Greater Polish

The Greater Polish are the Lechitic-speaking people of Wielkopolska, the Warta and Notec lowlands around Poznan, Gniezno and Kalisz, with adjoining Kuyavian lands. Their forebears the Polans made it the cradle of the Polish state: Poznan gained Poland's first bishopric in 968 and Gniezno its archdiocese in 1000, until pagan rebellion and the Bohemian raid of 1038 drove the court to Krakow.

Fragmentation after 1138 split it into the Duchy of Greater Poland and Kuyavian duchies, rejoined to the crown under Wladyslaw the Elbow-high in 1314; in 1331 Teutonic raiders reached Kalisz before being driven back. The local dialect, descended from the Western Slavic of the Polans, spread with settlers into the Neumark.

Prussia took the northern Notec lands in 1772 and the whole region in 1793; the 1806 uprising carried much into the Duchy of Warsaw, but the Congress of Vienna in 1815 left Poznan under Prussia as the Grand Duchy of Posen, while Kalisz passed to Russian Poland.