Origins of the Piast Dynasty*

Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana УДК 94(438).02 ; ББК 63.3 (0=польша) P. Urbańczyk ORIGINS OF THE PIAST DYNASTY* Contemporary Polish national identity is strongly referred to the medieval roots of the country and to the early state organized and run by the rulers of the first historical dynasty — the Piasts. This family name was introduced in the 16th century and since then used in the historiography to denote various aspects of the period framed by the baptism of Mieszko I in 966 and the death of Casimir the Great (Kazimierz III Wielki) in 1370. Thus, we have the «Piast period», «Piast state», «Piast Poland», etc., and obviously the «Piast dynasty». In Europe, historians, archaeologists and linguists have intensively explored since the 19th century the connection between the distant history and contemporary collective identities. Their work resulted with creation/invention of the modern national identities which were largely founded on knowledge of the «own» past. History and archaeology were there- fore used to provide a solid foundation for a national consciousness that defined itself both in opposition to neighbouring societies and to the general «outside». In Poland that process took place under specific circumstances when after the political catastrophe in the late 18th century the country was under the occupation of three neighbouring empires: Russian, Prussian and Austrian. The collapse of the first res publica provoked intellectual ferment when the previous Jagiellonian geopolitical strategy and the so-called Sarmatian political ideology were discarded and replaced with the then rediscovered Piast roots of the statehood and with the Slavic origins of the nation. This historiographic trend was reinforced after the World War II when Poland’s territory was substantially reduced and moved towards the west by the victorious allies. The official * Full argumentation to be found in Urbańczyk P. Mieszko Pierwszy tajemniczy. Toruń, 2012. Chapter 3. 56 Петербургские славянские и балканские исследования P. Urbańczyk. Origins of the piast dynasty post-war propaganda interpreted that decision as the «return to the Piast lands» delimited by Commentarii river Odra in the west, river Bug in the east, Baltic Sea in the north and the mountain belt of Sudeten and Carpathians in the south. Huge archaeological programme was launched in the 1950s and 1960s with the main aim to prove the Piast origins of the so-called Reclaimed / Статьи Lands (Ziemie Odzyskane) while historians concentrated on studying the Piast period with special attention for the earliest history of the country. One of the crucial questions to answer was the emergence of the state which was symbolically connected to the voluntary baptism of Mieszko I in 966. Unfortunately, the available historical information is sadly limited to the story recorded in the early 12th century by Gallus Anonymus — a foreign guest at the Polish court. In the Chronica Polonorum he recalls a semi-legendary account on Mieszko’s family line derived from some humble peasant named Piast who overtook from a mysterious inhospitable prince Popiel the supreme power, and whose four progenitors gradually strengthened and enlarged the state. «Because of their expressive names… they look like typical heroes of an establish- ing myth»1. From them Mieszko I allegedly inherited a ready-made political structure with which he entered the regional geopolitical stage soon after 960. Contemporary Saxon chronicler Widukind of Corvey saw Mieszko as a rex and the ruler who enjoyed substantial power (potestas). Similar was the impression of a Jewish traveler Ibrahim ibn Yaqub who in 965 visited Prague where he learned about Mieszko — the mighty Slavic «king (malik) of the north». The sudden appearance in East Central Europe of this new political agent came as surprise to the external observers of the region. None of them left any clue as to the possible sources of this new political and military power; none disclosed any knowledge on the earlier history of this territorial entity which silently grew in the forests of Wielkopolska (Greater Poland — Polonia maior) during the six decades of the 10th century. The area was geographically favorable because of the safe distance from all possible external dangers: the mighty Ottonian Reich, sea-born vikings, valiant Prussians, expansive Rurikids sitting in Kiev, dangerous Magyars locked in the mid-Danube steppe zone, and from the Přemyslids who ruled the Bohemian Basin. Archaeologists identified in central Wielkopolska a core zone of ca. 5000 km2 where during the second quarter of the 10th century a unified system of mighty strongholds (grody) was established with key points in Bnin, Giecz, Gniezno, Grzybowo, Ląd, Moraczewo, Ostrów Lednicki and Poznań. They were sur- rounded with dense network of agrarian settlements. By the mid-10th century the inflow of imported goods (mostly silver) indicates opening a connection to the outside world. This material evidence proves the presence of a socio-political elite who managed to curb the sub- ordinated population and to extract resources which could be turned into exclusive consump- tion. Modern historiography suggests trade in slaves as an important source of their income. This process should be analyzed within the framework of political, ideological and eco- nomic changes which occurred during the course of the late 9th and in the 10th century in the then non-Christian Europe. These were: (1) the gradual replacement of traditional, dispersed structures of political power by «royal» dynasties with an interest in internal centralising authority and external expanding of their territory; (2) the penetration of Christianity which 1 Mühle E. Die Piasten. Polen im Mittelalter. München, 2011. S. 12. 2013. № 2. Июль—Декабрь 57 Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana promoted a strictly hierarchic social structure that was organised by and around the highest centre of political authority, supported by ecclesiastical institutions; (3) the transition from a subsistence economy in which a range of unspecialised products were exchanged at local markets to a market-like economy, where productivity was increased to gain a surplus that could then be politically consumed or «exported»; and (4) the extensive reorganisation of geographical space as land, previously under collective control, was modified to growing areas that were subject to political and military centres which fiercely competed with other similarly centralised territories. The obvious question is: who were those people who relatively quickly established in central Poland a strong territorial organization and quickly expanded their domain in all directions? The basic historical alternative in the two-hundred-years-old discussion was between the «patriotic» position whose adherents took for granted the local origin of the Piasts and those scholars who suspected their foreign origin. Both parties had to refer to the Gallus’s story where the former saw the proof for vernacular roots of the dynasty which derived from a simple peasant, while the latter pointed to the recorded memory of the semi- violent replacement of the old dynasty of Popiel by a new one — the Piasts. Archaeologists refer to the results of dendrochronological dating of the eminent strongholds to propagate competitive ideas as to the localization of the very «cradle» of the Piasts. Andrzej Buko has been consequently promoting Kalisz as the place where Mieszko I was born2. The only argument is the fact that the «tribal» stonghold there had not been destroyed during the vigorous enlargement of the Piast domain. Zofia Kurnatowska points to Giecz, because «this is the only of the five main early-Piast strongholds in the Gniezno land which undoubtedly originates from the 9th century»3. Other authors suggest Poznań or Gniezno. Available written sources, toponyms and archaeological evidence do not allow any con- clusive statement but they enable serious discussion of the problem. Myself, I hardly believe that in the forests of Wielkopolska there suddenly «popped up» the idea of building a territorial state which was effectively and quickly executed according to a precise plan of extensive investment in the administrative and military infrastructure. Such a vision would need a convincing explanation of where the necessary technical and organizational know-how came from and how was it mentally adopted and practically adapted by local leaders living in the area which does not boast any archaeological evidence for contacts with the more advanced parts of Europe and which existed during several decades unnoticed by the contemporary descriptors of the «world». These doubts made me to accept the alternative solution that Mieszko’s forefathers had arrived to Wielkopolska from some more civilized outside and grabbed supreme power there. Such a situation would be rather typical for the early Slavic societies which fre- quently accepted foreigners as their political and military leaders4. With such a concept, the 2 E. g. Buko A. 1) Początki państwa polskiego. Pytania — problemy — hipotezy // Światowit. 1999. Vol. 42 (2). S. 32–45; 2) Archeologia Polski wczesnośredniowiecznej: Odkrycia, hipotezy, interpretacje. Warszawa, 2005. S. 173–176. 3 Kurnatowska Z. Początki Polski. Poznań, 2002. S. 64. 4 Cf. discussion in: Urbańczyk P. Foreign leaders in Early Slavic societies // Integration und Herrschaft. Ethnische Identitäten und soziale Organisation im Frühmittelalter / Hrsg. von W. Pohl und M. Diesenberger. Wien, 2002.

Load more