Pagan reaction in Poland

The pagan reaction in Poland was a series of events in the Kingdom of Poland in the 1030s that culminated in a popular uprising or rebellion, or series of these, which for a time destabilized the Kingdom of Poland.

Dissatisfaction with the process of Christianization, which had started after the baptism of Poland in 966, was one of the factors that led to the uprising. The Roman Catholic Church in Poland sustained substantial losses, with many churches and monasteries destroyed, and priests killed. The spread of the new Christian religion had been coupled with growth of the territories and central power of the king. In addition to anti-Christian sentiments, the rebellion showed elements of a peasant uprising against landowners and feudalism. Also present was a struggle for power between the king and some of the nobility.Anita Prazmowska notes, "Historians have concluded that in effect two overlapping revolutions had taken place simultaneously: a political and a pagan revolution."

While Frucht states that the uprising overthrew King Mieszko II of the Piast dynasty, others say it started after his death in 1034.Gerard Labuda, who provides an overview of Polish historiography of the period, gives 1032 as the date when the pagan reaction started, and he notes that historians give other dates for the start of another uprising or uprisings, referencing 1034, 1037, 1038 and 1039.

In any case, Poland in the early 1030s was torn by a number of conflicts, and in 1031 Mieszko II had to briefly seek refuge in Bohemia after losing a civil war to his brother Bezprym, before returning to reclaim the Polish lands in 1032.

The pagan reaction and related uprisings and rebellions of the time, coupled with foreign raids and invasions, threw the young Polish realm into chaos. Among the most devastating of the foreign contributions was a raid by Bretislaus I, Duke of Bohemia, in 1039, which pillaged Poland's first capital, Gniezno.

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