Greater Poland in the context of "Lugii"

Władysław I Łokietek, in English known as the "Elbow-high" or Ladislaus the Short (c. 1260/1 – 2 March 1333), was King of Poland from 1320 to 1333, and duke of several of the provinces and principalities in the preceding years. He was a member of the royal Piast dynasty, the son of Duke Casimir I of Kuyavia, and great-grandson of High-Duke Casimir II the Just.

Władysław I inherited a small portion of his father's domain, but his dominion grew as some of his brothers died young. He unsuccessfully tried to incorporate the Duchy of Kraków (the Seniorate Province) in 1289, following the death of his half-brother Leszek II the Black and the withdrawal from contention of his ally Bolesław II of Masovia. After a period in exile during the rule of Wenceslaus II, Władysław regained several duchies and then Kraków in 1306 when Wenceslaus III was murdered. He temporarily took control of part of Greater Poland after the death of his ally Przemysł II, lost it, and then regained it.

Jadwiga (Polish: [jadˈviɡa] ; 1373 or 1374 – 17 July 1399), also known as Hedwig (from German, Hungarian: Hedvig), was the first female monarch of the Kingdom of Poland, as well its last hereditary ruler. She reigned from 16 October 1384 until her death. Born in Buda, she was the youngest daughter of Louis I of Hungary and Poland, and his wife, Elizabeth of Bosnia. Jadwiga was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou, and had forebears among the Polish Piasts.

In 1375, it was planned that when becoming old enough, Jadwiga would marry William of Austria and she lived in Vienna from 1378 to 1380. Louis I is often thought to have regarded her and William as his favoured successors in Hungary after the 1378 death of her eldest sister, Catherine, since the following year the Polish nobility had pledged their homage to Louis' second daughter, Mary, and Mary's fiancé, Sigismund of Luxembourg. However, Louis died, and in 1382, at her mother's insistence, Mary was crowned "King of Hungary". Sigismund of Luxembourg tried to take control of Poland, but the Polish nobility countered that they would be obedient to a daughter of Louis only if she settled in Poland. Queen Elizabeth then chose Jadwiga to reign in Poland but did not send her to Kraków to be crowned. During the interregnum, Siemowit IV, Duke of Masovia, became a candidate for the Polish throne. The nobility of Greater Poland favoured him and proposed that he marry Jadwiga. However, Lesser Poland's nobility opposed him, and they persuaded Elizabeth to send Jadwiga to Poland.

Przemysł II (Polish: [ˈpʂɛmɨsw] also given in English and Latin as Premyslas or Premislaus or in Polish as Przemysław; 14 October 1257 – 8 February 1296) was the Duke of Poznań from 1257–1279, of Greater Poland from 1279 to 1296, of Kraków from 1290 to 1291, and Gdańsk Pomerania (Pomerelia) from 1294 to 1296, and then King of Poland from 1295 until his death. After a long period of Polish high dukes and two nominal kings, he was the first to obtain the hereditary title of king, and thus to return Poland to the rank of kingdom. A member of the Greater Poland branch of the House of Piast as the only son of Duke Przemysł I and the Silesian Princess Elisabeth, he was born posthumously; for this reason he was brought up at the court of his uncle Bolesław the Pious and received his own district to rule, the Duchy of Poznań in 1273. Six years later, after the death of his uncle, he also obtained the Duchy of Kalisz.

In the first period of his government, Przemysł II was involved only in regional affairs, first in close collaboration and then competing with the Duke of Wrocław, Henryk IV Probus. This policy caused the rebellion of the prominent Zaremba family and the temporary loss of Wieluń. Working with the Archbishop of Gniezno, Jakub Świnka, he sought the unification of the principalities of the Piast dynasty. Unexpectedly, in 1290, under the will of Henryk IV Probus, he managed to obtain the Duchy of Kraków and with this the title of High Duke of Poland; however, not having sufficient support from the local nobility (who supported another member of the Piast dynasty, Władysław I the Elbow-high) and faced with the increasing threats of King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia, Przemysł II finally decided to retreat from Lesser Poland, which was then under the rule of Přemyslid dynasty.

Chełmno, or Kulmhof, was the first of Nazi Germany's extermination camps and was situated 50 km (31 mi) north of Łódź, near the village of Chełmno nad Nerem. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, Germany annexed the area into the new territory of Reichsgau Wartheland. The camp, which was specifically intended for no other purpose than mass murder, operated from December 8, 1941, to April 11, 1943, parallel to Operation Reinhard during the deadliest phase of the Holocaust, and again from June 23, 1944, to January 18, 1945, during the Soviet counter-offensive. In 1943, modifications were made to the camp's killing methods as the reception building had already been dismantled.

At the very minimum, 152,000 people were murdered in the camp, which would make it the fifth deadliest extermination camp, after Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bełżec, and Sobibór. However, the West German prosecution, citing Nazi figures during the Chełmno trials of 1962–65, laid charges for at least 180,000 victims. The Polish official estimates, in the early postwar period, have suggested much higher numbers, up to a total of 340,000 men, women, and children. The Kulmhof Museum of Martyrdom [pl] gives the figure of around 200,000, the vast majority of whom were Jews of west-central Poland, along with Romani people from the region, as well as foreign Jews from Hungary, Bohemia and Moravia, Germany, Luxembourg, and Austria transported to Chełmno via the Łódź Ghetto, on top of the Soviet prisoners of war. The victims were murdered using gas vans. Chełmno was a place of early experimentation in the development of the Nazi extermination programme.

Poznań (Polish: [ˈpɔznaj̃] or [ˈpɔznaɲ] ) is a city on the River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's Fair (Jarmark Świętojański), traditional Saint Martin's croissants and a local dialect. Among its most important heritage sites are the Renaissance Old Town, Town Hall and Poznań Cathedral.

Poznań is the fifth-largest city in Poland. As of 2023, the city's population is 540,146, while the Poznań metropolitan area (Metropolia Poznań) comprising Poznań County and several other communities is inhabited by over 1.029 million people. It is one of four historical capitals of medieval Poland and the ancient capital of the Greater Poland region, currently the administrative capital of the province called Greater Poland Voivodeship.

The Polans (Polish: Polanie; Latin: Polani, Polanos), also known as Polanians or Western Polans (Polish: Polanie Zachodni; Latin: Polani Occidentis), were a West Slavic and Lechitic tribe who inhabited the Warta River basin of the contemporary Greater Poland region starting in the 6th century.

They were one of Central Europe's main tribes and closely related to the Vistulans, Masovians, Czechs and Slovaks. According to Zygmunt Gloger, their name was derived from the word "pole", meaning "field", thus denoting them as "men of the fields".

Łódź Voivodeship (Polish: województwo łódzkie [vɔjɛˈvut͡stfɔ ˈwut͡skʲɛ] ) is a voivodeship (province) of Poland. The province is named after its capital and largest city, Łódź (pronounced [wut͡ɕ]).

Łódź Voivodeship is bordered by six other voivodeships: Masovian to the north and east, Świętokrzyskie to the south-east, Silesian to the south, Opole to the south-west, Greater Poland to the west, and Kuyavian-Pomeranian for a short stretch to the north. Its territory belongs to three historical provinces of Poland – Masovia (in the east), Greater Poland (in the west) and Lesser Poland (in the southeast, around Opoczno).