A Local Holiday to Rival Cinco de Mayo

Three years after the U.S. Constitution took effect the Parliament of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth followed suit, enacting the world’s second and Europe’s first national constitution on May 3, 1791. This document briefly turned Poland into one of the world’s first democratic constitutional monarchies.

Though it would last little over a year due to the invasion of Catherine the Great of Russia and the Second Partition of Poland, the Third of May Constitution or Konstytucja Trzeciego Maja would become a hopeful democratic symbol throughout Polish history and an important source of cultural pride in Polish communities abroad.

With 1.1 million Polish-Americans, Chicago is the world’s second largest Polish populated city beside Warsaw, and the holiday has been celebrated with an annual parade and cultural festival every year since the constitution’s centennial in 1891. In its one hundred and twenty years in the Chicago area the Constitution Day festivities have become the world’s largest Polish festival outside of Poland.

 Though the holiday is known as Trzecio Majowka, the Third of May, in Polish this year’s festivities were held Saturday, May 7, with a downtown parade and an ongoing celebration around the northwest side. The home of the annual Taste of Polonia, Jefferson Park’s Copernicus Foundation, (5216 W. Lawrence Ave.) is playing host to an ongoing three-day festival featuring Polish music and beer lasting into Sunday night.

The Alliance of Polish Clubs predicted around 25,000 people, including several area politicians and Mayor Daley, would be in attendance for Saturday's annual parade, which began at Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park and then moved up Columbus Drive. Interspersed among the red-and-white flags were gold-and-white papal flags commemorating Pope John Paul’s recent beatification by the Vatican last Sunday.

The beatification of John Paul II, the first Polish pope, is considered the first step towards sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church. John Paul II was a widely popular figure in Poland and among the Chicago Polish community for his leadership of the church and his role in helping end Soviet control of the country in 1989.

Angnieszka Krempa of Des Plaines’ Polish-American Delicatessen, 652 W. Algonquin Rd., suggested that she, like many in the Polish community, saw the celebration of John Paul II’s beatification and Polish Constitution Day as intertwined. Since the fall of communism and especially since his death in April, 2005, John Paul II has become a national icon for both Catholic and secular Poles alike.   

Throughout Des Plaines the high Polish population of Chicago’s northwest corner could be seen as people flew the Polish flag from cars on their way along Milwaukee. Krempa expressed regret at halving to work on the afternoon of the holiday, which she considered a close third in importance between Easter and Christmas.

Chicago’s Polish population extends well into the suburbs and especially towns like Des Plaines where there are several thousand Poles, , delicatessen and church. The Polish language is taught, along with Spanish, by the city’s Park District preschool language programs.

The parade has also had a longstanding significance for area politicians and this year’s parade may be one of the last major public appearances for the outgoing Mayor Daley.