Poland & peace, 1923 r.

Poland & peace, 1923 r. - Aleksander Skrzyński

The History of interwar Poland comprises the period from the re-recreation of the independent Polish state in 1918, until the joint Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 at the onset of World War II. The two decades of Poland's sovereignty between the world wars are known as the Interbellum.

Poland re-emerged in November 1918 after more than a century of partitions by Austria-Hungary, the German, and the Russian Empires.[1][2][3] Its independence was confirmed by the victorious powers through the Treaty of Versailles of June 1919,[4] and most of the territory won in a series of border wars fought from 1918 to 1921.[2] Poland's frontiers were settled in 1922 and internationally recognized in 1923.[5][6] The Polish political scene was democratic, but was chaotic until Józef Piłsudski (1867–1935) seized power in May 1926 and democracy ended. The policy of agrarianism led to the redistribution of lands to peasants and the country achieved significant economic growth between 1921 and 1939. A third of the population consisted of minorities—Ukrainians, Jews, Belorussians and Germans—who were either hostile towards the existence of the Polish state because of the lack of privileges or often discriminated against in the case of Ukrainians and Belorussians who faced Polonization. There were treaties that supposedly protected them but the government in Warsaw was not interested in their enforcement.[7]