A speech given on Lech Day (The Polish holiday celebrating the recreation of Poland after the plague)
Dearest friends,
Two hundred years ago the plague decimated Earth, leveling entire nations and leaving billions dead. For many years Poland did not exist. Yet we have persevered brothers and sisters! The Motherland has been rebuilt, renewed, reinvented! Our history is a painful one: Poland was a pinnacle of power and education in the distant past before it was destroyed again and again. Prussia, Austria, Russia, Nazis, and Soviets
all held us hostage and each time we rose up and fought for our liberty. We did not always achieve a swift victory yet the sacrifice of the noble Polish citizen
the factory worker, the shop keeper, the school teacher, the soldier, the average man and woman
has defined us. By defying our oppressive neighbors, we have proved that even the most humble Pole may achieve greatness. Through their greatness, your greatness, Poland has been resurrected and become a world power! We have are a highly educated people, ready to expand the horizons and carry our glory even into space! The way forward is clear; now that we have achieved our peace and prosperity, we must not continue to develop ourselves but also give our Slavic brothers and sisters the same chance. Kiev rushed to the aid of Ossetia, willing to lay down their lives to do the just thing, the human thing. As your king I could say, I cannot allow Poland the Slavic states to be threatened, but a much more honest statement would be from me as a simple Pole to each of you, I love you and I know that you would die to defend our nation if necessary, as would I, but why should we wait for a nation that has spent the last one hundred years following the death and destruction of the plague with death and destruction to its neighbors? Why should we allow them to slaughter those nearest us before defending freedom? We have spent years under the yokes of others, the word slave comes from our name Slav! We understand the pain of oppression and I beseech you as one humble man to a nation of patriots, we have the power to aid the oppressed now, we have left behind Poland the Subjugated and become Poland the Free. Why shall we not don the mantle of Poland the Defender?
His Majesty King Wojciech Casimir Kosciuszko of Poland