General Stanisław Maczek and the Black Devils
Long war of the Polish 1st Armoured Division

Generał Stanisław Maczek has gone down in history as a brilliant army general. The Germans called his army the Black Devils. He himself often said that „the Polish soldier fights for the freedom of all nations, but dies only for Poland”. by Piotr Abryszeński   Stanisław Maczek was born on the 31st of March 1892...

General Maczek: Tenaciously, yet chivalrously
an interview with Jacques Wiacek

“Fight just like a Polish soldier has always done throughout history. Fight tenaciously, and yet chivalrously!” Thus, General Stanisław Maczek, the model of an indomitable soldier, encouraged his soldiers to fight. Jacques Wiacek, author of “Histoire de la 1re division blindée polonaise (1939-1945): L’odyssée du phénix”, first French-language monograph on the 1st Division of General...

Stefan Banach: The Genius of the Scottish Cafe
(30 March 1892 – 31 August 1945)

He is regarded as one of the most brilliant mathematicians in history. His colorful life has become the stuff of legend. Stefan Banach was a pioneer of functional analysis and a central figure of the Lwów School of Mathematics, one of the most important scientific circles in the history of the discipline. by Piotr Abryszeński...

Stanisław Lem: Visionary of Science and the Human Experience
(12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006)

Stanisław Lem remains one of the most important and most widely read science fiction writers in the world. His books have been translated into dozens of languages, with a combined circulation of over 30 million copies. Although fascinated with technology, he warned against its detrimental impact on human existence. by Jan Hlebowicz   Born on...

Jarosław Dąbrowski and Walery Wróblewski: from a Polish uprising to a French revolt
On the 155th anniversary of the Paris Commune

In the spring of 1871, when Adolphe Thiers’ government fled to Versailles and the capital was engulfed in the flames of revolution, between four and six hundred Polish émigrés volunteered to fight under the red banner. Most of them had already experienced the smell of gunpowder, so they became the elite of the communard army...

The March Constitution of 1921. Compromise and modernity
The 105th anniversary of the proclamation

Poland reborn after the First World War faced a host of challenges. In particular, the issue of the nature of the constitution provoked a heated debate in the country. The overriding aim of the Act was not only to consolidate the state after the years of partition, but also to create a solid foundation for...

Wiktoria and Józef Ulma. They died because of hiding Jews
The Ulmas’ martyrdom

From the spring of 1942, in the territory of the General Government (GG), German policy towards the Jewish population entered a phase of mass deportations to extermination centres. These actions, carried out under the code name ‘Operation Reinhardt’, aimed at the extermination of all Jews in the GG area. Among the few who escaped deportation...

Joachim Lelewel: a bibliophile whom others followed to the barricades
(22 March 1786 – 29 May 1861)

Incredibly insightful as a historian, he wrote in a heavy-handed style. But for one sentence: ‘For our freedom and yours!’, he should have been named the first copyrighter among the revolutionaries. by Wojciech Stanisławski   Above-average ten-year-olds, collectors of maps and insects, incidentally mastering numerous languages, often become serious scientists. Their parents, and especially their...

March Constitution of 1921: The Crowning of Reborn Poland’s Ambitions
An interview with Prof. Janusz Odziemkowski

The March Constitution was the crowning of an important stage in the building of the Second Republic. It proved the maturity of the young state and strengthened Poland’s authority in the international arena. Its articles indicate a tendency to use solutions adopted in Western democracies as well as to draw on the legal traditions of...

The Zamoyski Academy: the heart of an ideal city
431th anniversary of establishment

The grand opening of the Zamoyski Academy took place on 15 March 1595. This first Polish private university was located in a city purposefully built to reflect Renaissance ideals. by Piotr Bejrowski   Zamość is a unique city on a global scale, and was planned in accordance with the principles of the Renaissance “ideal city”....

Ignacy Łukasiewicz: inventor of the kerosene lamp and founder of the oil industry
(8 March 1822 – 7 January 1882)

In 1853, Ignacy Łukasiewicz was the first to distill kerosene from crude oil and use it to illuminate a pharmacy and then an operating theater in a hospital in Lwów. A year later, Łukasiewicz established an oil company and began extracting it from Bóbrka near Krosno, from what is now the oldest industrial crude oil...

Górski's Team
Probably the best Polish football manager of all time

On December 1, 1970, Kazimierz Górski became the national football team coach. Górski, born on March 2, 1921, in Lwów, led the Polish team to its greatest successes; they won two Olympic medals (1972, 1976) and achieved third place at the world championships (1974). Before his coaching career, he was a striker for several Lwów...

Hugo Kołłątaj: the dominant ideologue of the Polish Enlightenment
A prominent Polish constitutional reformer and educationalist

Hugo Kołłątaj was a towering figure of the Polish Enlightenment: a statesman, political writer and philosopher, as well as a promoter of science and education. He was a spokesman for socio-economic and political changes and a co-creator of the Constitution of 3rd May 1791. He was born in Derkały Wielkie in Wołyń on 1 April...

Lwów Vows of King John II Casimir (1 April 1656)
370th anniversary of the Act

From the early days, the reign of Jan Kazimierz was plagued by wars that beset the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, starting with a Cossack revolt supported by Tatar forces in 1648, through wars with Muscovy (1654-1667), Sweden (1655-1660), Brandenburg (1656-1657) and Transylvania (1657), to fighting the Cossacks and Tatars in 1667. The Swedish invasion of 1655 proved...

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Polishhistory is an online project of the Polish History Museum in Warsaw. It is primarily addressed to all those interested in Polish and Central European history. Our aim is to build a community consisting of those professionally involved in research and of those interested in the outcomes of research, essentially, all lovers of history. The...