Hi there, and thank you for listening to this show. My name is Zach Twomley. You're listening to

the introduction episode of Poland is Not Yet Lost. Poland is not yet lost as a podcast which delivers

a chronological history of Poland in the 18th century, from the beginning in 1700 to its removal

from the map of Europe by 1795.

It is a story of diplomatic intrigue on a grand scale, of bitter, shattering defeat,

and of inspiring courage on an epic European stage.

If investigating this story sounds interesting and worthwhile to you,

then I'd like to say welcome to Poland is not yet lost.

Poland is not yet lost. While we live, we will fight with swords for all that our enemies have taken from us.

The Polish National Anthem, Mazarek de Broveskego, the first verse.

I recall my university days in the year 1832 at Gottingen, which was a kind of depot for Polish refugees from the uprising of 1831.

As a young man, I got to know some of the outstanding people of the Polish Parliament.

They were interesting, charming people, but what interests me most is the enthusiasm,

with which these Poles were received in all the cities of central Germany,

and yet, I heard them say it themselves.

They had no way left off their strivings or changed their minds about Germans and Germany.

I recall that I occasionally discussed with one of the Polish gentlemen the Slavic echoes,

which appear in many of the place names of my home dating from an earlier period.

He said to me, the conversation was in French, just wait, we will give them back their original names.

Otto von Bismarck, speaking in the Reichstag to his own party and to the Polish delegates who

constituted a considerable

plank of the political opposition, the 28th of January 1886.

...