Sejm in the context of "April Constitution of Poland"

Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 4 June 1989 to elect members of the Sejm and the recreated Senate, with a second round on 18 June. They were the first free and fair elections in the country since the communist government abandoned its monopoly of power in April 1989 and the first elections in the Eastern Bloc that resulted in the communist government losing power.

Not all seats in the Sejm were allowed to be contested, but the resounding victory of the Solidarity opposition in the freely contested races (the rest of the Sejm seats and all of the Senate) paved the way to the end of communist rule in Poland. Solidarity won all of the freely contested seats in the Sejm, and all but one seat in the Senate, which was scored by a government-aligned nonpartisan candidate. Most crucially, the election served as evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with the government. In the aftermath of the election, Poland became the first country of the Eastern Bloc in which democratically elected representatives gained real power. Although the elections were not entirely democratic, they led to the formation of a non-communist government led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki and a peaceful transition to democracy in Poland and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe.

The Union of Lublin (Polish: Unia lubelska; Lithuanian: Liublino unija) was signed on 1 July 1569 in Lublin, Poland, and created a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest countries in Europe at the time. It replaced the personal union of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, as Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was largely abandoned. The Duchy of Livonia, tied to Lithuania in real union since the Union of Grodno (1566), became a Polish–Lithuanian condominium.

The Commonwealth was ruled by a single elected monarch who carried out the duties of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and governed with a common Senate and parliament (the Sejm). The Union is seen by some as an evolutionary stage in the Polish–Lithuanian alliance and personal union, necessitated also by Lithuania's dangerous position in wars with Russia.

Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province with a population of 196,918 (30.06.2023)

Radom was a significant center of administration, having served as seat of the Polish Crown Council which ratified the Pact of Vilnius and Radom between Lithuania and Poland in 1401. The Nihil novi and Łaski's Statute were adopted by the Sejm at Radom's Royal Castle in 1505. In 1976, it was a center of the June 1976 protests. Despite being part of the Masovian Voivodeship, the city historically belongs to Lesser Poland.

The Small Constitution of 1947 (Polish: Mała Konstytucja z 1947) was a temporary constitution issued by the communist-dominated Sejm (Polish parliament) on 19 February 1947. It confirmed the practice of separation of powers and strengthened the Sejm. It was renewed in 1949, 1950, and 1951. It recognized some articles of the March Constitution of Poland (1921) and the PKWN Manifesto (1944), whereas the April Constitution of 1935 was not recognized. The Small Constitution was replaced in 1952 by the Constitution of the Polish People's Republic.

The Constitution of the Polish People's Republic (also known as the July Constitution or the Constitution of 1952) was a communist state constitution that acted as the supreme law. It passed in communist-ruled Poland on 22 July 1952. It superseded the post-World War II provisional Small Constitution of 1947, which in turn replaced the pre-war April Constitution of 1935.

The 1952 constitution introduced a new name for the Polish state, the Polish People's Republic (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL), replacing the previously used Republic of Poland (Rzeczpospolita Polska). The communist-led Sejm (legislature) was declared to be the highest state authority. The real source of supreme state power, the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), was not regulated by the constitution; it was ruled by its own statute. The constitution legalized many practices that had been introduced in Poland, in the wake of the Soviet Red Army and the Polish People's Army defeat of Nazi Germany in 1944–1945, by Polish-communist governmental bodies, including the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) and its successors.

Presidential elections were held in Poland on 25 November 1990, with a second round on 9 December. They were the first direct presidential elections in the history of Poland, and the first free presidential elections since the May Coup of 1926. Before World War II, presidents were elected by the Sejm. From 1952 to 1989—the bulk of the Communist era—the presidency did not exist as a separate institution, and most of its functions were fulfilled by the State Council of Poland, whose chairman was considered the equivalent of a president.

There were six candidates who successfully managed to register - Solidarity chairman Lech Wałęsa, Canadian entrepreneur Stanisław Tymiński, Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Members of the Sejm Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz and Roman Bartoszcze, and anti-communist oppositionist Leszek Moczulski. Despite for a long time coming first in opinion polls, Tadeusz Mazowiecki's campaign failed to convince voters to his side, and he did not enter the runoff, coming third in the first round. Stanisław Tymiński came second in a large upset unforeseen by every political force in the country, and, being seen by other candidates as a liar and opportunist, managed to unite both the postcommunist and Solidarity establishments against him. In the second round, Wałęsa won almost 75% of the vote, the largest electoral victory for a free election in Polish political history.

The Small Constitution of 1992 (Polish: Mała Konstytucja z 1992) was a constitution regulating relations between the legislative and executive branches of the government of Poland, and local self-government. It was voted after the fall of communism, by Poland's first freely-elected Sejm (parliament).

It annulled some of the most outdated parts of the communist 1952 Constitution of the Polish People's Republic, in particular replacing statements about Poland being a socialist state with those appropriate for a liberal democracy and market economy.

Mieczysław Zygmunt Jagielski (12 January 1924 – 27 February 1997) was a Polish politician and economist. During the times of the People's Republic of Poland he was the last leading politician from the former eastern regions of pre-Second World War Poland.

Jagielski became a communist deputy to the legislative body of Poland, the Sejm, in 1957, and he would continue to serve in that capacity for seven consecutive terms until 1985. In 1959, he was posted to be a member of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party and appointed to be the Minister of Agriculture. After he left his position as Minister of Agriculture in 1970, Jagielski became a Deputy Prime Minister, and the next year, a member of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Party. In August 1980, Jagielski represented the government during talks with strikers in the city of Gdańsk. He negotiated the agreement which recognized Solidarity, a Polish trade union, as the first officially recognized independent trade union within the Eastern Bloc. Between August 1980 and August 1981, Jagielski continued to interact with representatives of Polish workers, though his health was declining during this period. In late July 1981, Jagielski was fired from the Deputy Premiership, reportedly because he failed to produce a recovery program for the economic crisis Poland was experiencing at that time. The same year, he left his membership of the Political Bureau of the Polish United Workers Party and the Central Committee. He died in Warsaw, Poland from a heart attack at the age of 73.

Lublin is the eighth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of the Vistula River, located 153 km (95 mi) southeast of Warsaw.

One of the events that greatly contributed to the city's development was the Polish–Lithuanian Union of Krewo in 1385. Lublin thrived as a centre of trade and commerce due to its strategic location on the route between Vilnius and Kraków; the inhabitants had the privilege of free trade in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Lublin Parliament session of 1569 led to the creation of a real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, thus creating the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Lublin witnessed the early stages of the Reformation in the 16th century. A Calvinist congregation was founded and groups of radical Arians appeared in the city, making it an important global centre of Arianism.