KUJAVIA

also spelled Kujawy, Latin Cujavia lowland region of central Poland. It is bounded on the northeast by the Vistula River between Wloclawek and Bydgoszcz and on the southwest by the Notec River. First appearing in written sources in 1136, the name Kujavia referred then to the area closest to the Vistula and only later was used to designate the region near Lake Goplo (on the Notec) as well. When King Boleslaw III the Wry-Mouthed (ruled Poland 110238) divided his kingdom among his sons in 1138, Kujavia became part of the Mazovian-Kujavian duchy; later it was separated from Mazovia (1233) and subdivided into several duchies. In the beginning of the 14th century, however, one of its dukes, Wladyslaw (Lokietek) I the Short, undertook the reunification of Poland, and by 1363 all the Kujavian duchies had been reincorporated into two provinces (wojewdztwa)Brzesc Kujawski (the southeastern portion) and Inowroclaw (the northwestern portion). Prussia gained control of Inowroclaw by the First Partition of Poland (1772) and acquired Brzesc Kujawski by the Second Partition (1793). The two provinces were subsequently reunited as the province of Bydgoszcz and incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which was created by Napoleon in 1807. But in 1815, when the duchy was dismembered, only the eastern section of Kujavia was included in the newly formed Congress Kingdom of Poland; the remainder was returned to Prussia. In 1918 newly independent Poland reabsorbed all of ujavia, dividing that region between the provinces of Pomerania (Polish: Pomorze) and Warsaw; in 1945 the entire area was included in the province of Bydgoszcz. It now occupies parts of the provinces of Bydgoszcz, Torun, and Wloclawek.