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This thesis was based on the documents that were provided by the Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and were signed by the ambassador of Polish People’s Republic in Paris. The narration in this correspondence between the embassy in Paris and Warsaw has got its own unique style and can be really interesting for the reader. The materials that were provided from the Archive, were compared with the available literature. However it is just a small percentage on the information about 20th century France. The thesis shows the condition of France in the late 1950s. The main protagonist is Charles de Gaulle but the reader’s attention is focused mainly on his environment: co-workers, political allies, his friends and opponents. Because of that, the paper is focused more on the internal policy of France, rather than the foreign policy of this country.
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Thee article is an analysis of the concept of marriage and the traditional roles ascribed to wife and husband, presented in a set of standard funeral sermons written by Jesuit Fr. Alexander Lorencowicz. The author’s vision of man and woman relationship has been built based on a combination of the biblical sources, Christian tradition and Old-Polish culture. Fr. Lorencowicz promotespatriarchal family model, characterized by enormous power of a father. e condition of happiness in marriage is compliance resulting from the wife’s obedience to her husband. A man was shown in sermons as a responsible husband, father, head of the family, a knight defending the homeland and the Catholic Faith and a statesman active in the eld of political-social affairs. While a woman is shown as wife, mother, nurse, focused on home, farm and the good education of children. The characteristics desired in both woman as well as in man, are: mutual respect, patience, love, endure life adversity and providing assistance to each other.
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This article has a biographical character. It tells about the years of Zofia Hertz’s life since her birth until the outbreak of World War II, before she became a co-founder (with Jerzy Giedroyc) of Literary Institute in Maisons-Laffitte (important institution of Polish emigration after World War II that promoted Polish literature among Western intellectuals) and “Kultura”. The article describes unknown fragments of Zofia Hertz’s life. Zofia Hertz was born in Warsaw in 1910. She lived there until her mother’s death. Later she moved to Łódź. She graduated in 1928 and started a law studies at the University in Warsaw. After the firrst year of studied she returned to Łódź. Then she started to work in a notary’s oce. Aer she passed the state exam for notary she became the first woman notary in Poland. In 1939 she married a successful entrepreneur Zygmunt Hertz. Together in the future they will bound themselves with the Literary Institute at Maisons-Laffitte.
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This article describes the history of the emancipation of the Ukrainian women of Galicia – the Austrian province and later in the Polish state – during the First World War and the post-war years. The focus of this research is the participation of women in combat actions, social activities, and family relationships. The events of war had a signicant impact on the everyday life of women in the household, both ideologically and mentally. The role of Ukrainian women at the front and in the public sphere is analyzed in the context of ‘internal emancipation’ by overcoming traditional prejudices that have limited female space, especially those of the household. During the war the daily space of women signicantly expanded – a woman could become not only a nurse, but the defender of the house, as she had to deal with the daily problems associated with raising children, community initiatives, or concerns for the man who had been mobilized to the front. The critical situation of the war accelerated the process of the emancipation of women as individuals and forced women to give up the traditional limitations of family and home. Ukrainian women found the space to implement dierent skills and began to understand themselves through the prism of their own lives and intimate experiences, not just as a part of a man’s everyday life. These changes were perceived in society in dierent ways. Still, mancipation was not extensive, as many women were afraid to make changes. The huge patriarchal world still dominated, but the issue of the civil rights of women, including the right for self-realization, was impossible to ignore
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As an aftermath of the World War II, a new territorial and political division of the world took place. It was in Yalta (4–11.02.1945) where the decisions were made, which were to hand the nations of Middle and Eastern Europe over to the overwhelming inuence of the Soviet Union for over 40 years. The Yalta order which was settled then, opened a way for the creation of the communist bloc in this part of Europe. This state of affairs was in place until the turn of 1980s and 1990s. It was then when the systemic transformation in the countries of the so-called “Eastern Bloc” took place, when the communist parties were removed from power, the changes in the political systems of those countries took place, and the socio-economic reforms were made. Twenty-ve years have passed since these events, the “Autumn of Nations” is slowly becoming a historical fact, which is denitely bringing attention of many historians. The historians’ research state is nding its reection in the schoolbooks, and the message included in them is an information source for the young generation. This is why this article includes a detailed analysis of the way of describing the events connected with the fall of the communist bloc in Middle-Eastern Europe. The research aim of the article was the range and way of presenting the events in Europe during the “Autumn of Nations”.
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Close relationships and contacts between Poland and the Kingdom of Hungary had their roots in the medieval period and they resulted from the geographical neighbourhood and from the necessity of good relationships with the neighbour. These relationships existed in political, economic and cultural sphere. Since the 14th century, Poland, or more precisely Krakow, became the place of the university peregrination of students from Slovakia (the Kingdom of Hungary) as there was no university in our territory at that time. The academic environment became the place of spreading humanistic and later on, reformational ideas, which then got into the Kingdom of Hungary by means of students. There were a lot of personalities (Ján Henckel, Leonard Cox, Matej Bíró Dévai, Štefan Gálszécsi, Štefan Szegedi Kis, Imrich Ozorai and other), who studied at the Univesity of Krakow, and who spread these ideas after the return to their native country. The first theological and humanistic works of many reformers were published in the printing house in Krakow. Since the middle of the 16th century, the importance of the University of Krakow declined as the students from the Kingdom of Hungary started studying more at German, Dutch and Swiss universities. However, the contacts of the Protestants did not cease to exist, but they obtained a different character. Since the middle of the 16th century, the radical doctrine of Anti-Trinitarism started to infiltrate from Poland to the Kingdom of Hungary. This new doctrine started spreading to Transylvania first (Juraj Blandrata, František Stancaro), and then from here into the Kingdom of Hungary. While it became the religion accredited by state in Transylvania, the strong fighting was kept against its propagators in the Kingdom of Hungary. It was propagated by the preacher Lukáš Egri in the territory of present Eastern Slovakia, but he was condemned by the Synod in Košice in 1568. This act caused to stop further spead of Anti-Trinitarism ideas.
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The two tomes prepared by the team of authors directed by B. Engelking and J. Grabowski are a scientific and publishing phenomena in Poland. Nine independent, author monographies on the level of poviat, municipality and village, devoted to the case of Holocaust, but perceived through the prism of microhistory. All the texts were prepared according to the common, agreed upon draft with accent put on the issue of experience and course of events (German occupation, Soviet occupation), and most of all the survival strategy and the Polish-Jewish, Polish-Polish and Ukranian-Jewish relations in this hard time. Studies have shown that the will to survive was the strongest, uniform, constant Jewish message, task and attitude, while the Polish perspective and the perception of Jews in this tragic for them time was characterized with a number of attitudes and actions. However, there was a visible shift in the Polish accent – not as much towards mass help for the co-citizens, as towards indifference. Sometimes, there was compassion and mercy and quite clear, so not marginal, cooperation with the German (Soviet) occupant. The authors are correctly defining this typical attitude as the Polish (Ukrainian) complicity in the Holocaust. It is a valuable revaluation, exactly on the microhistoric level, of the common imaginations and myths about mass help given to Jews by the Poles. It’s an important scientific find, made based on a solid analysis of the vast source base and subject literature. As a supplement of this picture there is a statistic of the phenomenon of Holocaust in both tomes, “counted” (with limitations, of course) on this lowest level of the historical process. The names – of both the perpetrators and co-perpetrators – and, what is most important – both institutional, Polish (Polish Blue Police, the volunteer fire brigades, military guard, the Junaks from Baudienst), and individual co-perpetrators, who mostly took over a part of the Jewish wealth after the Holocaust – are the complementing factor here. The two tomes require the studies to be continued, as only the full elaboration on the poviat level will allow for the synthetic and balancing approach. It will allow for deconstructing many propaganda or political-ideological myths present in part in Polish history, and most of all – in Polish journalism and the attitudes of Polish politicians and sometimes ecclesiastic personalities. As a consequence, it will also affect, in some way, the myths present in the consciousness and attitudes of a part of the society. This is why these two tomes are that important – they are scientifically solid and reliable, requiring reflection and discourse, and are a result of free scientific research and authors’ sovereignty.
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Retelling, or re-telling a story, has become established in Polish literature primarily in relation to myths, legends, fairy tales, fantasy and postmodern literature. Meanwhile, the theses related to it work well on the basis of historiography and alternative histories, implementing a different scenario of history. The relationship of retelling to this type of literature is rarely analysed. Then again, research on alternative histories deals with the issues of renarration, intertextuality, reinterpretation and the world upside down, which are sometimes equated with retelling. This article is devoted to the above-mentioned issues.
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This article presents a new interpretation of the ideological message of Blatná Castle after its expansion by Benedikt Ried, commissioned by Zdeňek Lev of Rožmitál around 1520-1530. The key to deciphering the biblical code of the residence of this powerful magnate is found in two columns standing in front of the castle façade, which have not been included in previous research. Their dilapidated state, as well as residually legible profile forms and ornaments, un equivocally point to their dating back to the time of Ried’s expansion. In the history of art, they are a well- known imitation of the bronze pillars of Jachin and Boaz, placed in front of the Old Testament Temple of Solomon. The expressive oriels of the part of the castle erected by Ried may be a reference to a diagram similar to a pentagram, often appearing on the pages of codices called the clavicula Salomonis. In the beginning, they contained the instructions of the great biblical king to his son Roboam. This is reflected in the family situation of the builder, as it is generally agreed that Blatná Castle was built by Zdeněk Lev in connection with the marriage of his son Adam. References to Solomon were quite common at the time, both at Prague Castle and at theresidences of several Silesian dukes. They should not be surprising in the case of someone who, for more than 20 years (1507-1530), was the most important person in the state after the ruler (the highest burgrave of Prague Castle). Zdeněk Lev was a very active and influential politician with a Catholic orientation and nationalist, Bohemian disposition, who liked to moralize andjudge and use biblical examples or episodes from Bohemian history.
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In 1949, the communist rulers of Poland decided to build Nowa Huta, the steelworks and city near Kraków. According to the propaganda, it was supposed to be the first model socialist city in Poland. Residents were to experience social promotion, comfortable apartments, cultural institutions, and rest in their home space. In addition to housing, well-stocked shops, high -quality services, assistance in daily activities such as food preparation, health care and childcare were offered. However,the reality differed from this propaganda vision. In the local press such as the weekly Budujemy Socjalizm, later transformed into Głos Nowej Huty, letters to the editorial office complained about housing problems, insufficient supplies, queues, difficulties in organizing holidays, or low quality of the cultural offer. Letters to the editor are an important source for research on the everyday life of the Polish People’s Republic. They reflected the small and big problems of the inhabitants seeking help from journalists, believing that the press had substantial influence on the ruling class.
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Poland–Lithuania served as Europe’s grain basket for centuries, playing a vital role in feeding its neighbours during times of climatic adversity. However, its ecological abundance also attracted hostile intentions. In the early 1770s, the territory experienced a twin catastrophe: a deep political crisis coinciding with a severe climate anomaly. This paper examines the interaction between climate and conflict during a period typically analysed only from the perspective of political history. It aims to reconnect significant state events, such as civil war, occupation, and partition, with their socio-ecological context, including harvest failures, famine, and epidemics. This approach challenges deterministic simplifications of climate–conflict relations and emphasises the diverse range of human responses to climatic impacts, ranging from desperation to appropriation.
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In Estonia and Latvia, the examination of the hydrological regime of inland water bodies has traditionally fallen within the purview of the natural sciences, relying heavily on meteorological measurement data. Systematic weather observations commenced in the mid-19th century, significantly influencing the temporal scope of scientific investigations. However, it is worth noting that systematic measurement data, stretching as far back as 1795 in the case of Riga, has been a valuable resource for Latvian researchers. Regrettably, Estonia lacks such a chronologically consistent dataset. The Latvian scientific community’s interest in the study of hydro regime is firmly grounded. The Daugava River, historically pivotal for Latvia, has undeniably shaped its social life, a fact that persists in various aspects even today. Latvia boasts a profusion of rivers; for instance, the Lielupe River and its tributaries wield considerable environmental influence on the societal fabric. Although the Estonian rivers exert a less pronounced impact through fluctuations in their water regime, their significance should not be dismissed. In light of the historical and cultural connection between Estonia and Latvia dating back to the 13th century, and the analogous templates used for preserving weather and climate records, it is reasonable to suggest that studies of their historical climate should proceed in tandem. Regrettably, there is currently no unified historical climate database encompassing both nations. Nonetheless, an opportunity arises to compare water regime oscillations in the inland water bodies of Latvia and Estonia. A noteworthy publication from 1960 provides a comprehensive overview of Daugava River floods from “time immemorial” until 1871. Drawing from written sources, the water levels of the Daugava have been classified into seven categories, ranging from catastrophically high to catastrophically low. Notably, the year 1709 witnessed the highest recorded spring flood. Subsequent years, including 1727, 1744, 1770, 1771, 1795, 1807, 1814, 1837, 1855, and 1862, were marked by extreme water levels. Two principal approaches can be employed to understand the disposition of floods. The first involves relying on measurement data, such as air temperature, air pressure, and precipitation. The second approach utilises written sources. In this article, we scrutinise the significant flood of the Daugava in April 1837 for three primary reasons. Firstly, instrumental data, encompassing air temperature and pressure, are available for both Riga and, fortuitously, Tartu. Comparing this data expands the geographical context for comprehending the flood’s nature. Secondly, an opportunity arises to compare synoptic situations using a visualised database provided by the German Meteorological Service, containing data for Northern Europe from 1836 onward. The third source comprises a substantial volume of contemporary journalistic material. Additionally, we can draw upon the chronicle reviews by the Latvian Lutheran clergy, which shed light on the flood’s disposition, the course of events, and the ensuing societal consequences. Regrettably, the journalistic coverage leans heavily toward the Latvian region. By focusing on the contributions submitted to newspapers, one might erroneously conclude that Estonia escaped the 1837 flooding relatively unscathed. However, a markedly different narrative emerges when consulting the materials from Ordnungsgericht courts in Tartu, Pärnu, Viljandi, Võru, Valga, Võnnu, Valmiera, and Riga, as published in the weekly magazine Das Inland. These official reports on flood-related damage underscore the substantial impact suffered by southern Estonia. Furthermore, these records reveal that the closer one ventures to Latvian territory, the more severe the losses become. This includes damage to infrastructure such as mills and dams, destruction of bridges, erosion of winter crops, and the deposition of a thick layer of sand and mud onto fields. Additionally, roads were inundated, making communication arduous for several weeks. All such damage has also been recalculated into monetary value.
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Historical climatology deals with narrative sources as well as historical observation data. Observation data are, for example, series of temperature and air pressure measurements recorded in early modern observatories, which can be analysed after calibration and verification in a similar way to modern meteorological measurements. Narrative sources, on the other hand, are mainly used for the study of extreme phenomena, not only because of their detail, but also because of the difficulty in detecting this detail in the observation data. Although narrative sources can also be quantified by coding them, there is as yet no consistent systematic method for comparing them with data series, since objective meteorological data cannot be unambiguously derived from subjective descriptions. In this article, we tried to solve this problem by comparing two databases. As a meteorological phenomenon, we considered strong storms in the Baltic provinces in the mid and second half of the 19th century, combining both narrative sources and historical observation data. The Tallinn University Historical Storms Database, based on the Estonian Historical Climate Database, provided narrative reports of storms collected from the 19th century press. These were compared with data from the Northern Hemisphere 19th-21st Century Weather Data Post-Analysis Project compiled by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). We selected 19 strong storms ranked from press reports and searched for their matches in the NOAA database, attempting to reconstruct a synoptic description of the events where possible. The juxtaposition of two different datasets, collected by methods of humanitarian and natural science, proved to be viable and promising. It was generally possible to model the ‘journalistic’ storm in a wider climatic context, explaining its origin and nature (Appendix 2). At the same time, the method draws attention to the question of which storms were perceived as particularly strong in the 19th century and why, i.e. which storms were reported in the newspapers. Convective or summer storms, in which rising air currents form thunderclouds, were an example. Powerful convective systems, on the other hand, are accompanied by sudden thunderstorms, storms, tornadoes, etc., which create a ‘moment of surprise’ and cause major destruction. It should be noted, however, that such convective storms cannot be detected or distinguished by postanalysis models. However, we can see if preconditions in air pressure maps were favourable for convective storms to from. Narrative information from journalistic reports therefore provides an important complement to the historical observation data. Based on NOAA data, we identified the three most powerful model storms per year between 1836 and 1899 (Appendix 1). As can be seen, the most powerful storm(s) modelled in the post-analysis data may not have generated a large news flow. There are probably several reasons for this. Firstly, it is worth remembering how news of storms got into the newspapers in the first place, or how and under what headings they were reported. An extreme event in weather terms does not necessarily have to be so in journalistic terms. If, for example, the storm did not result in destruction or loss of life, but only in the threat of flooding, the coverage is likely to be modest, and vice versa. In addition, particularly severe storms may simply have been overshadowed by the storm season. Additionally, the strongest winds might have blown in the sea or outside our study area. In one case there were no journalists, in other case there was no data for this study. We need to analyse past storm trajectories in more detail to analyse their possible impact precisely. Additionally, combining modelled data with newspaper data might help to understand storm parameters more clearly
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