Mark Meek's Ideas: Northern Poland

Bialystok is a city in northern Poland from the late Middle Ages. It was known for it's Jewish community and the Jews which founded the state of Israel in 1948 were predominantly Polish Jews. Branicki Palace, built in the Eighteenth Century, was not a royal palace but a private home.

This is Bialystok and Branicki Palace, from Google Street View.

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https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1347752,23.1822788,3a,75y,68.98h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sJUPySm6RMXG95L9fjN2Uuw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DJUPySm6RMXG95L9fjN2Uuw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D57.35383%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

This is Branicki Palace in Bialystok

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1312505,23.1666184,3a,75y,183.69h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOP_EWqt7YMv5EsvWmJDsNcLm8GUaUXyQrEZp0h!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOP_EWqt7YMv5EsvWmJDsNcLm8GUaUXyQrEZp0h%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya221.21632-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

This is the Fourteenth-Century city of Olsztyn, with it's red brick castle and Old Town. From Google Earth.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.7773859,20.4749048,3a,75y,45.25h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1s8ZMOovYERUj7UpZSZJyUfQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D8ZMOovYERUj7UpZSZJyUfQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D30.801886%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

Nicolaus Copernicus was a polymath and intellectual who lived in the town of Frombork. This northern part of Poland has passed between Prussian and Polish control, since Poland did not exist as a nation for more than 120 years, before returning in 1918. Copernicus introduced the idea that the earth moves around the sun, rather than the earth being at the center of the universe.

Prussia came together from the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. It was a Protestant state. Albert, Duke of Prussia, admired Martin Luther and became a Lutheran. It would be Prussia, centered in Berlin, that would ultimately lead the unification of Germany in the Nineteenth Century.

This is why Poland has been involved in so much conflict. It is where the three major branches of Christianity meet, with their historic mutual hostility. The founder of Poland, Mieszko I, was baptized as a Catholic and led the conversion of Poland. To the east, Vladimir the Great chose the Byzantine rite of Christianity which split from Catholicism, in the Great Schism of 1054, to form the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is the root of the historic rivalry between Poland and Russia.

To the north, Albert split from the Catholic Church to join the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation spread rapidly through the heart of the Holy Roman Empire, of which Poland had not been a part, so that Poland remained Catholic but with Protestants on one side and Eastern Orthodox on the other side. Poland had rivalry with both sides, which also had rivalry with each other. Poland was in the middle and, while the differences might have been secularized in the Twentieth Century into ideologies like National Socialism and Communism, the root of the rivalry is really religious.

The following scenes begin at the statue of Copernicus in Frombork, on the coast of the Baltic Sea. Image from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@54.3575426,19.6804778,3a,75y,145.77h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sQQPEqcvo3__9eZNfeGLlzg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DQQPEqcvo3__9eZNfeGLlzg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D158.37027%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The major city of northern Poland is Gdansk, a port on the Baltic Sea. Gdansk is over a thousand years old. The city was actually founded by the founder of Poland, Mieszko I, but has spent some of it's history under Prussian rule.

The following scenes of Gdansk begin in the Long Market, which is the main square of Gdansk, at the Neptune Fountain. The river is the Motlawa River and the wooden structure that is visible on one of the buildings facing the river is a medieval port crane. Being a port city, Gdansk has had much contact with other countries and it is believed that Dutch architecture, in particular, influenced some of the buildings. The structure with entrance archways is the Sixteenth-Century Green Gate. The building with the tall spire is the even older town hall.

These images from Google Street View are the Long Market and riverfront of Gdansk.