The Constitution of 3 May 1791: the dawn of a better future

The Constitution was the dawn of a better future. After 3 May 1791, there was time for supplementary laws to be passed, institutions to get to work, and for a new kind of politics to bed down during the last year of the Great Sejm. On the whole, the indications are very promising. On the…



Jan Sehn. Poland’s forgotten Nazi hunter

Jan Sehn (1909-1965) was a Polish lawyer and professor at the Jagiellonian University. Shortly after the war, he conducted research at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and also participated in preparing accusations against several dozen German war criminals who had worked at the camp. Additionally, he published a number of scientific papers on the functioning…


Katyń – the place where the Polish elite met its end

polishhistory: In the spring of 1940, the Soviet secret police committed an unprecedented crime by secretly murdering nearly 22,000 Polish citizens. What place does this tragedy occupy in Polish national memory? Professor Tadeusz Wolsza: The Katyń massacre permanently, painfully, and deeply entered into our national history. Each subsequent anniversary is accompanied by new editions of…


General Maczek: Tenaciously, yet chivalrously

“Fight just like a Polish soldier has always done throughout history. Fight tenaciously, and yet chivalrously!” Thus, General Stanisław Maczek, the model of an indomitable soldier, encouraged his soldiers to fight. Jacques Wiacek, author of “Histoire de la 1re division blindée polonaise (1939-1945): L’odyssée du phénix”, first French-language monograph on the 1st Division of General…


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