Polish Learning Community and Resources

Lech, Czech and Rus 

Source: www.polishatheart.com

Nowadays, when most of the country borders around the world are well-defined for decades and there are numerous historical records, rarely do we wonder how people imagined their origins before history was written down. In this blog post, I would like to share with you one of the Polish legends about the origins of Poland. As we say in Polish – w każdej legendzie jest ziarno prawdy – ‘in every legend there’s a bit of something true’ (literally a grain of truth), who knows, maybe the three brothers from this story really existed... Their names were Lech, Czech and Rus – clearly alluding to the countries they founded – Lechia (the old name of Poland), Czechia and Rus’. 

Just like with any other legends, there are several versions of this story, with smaller or bigger differences – it was first written down sometime in the 13th century and retold many more times in various sources. The version I am sharing with you is what I remember from my school years. I hope I’m not adding anything or changing the story too much but in any case, it is a part of telling the legends and what makes them so fascinating :) Here it goes: 

There were once three brothers – Lech, Czech and Rus. They were travelling in search of new lands where each of them could settle. They travelled for many days and nights. One day Rus told his brothers that he was tired of their quest and decided to settle in the area where they had been resting and fund his kingdom there. Lech and Czech continued their journey. Again, they travelled for many days and nights. When they stopped to get some rest, the brothers needed to decide where to head next – Lech wanted to change the direction and go north, Czech, on the other hand, wanted to continue their journey westwards. Since they couldn’t agree on one direction, they’d decided to split – each followed his own intuition – Czech settled in the west and Lech continued his journey towards the north. After many days and nights of travelling, at dawn, he saw a big, white eagle spreading his wings and taking off from its nest. Lech considered it to be a sign and felt that this was the right place for him. He settled there and decided to call this place Gniezno (from ‘gniazdo’, meaning ‘nest’), which became the first capital of Poland. The White Eagle became the symbol of his country and to this day, you can see the white eagle in the Polish coat of arms. 

This legend is very short and simple, I hope you enjoyed it. As I said above, it exists in many versions – not only in Poland but also in the Czech Republic and Ukraine (about the founding of Kiev and the brothers Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv). I hope that you don’t see it only as a fairy tale but are able to look deeper. It’s ultimately not important whether the three brothers really existed and whether these legendary events have really taken place. What’s essential is that this little story reminds us that the neighbouring Slavic nations (but I’d like to extend it to all nations of the world) are closely related to each other (‘brothers’) – something we should be reminded time and again, to be able to live next to each other peacefully.