The purpose of this paper is to go beyond the usual scheme associated with Clausewitz, which narrows his life down to being a soldier and concentrates solely on his theory of war. By presenting his main methodological approach, the study examines the role of history in Clausewitz’s thinking and analyses how his historical studies tested and validated his evolving theoretical structure and how they could enable soldiers who had never fought or served as commanders to develop their battle intuition and enhance decision making process by learning from real world examples in times of peace.
Professor T. Szafer was an excellent academic, scholar, writer, organiser of numerous conferences devoted to the Polish contemporary architecture, author of ca. 300 scientific papers. Professor Szafer was a distinguished expert on the most recent architecture, and his publications on the Polish architecture after the World War II from the 1970s and 1980s have been cited during many scientific conferences and constitute the fundamental critical literature from that period, especially today, when the issue of the protection of the Polish architecture erected in that period has become essential.
This article discusses definitions of crimes included into the Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, and their usefulness in prosecuting individuals who committed international crimes. It is argued that the provisions of the Act cannot constitute a ground for criminal responsibility of individuals, as they violate the principle of nullum crimen sine lege certa.
Japanese literature has been known in Poland at least since the end of the 19th century, when first translations were made of Japanese prose and poetry (although via English or other languages). I consider the first translation made directly from Japanese into Polish language a short story by Kikuchi Kan, entitled Tusz ('Ink'), published in April of 1939, in a monthly magazine "Echoes from Far East." In the same magazine we can find also many examples of stories and poetry written not by Japanese, but by Polish authors, fascinated with Japan and its culture. Works by the same authors: Maria Juszkiewiczowa, Aleksander Janowski, Antoni Kora, Leon Rygier, Remigjusz Kwiatkowski and others were published also in other newspapers and magazines, and as separate novel books. While some short mentions about the earliest translations may be found in books on Japanese literature and contacts between Poland and Japan, novels, stories and poems written originally by Polish authors inspired by Japan are now all but forgotten. Hardly any of them were published again after World War II and they are not to be found in regular libraries. In the present paper I concentrate on the forgotten jewels of Polish prose (and to some extent poetry and drama) based on Japanese themes, published before World War II.
This paper addresses the public discussions among Polish scholars and social scientists which took place following the Second World War. The debate on the sociological and historical genealogy of the Polish intelligentsia started with the publication of a lecture given by the sociologist Józef Chałasiński. Covering this debate, the paper shows the way in which the literary and publicist stereotypes came to be a research question for the Social Sciences and Humanities.
The plebiscite in Upper Silesia from the year 1921 was one of the most important moments in the history of the region. The establishment of the independent Polish state after 1918 resulted in creating a frontier which divided the region before the plebiscite itself. Therefore, various kinds of travel documents emerged and played an important role. Basing on decision of the Allies, starting from 1st of July 1920, all persons who wanted to enter the plebiscite area were obliged to have a special passport or identity card, issued by the French consulate in Breslau (Wrocław). Also the inhabitants of Upper Silesia, travelling in the area of plebiscite territory, were obliged to possess special travel cards. The author in her article analyses different types of documents as well as mechanisms of dealing with problems of people, who after the final division of Upper Silesia decided to move from one side of the border to the other.
The paper is a part of the war diary of Aurelia Wyleżyńska (1881-1944), in which she described the political and social life in Warsaw (and not only there) from September 1939 until June 1944. Aurelia Wyleżyńska, a scion of Polish gentry, was a writer and journalist, the author of over a dozen of novels and hundreds of articles in Polish and French-language press, concerning mainly literature, feminism, pacifism (and civilizational progress, which she identified with the latter). She investigates the mood of the civilians and the views of Polish soldiers she met. She analyses social conditions, including her Jewish friends. She shows the dreadful German invasion and the accompanying changes to life and death. She also comments on the Soviet invasion. In her diary she shows how quickly the bustling Polish capital turns into a ruined cage for individuals struggling for survival.
This article is an attempt to represent the aspirations of the Polish aristocracy during the First World War by imagining the dreams of Maria Lubomirska – wife of Prince Zdzisław Lubomirski, arguably the most important Polish politician in Warsaw at the time. Lubomirska and her circle attended séances led by a popular medium, and they saw what they wanted to see, just as they perceived the changing political tides in the same way. Though aristocrats were in some sense already anachronistic at this time, they still wished to maintain their superior social and political position into the future. Lubomirska in particular envisioned an independent Poland led by a king. The idea of Poland becoming a monarchy may seem absurd in hindsight, but as the article shows, if we return to this moment in history without teleological presumptions it was a likely outcome until the last days of the war. Text in italics comes directly from Lubomirska’s diary.
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