Festivities marking the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald, fought by some 50,000 men in 1410, were attended yesterday by Polish president-elect Bronislaw Komorowski and Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite.

Reenactments of knight tournaments in a mass spectacle staged in the village of Grunwald, northern Poland, were watched by Romanian President Traian Basescu, Moldavian President Mikhai Ghimpu, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek and Bruno Platter, of the Order of Teutonic Knights as well as thousands of tourists.

Meanwhile, some 2,000 'knights' were getting ready to reenact, this Saturday, Medieval Europe's largest and one of bloodiest battles in which Poland and Lithuania defeated the Teutonic Knights that had raided Eastern Europe for centuries.

The Battle of Grunwald led to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - the biggest power in the region, which introduced elections for Kings and "golden freedoms" and later became a romantic symbol of independence and the struggle against occupation.