Great Lechia

The Great Lechia (Polish: Wielka Lechia), also known as the Lechite Empire, and Lechian Empire (Polish: Imperium Lechitów), is a name for a fictional country from a pseudohistorical conspiracy theory which argues that Poland, prior to its Christianization, was a vast empire whose existence is now denied as a result of its history being falsified.

The theory was present in niche circles since the 19th century, and during the interwar period. It gained prominence on the Internet around 2016 among uncritical enthusiasts of Slavic history, and among young people. Believers of the Great Lechia theory are humorously referred to as "Turbo-Lechites" (turbolechici) or "Turbo-Slavs" (turbosłowianie).

Tenets

The alleged histories of the Lechite Empire tend to be very diverse and mutually inconsistent. The theory has been compared to the Tartarian Empire. Historian Adam Wójcik differentiated three types of "Turboslavs": those who claim that Slavs have lived in Poland at least since the Bronze Age, those who believe that perhaps the empire did not exist, but "some state or culture and civilization" of Polish Slavs existed before Duke Mieszko I, and those who try to prove that Slavs "were the first people on Earth, invented the wheel, and that Adam and Eve spoke Polish".

According to the believers of the conspiracy theory, Poland, before its Christianization in 966, was an empire referred to as the Lechite Empire or the Great Lechia. The empire encompassed most of Europe, stretching from the Rhine or Loire in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east, and from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Adriatic and Black seas in the south. Cultural influences of the "ancient Polish state" reached far beyond its borders, and the empire was strong enough to effectively contain the Roman Empire's expansion.