Tens of Thousands of Nationalists in Warsaw Celebrate 1,000 Years of the Kingdom of Poland
Tens of thousands of Poles marched through the center of Warsaw today in a patriotic march organized by the main opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), and its leader Jarosław Kaczyński, to jointly celebrate 1,000 years since the coronation of Bolesław I the Brave as King of Poland and 500 years since the Duchy of Prussia became a fiefdom of the Polish Crown.
The march, which began with an attempt to break the record for the number of couples dancing the polonaise, culminated in a speech by the main speaker, Karol Nawrocki, the conservative populists' candidate for the presidential election on May 18 and director of the Institute of National Remembrance.
"We cannot agree to have our freedom taken away, to surrender our sovereignty! We want a Poland that cares for Poles, where they live well. We want a Poland that has the ambition to be great. A thousand years of the crown today cry out to us that Poles will never give in to discouragement and will never give up their freedom, their sovereignty!" said Nawrocki, who was greeted by the crowd with shouts of "King Karol!"
Waving national flags and chanting "This is Poland!", "God, Honor, and Fatherland!" and slogans against the pro-European coalition government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk such as: "The red crow will never defeat the eagle!" and "This is Poland, not Brussels!", the organizers estimated that 100,000 people participated in the march. However, official estimates by city authorities suggest 20,000 Warsaw residents, along with another 10,000 brought by the party in 200 buses from across Poland.
When asked by reporters from Polish media, march participants explained that they were there because, after 500 years, Poles should not be forced to be “vassals of Germany,” and because the government of Prime Minister Tusk allegedly refuses to organize a celebration of the 1,000-year anniversary of the Polish crown, claiming it is a “German government.”
“And we are patriots, not Russian Germans,” one participant told a reporter from Gazeta Wyborcza.
"Every red piece of trash votes for Rafał Trzaskowski," was one of the slogans chanted against the Civic Coalition’s presidential candidate, the popular liberal mayor of Warsaw.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in a promotional video titled “1,000 Reasons to Be Proud” shared on social media, invited Poles to celebrate the 1,000-year anniversary of the Kingdom of Poland together in Warsaw on April 26.
Polls currently give Trzaskowski the best chance of winning the presidential elections following the departure of current President Andrzej Duda from Law and Justice, showing him with at least a 10-point lead in both the first and second rounds, regardless of his opponent.
It is uncertain whether the conservative populist candidate Nawrocki will make it to the second round, due to nearly equal support for the candidate of the radical nationalist Confederation party, Sławomir Mentzen.
