Arnold Zweig (1887–1968) is one of the most respected and read German-speaking writers of the 20th century, which only a few Germanists remember today, whose works surprise with a very current pronunciation. The article addresses the issue of scientific and social interest in the works of this German-Jewish writer over several decades, while looking at the national and ideological conditions of this reception in terms of historical experience.

Bertrand Russell is known primarily as a logician, philosopher of mathematics, and analytical philosopher. However, a significant part of his life was devoted to world peace: he was an active pacifist from 1901 until his death. This article shows him in this role. Russell’s pacifist activities included not only participation in demonstrations and organizations, but also educational activities. He dealt with issues of education as a theorist and a practitioner. He organized his educational endeavour round the question of how to educate a pacifist and at the same time help her/him remain a free and creative woman/man.

Italian political emigration between the World Wars: the role of LIDU – The essay reconstructs the history of the Italian League for Human Rights (LIDU), an anti-fascist organization in exile that played a meaningful role, between the World Wars, in the field of the legal protection and assistance of Italian political emigration to France and in the consistent condemnation of the repressive, liberticide and bellicist nature of Fascism.

The collection of the Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw contains significant objects representing the culture of peoples from many regions of Asia, including Polynesia, Indonesia and even Papua New Guinea. The cultures of Turkish and Mongolian peoples of Central Asia are richly represented among them. Among the objects of these regions and cultures, a collection of felt products significantly distinguishes itself. However, these felts have never been exhibited as a whole collection, nor as a part of a monographic exhibition dedicated to the craft of felt. A significant part of them belongs to the earliest collections from the 1990’s from Afghanistan. It represents many different cultural groups: Turkmen, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz people and even Tajiks. From the historian’s or art historian’s point of view, it is a very young and new collection. But, taking into account the specifics of felt production and the ways it is used, as well as the fact that felt is rather underestimated by its producers, users, traders, researchers and collectors (in terms of the art market), it should be noted that felt products were rarely bought and collected by esteemed institutions. Apart from museums of Tsarist Russia, and later, their heirs: Soviet and post-Soviet museums in Central Asian countries, along with some western European museums, collections of felt products are rather rare in the world. The felt collection of the Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw appears to be a rare example here. The aim of this paper is to present the felt collection of the Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw, in terms of its objects, as well as its ethnographic and historical value.

Photographs from the Archive of the Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw were taken by Eugeniusz Helbert and Ewa Soszko-Dziwisińska.

Photographs from the author’s archive were taken by Marzena Godzińska.