Grunwald, the battle that changed Central Europe

Published on 15 July 2010 at 11:04

“Grunwald transformed Poland from a periphery to a European centre”, writes Polska on its front page. 600 years ago, the flower of European knighthood clashed near the village of Grunwald in what turned out to be one of the largest battles of the Middle Ages. Supported by armies of West European knights, the forces of the Teutonic Order were defeated by the Polish-Lithuanian army led by Polish king Jagiełło. Czechs and Ruthenians also fought on the Polish side. “It was the grandest display of the power of Central Europe, which, at that time, the West considered to be an area of its conquests”, Janusz Lewandowski, EU budget commissioner told the newspaper.

The Grunwald victory later become the founding myth not only for the independent Poland, but also for Lithuania, and an “apotheosis of the Polish statehood.” But for a long time it cast a shadow on Polish-German relations (the Teutonic Knights were mainly German) and was used for propaganda purposes. The Polish communist authorities depicted West German politicians, including chancellor Konrad Adenauer, as the successors of imperial policies of Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order. But today Grunwald is supposed to unite rather than divide. Presidents of Lithuania, Rumania, and Moldova will participate in the celebrations of the 600th anniversary of the battle, joined by the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, the Italian Bruno Platter. On Saturday, the battle will be staged on the fields of Grunwald, watched by some 200,000 visitors.

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