Poland officially Republic of Poland Country, central Europe. Area: 120,728 sq mi (312,685 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 38,164,000. Capi¬ taclass="underline" Warsaw. Most of the people are Polish; there are minorities of Ukrai-
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nians, Germans, and Belarusians. Language: Polish (official). Religion: Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholic; also Eastern Orthodox). Cur¬
rency: zloty. Poland consists almost entirely of lowlands in the northern and central regions; the southern border is largely formed by the Sudeten
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Poland ► pole vault I 1519
and the Carpathian Mountains. The Vistula and Oder, the principal river systems, both drain into the Baltic Sea. Industries include mining, manu¬ facturing, and public utilities. Poland is a republic with two legislative houses; its chief of state is the president, and its head of government is the prime minister. Established as a kingdom in 922 under Mieszko I, Poland was united with Lithuania in 1386 under the Jagiellon dynasty (1386-1572) to become the dominant power in east-central Europe, enjoying a prosperous golden age. In 1466 it wrested western and east¬ ern Prussia from the Teutonic Order, and its lands eventually stretched to the Black Sea. Wars with Sweden (see First Northern War; Second Northern War) and Russia beginning in the late 17th century led to the loss of considerable territory. In 1697 the electors of Saxony became kings of Poland, virtually ending Polish independence. In the late 18th century Poland was divided between Prussia, Russia, and Austria (see partitions of Poland) and ceased to exist. After 1815 the former Polish lands came under Russian domination, and from 1863 Poland was a Russian prov¬ ince, subjected to intensive Russification. After World War I an indepen¬ dent Poland was established by the Allies. The invasion of Poland in 1939 by the U.S.S.R. and Germany precipitated World War II, during which the Nazis sought to purge Poland’s culture and its large Jewish popula¬ tion in the Holocaust. Reoccupied by Soviet forces in 1945, Poland was controlled by a Soviet-dominated government from 1947. In the 1980s the Solidarity labour movement led by Lech Walesa achieved major politi¬ cal reforms, and free elections were held in 1989. An economic austerity program instituted in 1990 sped the transition to a market economy. Poland became a member of NATO in 1999 and the European Union in
Poland, partitions of (1772, 1793, 1795) Territorial divisions of Poland by Russia, Prussia, and Austria that progressively reduced its ter¬ ritory until it ceased to exist as a state. In the First Partition (1772), a Poland weakened by civil war and Russian intervention agreed to a treaty signed by Russia, Prussia, and Austria that deprived it of half its popu¬ lation and almost one-third of its land area. In the Second Partition (1793), Poland was forced to cede additional lands to Prussia and Russia. To quell a nationalist uprising led by Tadeusz Kosciuszko, Russia and Prussia invaded Poland and divided the remnants of the state among themselves and Austria in the Third Partition (1795). Only with the establishment of the Polish Republic in 1918 were the results of the partitions reversed.
Polanski \p3-'lan-ske\, Roman (b. Aug. 18, 1933, Paris, France) Polish-French film director. He grew up in Poland and survived a trau¬ matic wartime childhood under the Nazis. His first feature film, Knife in the Water (1962), brought him international fame. He left Poland that year for Britain, where he made Repulsion (1965), and later the U.S., where his Rosemary’s Baby (1968) was highly successful. In 1969 his new wife, the actress Sharon Tate, was murdered by followers of Charles Manson. He directed a graphic adaptation of Macbeth (1971) and the acclaimed film noir Chinatown (1974). In 1977 Polanski was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to a charge of statutory rape. He subsequently jumped bail and fled to France, where he remained active in both the theatre and motion pictures. His subsequent films include Tess (1979), Frantic (1988), Bitter Moon (1992), Death and the Maiden (1994), and The Pianist (2002), which won the Gold Palm for best film at the Cannes International Film Festival and earned a best director Academy Award for Polanski.
polar bear White semiaquatic bear ( Ursus maritimus) found through¬ out Arctic regions, generally on drift¬ ing oceanic ice floes. A swift, wide- ranging traveler and a good swimmer, it stalks and captures its prey. It primarily eats seal but also fish, seaweed, grass, birds, and cari¬ bou. The male weighs 900-1,600 lbs (410-720 kg) and is about 5.3 ft (1.6 m) tall at the shoulder and 7-8 ft (2.2-2.5 m) long. It has a short tail.
The hairy soles of its broad feet pro¬ tect it from the cold and help it move across the ice. Though shy, it is dan¬ gerous when confronted.
polar wandering Migration of the magnetic poles of the Earth through geologic time. Scientific evidence indicates that the magnetic poles have slowly and erratically wandered across the surface of the Earth. Pole locations calculated from measurements on rocks younger than about
20 million years do not depart from the present pole locations by very much, but successively greater “virtual pole” distances are revealed for rocks older than 30 million years, indicating that substantial deviations occurred. Calculations of polar wandering formed one of the first impor¬ tant pieces of evidence for continental drift.
Polaris \p3-'lar-3s\ or North Star Earth’s present northern polestar (the star visible from the Northern Hemisphere toward which Earth’s axis points), at the end of the “handle” of the Little Dipper in the constella¬ tion Ursa Minor. Polaris is actually a triple star, composed of a binary star and a Cepheid variable. Precession of Earth’s axis made the star Thuban, in the constellation Draco, the North Star in ancient Egyptian times; it will cause the North Pole to point toward Vega, in the constellation Lyra, 12,000 years from now.
polarization Property of certain types of electromagnetic radiation in which the direction and magnitude of the vibrating electric field are related in a specified way. The electric vector representing the magnitude and direction of the electric field in a wave of light is perpendicular to the direction in which the wave is moving. Unpolarized light consists of waves moving in the same direction with their electric vectors pointing in random orientations about the axis of propagation. Plane-polarized light consists only of waves that vibrate in one direction. In circular polariza¬ tion the electric vector rotates about the propagation direction. Light may be polarized by reflection or by passing it through polarizing filters, such as certain crystals, that transmit vibrations in one plane but not in others. Polarized light has useful applications in crystallography, liquid-crystal displays, optical filters, and the identification of optically active chemi¬ cal compounds.