On February 10, 1920 , a solemn act of marriage between Polish and the Baltic Sea took place in Puck. Representing the Republic of Poland, Gen. During the ceremony, Józef Haller said: “Today is a day of honor and glory! It is a day of freedom, because the White Eagle spread its wings not only over the Polish lands, but also over the Polish sea. Now free worlds and free countries lie ahead. A Polish sailor will be able to reach everywhere today under the sign of the White Eagle, the whole world is open to him.”
By virtue of the Treaty of Versailles , which ended World War I, the reborn Republic of Poland received a 147 km long coastal strip – from the borders of Gdańsk, which as the Free City of Danzig remained under the protectorate of the League of Nations, to the vicinity of Karwia. Although it was not much for the aspirations of the reborn state, we should remember that this part of the coast has always been extremely important for our country. The mouth of the Vistula River into the Gulf of Gdańsk was of great importance for the economy. The whole bay was a convenient place for the establishment of ports.
The fate of Gdańsk Pomerania was turbulent. At least since the times of Mieszko I, it had been in the possession of the Piasts. The knights of the Order wrested them in 1308. From 1466, after the victory over the Teutonic Knights in the Thirteen Years’ War, it belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. We lost it in 1772. in the first partition in favor of Prussia.
September 23, 1922 The Sejm of the Republic of Poland adopted a law authorizing the government to build a seaport in Gdynia. Within a dozen or so years, the fishing settlement transformed into one of the largest and most modern ports in Europe, around which a city of over 240,000 people was created. Residents.
On the importance of access to the sea and its economic role, Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski (whose name is most strongly associated with the construction of the port and the city of Gdynia, the Polish “window to the world”), published in 1931. book “Disproportions. A Thing About Poland Past and Present”, he wrote: “Every new metre of coastline, every new crane, every freight depot, every new commercial post in Gdynia, every improvement in communication, every new ship, every new factory on the coast, every bank, every new bond cementing Gdynia with Pomerania, and the entire Pomeranian Voivodeship with the rest of the country, is a great achievement, it is a serious asset of our state achievements. Here is the only practical merchant academy of Polish, here stands the surest and shortest way for equalizing the value of man in Poland with the value of man in Western Europe, here the border of cooperation with the nations of the whole world converges, and finally all differences of opinions, all clashes of thoughts and programs of the whole Polish are automatically harmonized.”
More information:
Wedding of Polish with the Baltic Sea
April 29, 1923 the port of Gdynia was officially opened
Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski – two-time builder of Gdynia
