The ordeal of Polish Army officers, policemen, prison and forest guards, intelligence and counter-intelligence agents as well as Polish administrative staff in the Easter Borderlands began on 17 September 1939. It was then that the Red Army invaded Poland, belatedly implementing the arrangements of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939. Soviet captivity awaited around…
Forty two years ago, on the night of 12 to 13 December 1981, martial law was imposed in Poland. General Wojciech Jaruzelski – simultaneously Chairman of the Communist party, Prime Minister and Minister of Defence – established a military dictatorship and entered the final confrontation with the ten-million-strong trade union, ‘Solidarity’. by Tomasz Kozłowski …
When it comes to the relationship between the Bolsheviks and monarchs, the arrest and subsequent murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family quickly come to mind. However, in other communist-occupied countries, such as Bulgaria and Romania, monarchs were allowed to abdicate and secretly go abroad. What was it like in Poland? by Wojciech Stanisławski…
The June 1989 elections and the formation of the Solidarity government of Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki were earthshaking events in Poland’s recent history. Even though the communist authorities knew their power was slipping away, at the beginning of 1990 the secret police (Służba Bezpieczeństwa Security Service) was still firmly under their control. Up until the…
Leopold Tyrmand was one of the most interesting figures of post-war Poland’s artistic milieu. Despite the oppression of the communist regime, he had his own way of opposing the system. by Piotr Bejrowski Tyrmand’s biographers aptly point out that he opposed communism not only ideologically, but also aesthetically. He wanted to maintain the continuity of…
“Do you know what a Polish sandwich looks like? Two slices of bread and a ration card for the meat in between.” That was how Hungarians used to joke around in the 1980s. However, Poles did not feel like laughing at the time. To buy sugar, cigarettes, shoes, petrol and many other goods they needed…
