“Alleviate, at least to a small extent, the fate of the Poles…”

At the end of the Second World War, the Polish community in Spain faced a major rescue project. After years of helping compatriots forging their way to freedom from German occupation through the French-Spanish border, it was time to help yet other Nazi victims – Polish unaccompanied children abandoned in Allied refugee camps. by Dorota…


"God is Born": the beloved Polish Christmas carol

This beautiful carol was composed in the 18th century, a few years before the partition of Poland, and its lyrics are based on an unusual combination of oxymorons. It is set to the melody of the coronation polonaise of Polish kings. Can you imagine a more potent combination? by Piotr Bejrowski   Polish carols stand…


“Ashes, ashes we all fall down”. A history of epidemics in Poland

Over the course of history, societies have experienced ongoing waves of epidemics and pandemics of infectious diseases. Poland has not been excluded in this. These bouts of sickness did not only impact history but also the development of medicine, the functioning of state institutions and the nation’s way of life. by Michał Szukała   Throughout…


Karol Szymanowski: the father of 20th-century Polish music

‘Let it be “national” but not “provincial”,’ – this is what Karol Szymanowski wrote in 1920 (‘Uwagi w sprawie współczesnej opinii muzycznej w Polsce’, trans. ‘Remarks on contemporary musical opinion in Poland’), referring to the desired shape of new Polish music and weaving it into the space of widely understood universal humanism. During the inter-war…


Rubinstein: a poet of the grand piano

Artur Rubinstein is counted among the most outstanding pianists of the 20th century. Apart from the sheer scale of his talent, there were many reasons behind this artist’s exceptional position in past century world culture. First and foremost is his exceptionally long – almost eight-decade – intensive career as a pianist, measured by thousands of…


Three Presidents of the Second Polish Republic

There were three presidents-in-office in the Second Republic yet there were more presidential elections, one of the paradoxes related to the history of the office in interwar Poland, just like there were more persons carrying the duties of the head of state. by Wojciech Stanisławski   The discussion concerning the shape of the independent Polish…


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