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 POLAND

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POLAND

between the Polish episcopate and the people under them in no way justify the hopes of tlie enemies of the Church that exceptional laws of any kind directed against the orders could be passed ; in Prussian Poland the Polish archbishop has not yet exliausted all his resources in his struggle for the rights and the freedom of the Church.

There are at present in Poland four ecclesiastical provinces: at Gnesen, Lemberg, Mohileff, and War- saw. In the year 1000 Poland had five bishoprics; this number increased to thirty-three in 1818. The head of the Catholic Church in Poland was the Arch- bishop of Gnesen, primate of the kingdom and legalus nalus. In the ecclesiastical hierarchy the following order of precedence was established: after the primate came the Archbi.shop of Lemberg, then the Bishops of Cracow, Wladislaw (Lesslau), Posen, Vilna, Plock, Ermland, Lutzk, Przemysl, Samland, Kulm, Chelm, Kieff, Kamenets, Livonia, and Smolensk. The LTni- ats had two archbishops, at Kieff and Polotzk, besides the Bishoprics of Lutzk, Chelm, Lemberg-Kamenets and Przemysl-Pinsk. At present Austrian Poland has a Latin archbishop at Lemberg and the Bishops of Cracow, Tarnow, and Przemysl, with about 4,000,000 laity and about 2,000 priests, besides an archbishop of the Greek Rite at Lemberg and bishops at Przemysl and Stanislawow. In Prussian Poland the Archbishop of Gnesen has under him the suffragan Dioceses of Posen and Kulm, while the Bishops of Breslau and Ermland are immediately subject to the Apostolic See. Russian Poland has the following sees: Warsaw (archbishopric), Plock, Kielce, Lublin, Sandomir, Sejny and Augustowo, and Wladislaw (Lesslau); in the districts of Lithuania and Little Russia, JNIohileff (archbishopric), Vilna, Samland, Minsk, and Lutzk-Zhitomir. These thirteen dioceses number about 4,500 priests and over 12,000,000 CathoUcs. The Polish clergy is working in the fore- front in every field, setting a splendid example; it unites Polish patriotism with Catholicism. An infal- lible sign of its powers of development is undoubtedly seen in the growth of rehgious literature in the Polish language. This movement clearly shows that the Polish clergy is receiving a thorough education and contributing much to the advancement of culture and religion in Polish society. Every Polish pro\'ince has at least one periodical of a religious-social character. (See Periodical Liter.\tcre, C.\tholic. — Poland.) The clergy everywhere enjo3' an extraordinary esteem and large sections of the people are very reli- gious.

One instance, however, must be recorded in which a defection from the true faith has taken place in the bosom of the Polish Church. In Russian Poland the sect of Mariavites, during the years 1905-08 attracted much attention. About 1884 Casimir Przyjemski, a priest, came to Plock, seeking to establish an associa- tion of priests in connexion with the Third Order of St. Francis, for mutual edification and the promotion of asceticism. After he had become acquainted with Fehcya Kozlowska, a poor seamstress, and a tertiary, he informed her of his plan. On 2 August, 1893, Kozlowska claimed to have had a revelation from God, according to which she was to found an asso- ciation of priests and pious women under the name of Mariavites, and thus to regenerate the world. The association, which took its name from the words "Hail Mary", gathered a large number of followers. Kozlowska, generally called "mateczka" (httle mother), placed herself at the head of both the male and female branches of the association; she was re- garded as a saint, and her followers even ascribed miracles to her. The Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition having decided that the alleged visions of Kozlowska were hallucinations, ordered the society to disband. The Mariavites refu.ied to submit to this decision, and, moreover, continued to preach a

body of blasphemous doctrines tending to exalt the personality of Maria Kozlowska. They were, accord- ingl}', placed under excommunication by Rome. In 1906 the number of Mariavite priests amounted to about 50 in some 20 odd parishes, claiming a following of 500,000 souls. By the spring of the following year their numbers had already fallen to 60,000. Public opinion in all parts of Poland almost unanimously condemned the new body, which had been recognized by the Russian Government as a religious sect. It now (1910) numbers among its adherents 40 priests and 22 parishes, with, it is said, 20,000 adherents. The Mariavites have recently adopted an entirely PoUsh liturgy. The sect appeared in Poland at a time when the country began to re\'ive under the im- pulse of freedom, and when the hostility between Poles and Russians appeared to be on the point of dj'ing out: a reconciliation of the two nations might possibly prepare the way for a religious union.

Emigration from Poland to the New World did not begin to assume any considerable proportions until the middle of the nineteenth century. The impulse which resulted in this movement may be traced to the unfavourable conditions, not only economic, but also political and religious, which prevailed in Poland. The United States, Brazil, Canada, Uruguay, and Australia have received an accession of population amounting to more than 3,000,000, chiefly from the labouring classes of the population. (See Poles in

THE LT.N'ITED STATES.)

In English: V.vN Norm.\n. Poland, the Knight among Nations (New York, 190S); Lodge, The Extinction of Poland, 1788-07, m Cambr. Mod. Hist., VIII (Cambridge. 1904), 521-52; Askenazt, Poland and the Polish Revolution in Cambr. Mod. Hist., X (Cam- bridge, 1907), 445-74; Montalembert, The Insurrection of Poland (London, 1863); Bhandes, Poland. A Study of the Land, People and Literature (London, 1903); Pabsoss, The Later Reli- gious Martyrdom of Poland in Am. Cath. Q. Rev., XIU (Philadel- phia, 1S98), 71-96; McSwinet, The Cath. Church in Poland under the Russian Government in The Month (London, Julv, Aug.. Sept., 1876), 296, 430; MacCaffret, Hist, of the Cath. Church in the Nineteenth Century (Dublin, 1910); Bain", Slavonic Europe (Cambridge, 1908) ; Saxton, Fall of Poland (New York, 1851) ; Fletcher, Hist, of Poland (London, 1831).

In Polish; .SzTC, Geography of Former Poland (Posen, 1861); LiMANOWSKi, Galicia Portrayed in Words and Drawings (Warsaw, 1891) ; BnuNSKl. Ecclesiastical History of Poland (Cracow, 1873- 74); Wl.4Di8L.aw, Organization of the Church in Poland (Lemberg, 1893); Zaleski, The Jesuits in Poland (Lemberg. 1900-06); Church Leiicon.XXVl (Warsaw, 1903). In other languages: H»s(. religieuse des peuples slaves (Paris, 1853); FoRSTER, La Pologne (Paris, 1840) ; Pierling, B.4thom and Poissevin, Documents inMits sur les rapports du Saint Siege avec les Slaves (Paris, 1887) ; Chodzko, La Pologne histor. monumentale et illustrie (Paris, 1844) . Idem, Hist, populaire de la Pologne; Brandenbcrger, Polnische Gesch. (Leipzig, 1907) ; Kromer, Polonia, sive de situ, populis, moribus, et republica regni Polonici (Cracow. 1901); Idem, Lites ac res gestce inter Polonos ordinemque cruciferorum (2 vols., Posen, 1890).

Edmund Kolodziejczyk.

Polish Literature. — The subject will be divided, for convenience of treatment, into historical periods.

First Period. — Of the literature of Poland before the advent of Christianity (965) very few traces indeed are extant. Even when converted, the country long remained uncivilized. The laity were engaged in per- petual wars; and a few schools founded by the clergy were wrecked when (1138-1306) the countrj', after suffering from a divided sovereignty, was again and again invaded by the Tatars. The schools, however, were restored, and Casimir the Great founded, in 1364, the academy which was destined to become the University of Cracow in 1400. Chroniclers, writing in medieval Latin, appeared: Gallus, Kadlubek, and Martinus Polonus, in the thirteenth century; John of Czarnkow, in the fourteenth. In the fifteenth cen- tury the University of Cracow was famous and at- tracted many students; Poles began to study abroad, and came back Humanists and men of the Renais- sance. But though both Dlugosz (Longinus), the first great historian of Poland, and John Ostrorog, an excellent pohtical writer, flourished at this time, they wrote in Latin. The national language, though it