas were slave hunters - they kidnapped people. (...) The Lithuanians were returning to their homeland, leading a huge crowd of prisoners. It looked as if someone wanted to lead the Polish people out of Mazovia like the people of Israel from Egypt ”. Those who could not cope with the hardships of the intensive march were murdered by the invaders so that they would not slow down the entire column.
King Mindaugas was largely the initiator of the plundering expeditions. He consistently pursued a policy of conquering subsequent lands, thanks to which in the mid-thirteenth century he managed to create a strong state rich enough that it could afford to send warriors to Poland to gain slaves and treasures.
Interestingly, the ruler was formally Catholic. He was baptized in 1251 with his wife, children and the closest people. His people, however, remained pagan for a long time. Morys-Twarowski notes:
It was not the fights of the Piast princes, not the Teutonic Order, not the four Mongol invasions, but the Lithuanians were the greatest plague that swept through Poland in the 13th century.
The crusade seemed to be the best cure for the warlike pagans. In August 1255, the Pope proclaimed a crusade against the Lithuanians, Jaćwięgom and "certain other pagans who by their profession of faith never recognized the Roman Church as a mother."
However, this did not mean the end of the disputes. Polish-Lithuanian fights continued for over a hundred years. The last great invasion by the Lithuanians was organized in 1376. They stopped about 35 kilometers from Krakow, then turned back, of course leading a crowd of prisoners (according to some sources, they captured 23,000 people!) .
It was only when Jagiełło ascended the throne and was baptized by him that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania officially joined Christian countries, and Poles no longer had to defend the West against him.
The eulogists of Islam
There was, however, another serious threat - from Islam. Poles have repeatedly fought off the invasions of the Tatars and Turks (despite the fact that they delayed joining the anti-Turkish league for a long time). As early as in the 16th century, our diplomacy emphasized the merits of the Polish army in fighting against Muslims. What exactly did our ancestors guard Christian Europe from? This is how the Tatar invasions are described by Michael Morys-Twarowski:
Important, often their primary source of income was human trafficking. (...) they set off on the Jagiellonian monarchy in search of loot and slaves.
The fate of the abductees was terrible. Those who were unable to cope with the hardships of the march and those who tried to escape were murdered. Women were raped, often in front of their fathers and husbands. Children were circumcised in the presence of their parents, as one witness put it, "so that they could be offered to Muhammad." In the Crimean bazaars, amid lamentations, groans, cries and despairing calls for help, families who were never to see each other were separated.
Tatars in front guard of the Turkish army.
Chancellor Jan Łaski in 1513 reminded the Venetian diplomat:Germany before the invasion of Islam. This had a naturally hidden goal - it was to support the Polish raison d'état with cash 'subsidies' and military meals. And for a long time this strategy worked very well.
However, not everyone appreciated the achievements of Poles in this regard. After the famous relief in Vienna in 1683, Jan III Sobieski did not receive a warm welcome and thanks from Emperor Leopold I Habsburg. In a letter to Marysieńka, he summed up the meeting with the Austrian monarch: "We are standing here, on the banks of the Danube, like the people of Israel once upon the Babylonian water, weeping for our horses, for ungratefulness so unheard of" .
The burden of the historical role
This was probably partly due to the fact that, especially until the 17th century, the Commonwealth fought mainly to defend its own borders, guarding Christian Western Europe only "by the way". Which does not change the fact that, to a large extent, our country was also perceived as a barrier protecting against the flood of pagans, and then Turks, Tatars and the inhabitants of the Moscow state. In this respect, our country was in fact an antemurale christianitatis .
Another thing was that the consequences for Poland were deplorable. Because the Commonwealth proudly called the bulwark of Christianity was at the same time considered a civilization immature country, "hidden from the eye of history" and too long living on the edge of the Old Continent. As historian Karol Kazimierz Sienkiewicz wrote in 1860:
At the watchtower of Europe, we have endured the weight of centuries-old barbarian invasions and, at the cost of our own advances in civilization, we have given Europe, even Christianity itself, security and freedom to develop socially.
