In the 1940s, nationalization, i.e. bringing private property under the ownership of the state, was common in post-war Europe. It was also accompanied by additional types of seizures of private property, including confiscation and expropriation. At the same time, it was not uncommon for property to be collectivized without any legal basis. However, it was…
In May 1943, a moving scene took place at the Polish embassy in Washington. A 29-year-old man, speaking English with a strong accent and recently arrived in the West from occupied Poland, was meeting with 61-year-old Felix Frankfurter, an American Jew and a US Supreme Court judge, in the company of Ambassador Jan Ciechanowski. The…
The political system of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1791) stood out against the background of other European countries. While other Western countries gravitated towards absolutism, the Polish political form developed an elaborate self-government, the principle of the election of a king, the dominant role of the parliament and the relatively weak position of the monarch. by…
The question of whether the Second World War ended in May 1945 may seem rhetorical or even absurd. However, if we look at the then-reality from a Polish perspective, the matter ceases to be so obvious. by Łukasz Kamiński Do you know what General Leopold Okulicki, the last commander of the Home Army, one of…
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…
On 31 October 1517 the theses of Martin Luther put an end to the medieval world. The religious unity of the past centuries was over, leaving room for new conflicts and problems in the future. One did not have to wait long for their arrival. by Michał Rzeczycki Centuries ago, it was believed that…
