On Tuesday, the 23rd of November 2021, in Poznań, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed an act establishing a new national holiday – the National Day of the Victorious Greater Poland Uprising on the 27th of December. 

„I am glad that this holiday will be permanently included in the official calendar of the Republic of Poland„, – emphasised the president.

The Polish parliament adopted an act establishing the new holiday on the 1st of October, and it was unanimously supported by the Senate a month later. The act, which was the president’s legislative initiative, is a response to the voices of community representatives, patriotic activists and local authorities from the Greater Poland voivodeship. 

The president emphasized that the place of the ceremony was not accidental. As he recalled, this is the historic hall of the former „Bazar” hotel, where the legendary Ignacy Jan Paderewski lived in Poznań just before the outbreak of the Greater Poland Uprising. It is believed that Paderewski’s speech delivered from the window of this hotel had a decisive impact on the launching of the uprising.

During the ceremony, the president pointed out that the parliament adopted the law on this matter „with a great feeling of unity, without unnecessary political discussions„. „Thank you with all my heart that both the deputies and senators efficiently carried out this legislative process,” he added.

The Greater Poland uprising of 1918–1919 was a military insurrection that granted a reconstituted Second Polish Republic the area won by the Polish insurrectionists. The region had been part of the Kingdom of Poland and then the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth before the 1793 partition of Poland when the German Kingdom of Prussia annexed it.

The 27h of December will not be a day off.

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen

Picture: Painting by Leon Prauziński. Collection of Biblioteka Raczyńskich. Wikimedia, public domain.