“Isolation would be most unfortunate. We would be doing science in our own company, completely indifferent to what is happening outside our own universe. This would be totally self-destructive and I hope it will never happen,” says Professor Michał Głowiński in an interview with Grzegorz Wołowiec, titled “A Time Unexpected,” a fragment of which is presented below.

The aim of the article is to present the views of Andrzej Walicki on the heritage of the Russian and Polish intelligentsia. His interest in the history of this social group resulted not only from the need for empathic understanding of its worldview(s), but above all from his pursuit of his own self‑definition and the desire to outline his life program. He believed that the main merit of the Russian intelligentsia was the ethos of sacrifice for the lower classes and the experienced imperative to ‘redeem’ the historical blame of the privileged classes. The main contribution of the Polish intelligentsia was the desire to include the lower classes in the modern political community – with the view to creating a civil nation. According to Walicki, the political breakthrough after 1989, along with the ‘shock therapy’, regrettably supported by a majority of the Polish intelligentsia, resulted for many people from the working class in a real pauperization and a major loss of life stability. The necessity to return to the traditional ethos of intelligentsia was (and is) the only way to restore in the social upper strata a sense of responsibility for the lower classes and a willingness to empower them to shape future social relationships.

The Polish political transformation of 1989 brought significant changes not only on the political and social levels but also on the economic level. The Polish economy, which until then had been a centrally planned economy, had to be rapidly changed into a free market economy. As a result of this, a lot of areas of the economy had to be transformed including the mining industry, especially hard-coal mining. In 1990, there were seventy-one mines in operation in Poland, employing nearly 400,000 people. The process of decommissioning these mines, which continues to this day, began in 1994. Walbrzych coal mines were among the first to be liquidated. Poland has long been dependent on coal for energy production, but the country is facing increasing pressure in the transition to cleaner and more sustainable energy sources in order to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change in order to fulfil EU climate policy assumptions. Civil society organizations in Poland were associated with the political transformation, as the changes in the system has opened the doors for the social participation in decision-making processes. Civil society organizations in Poland have been actively pushing for policies and initiatives that promote renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the phasing out of coal. However, it should be underlined that the role of civil society in energy transformation is crucial as on the one hand, it should be an advocate of change, but on the other hand, civil society has to take an active part in the discussion on the challenges of the transformation, such a change in the employment structure which is an inevitable consequence of the energy transition. The scope of the paper is to provide a set of tools for the civil society participating in energy transformation processes.

This article explores the reception of French Theory in Poland after 1989. I argue that post-modern tendencies entered the Polish humanities in a distorted form, having travelled via the USA. I propose the hypothesis that the transplantation of the concept of power‑knowledge, which was central to the US‑American take on Michel Foucault, led to something that I term “the Foucault Effect.” It became entangled in the processes of democratization and political and economic transformation taking place in the 1990s, meaning that on the one hand it “raised consciousness” of power mechanisms, while on the other hand promoting a sense of subjecthood that was a product of power relations and thus was deprived of agency. I argue that regardless of the critique of anthropocentrism that is prevalent in the contemporary humanities, the socio-‑political situation in the world today demands a return of the strong subject, whose figuration would take into account lessons learned from French Theory.

The article depicts the personage of Karol Modzelewski (1937–2019) the outstanding activist for freedom of Poland, long-term political prisoner, prominent medievalist historian and full member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The article presents personal memories of Professor Aleksander Koj’s alumni. Professor Aleksander Koj was a world-class biochemist of significant scientific achievements, a renowned authority in the field of acute-phase response regulation and acute-phase proteins. He was an excellent academic, a true Master, admired and followed by many Polish biochemists. Thrice he served as the Rector of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He navigated the University through a difficult time of political transformation in Poland, modernized the management system of the University and led to the commencement of the construction of the new University campus. He was the co-creator and the first Chairman of the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland. He will be remembered as a devoted community worker aiming at strengthening the bond between the Polish community abroad and our homeland, propagating knowledge, promoting the concept of European integration, democracy and tolerance, as well as the collaboration between scientists, artists and men and women of culture. He was wise, righteous, and noble. Many had the honor of calling him their friend, and a great many saw in him a moral authority.