How did Poland become a country?
A.: 1) Little is known regarding the early activities of the Slavic tribes that laid the foundations of the Polish nation. According to some experts, a number of these tribes united, about AD 840, under a legendary king known as Piast, but Poland does not begin to figure in European history until the reign of Mieszko, reputedly a descendant of Piast, which lasted from 962 to 992. Most Scholars agree that the original Slav homeland lay within the boundaries of modern Poland in the Odra (Oder) and Wisla (Vistula) basins. The Slavs subsequently expanded into territories to the east, south and west and became increasingly differentiated until, by AD 800, three main geographical and linguistic divisions had arisen; the East Slavs inhabiting a large part of European Russia, the South Slavs who settled in the Balkan Peninsula, and the West Slavs who settled in what is now Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. The West Slavs suffered different fates; the Lusatians and Veleti were absorbed b
