Polonia, the name for Poland in Latin and many Romance and other languages, is most often used in modern Polish to refer to the Polish diaspora. However, as can be seen from the image, it was also used as a national personification.
The symbolic depiction of a country as a woman called by the Latin name of that country was common in the 19th century (see Germania, Britannia, Hibernia, Helvetia).
Personifications of Poland in art
Bernardo Morando Polonia, Old Lublin Gate in Zamość, 1588 Ary Scheffer Polonia, 1831 Horace Vernet Polish Prometheus, 1831 Jan Matejko Polonia, Illustration to Zygmunt Krasiński's "Psalmy Przeszłości" ("Psalms of the past"), 1861 Artur Grottger Polonia, 1863 Jan Matejko Rok 1863. Zakuwana Polska ("Year 1863 - Polonia enchained"), 1864Jan Cavanaugh. Out Looking in: Early Modern Polish Art, 1890-1918. University of California Press. 2000. pp. 18, 106-107, 188. Jan Styka Polonia, 1890–91 Stanisław Wyspiański Polonia, 1892–93. Part of stained-glass design for chancel of Latin Cathedral in Lviv/Lwów (in pastel, never realized in glass) Jacek Malczewski In the Dust Cloud, 1893Jeremy Howard. Art Nouveau: International and National Styles in Europe. Manchester University Press. 1996. p. 135. Jacek Malczewski Hamlet polski - Portret of Aleksander Wielopolski ("Polish Hamlet - Portrait of Aleksander Wielopolski"), 1903 Jacek Malczewski The Fatherland, 1903 Włodzimierz Tetmajer Alegoria Polski umarłej ("Allegory of Dead Poland"), St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kalisz, 1909 Jacek Malczewski Polonia, 1914 Władysław Skoczylas Polonia, 1915 Jacek Mierzejewski Polonia, 1915 Jacek Malczewski Polonia II, 1918 Leszek Sobocki Polonia, 1982 Edward Dwurnik Polonia, 1984
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References