When Czesław Milosz arrived in Warsaw in 1981, fresh from winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, one of the visits he made, was to a private apartment, to meet with the people responsible for bringing his poems to Polish readers. From 1951, when Milosz had refused to return to Stalinist Poland, a ban had been…
Among those murdered in Lwów by German troops in July 1941 were eminent mathematicians, pioneers of modern medicine, engineers, and university rectors. The murder of Polish scientists has become a symbol of fanaticism and hatred. by Piotr Abryszeński The destruction of the Polish intelligentsia On 28 September 1939, the Third Reich and the Soviet…
She broke the glass ceiling. Maria Skłodowska-Curie was the first woman professor at the Sorbonne and the only woman to receive the Nobel Prize twice. The price of her scientific achievements was huge – permanent insomnia, unbearable pain in her muscles and joints, and weight loss. by Jan Hlebowicz Maria Skłodowska came from a…
A city of 10,000 inhabitants on the Skawa River, Wadowice seems a poor, idyllic place, far away from the hustle and bustle of the world. This is where Karol Wojtyła was born one hundred years ago. by Wojciech Stanisławski Cities and towns have their own destinies. For decades, Wadowice has played the role of the…
The strike started by workers at Poznań’s largest factory, the Joseph Stalin Metal Works, spread to the entire city, and became an anti-communist revolt. For the Stalinist regime, this was an earthquake. by Paweł Sasanka At 6 am on 28 June 1956, when the workers of the W-3 division came to work, none of them…
“Prague Spring” is a journalistic description of the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 when the communist party made an independent attempt at reform. They sought to modernize the party and make it more efficient, as well as liberalize its policy. They also wanted to democratize the country, although the word itself – at least in…
