The Battle on the Vistula was the biggest in the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1919–1920. The battle between the Vistula, Niemen and Bug Rivers still surprises with its dramatic action and unexpected reversals. by Janusz Odziemkowski After a series of Polish strategic failures in the war in 1919, in March 1920 the Bolsheviks developed a…
The European colonial race that began at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries also brought about a lasting economic division in Europe. In Western Europe, the decline of feudalism began. Peasants obtained their freedom, selling what they produced from their farms, and what they obtained they spent with merchants…
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…
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…
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…
