Poland's Independence Day: November 11 and What the Consul Asks

November 11 — Independence Day, an official public holiday

On November 11, Poland celebrates Narodowe Święto Niepodległości — the anniversary of regaining statehood in 1918 after 123 years of partition between three empires. It's one of Poland's 14 official public holidays (see our full calendar in a separate article), a state holiday with parades, not a religious one.

Three partitions that erased Poland from the map

In the late 18th century, neighboring empires — Russia, Prussia, and Austria — partitioned the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth three times: in 1772, 1793, and finally in 1795. After the third partition, Poland disappeared from the map of Europe as a state for 123 years. The cause was the Commonwealth's internal weakness (the liberum veto, which let a single deputy block any parliamentary decision) next to aggressive neighbors with absolute power.

The fight for independence continued throughout the partitions

Poles never accepted the loss of their state. 1794 saw the Kościuszko Uprising, the first national revolt. 1830 brought the November Uprising in Warsaw, after whose defeat the Great Emigration began. 1863 saw the January Uprising, again unsuccessful. In 1797 in Italy, General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski formed the Polish Legions — and it was for them that Józef Wybicki wrote the song "Poland Has Not Yet Perished," which became the national anthem in 1927.

November 11, 1918: Poland returns to the map

World War I lasted from August 1, 1914 to November 11, 1918, and led to the collapse of four empires at once — German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian. On November 10, 1918, Józef Piłsudski returned to Warsaw after being imprisoned in the German fortress of Magdeburg. The next day, November 11, as Germany surrendered, the Regency Council — the provisional authority under German occupation — appointed him commander-in-chief of Polish forces, and on November 14 handed him full power before dissolving itself. Piłsudski received the official title of Chief of State (Naczelnik Państwa) by decree on November 22. Power passed not by force but through a legal transfer of authority — yet November 11 remained the symbolic date of Independence Day.

How it's celebrated today

Warsaw holds the Independence March (Marsz Niepodległości) every year — one of the largest street events in Poland. Buildings are decorated with white-and-red flags, and parades and state concerts take place. Józef Piłsudski remains the day's main symbol — he's most often credited with restoring Polish statehood.

The first president who barely got to serve

In December 1922, Professor Gabriel Narutowicz was elected the first President of the Second Polish Republic. His election was backed by votes from national-minority deputies — Jewish, German, Ukrainian — which triggered a wave of antisemitic propaganda from right-wing nationalists who falsely accused Narutowicz himself (in fact a Catholic) of being Jewish. On December 16, 1922, just five days after taking office, the painter Eligiusz Niewiadomski, linked to the right-wing National Democratic Party, shot the president dead at Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery. The assassin admitted he had originally planned to kill Piłsudski instead. He was executed by court sentence on January 31, 1923. It's one of the most tragic episodes of the young Polish state, one the consul might bring up as an example of how unstable the start of independence was.

What the consul asks

Questions about November 11 are among the most common in PLTest's historical question block: when Poland regained independence, how long the partitions lasted, who Józef Piłsudski was. The consul often asks about both major state holidays at once — May 3 and November 11 — to check whether you confuse the Constitution anniversary with the independence anniversary.

Common mistakes

Frequently asked questions