Polish Studies

In September 2007 the Polish parliament passed a bill on the so-called Polish Card (Pol. Karta Polaka). Citizens of Belarus became also eligible to apply for the document. Until the end of the fi rst quarter of 2020 Polish consulates issued approximately 140,000 documents, which makes up almost 50% of the total number of the documents issued in the world. Apart from sentiments, which are diffi cult to measure (a large number of people living in Belarus declare that they have Polish nationality or Polish ancestors), one of the factors contributing to the great popularity of the Polish Card is the pragmatic aspect of being a holder of the document. Th anks to it, citizens of Belarus may cross the border with Poland (and the whole EU) more easily, receive education and work there as well as live there permanently and be granted Polish nationality (which means the nationality of an EU citizen). Th ese are the most plausible reasons why about 1% of the Belarusian population hold the Polish Card (which is the greatest number of its holders in the world), and as compared with other countries, most of them are young people, i.e. the ones who are ready for radical changes in their lives (e.g. economic emigration). Th e Polish Card is especially important for people living in the Polish and Belarusian borderlands, especially in the Grodno region (the main location of Belarusian Poles), where about 6% of the local population hold the document. If we take into consideration the number of Poles living in Belarus as well as the increasing number of the documents already issued, we may assume that there will be more holders of the Polish Card in Belarus. Th is tendency is still visible even though there are critical voices coming from the Belarusian authorities and new administrative regulations which impose certain restrictions on holding the document in the case of particular professions. We may assume that there would be more holders of the Polish Card in Belarus but for these restrictions.

Zacznijmy może od tego, że stwierdzenie żony syna pisarza o tym, że ojciec jej męża, czyli Samuel Le(h)m był niemalże siłą wcielony do UB, czyli Urzędu Bezpieczeństwa - zbrodniczej organizacji - stalinowskiej policji politycznej, czyli polskiego odpowiednika Czeka, NKWD i Gestapo, i że nic on tam złego nie uczynił , jest mniej warte tylko od podobnego stwierdzenia jego żony czy matki. Szkoda, więc, że matka Samuela Le(h)ma nie dożyła XXI wieku, gdyż wtedy też pewnie oświadczyła by ona, że owszem, jej ukochany syn był w UB, ale tylko w orkiestrze, sekretariacie czy kuchni. Ale tak, to się tłumaczyli SS-mani z załogi niemieckich obozów zagłady w Auschwitz Birkenau, Treblince czy też w Majdanku (Lublinie), a więc trudno jest wziąć takie wytłumaczenie na serio. Zresztą bez sekretariatu czy kuchni to taki obóz nie mógłby działać, podobnie jak i bez lekarzy a nawet jeśli była tam też i orkiestra, to jeśli tam była, to znaczy, że uznana była ona jako niezbędna do funkcjonowania takiego obozu, np. w celach propagandowych, albo zagłuszania jęków torturowanych czy też mordowanych więźniów. Podobnie było też z lekarzami-bez lekarzy, to UB działać przecież nie mogło, gdyż lekarze byli tam potrzebni nie tylko do leczenia funkcjonariuszy UB, ale także np. wystawiania świadectw zgonu ich ofiarom i doprowadzania przesłuchiwanych przez UB do stanu zdolności do składania zeznań, a specjalistą w tej dziedzinie był przecież nikt inny, jak dr Gangel - protektor Samuela Lema w służbie zdrowia UB. Poza tym, to nie jest prawdą, że Samuel Lem mógł znaleźć pracę tylko w UB, jaki iż po wojnie to w Polsce brakowało, i to wręcz desperacko lekarzy, a więc pracy dla niego było wówczas aż nadto, a wybrał on UB, gdyż po prostu UB zaoferowało mu wówczas najlepsze warunki pracy, w tym materialne. Więcej wkrótce...

Xenophobia, Anti-Semitism and Anti-Romism in the Concept of Polish literature (pp 254-260). 2021. In: HRISTO KYUCHUKOV SOFIYA ZAHOVA ION DUMINICA, eds. ROMANI HISTORY AND CULTURE: Festschrift in Honour of Prof. Dr. Vesselin Popov (Ser: “Roma” Series Series Editors: Hristo Kyuchukov and Ian Hancock, Vol 9). Munich: Lincom

Loosening of the restrictions and the increasing vaccination rates in Poland are improving the economic mood. Entrepreneurs are planning new investments, the number of job offers is growing. The gradual stabilisation of the Polish economy is also confirmed by the decreasing number of migrants declaring the pandemic has made it necessary for them to change their place of work or sector of employment. The results of our study prove that the coronavirus pandemic has not had a negative impact on the assessment of the attractiveness of work in Poland by foreigners. About 90% of immigrants do not regret their decision to take up employment in our country and almost 80% want to recommend working in Poland to their relatives. On the other hand, the prolonged state of the epidemic causes foreign workers, just like most Polish citizens, to feel tired of bans and restrictions in their everyday lives. In addition, the third wave of the pandemic, during which the highest rates of infections and deaths were recorded, had a negative impact on the sense of security of foreigners. More and more respondents feel the uncertainty and fear a coronavirus infection.

Informator „Szkolnictwo polskie na Ukrainie” jest zwieńczeniem realizowanego przez Fundację Wolność i Demokracja, a zleconego przez Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych programu „Biało-Czerwone ABC”. Prowadzony przez nas dwuletni projekt, nie tylko – jak mamy nadzieję – uporządkował wsparcie dla polskiej oświaty na Ukrainie. Uzyskaliśmy znacznie więcej. Pierwszy raz podjęto próbę objęcia kompleksowym projektem całej oświaty polskiej na dawnych Kresach południowo-wschodnich. Wiele miesięcy roboczych kontaktów z pracującymi na Ukrainie polskimi działaczami oświatowymi pozwoliły nam zgromadzić informacje bezcenne dla każdego, komu nie jest obojętny los Polaków, którzy w wyniku przesunięcia granic Polski pozostali poza Ojczyzną.
Czytając niniejszy informator, trzeba pamiętać o tym, że sytuacja szkolnictwa polskiego na Ukrainie jest niezwykle dynamiczna. Wynika to zarówno z dostosowywania się istniejących placówek do zmieniających się okoliczności, jak i możliwości kadrowych, finansowych czy zainteresowania składaną przez nie ofertą. Liczba nauczycieli, uczniów, godzin lekcyjnych, a także sami pedagodzy mogą się zmieniać nawet w ciągu roku szkolnego. To wszystko nie powinno jednak przesłonić najważniejszego: imponującej liczby funkcjonujących polskich placówek szkolnych.

The article raises the question about the ways in which religious tradition can become an ally in the process of acculturation while serving the modern subject both as a springboard for innovative, creative work and as a tool of self-improvement. Czesław Miłosz’s selected works from his second stay in the United States (1961-1980) are analysed from the postsecular perspective which recognises religion as a full-fledged actor in the process of modern transformations that may broaden the field of artistic choice but remains vulnerable to artistic resemantizations or even profanations (Agamben). Such an analysis allows us to interpret the poem From the Rising of the Sun as a form of reconciliation of Miłosz’s American and Lithuanian experience (as well as of maturity and childhood, centre and periphery, modern and pre-modern cultural formation) through textual practices inspired by his private Liturgy of the Hours. In this light, the translations of the Books of the Bible on which Miło...

This essay discusses the memory of the Holocaust in Poland since the Jedwabne debate 2000–2002, and focuses on the specific developments between 2015 and the present. It briefly examines the achievements of critical history-writing field in postcommunist Poland, and discusses the ‘ideological war’ launched against that field by right-wing conservative pundits, historians, and politicians. It argues that radical agents within the PiS AQ1 government and its guardian institution of national memory, IPN ¶ , use three forms of amnesia to suppress and counteract the critical history-writing about the Holocaust in Poland: (1) repressive erasure by implementing legal measures and denying funding to academic institutions and individuals who conduct research on Poland’s dark past; (2) prescriptive forgetting of Jedwabne and other dark aspects of Polish–Jewish relations before, during, and after the Holocaust as a necessary measure in the interest of the entire Polish collective; and (3) amnesia as a constitutive element in the rebuilding and maintenance of an ‘ethno-nationalistic national identity.’ It contends that according to PiS’s historical policy, the historian can only be a servant of the state who remakes and reshapes history according to the orders of the state. This is the gravest danger to the historical profession and to democracy in Poland and elsewhere. There is no doubt that in the future the biggest challenge for professional historians in Poland and in other countries of post-Communist Eastern Europe will be integrating and synthetizing the soothing pages of the history of relations with Jews with the dark aspects of these relations before, during, and after the Holocaust. To achieve this, not only will historians have to permit different voices and interpretations, but also to reject current discursive schema of ‘black and white’ ideologically driven history about the collective past and the treatment of history as an ideological weapon.

Historical works on Polish-Ukrainian relations in the interwar period mostly concern conflict history. The Polish-Ukrainian Bulletin, the subject of this article, was published from 1932 with the intention of contributing to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. In Poland, under the authoritarian regime of Józef Piłsudski, the journal created a space for a relatively free debate on common questions and helped to build mutual trust across national divisions. Around the journal, networks of Polish and Ukrainian political and social activists emerged. These networks played a crucial role in the conclusion of the Polish-Ukrainian Normalization Agreement of 1935.

These lectures will present a broad view of the history of Habad Hasidism, from its origins in the latter half of the eighteenth century to its most visible manifestations in the twentieth century. In a challenge to commonly-held views, the lectures will uncover the dynamic nature of Habad and the changes the group has undergone in three key areas: its sense of mission, literary activities, and messianism. In doing, so the lectures will address the dominant trends of internal Habad literature, as well as those of modern scholarship.

First Lecture: The Struggles of R. Shneur Zalman of Liady and the Formation of Habad Hasidism - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMufZR6agsU

Second Lecture: Habad in the Nineteenth Century: Haskalah, Politics, and Orthodoxy. -

Third Lecture: Habad in the Twentieth Century: Romanticism, Messianism, and Mission

שלוש הרצאות על חסידות חב"ד | ההרצאות יציגו תמונה רחבה של תולדות חסידות חב"ד, מראשיתה במחצית השנייה של המאה השמונה עשרה ועד לגילוייה המוחצנים במאה העשרים. בניגוד לתמונה המקובלת נעמוד על הדינמיות שבחסידות זו ועל השינויים שעברה בשלושה נושאים מרכזיים: תודעת השליחות, המעשה הספרותי והמשיחיות. בתוך כך ננסה לעמוד על מגמות מרכזיות בספרות חב"ד ובמחקר המודרני

The article presents various ways of ideologization of the Central (Boyko and Lemko regions) and Eastern (Hutsul region) Carpathians in interwar Poland. After the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918–1919), that part of the Carpathian mountain range was situated in the Second Polish Republic. In contrast to the Tatras, which played the role of Polish national landscape, the Carpathians were alien to Poles in terms of ethnicity and culture. Thus, the Polish authorities, as well as touristic and local lore organizations, sought and largely managed to transform these mountains into a domestic landscape, which was no center of national identity but constituted an important spot on the mental map of the Polish national community, recognized as an undeniable part of Polish statehood. The article shows how the exoticization of the Carpathians, state holidays, and the development of state-funded mass tourism resulted in the increased sense of familiarity between Polish lowlanders and highlanders and,...

Polish cabaret is political by nature. This was especially evident during 1980’s. the primary reason for this was the political upheaval in Poland and throughout the world. Polish censorship was liberalised during the 1980’s. The most prominent example of these changes can be seen by comparing The Black Book of Polish Censorship by Tomasz Strzyżewski, which was the policy for 1970’s, with the actual censorship policy of 1980’s. My paper examines the influence of the political arena upon stereotypical beliefs, in particular, the changing stereotypes of the German and Russian people. The cabaret creators, writers and artists, have incorporated Russian and German symbols into their work. For example, Wilk (Eng. Wolf) is the symbol for Germans while the list of Russian symbols includes Niedźwiedź , Miś, Sąsiad, Wielki Brat, Czerwony Kapturek (Eng. Bear, Teddy Bear, Neighbour, Big Brother, Little Red Riding Hood). Citation (formatted-apa) Szczerbowski, T. (1993). Some remarks on the role of ethnic stereotypes in the Polish cabaret. W: J. Darski & Z. Vetulani (red.), Linguistische Arbeiten: nr. 298. Sprache — Komunikation — Informatik (s. 709–714). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.