deliriouslove1970. The life & times of Gary and Denise Flanders. (Free and worth every penny. If you would like to compliment the editor, send to garytheflan@deliriouslove1970.com. If you would like to complain, call your mother.)

“Three May Constitution Day (also Third May National Holiday; Polish: Święto Konstytucji 3 Maja) is a Polish national and public holiday. It celebrates the declaration of the Constitution of 3 May 1791 — the first modern constitution in Europe. Festivities date back to the Duchy of Warsaw early in the 19th century, but it became an official holiday only in 1919 in the Second Polish Republic. Delisted during the Polish People’s Republic, it was reestablished after the fall of communism in modern Poland.”

May 3 was first declared a holiday in 1791. It has been banned during the various partitions of Poland. It was celebrated in the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807 and by pro-independence activists at different times. It was made and official holiday in 1919. It was banned again in World War II by Nazi and Soviet occupiers. In 1945 spontaneously by activists. It was restored as an official holiday in 1990. It has represented the Polish desire for independence and civic order. It remains an important idea and holiday.

The constitution itself was a written constitution for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It is the very first constitution in Europe and the very second constitution ever written. In it are the structures for a country to continue. It was the first codified modern constitution possessing checks and balances and a tripartite separation of powers. The Constitution sought to implement a more effective constitutional monarchy, introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility, and placed the peasants under the government’s protection, mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. 

“The authors of the Constitution were inspired by the political thought and philosophy of the European Enlightenment and the American Constitution adopted in 1787. They believed that power should serve the good of the whole nation, not just the interests of privileged classes. The Constitution was meant to launch new reforms aimed at strengthening the state. Today, the measures taken to defend Poland at risk from its neighbours back then are an example of the responsibility and insight of society’s elites.”

The Polish Constitution is more than a bunch of words on a paper. To the Polish citizen it is the essence of what they wanted to be. It is the second one ever written and despite being banned, removed a number of times and reinstated a number of times it still is what Poland wants to be. Therefore they do take care in honoring it and celebrating it.