May 3rd Constitution Day
| May 3rd Constitution Day | |
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May 3rd Constitution, by Matejko. King Stanisław August (left) enters St. John's Cathedral, where deputies will swear to uphold the Constitution.
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| Official name | Święto Konstytucji 3 Maja |
| Observed by | Polish people |
| Type | national, secular, patriotic |
| Significance | Establishment of the Constitution of May 3, 1791 |
| Celebrations | Parades |
| Date | May 3 |
| Next time | 3 May 2017 |
| Frequency | annual |
3rd May National Holiday (also May 3rd Constitution Day; Polish: Święto Konstytucji 3 Maja) is a Polish national and public holiday that takes place on 3rd May. The holiday celebrates the declaration of the Constitution of May 3, 1791. 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 times of the People's Republic of Poland, it was reestablished after the fall of communism in modern Poland.
The Constitution of May 3, 1791 is considered one of the most important achievements in the history of Poland, despite being in effect for only a year, until the Russo-Polish War of 1792. Historian Norman Davies calls it "the first constitution of its type in Europe"; other scholars also refer to it as the world's second oldest constitution.
The May 3rd Constitution was designed to redress long-standing political defects of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Constitution sought to supplant the existing anarchy fostered by some of the country's magnates with a more democratic constitutional monarchy. The adoption of the May 3rd Constitution provoked the active hostility of the Commonwealth's neighbors, leading to the Second Partition of Poland in 1792, the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794 and the final, Third Partition of Poland, in 1795. In the words of two of its co-authors, and Hugo Kołłątaj, it was "the last will and testament of the expiring Fatherland."
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