Jack Fairweather, author of a best-selling biography of Witold Pilecki – “The Volunteer” – tells about the Polish hero’s life. Describing Pilecki’s fate, he tells a story of remarkable, brave man living in hard times, whose message is still important and still inspires. Witold Pilecki is currently widely known in Poland, although his story…
Also known as the Połaniec Manifesto (Polish, Uniwersał połaniecki), the Proclamation was issued by Tadeusz Kosciuszko on May 7, 1794 near the city of Połaniec on the upper Vistula, on behalf of the ‘Country’s Government for the Commonwealth of the Two Nations’. A few weeks earlier, on April 4, 1794, Kościuszko’s troops had defeated the…
The passing of the Government Act was possible because an understanding had been reached between members of the enlightened opposition and the King, Stanisław August Poniatowski. by Piotr Ugniewski The turning point had been a long discussion between the leader of that opposition, Ignacy Potocki, and the monarch, at the Royal Castle, on 4 December…
We all know the poem by Władysław Bełza, “The Catechism of a Polish Child,” written in 1900, and we will all reply without a second thought: the white eagle. Still, it would not come amiss to wonder: why the eagle? by Beata Wolszczak The legendary Lech had resolved to settle in the flatlands, where…
A bear became a soldier? Yes! Polish soldiers adopted a little orphaned bear and took good care of him. He returned the favor during the war. by Piotr Bejrowski A Bear Joins The Polish Army Arguably the most unusual soldier to fight in the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944 was Wojtek, a bear….
“This world is arranged in such a dreadful way that not even the most tender sighs can replace statistics…” observed Bolesław Prus, one of Poland’s greatest writers. The author of the novel Lalka knew what he was writing about, as his income from literature was supplemented by working in a statistics office set up by…
