When, after several regional conflicts, most importantly the victorious Polish-Soviet war, the borders of the state were finalized in the year 1922, Poland's neighbours were Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Free City of Danzig, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania and the Soviet Union.

The cultural hubs of interwar Poland – Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, Wilno, and Lwów – became major European cities and the sites of internationally acclaimed universities and other institutions of higher education.

After more than a century of partitions between the Austrian, the Prussian, and the Russian imperial powers, Poland re-emerged as a sovereign state at the end of the First World War in Europe in 1917–1918.

The same day the Socialist, Ignacy Daszyński, set up a Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland (Tymczasowy Rząd Ludowy Republiki Polskiej) in Lublin.

Next day, due to his popularity and support from most political parties, the Regency Council appointed Piłsudski as Commander in Chief of the Polish Armed Forces.

[22] Centres of government that formed at that time in Galicia (formerly Austrian-ruled southern Poland) included the National Council of the Principality of Cieszyn (established in November 1918), the Republic of Zakopane and the Polish Liquidation Committee (28 October).

The officers, both senior and junior, constantly refreshed their training in the field and in the lecture hall, where modern technical achievement and the lessons of contemporary wars were demonstrated and discussed.

The equipment of the Polish Army was less developed technically than that of Nazi Germany and its rearmament was slowed by confidence in Western European military support and by budget difficulties.

[29] Within the borders of the Republic were the remnants of three different economic systems, with five different currencies (the German mark, the Imperial Russian rouble, the Austrian krone, the Polish marka and the Ostrubel)[29] and with little or no direct infrastructural links.

The situation was so bad that neighbouring industrial centres, as well as major cities, lacked direct railway links because they had been parts of different jurisdictions and different empires.

The first was the establishment of the Gdynia seaport, which allowed Poland to completely bypass Gdańsk (which was under heavy German pressure to boycott Polish coal exports).

Unemployment was high, and poverty in the countryside was widespread, which resulted in several cases of social unrest, such as the 1923 Kraków riot, and 1937 peasant strike in Poland.

[38] Besides coal mining, Poland also had deposits of oil in Borysław, Drohobycz, Jasło and Gorlice (see Polmin), potassium salt (TESP), and basalt (Janowa Dolina).

Furthermore, in cooperation with Air France, LARES, Lufthansa, and Malert, international connections were maintained with Athens, Beirut, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Helsinki, Kaunas, London, Paris, Prague, Riga, Rome, Tallinn, and Zagreb.

The lands of the former German Empire were the most advanced; in Greater Poland, Upper Silesia and Pomerelia, farming and crops were on a Western European level.

[42][failed verification] The situation was much worse in parts of Congress Poland, the Eastern Borderlands, and what was formerly Galicia, where agriculture was quite backward and primitive, with a large number of small farms, unable to succeed in either the domestic or international market.

[43] Farmers rebelled against the government (see: 1937 peasant strike in Poland), and the situation began to change in the late 1930s, due to the construction of several factories for the Central Industrial Region, which gave employment to thousands of rural and small town residents.

Beginning in June 1925, there was a customs' war, with the revanchist Weimar Republic imposing a trade embargo against Poland for nearly a decade; it involved tariffs and broad economic restrictions.

Apart from well-established novelists (Stefan Żeromski, Władysław Reymont), new names appeared in the interbellum – Zofia Nałkowska, Maria Dąbrowska, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Jan Parandowski, Bruno Schultz, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Witold Gombrowicz.

Among other notable artists there were sculptor Xawery Dunikowski, painters Julian Fałat, Wojciech Kossak and Jacek Malczewski, composers Karol Szymanowski, Feliks Nowowiejski, and Artur Rubinstein, singer Jan Kiepura.

In 1936, different shows were seen by 5 million people, and main figures of Polish theatre of the time were Juliusz Osterwa, Stefan Jaracz, and Leon Schiller.

[5] Following the death of Marshal Józef Piłsudski in 1935, the Endecja intensified their efforts, which triggered violence in extreme cases in smaller towns across the country.

[5] In 1937, the National Democracy movement passed resolutions that "its main aim and duty must be to remove the Jews from all spheres of social, economic, and cultural life in Poland".

[5] The government in response organised the Camp of National Unity (OZON), which in 1938 took control of the Polish Sejm and subsequently drafted anti-Semitic legislation similar to the Anti-Jewish laws in Germany, Hungary, and Romania.

[55] Ukrainians were categorised as uneducated second-class peasants or third world people, and rarely settled outside the Eastern Borderland region due to the prevailing Ukrainophobia and restrictions imposed.

The highest elevation in the country was Mount Rysy, which rises 2,499 m (8,199 ft) in the Tatra Range of the Carpathians, approximately 95 km (59 mi) south of Kraków.

Open organised Polish resistance ended on 6 October 1939 after the Battle of Kock, with Germany and the Soviet Union occupying most of the country.

Although the Polish Army – considering the inactivity of the Allies – was in an unfavourable position – it managed to inflict serious losses to the enemies: 20,000 German soldiers were killed or MIA, 674 tanks and 319 armored vehicles destroyed or badly damaged, 230 aircraft shot down; the Red Army lost (killed and MIA) about 2,500 soldiers, 150 combat vehicles and 20 aircraft.

The Soviet invasion of Poland, and lack of promised aid from the Western Allies, contributed to the Polish forces defeat by 6 October 1939.

Shortly after midnight the 2nd (Motorized) Division was compelled to withdraw by Polish cavalry, before the Poles were caught in the open by German armored cars.