1.
Congress Poland
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Thus effectively it was little more than a puppet state of the Russian Empire. The autonomy was curtailed following uprisings in 1830–31 and 1863, as the country became governed by namestniks. Thus from the start, Polish autonomy remained little more than fiction, the territory of the Kingdom of Poland roughly corresponds to the Kalisz Region and the Lublin, Łódź, Masovian, Podlaskie and Holy Cross Voivodeships of Poland. Although the official name of the state was the Kingdom of Poland, in order to distinguish it from other Kingdoms of Poland, it was sometimes referred to as Congress Poland. The Kingdom of Poland was created out of the Duchy of Warsaw, the creation of the Kingdom created a partition of Polish lands in which the state was divided among Russia, Austria and Prussia. The Congress was important enough in the creation of the state to cause the new country to be named for it, the Kingdom lost its status as a sovereign state in 1831 and the administrative divisions were reorganized. It was sufficiently distinct that its name remained in official Russian use, originally, the Kingdom had an area of roughly 128,500 km2 and a population of approximately 3.3 million. Its population reached 6.1 million by 1870 and 10 million by 1900, most of the ethnic Poles in the Russian Empire lived in the Congress Kingdom, although some areas outside it also contained a Polish majority. The Kingdom of Poland largely re-emerged as a result of the efforts of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the Kingdom of Poland was one of the few contemporary constitutional monarchies in Europe, with the Emperor of Russia serving as the Polish King. His title as chief of Poland in Russian, was Tsar, similar to usage in the fully integrated states within the Empire, theoretically the Polish Kingdom in its 1815 form was a semi-autonomous state in personal union with Russia through the rule of the Russian Emperor. Poland also had traditions and the Polish nobility deeply valued personal freedom. In reality, the Kings had absolute power and the title of Autocrat. All opposition to the Emperor of Russia was suppressed and the law was disregarded at will by Russian officials, however, in time the situation changed and he granted the viceroy, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, almost dictatorial powers. Very soon after Congress of Vienna resolutions were signed, Russia ceased to respect them, in 1819, Alexander I abolished freedom of the press and introduced preventory censorship. Resistance to Russian control began in the 1820s, beginning in 1825, the sessions of the Sejm were held in secret. Nicholas rule promoted the idea of Official Nationality, consisting of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, in relation to Poles, those ideas meant assimilation, turning them into loyal Orthodox Russians. All of this led to discontent and resistance among the Polish population, in January 1831, the Sejm deposed Nicholas I as King of Poland in response to his repeated curtailing of its constitutional rights. Nicholas reacted by sending Russian troops into Poland, resulting in the November Uprising, following an 11-month military campaign, the Kingdom of Poland lost its semi-independence and was integrated much more closely with the Russian Empire
2.
Warsaw
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Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It stands on the Vistula River in east-central Poland, roughly 260 kilometres from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometres from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population is estimated at 1.750 million residents within a metropolitan area of 3.101 million residents. The city limits cover 516.9 square kilometres, while the area covers 6,100.43 square kilometres. Once described as Paris of the East, Warsaw was believed to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world until World War II. On 9 November 1939, the city was awarded Polands highest military decoration for heroism, Warsaw is one of Europe’s most dynamic metropolitan cities. In 2012 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Warsaw as the 32nd most liveable city in the world, in 2017 the city came 4th in the “Business-friendly” category and 8th in the “Human capital and life style”. It was also ranked as one of the most liveable cities in Central, Warsaw is considered an Alpha– global city, a major international tourist destination and a significant cultural, political and economic hub. The city is a significant centre of research and development, BPO, ITO, the Warsaw Stock Exchange is the largest and most important in Central and Eastern Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external security, has its headquarters in Warsaw. Together with Frankfurt, London and Paris, Warsaw is also one of the cities with the highest number of skyscrapers in the European Union, the city is the seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Warsaw. The historic city-centre of Warsaw with its picturesque Old Town in 1980 was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, buildings represent examples of nearly every European architectural style and historical period. Warsaw provides many examples of architecture from the gothic, renaissance, baroque, neoclassical and modern periods, furthermore, the city is positioning itself as Europes chic cultural capital with thriving art and club scenes and renowned restaurants. Folk etymology attributes the city name to a fisherman, Wars, according to legend, Sawa was a mermaid living in the Vistula River with whom Wars fell in love. In actuality, Warsz was a 12th/13th-century nobleman who owned a village located at the site of Mariensztat neighbourhood. See also the Vršovci family which had escaped to Poland, the official city name in full is miasto stołeczne Warszawa. A native or resident of Warsaw is known as a Varsovian – in Polish warszawiak, warszawianin, warszawianka, warszawiacy, other names for Warsaw include Varsovia and Varsóvia, Varsovie, Varsavia, Warschau, װאַרשע /Varshe, Варшава /Varšava /Varshava, Varšuva, Varsó. The first fortified settlements on the site of todays Warsaw were located in Bródno, after Jazdów was raided by nearby clans and dukes, a new similar settlement was established on the site of a small fishing village called Warszowa
3.
Poles
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The Poles are a nation and West Slavic ethnic group native to Poland who share a common ancestry, culture, history and are native speakers of the Polish language. The population of Poles in Poland is estimated at 37,394,000 out of a population of 38,538,000. Polands population inhabits several historic regions, including Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Mazovia, Silesia, Pomerania, Kuyavia, Warmia, Masuria, a wide-ranging Polish diaspora exists throughout Europe, the Americas and in Australasia. Today the largest urban concentration of Poles is the Katowice urban agglomeration of 2.7 million inhabitants, Poland was also for centuries a refuge for many Jews from all over Europe, a large number emigrated in the twentieth century to Israel. Several prominent Israeli statesmen were born in Poland, including Israels founder David Ben-Gurion, former President of Israel Shimon Peres, the Slavic people have been in the territory of modern Poland for over 1500 years. In the 9th and 10th centuries the tribes gave rise to developed regions along the upper Vistula, the last tribal undertaking resulted in the 10th century in a lasting political structure and state, Poland, one of the West Slavic nations. After 1945 the so-called autochthonous or aboriginal school of Polish prehistory received official backing in Poland, Polish people are the sixth largest national group in the European Union. Estimates vary depending on source, though available data suggest a number of around 60 million people worldwide. There are almost 38 million Poles in Poland alone, there are also Polish minorities in the surrounding countries including Germany, and indigenous minorities in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus. There are some smaller indigenous minorities in nearby countries such as Moldova, the term Polonia is usually used in Poland to refer to people of Polish origin who live outside Polish borders, officially estimated at around 10 to 20 million. There is a notable Polish diaspora in the United States, Brazil, France has a historic relationship with Poland and has a relatively large Polish-descendant population. Poles have lived in France since the 18th century, in the early 20th century, over a million Polish people settled in France, mostly during world wars, among them Polish émigrés fleeing either Nazi occupation or later Soviet rule. In the United States, a significant number of Polish immigrants settled in Chicago, Ohio, Detroit, New York City, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, the highest concentration of Polish Americans in a single New England municipality is in New Britain, Connecticut. The majority of Polish Canadians have arrived in Canada since World War II, the number of Polish immigrants increased between 1945 and 1970, and again after the end of Communism in Poland in 1989. In Brazil the majority of Polish immigrants settled in Paraná State, smaller, but significant numbers settled in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Espírito Santo and São Paulo. The city of Curitiba has the second largest Polish diaspora in the world and Polish music, dishes and it is estimated that over half a million Polish people have come to work in the United Kingdom from Poland. Since 2011, Poles have been able to work throughout the EU and not just in the United Kingdom, Ireland. The Polish community in Norway has increased substantially and has grown to a number of 120,000
4.
Realism (arts)
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Realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in part a matter of technique and training. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the depiction of lifeforms, perspective. Realist works of art may emphasize the mundane, ugly or sordid, such as works of realism, regionalism. There have been various movements in the arts, such as the opera style of verismo, literary realism, theatrical realism. The realism art movement in painting began in France in the 1850s, the realist painters rejected Romanticism, which had come to dominate French literature and art, with roots in the late 18th century. Realism is the precise, detailed and accurate representation in art of the appearance of scenes. Realism in this sense is also called naturalism, mimesis or illusionism, realistic art was created in many periods, and it is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. It becomes especially marked in European painting in the Early Netherlandish painting of Jan van Eyck, however such realism is often used to depict, for example, angels with wings, which were not things the artists had ever seen in real life. It is the choice and treatment of matter that defines Realism as a movement in painting. The development of increasingly accurate representation of the appearances of things has a long history in art. It includes elements such as the depiction of the anatomy of humans and animals, of perspective and effects of distance. Ancient Greek art is recognised as having made great progress in the representation of anatomy. Pliny the Elders famous story of birds pecking at grapes painted by Zeuxis in the 5th century BC may well be a legend, roman portraiture, when not under too much Greek influence, shows a greater commitment to a truthful depiction of its subjects. The art of Late Antiquity famously rejected illusionism for expressive force, scientific methods of representing perspective were developed in Italy and gradually spread across Europe, and accuracy in anatomy rediscovered under the influence of classical art. As in classical times, idealism remained the norm, intriguingly, having led the development of illusionic painting, still life was to be equally significant in its abandonment in Cubism. The depiction of ordinary, everyday subjects in art also has a history, though it was often squeezed into the edges of compositions. However these objects are at least largely there because they carry layers of complex significance, pieter Bruegel the Elder pioneered large panoramic scenes of peasant life
5.
Young Poland
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Young Poland was a modernist period in Polish visual arts, literature and music, covering roughly the years between 1890 and 1918. It was a result of strong opposition to the earlier ideas of Positivism which followed the suppression of the 1863 January Uprising against the occupying army of Imperial Russia. Młoda Polska promoted trends of decadence, neo-romanticism, symbolism, impressionism, Polish literature of the period was based on two main concepts. The earlier was a typically modernist disillusionment with the bourgeoisie, its life style, artists following this concept also believed in decadence, an end of all culture, conflict between humans and their civilization, and the concept of art as the highest value. Authors who followed this concept included Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Stanisław Przybyszewski, Wacław Rolicz-Lieder, a later concept was a continuation of romanticism, and as such is often called neo-romanticism. Modest Musorgski, Alexander Borodin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, in the period of Young Poland there were no overwhelming trends in Polish art. The painters and sculptors tried to continue the traditions with new ways of expression popularised abroad. The most influential trend was art nouveau, although Polish artists started to seek some form of a national style. Both sculpture and painting were also influenced by all forms of symbolism. Prominent Young Poland painters and sculptors include, History of Poland Dobrowolski Tadeusz, Sztuka Młodej Polski, słownik artystów polskich i obcych w Polsce działających. Puciata-Pawłowska Joanna, Konstanty Laszczka, Siedlce 1980
6.
Nobel Prize in Literature
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Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, here work refers to an authors work as a whole. The Swedish Academy decides who, if anyone, will receive the prize in any given year, the academy announces the name of the chosen laureate in early October. Although the Nobel Prize in Literature has become the worlds most prestigious literature prize, many authors who have won the prize have fallen into obscurity, while others rejected by the jury remain widely studied and read. The prize has become seen as a political one - a peace prize in literary disguise, whose judges are prejudiced against authors with different political tastes to them. Tim Parks has expressed skepticism that it is possible for Swedish professors, as of 2016,16 of the 113 recipients have been of Scandinavian origin. The Academy has often been alleged to be biased towards European, Nobels vague wording for the criteria for the prize has led to recurrent controversy. In the original Swedish, the word translates as either idealistic or ideal. The Nobel Committees interpretation has varied over the years, in recent years, this means a kind of idealism championing human rights on a broad scale. Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets,31 million Swedish kronor, to establish and endow the five Nobel Prizes. Due to the level of surrounding the will, it was not until 26 April 1897 that the Storting approved it. The executors of his will were Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that were to award the Peace Prize were appointed shortly after the will was approved. The prize-awarding organisations followed, the Karolinska Institutet on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, the Nobel Foundation then reached an agreement on guidelines for how the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, the Nobel Foundations newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II, according to Nobels will, the Royal Swedish Academy was to award the Prize in Literature. Each year, the Swedish Academy sends out requests for nominations of candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature and it is not permitted to nominate oneself. Thousands of requests are sent out each year, and as of 2011 about 220 proposals are returned and these proposals must be received by the Academy by 1 February, after which they are examined by the Nobel Committee. By April, the Academy narrows the field to around twenty candidates, by May, a short list of five names is approved by the Committee. The subsequent four months are spent in reading and reviewing the works of the five candidates. In October, members of the Academy vote and the candidate who receives more than half of the votes is named the Nobel laureate in Literature
7.
Polish literature
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Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. According to Czesław Miłosz, for centuries Polish literature focused more on drama, the reasons were manifold, but mostly rested on historical circumstances of the nation. The period of Polish Enlightenment began in the 1730s–40s and peaked in the half of the 18th century. One of the leading Polish Enlightenment authors included Ignacy Krasicki and Jan Potocki, Polish Romanticism, unlike Romanticism elsewhere in Europe, was largely a movement for independence against the foreign occupation. Early Polish Romantics were heavily influenced by other European Romantics, notable writers included Adam Mickiewicz, Seweryn Goszczyński, Tomasz Zan and Maurycy Mochnacki. In the second period, many Polish Romantics worked abroad, influential poets included Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki and Zygmunt Krasiński. In the aftermath of the failed January Uprising, the new period of Polish Positivism began to advocate skepticism, the modernist period known as the Young Poland movement in visual arts, literature and music, came into being around 1890, and concluded with the Polands return to independence. Notable authors included Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Stanisław Przybyszewski and Jan Kasprowicz, the neo-Romantic era was exemplified by the works of Stefan Żeromski, Władysław Reymont, Gabriela Zapolska, and Stanisław Wyspiański. In 1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz received a Nobel Prize in literature for his patriotic Trilogy inspiring a new sense of hope, Literature of the Second Polish Republic encompasses a short, though exceptionally dynamic period in Polish literary consciousness. The socio-political reality has changed radically with Polands return to independence, new avant-garde writers included Tuwim, Witkacy, Gombrowicz, Miłosz, Dąbrowska and Nałkowska. In the years of German and Soviet occupation of Poland, all life was dramatically compromised. Out of 1,500 clandestine publications in Poland, about 200 were devoted to literature, much of Polish literature written during the Occupation of Poland appeared in print only after the conclusion of World War II, including books by Nałkowska, Rudnicki, Borowski and others. The situation began to worsen dramatically around 1949–1950 with the introduction of the Stalinist doctrine by minister Sokorski, Poland had three Nobel Prize winning authors in the later 20th century, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska. Almost nothing remains of Polish literature prior to the countrys Christianization in 966, within the Polish literary tradition, it is customary to include works that have dealt with Poland, even if not written by ethnic Poles. This is the case with Gallus Anonymus, the first historian to have described Poland in his work entitled Cronicae et gesta ducum sive principum Polonorum, Gallus was a foreign monk who accompanied King Bolesław III Wrymouth in his return from Hungary to Poland. The first recorded sentence in the Polish language reads, Day ut ia pobrusa, the work, in which this phrase appeared, reflects the culture of early Poland. The sentence was written within the Latin language chronicle Liber fundationis from between 1269 and 1273, a history of the Cistercian monastery in Henryków, Silesia and it was recorded by an abbot known simply as Piotr, referring to an event almost a hundred years earlier. The sentence was uttered by a Bohemian settler, Bogwal
8.
Galicia (Eastern Europe)
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Galicia is a historical and geographic region in Central-Eastern Europe, once a small Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria that straddled the modern-day border between Poland and Ukraine. The area, which is named after the city of Halych, was first mentioned in Hungarian historical chronicles in the year 1206 as Galiciæ. The nucleus of historic Galicia lies within the regions of western Ukraine, Lviv, Ternopil. In the 18th century, territories that became part of the modern Polish regions of Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Subcarpathian Voivodeship. There is considerable overlap between Galicia and south-west Ruthenia, especially a cross-border region that is inhabited by various nationalities, Halych-Volhynia cut a swathe as a mighty principality under the reign of Roman the Great in 1170–1205. After the expulsion of the Hungarians in 1221, Ruthenians took back rule of the area, Romans son Daniel of Galicia was crowned king of Halych-Volhynia. He founded Lviv, named in honour of his son Leo I, the Ukrainian name Halych comes from the Khwalis or Kaliz who occupied the area from the time of the Magyars. They were also called Khalisioi in Greek, and Khvalis in Ukrainian, the Lypytsia culture supposedly replaced the existing Thracian Hallstatt and Vysotske cultures. Others assert that the name has Slavic origins – from halytsa, meaning a naked hill, the jackdaw was used as a charge in the citys coat of arms and later also in the coat of arms of Galicia. The name, however, predates the coat of arms, which may represent canting or simply folk etymology, although the Hungarians were driven out from Halych-Volhynia by 1221, Hungarian kings continued to add Galicia et Lodomeria to their official titles. In 1527, the Habsburgs inherited those titles, together with the Hungarian crown, in 1772, Empress Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary, decided to use those historical claims to justify her participation in the first partition of Poland. In fact, the territories acquired by Austria did not correspond exactly to those of former Halych-Volhynia, Volhynia, including the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi – after which Lodomeria was named – was taken by Russia, not Austria. On the other hand, much of Lesser Poland – Nowy Sącz and Przemyśl, Zamość, Lublin, the full official name of the new Austrian province was Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria with the Duchies of Auschwitz and Zator. After the incorporation of the Free City of Kraków in 1846, it was extended to Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, each of those entities was formally separate, they were listed as such in the Austrian emperors titles, each had its distinct coat-of-arms and flag. For administrative purposes, however, they formed a single province, the duchies of Auschwitz and Zator were small historical principalities west of Kraków, on the border with Prussian Silesia. Lodomeria, under the name Volhynia, was not ruled by Austria, dale Dwellers, Krakowiacy, Mazury, Grębowiacy, Głuchoniemcy, Bełżanie, Bużanie, Opolanie, Wołyniacy, Pobereżcy or Nistrowianie. During the Great Migration period of Europe, a variety of nomadic groups invaded the area, overall, Slavs came to dominate the Celtic-German population. In the 12th century, a Rurikid Principality of Halych formed there, Galicia and Volhynia had originally been two separate Rurikid principalities, assigned on a rotating basis to younger members of the Kievan dynasty
9.
Kazimierz Wyka
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Kazimierz Wyka was a Polish literary historian, literary critic, and professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków following World War II. He was a deputy to the Polish parliament from 1952 to 1956 during the darkest years of Stalinism in Poland, Wyka was a son of a small sawmill owner, born and raised in Krzeszowice. He studied at the Jagiellonian University and during the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany remained safely with the family in his small town and he became active politically only after the Soviet takeover, and obtained a position of a professor at his Alma mater in 1948. Notably Wyka signed the so-called Letter 34 against censorship, delivered in March 1964 to Council of Ministers, Wyka was one of only two men who strategically withdrew their names from the original list to save their own jobs at the last moment. In 1980, the president of Kraków established the commemorative Kazimierz Wyka Award in the field of criticism, essay. Family home of K. Wyka in Krzeszowice
10.
Radomsko
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Radomsko pronounced is a town in central Poland with 50,618 inhabitants. It is situated on the Radomka river in the Łódź Voivodeship and it is the capital of Radomsko County. Radomsko received town privileges by Duke Leszek II the Black of Sieradz in 1266 and it is the site of a Franciscan monastery build on behalf of Bona Sforza, the queen consort of King Sigismund I of Poland. Following the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Radomsko was taken over by the Wehrmacht on 3 September 1939, in April 1940 a Nazi ghetto was set up in the Przedborze district for local Polish Jews. The ghetto was liquidated in two stages during the Holocaust, the first deportation action took place in early October 1942 with prisoners sent aboard freight trains to Treblinka. On 12 October, approximately 9,000 Jews were deported, a small group of Jewish slave labour was allowed to stay behind. They were sent to Treblinka in January 1943, in retaliation, the unit of Armia Krajowa ambushed and shot the Chief of Gestapo Willy Berger and his deputy Johann Wagner on 27 May 1943. The German pacification action took place on 3 August 1943 in Rejowice, the settlement was levelled, some AK soldiers were captured and brought to Radomsko. The Nazi prison in Radomsko, located at the historic Ratusz, was attacked by AK on the night of 7–8 August 1943, the attack was led by Porucznik Stanisław Zbigniew Sojczyński. To eliminate the Polish bandits in the vicinity of Radomsko, some 1,000 SS, the battle was fought on 1 June 1944 near Krzętów, against about 80 AK partisans led by Florian Andrzej Budniak. The German army, unfamiliar with the local forest, lost 250 men, the second battle was launched on 12 September 1944 near Ewina. It was one of the biggest battles of the Polish underground in World War II, the 3rd Brigade of Armia Ludowa with 600 partisans, stood against the German force ten times larger. The losses of the enemy were estimated at approximately 100 killed and 200 wounded, the Polish losses amounted to 12 killed partisans,11 wounded, and several missing. The battles earned Radomsko the Nazi German nickname of Banditenstadt meaning the City of Bandits, the town has access to the railway line from Warsaw to Katowice operated by the Polish State Railways. It can be reached by the national road No.1, a communist, he was appointed as an advisor by Juan Perón, and served as an Economic Minister in every government until the military coup of 1976. Notes Official Radomsko City Page Fresh news, fun, community, photos and more from Radomsko
11.
Szlachta
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The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges between 1333 and 1370 during the reign of King Casimir III the Great, in 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown Kingdom of Poland, the existing Lithuanian nobility formally joined this class. As the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth evolved and expanded in territory, its membership grew to include the leaders of Ducal Prussia, the origins of the szlachta are shrouded in obscurity and mystery and have been the subject of a variety of theories. Traditionally, its members were owners of landed property, often in the form of manor farms or so-called folwarks, the nobility negotiated substantial and increasing political and legal privileges for itself throughout its entire history until the decline of the Polish Commonwealth in the late 18th century. During the Partitions of Poland from 1772 to 1795, its members began to lose these legal privileges, the legal privileges of the szlachta were legally abolished in the Second Polish Republic by the March Constitution of 1921. The notion that all Polish nobles were social equals, regardless of their status or offices held, is enshrined in a traditional Polish saying. —which may roughly be rendered, The noble on the croft Is the voivodes equal, or the tenant farmer noble stands equal to the noble army commander. The term szlachta is derived from the Old High German word slahta, the Polish rycerz and the Polish herb. Poles of the 17th century assumed that szlachta came from the German schlachten, early Polish historians thought the term may have derived from the name of the legendary proto-Polish chief, Lech, mentioned in Polish and Czech writings. Some powerful Polish nobles were referred to as magnates and możny, see Magnates of Poland, the Polish term szlachta designated the formalized, hereditary noble class of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In official Latin documents of the old Commonwealth, hereditary szlachta are referred to as nobilitas and are indeed the equivalent in status of the English nobility. Today the word szlachta in the Polish language simply translates to nobility, in its broadest meaning, it can also denote some non-hereditary honorary knighthoods granted today by some European monarchs. Occasionally, 19th-century non-noble landowners were referred to as szlachta by courtesy or error, in the narrow sense, szlachta denotes the old-Commonwealth nobility. In the past, a misconception sometimes led to the mistranslation of szlachta as gentry rather than nobility. This mistaken practice began due to the status of some szlachta members being inferior to that of the nobility in other European countries. The szlachta included those almost rich and powerful enough to be magnates down to rascals with a lineage, no land, no castle, no money, no village. As some szlachta were poorer than some non-noble gentry, some particularly impoverished szlachta were forced to become tenants of the wealthier gentry. In doing so, however, these szlachta retained all their constitutional prerogatives, as it was not wealth or lifestyle, but hereditary juridical status, an individual nobleman was called a szlachcic, and a noblewoman a szlachcianka
12.
Koluszki
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Koluszki is a town, and a major railway junction, in Central Poland, in Łódź Voivodeship, about 20 km east of Łódź with a population of 13,331. The junction in Koluszki serves trains that go from Warsaw to Łódź, Wrocław, Częstochowa and it is also connected to Radom and Lublin by an eastbound line. The town was first mentioned in 1399, during the 14th and 15th century, it prospered along the trade route between Danzig and Russia. By 1790, there was a mill, sawmill, brewery. Under the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, the settlement was annexed by Prussia and it returned to Congress Poland following the Congress of Vienna in 1815. On September 2,1846, the town was first connected to the emerging Polish railways as part of the mainline between Warsaw and Kraków, following the development of Łódź as an industrial center, Koluszki served as the junction for its rail. By 1900, about half of the town worked for the railway in some capacity, the town suffered during both world wars. Under the Nazi occupation during the Second World War, Koluszki was annexed to Germany and was the site of a Jewish ghetto, most of the Jews were later murdered at Treblinka. The town was restored to Poland by the Red Army on January 18,1945 and its town charter was established in 1949. Poczta Polska – the postal service of Poland maintains its Department of Undelivered Mail in the Koluszki post office, media related to Koluszki at Wikimedia Commons Official town website Koluszki Foundry and Machinery/ local grey and nodular iron foundry
13.
Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit
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The Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, known also simply as Pauline Fathers, is a monastic order of the Roman Catholic Church, founded in Hungary during the 13th century. This name is derived from the hermit Saint Paul of Thebes, after his death, a monastery taking him as its model was founded on Mount Sinai and still exists today. In the same year Eusebius proposed and obtained affiliation with the Patach community under the rule prescribed by its founder, and was chosen superior. In 1381 the body of St. Paul, the saint of the order, was transferred from Venice to the Monastery of St. Laurence in Hungary. The church of San Stefano Rotondo at Rome was attached to the Hungarian College by Gregory XIII, the destruction of the annals of these houses left the historical sources very meager. There remained a handful of houses of the order in Poland, at the beginning of the 20th century only two Pauline monasteries remained. The other was recalled earlier, the Monastery of Our Lady of Jasna Góra, Paul of Thebes, Fortunatus Dürich and Franz Faustin Prochaska, editors of a Czech translation of the Scriptures. The habit was originally brown, but about 1341 white was adopted, with a belt or cincture. In choir or more commonly in liturgical events, a mantle is worn by monks in perpetual profession. Eusebius was born in Esztergom in the Kingdom of Hungary around 1200 and he came from a wealthy, well to do family. He received his Ordination in the cathedral in Esztergom as a Canon Regular of Saint Augustine, in 1216, he received permission from the bishop to leave the cathedral and he began a hermitage in Pilis. In 1246, more of his canons and other hermits along the river Danube lived with him near Pilisszántó. In 1262 he asked the Pope Urban IV established for the approval of the religious community, a year later, the first monastic constitutions were approved. Eusebius died on January 20,1270, in the Monastery of the Holy Cross and he was buried interred in the Monastery crypt. During the 150 years of Turkish occupation in Hungary, the Church and Monastery of the Holy Cross, including his tomb, was destroyed. The Pauline coat of arms contains within it the symbols listed by St. Jerome, according to pious tradition, to become a religious, it is necessary to undergo an initial period of testing as a religious brother, hence the Novitiate. This time is used to isolate a candidate for the seminary or religious to personal and telephone contact with family, the Novice can write letters, which are subjected to censorship. During the novitiate the novices meet with their family only twice, on taking of the veil, during the novitiate, every Friday is a day during which novices are not allowed to talk to each other
14.
Skierniewice
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Skierniewice is a town in central Poland with 49,132 inhabitants, situated in the Łódź Voivodship, previously capital of Skierniewice Voivodship. It is the capital of Skierniewice County, the town is situated almost exactly halfway between Łódź and Warsaw. Skierniewice gained municipal rights in 1457 and it has a famous railway station that was once part of the historic Warsaw-Vienna Railway. On September 15,1884 it was the setting for the meeting of the Three Emperors League
15.
The Promised Land (novel)
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The Promised Land is an 1899 novel by the Polish author and Nobel laureate, Władysław Reymont, first published in Warsaw. It is considered one of his most important works after The Peasants, the novel The Promised Land was originally published as installments in the industrial city of Łódź by the daily Kurier Codzienny from 1897 to 1898. Reymonts novel vividly paints a portrait of the rapid industrialization of Łódź and its effects on workers. Reymont writes, For that promised land – for that tumor – villages were deserted, forests died out, the land was depleted of its treasures, and it sucked everything into itself. And in its powerful jaws it crushed and chewed up people and things, sky and earth, in return giving useless millions to a handful of people, karol Borowiecki, a Polish nobleman, is the managing engineer at the Bucholz textile factory. Borowieckis affair with Lucy Zucker, the wife of another magnate, gives him advance notice of a change in cotton tariffs. However, more money has to be found so all three characters cast aside their pride to raise the necessary capital, on the day of the factory opening, Borowiecki has to deny his affair with Zuckers wife to a jealous husband. But while Borowiecki accompanies Lucy on her exile to Berlin, Zucker apparently takes his revenge by burning down the three partners uninsured factory. Ziemia obiecana, The Promised Land Ziemia obiecana, The Promised Land Ziemia obiecana, Polish TV serial from 1978 Full text in Polish Audiobook mp3 at Polskie Radio
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Jan Lorentowicz
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Lorentowicz was born in Pabianice, in present-day central Poland, in 1868, five years after the opening of the Polish 1863 Uprising that was eventually suppressed by the Russian Imperial Army. His parents had moved to present-day central Poland from the old eastern Kresy borderlands, escaping poverty, Jan obtained his secondary-school diploma at Płock by way of home schooling and soon went to France, where he lived until 1903 and studied at the Sorbonne. While in Paris, he became editor-in-chief of Pobudka in 1891, a major controversy surrounded the Paris conference, regarding the potential use of terror by the PPS. Supporters of such violence against the Russian governorate included Aleksander Dębski, in 1903 Lorentowicz returned to Poland and settled in Warsaw. He joined the board of Kurier Codzienny as managing editor about the time of the Polish Revolution of 1905. He co-founded the Polish Society of Writers and Journalists in 1909 and served as its president, Polands freedom was in the air. In 1916–22 Lorentowicz was director of the Warsaw School of Drama and, in 1918–22, in 1938 he was elected a member of the Polish Academy of Literature after the untimely death of Piotr Choynowski and Bolesław Leśmian. He continued publishing until the Nazi German invasion of Poland, Lorentowicz was buried in the citys Powązki Cemetery. Jan Lorentowicz received many awards for his contributions to theatre and its history, including the French Legion of Honour and he was well known for his vast collection of books, some rare and expensive. He was a Renaissance man with interests and accomplishments. Immediately after World War I he participated in rebuilding theatre in Polands capital and his Dwadzieścia lat teatru is a primary source of information on the history of Warsaw theatre in 1904–34. To this day, Polands interwar actors and cultural luminaries are best remembered through his monographs, including Spojrzenie wstecz, Dzieje teatru w Polsce, in 1989 the Pabianice public library was named for him. The memoirs of Lorentowiczs daughter – writer, teacher and award-winning set-designer Irena Lorentowicz – Oczarowania show Jan Lorentowicz as a remarkable father, Irena, who never married, inherited part of his library. In old age demented and alone, she was found by a friend in the middle of her small Warsaw apartment and she died in 1985 and was buried near her father. Avec la collaboration de A. M. Chmurski
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Zakopane
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Zakopane is a town in the extreme south of Poland. It lies in the part of the Podhale region at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. From 1975 to 1998 it was in Nowy Sącz Province, and it had a population of about 28,000 as of 2005. Zakopane is a center of Góral culture and is known informally as the capital of Poland. It is a destination for mountaineering, skiing, and qualified tourism. Zakopane is located in southernmost Poland near the border with Slovakia and it lies in a valley between the Tatra Mountains and Gubałówka Hill. It can be reached by train or by bus from district capital Kraków, Zakopane has an elevation of 800-1,000 meters above sea level. The town is centered at the junction of Krupówki and Kościuszko Streets, the earliest documents mentioning Zakopane date to the 17th century, describing a glade called Zakopisko. In 1676 it was a village of 43 inhabitants, Zakopane became a center for the regions mining and metallurgy industries, in the 19th century, it was the largest center for metallurgy in Galicia. It expanded during the 19th century as the climate attracted more inhabitants, by 1889 it had developed from a small village into a climatic health resort of 3,000 inhabitants. Rail service to Zakopane began October 1,1899, the ski jump on Wielka Krokiew was opened in 1925. The cable car to Kasprowy Wierch was completed in 1936, the funicular connected Zakopane and the top of Gubałówka in 1938. In March 1940, representatives of the Soviet NKVD and the Nazi Gestapo met for one week in Zakopanes Villa Tadeusz, throughout World War II, Zakopane served as an underground staging point between Poland and Hungary. From 1942 to 1943,1,000 prisoners from the German Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp were set to work in a stone quarry, the Zakopane Style of Architecture is an architectural mode inspired by the regional art of Poland’s highland region known as Podhale. Drawing on the motifs and traditions in the buildings of the Carpathian Mountains, the Tatras are a popular destination among hikers, skiers, ski-tourers and climbers. There is a network of marked hiking trails in the Tatras. Most of these trails are overcrowded, especially in the summer season, the High Tatras offer excellent opportunities for climbing. In summer, lightning and snow are both potential hazards for climbers, and the weather can change quickly, thunderstorms are common in the afternoons
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Sieradz
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Sieradz is a town on the Warta river in central Poland with 44,326 inhabitants. It is situated in the Łódź Voivodeship, but was previously the capital of the Sieradz Voivodeship. It is one of the oldest towns in Poland, thrice being a location for the coronation of the Polish monarchs, the town was attacked by the Tartars, Bohemians and Teutonic Knights. Polish Kings chaired six assemblies from here, the oldest settlements can be traced back to almost 6th century. Centuries later, king Casimir the Great built the Castle of Sieradz, in the mid 13th century it was conferred with Municipal rights. It had also welcomed many settlers from Scotland & Netherlands after the 13th century, during the fragmentation of Poland, it was the site of the Duchy of Sieradz. In 1445 the election of King Casimir Jagiellonian took place at this town, until the 16th century the town used to be important trade centre. Merchants from Spain & Portugal were frequently visiting the town for Trade, in the 17th century due to the Swedish wars, plagues, fires and floods the town lost its trading importance and fell from its prime. In the 18th century the reconstruction of town commenced, the residents during that time were only approximately 1500. On 13 November 1806 an uprising against the Prussians took place in Sieradz and it was the capital of a district within the Kalisz region of the Russian Empire until the establishment of the Polish Second Republic in 1918. With the invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Sieradz was attacked on September 9, annexed by Nazi Germany, it was renamed Schieratz and administered as part of the county or district of the same name within Reichsgau Wartheland. The Nazis destroyed traces of Polish culture, destroying historical records, monuments, street names were changed in an effort to wipe out any connection with a Polish identity. Bombed by the Soviets, more than 100 residents were killed, after an assault lasting three days, the Red Army arrived on January 23,1945. Following the war, it part of the Peoples Republic of Poland. Economic activities included clothing manufacture, cereal-milling, spirit distillery, potato farming, in 1957 the knitting plant Sira was founded. The natural forests on the banks of river Warta makes a place for mushroom pickers. The town square also makes a perfect tourism place with shops selling various products of good quality. The Churches in Sieradz carry historical significance and well restored, Sieradz dramatically developed since 2007 with new residential projects & townships
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Thomas Mann
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Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and his analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Mann was a member of the Hanseatic Mann family and portrayed his family and class in his first novel and his older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland, when World War II broke out in 1939, he moved to the United States, returning to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur. Manns work influenced many authors, including Heinrich Böll, Joseph Heller, Yukio Mishima. Paul Thomas Mann was born to a family in Lübeck. His mother was Roman Catholic but Mann was baptised into his fathers Lutheran religion, Manns father died in 1891 and his trading firm was liquidated. The family subsequently moved to Munich, Mann lived in Munich from 1891 until 1933, with the exception of a year in Palestrina, Italy, with his novelist elder brother Heinrich. Thomas worked with the South German Fire Insurance Company in 1894-95 and his career as a writer began when he wrote for Simplicissimus. Manns first short story, Little Mr Friedemann, was published in 1898, in 1905, Mann married Katia Pringsheim, daughter of a wealthy, secular Jewish industrialist family. She later joined the Lutheran church, today the cottage is a cultural center dedicated to him, with a small memorial exhibition. In 1933, while traveling in the South of France, Mann heard from Klaus and Erika in Munich, the family emigrated to Küsnacht, near Zurich, Switzerland but received Czechoslovak citizenship and a passport in 1936. After Nazi Germany took over Czechoslovakia, he emigrated to the United States in 1939. In 1942, the Mann family moved to 1550 San Remo Drive in the Pacific Palisades suburb of Los Angeles, on 23 June 1944 Thomas Mann was naturalized as a citizen of the United States. The Manns lived in Los Angeles until 1952, the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, prompted Mann to offer anti-Nazi speeches to the German people via the BBC. In October 1940 he began monthly broadcasts, recorded in the U. S. and flown to London, in these eight-minute addresses, Mann condemned Hitler and his paladins as crude philistines completely out of touch with European culture. In one noted speech he said, The war is horrible, Mann was one of the few publicly active opponents of Nazism among German expatriates in the U. S
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George Bernard Shaw
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He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman, Pygmalion and Saint Joan. With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1873, where he established himself as a writer and novelist. By the mid-1880s he was a theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society, Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, 1894s Arms and the Man. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctors Dilemma and Caesar, Shaws expressed views were often contentious, he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform while opposing vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable and he castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period, and became a citizen of the Irish Free State in 1934, maintaining dual citizenship. He was prolific, finishing during the years a series of often ambitious plays which achieved varying degrees of popular success. Since Shaws death, opinion has varied about his works and he has at times been rated as second only to William Shakespeare among English-language dramatists, analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaws ideas, Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw and his elder siblings were Lucinda Frances and Elinor Agnes. The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, George Carr Shaw and his relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s, thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly, in the view of Shaws biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt, if, as Holroyd and others surmise, Georges motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her familys money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of shabby-genteel poverty. By the time of Shaws birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father, there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he recalled that her indifference. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house, Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing, Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lees unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws house was filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players
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Thomas Hardy
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Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the status of rural people in Britain. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the dUrbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. During his lifetime, Hardys poetry was acclaimed by poets who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden, Two of his novels, Tess of the dUrbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBCs survey The Big Read. Jemima was well-read, and she educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at the age of eight, for several years he attended Mr. Lasts Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester, where he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential. Because Hardys family lacked the means for a university education, his formal education ended at the age of sixteen, when he apprenticed to James Hicks. Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester before moving to London in 1862 and he won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association. He joined Arthur Blomfields practice as assistant architect in April 1862 and worked with Blomfield on All Saints parish church in Windsor, a reredos, possibly designed by Hardy, was discovered behind panelling at All Saints in August 2016. Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was conscious of class divisions. During this time he became interested in reform and the works of John Stuart Mill. He was also introduced by his Dorset friend Horace Moule to the works of Charles Fourier, after five years, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, settling in Weymouth, and decided to dedicate himself to writing. In 1870, while on a mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in Cornwall, Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Gifford. In 1885 Thomas and his wife moved into Max Gate, a designed by Hardy. In 1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior, however, he remained preoccupied with his first wifes death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry. In 1910, Hardy had been awarded the Order of Merit and was also for the first time nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and he would be nominated for the prize eleven years later. His funeral was on 16 January at Westminster Abbey, and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the grave as his first wife
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Swedish Academy
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The Swedish Academy, founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. It is known for making the decision on who will be the laureate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, modelled after the Académie française, it has 18 members. The motto of the Academy is Talent and Taste, the primary purpose of the Academy is to further the purity, strength, and sublimity of the Swedish language. To that end the Academy publishes two dictionaries, the first is a one-volume glossary called Svenska Akademiens ordlista. The second is a dictionary, edited on principles similar to those of the Oxford English Dictionary. The SAOL has reached its 14th edition while the first volume of the SAOB was published in 1898 and, as of 2014, the building now known as the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building was built for the bourgeoisie. The bottom floor was used as an exchange and the upper floor was used for balls, New Years Eve parties. When the academy was founded, the ballroom was the biggest room in Stockholm that could be heated and thus used in the winter, the academy has had its annual meeting there every year since, attended by members of the Swedish royal family. However, it was not until 1914 the academy gained the right to use the floor as their own for all eternity. It is here that the Academy meets and, amongst other business, the latter makes it arguably one of the most influential literary bodies in the world. Dag Hammarskjölds former farm at Backåkra, close to Ystad in southern Sweden, was bought in 1957 as a residence by Hammarskjöld. The south wing of the farm is reserved as a retreat for the 18 members of the Swedish Academy. Since 1901, the Academy has annually decided who will be the laureate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy annually awards nearly 50 different prizes and scholarships, most of them for domestic Swedish authors. Common to all is that they are awarded without competition and without application, the Dobloug Prize, the largest of these at $40,000, is a literature prize awarded for Swedish and Norwegian fiction. Swedish, Stora Priset, literally the Big Prize, was instituted by King Gustav III, the prize, which consists of a single gold medal, is the most prestigious award that can be awarded by the Swedish Academy. It has been awarded to, among others, Selma Lagerlöf, Herbert Tingsten, Astrid Lindgren, Evert Taube, the Academy awards around 50 prizes each year. A person does not have to apply nor compete for the prizes, full list of awards The current permanent secretary of the Academy is Sara Danius, who was preceded by Peter Englund
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Wincenty Witos
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Wincenty Witos was a prominent member of the Polish Peoples Party from 1895, and leader of its Piast faction from 1913. He was a member of parliament in the Galician Sejm from 1908–1914, Witos was also a leader of Polish Liquidation Committee in 1918, head of the Piast party, and member of parliament in the Polish Sejm from 1919-1920. He served thrice as the premier of Poland, in 1920-1921,1923, in 1926 the third Witos government was overthrown by the May coup détat led by Józef Piłsudski. Witos had been one of the leaders of the opposition to the Sanacja-government as head of Centrolew, having been imprisoned shortly thereafter and for a time living in exile in Czechoslovakia from 1933, he returned to Poland in 1939 only to be imprisoned again by the invading Germans. In ill health by 1945, he was nominated one of the vice-chairmen of the State National Council after World War II, in 1945-46 the Peoples Party was reorganized and taken over by Stanisław Mikołajczyk. Wincenty was born in a peasant family in Wierzchosławice in Lesser Poland/Galicia and his parents were Wojciech and Katarzyna née Sroka. The family was poor, owning land and no livestock. Wincenty had two brothers, Jan and Andrzej, Andrzej would also become a leader in the Polish agrarian movement. He began his education in the school at the age of ten. Subsequently he worked, helping his father, as a lumberjack for Prince Eustachy Stanisław Sanguszko, between 1895 and 1897 Wincenty served in the Austrian Army, first in infantry then in the artillery. He was stationed in Tarnów, Kraków and Krzesławice and he married Katarzyna Trach on 9 February 1898. His daughter Julia was born on 22 March 1899, at the age of nineteen he published his first newspaper article in the Przyjaciel Ludu based in Lwów, under the name Maciej Rydz. In 1895 Witos joined the Galician Stronnictwo Ludowe and in February 1903 he was elected to the Executive Committee of the party, in 1908 he was elected as a delegate to the Diet of Galicia in Lwow and served until 1914. In April 1909 Witos was elected the wójt of his native Wierzchosławice and he gradually rose in the ranks of the agrarian movement. In December 1913 the Peoples Party split, as a result in February 1914 Witos was elected as vice president of the newly created political party Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe Piast. In 1911 he served as a deputy of the party to Austrias Imperial Councils House of Representatives, technically he remained the member of the Austrian government until 1918. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Witos became even more involved in party activities, the group joined the Supreme National Committee a quasi-government for the Poles in Galicia, for which Witos served as vice president. As the political events associated with the war unfolded and the Committee became more and more irrelevant, during the war Witos kept in touch with Polish independence movement activists, including Ignacy Paderewski and Jędrzej Moraczewski
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Naturalism (literature)
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Naturalism is a literary movement that emphasizes observation and the scientific method in the fictional portrayal of reality. Novelists writing in the naturalist mode include Émile Zola, Thomas Hardy, Theodore Dreiser, Stephen Crane, Naturalism began as a branch of literary realism, and realism had favored fact, logic, and impersonality over the imaginative, symbolic, and supernatural. Dreiser, Crane, and Norris were also journalists, and thus attempted to immerse themselves in the world of fact via the assumption of detached observation. Although they considered themselves realists, naturalistic authors selected particular parts of reality, misery, corruption, vice, disease, poverty, prostitution, racism and they were criticized for being pessimistic and for concentrating excessively on the darker aspects of life. The novel would be an experiment where the author could discover and analyze the forces, or scientific laws, that behavior, and these included emotion, heredity. The paradox of naturalism is that it holds two contrary or conflicting views, human behavior is the result of free will, and yet also determined by natural laws, Naturalism Naturalism Philosophical naturalism Sociological naturalism Naturalism in 19th-century French literature Realism in the visual arts
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Aleksander Fredro
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Aleksander Fredro was a Polish poet, playwright and author active during Polish Romanticism in the period of partitions by neighboring empires. His works including plays written in the verse and in prose as well as fables. Fredro was harshly criticized by some of his contemporaries for light-hearted humor or even the alleged immorality which led to years of his literary silence, many of Fredros dozens of plays were published and popularized only after his death. His best-known works have translated into English, French, German, Russian, Czech, Romanian, Hungarian. Count Aleksander Fredro, of the Bończa coat of arms, was born in the village of Surochów near Jarosław, a landowners son, he was educated at home. He entered the Polish army at age 16 and saw action in the Napoleonic wars and his memoir Topsy Turvy Talk, which echoes the style of Laurence Sternes Tristram Shandy, recounts his military experiences during Bonapartes last campaign. While in France in 1814, he took an active interest in French drama, after leaving the army he settled on his estate and began as a writer. Fredro made his debut in 1817, but he was not interested in the problems of Romanticism. He wrote social comedies about the lifestyle of the Polish nobility and is known for his skill in characterization and plot and his work also features humor typical of folk theatre from the Romantic period, and a fast-paced farce with varying degrees of sophistication. Two of Fredros fables, The Monkey in the Bath and Paul and Gawel and his best-known comedy, Zemsta, was adapted for the screen in Poland by eminent film director Andrzej Wajda in 2002. Fredro was the grandfather of the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. He was commemorated on a Polish postage stamp issued in 1978 and he died on July 15,1876 in Lviv, was buried in a family grave in Catholic Church of the Assumption of Rudky. Mr. Geldhab Man and Wife Ladies and Husars Mr. Jovial Maidens Vows, bronx, The H. W. Wilson Company
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Nouveau riche
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Tuhao is a Chinese term referring to people of wealth. The term has several related and differing definitions, the term in its original literary form refers to those of prominent & wealthy backgrounds. In the internet age, the term has also became a slang used to describe nouveau riche. Pejoratively, the slang can be understood to carry on the meaning of uncouth nouveau riche. The term ‘tuhao’ was originally used in ancient China, dating back to the Northern and Southern Dynasties around 1500 years ago, the term originally referred to those of prominent origin, especially people of influential and wealthy backgrounds. They won by their purchasing power rather than their online game techniques or tactics and its usage has now extended to daily life. People who purchase an amount of figures, models and luxury goods are also given the nickname ‘Tuhao’. The word ‘Tuhao’ has gone viral recently since its first appearance as a joke on the Chinese social platform Weibo in 2013, A young man asks a Buddhist monk, ‘Im wealthy, what should I do. ’ The Buddhist monk says, Define wealthy. The young man answers, ‘I have millions in the bank, is that wealthy. ’ The Buddhist monk silently holds out a hand. The joke implied that the wealth was so substantial that it even made a Buddhist monk greedy. The word tuhao comprises two Chinese characters, one meaning “soil or earth, ” the other meaning “grandeur. ”“Tuhao jin” is a derived from “tuhao”. On September 20,2013, Apple Inc. launched a new champagne gold iPhone 5s, the official price for the golden version of the iPhone 5s was 5,288 yuan. But in China, the price of a golden iPhone 5s was above 8,800 yuan and it had become a must-have item for many Chinese and soon sold out in China, prompting huge reactions on the Chinese internet. The media nicknamed the gold color as “tuhao jin”, denoting the lavish, garish. On the Chinese social network Weibo, one user mocked the building’s golden exterior, exclaiming, what a massive ‘tuhao jin’…” The fact is that Chinese has always had derogatory terms for the rich and unsophisticated. Tuhao is significant not because it is another term, but because it is a parody of such terms. Tuhao indicates fusions of rustic roots with material ambition and gaudy expressions, however, in taking this to the nth degree, the term also evinces a new capacity for Chinese to laugh at themselves. It also heralds a future where face-driven materialism will be less obviously paramount in consumption, related trends can be seen all over Chinas consumer economy today, not least in changes to the luxury sector
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Andrzej Wajda
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Andrzej Witold Wajda was a Polish film and theatre director. Recipient of an Honorary Oscar, the Palme dOr, as well as Honorary Golden Lion and Golden Bear Awards and he was known especially for his trilogy of war films consisting of A Generation, Kanał and Ashes and Diamonds. Four of his films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, The Promised Land, The Maids of Wilko, Man of Iron and Katyń. Wajda was born in Suwałki, Poland, the son of Aniela, a teacher, and Jakub Wajda. Wajdas father was murdered by the Soviets in 1940 in what came to be known as the Katyn massacre, in 1942 he joined the Polish resistance and served in the Home Army. After the war, he studied to be a painter at Krakóws Academy of Fine Arts before entering the Łódź Film School, after Wajdas apprenticeship to director Aleksander Ford, Wajda was given the opportunity to direct his own film. A Generation was his first major film, at the same time Wajda began his work as a director in theatre, including such as Michael V. Gazzos A Hatful of Rain, Hamlet, and Two for the Seesaw by William Gibson. Wajda made two more accomplished films, which developed further the anti-war theme of A Generation, Kanał and Ashes. While capable of turning out mainstream commercial fare, Wajda was more interested in works of allegory and symbolism, then Wajda directed Samson, the story of Jacob, a Jewish boy, who wants to survive during the Nazi occupation of Poland. The Birch Wood was entered into the 7th Moscow International Film Festival where Wajda won the Golden Prize for Direction, the directors involvement in this movement would prompt the Polish government to force Wajdas production company out of business. For the film, Wajda won the Palme dOr at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1983, he directed Danton, starring Gérard Depardieu in the title role, a film set in 1794 dealing with the Post-Revolutionary Terror. Made against the backdrop of the law in Poland, Wajda showed how easily revolution can change into terror. For this film Wajda was honoured with the Louis Delluc Prize, in the 1980s he also made A Love in Germany featuring Hanna Schygulla, The Chronicle of Amorous Incidents an adaptation of Tadeusz Konwickis novel and The Possessed based on Dostoyevskys novel. In theatre he prepared an interpretation of Dostoyevskys Crime and Punishment and other unique spectacles such as Antygone, in 1989, he was the President of the Jury at the 16th Moscow International Film Festival. In 1990, Andrzej Wajda was honoured by the European Film Awards for his achievement, only the third director to be so honoured, after Federico Fellini. In the early 1990s, he was elected a senator and also appointed director of Warsaws Teatr Powszechny. In 1994 Wajda presented his own version of Dostoyevskys novel The Idiot in the movie Nastasja, starring Japanese actor Tamasoburo Bando in the double role of Prince Mishkin. The film was photographed by Pawel Edelman, who became one of Wajdas great co-workers
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Bible
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The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. Many different authors contributed to the Bible, what is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups, a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, the New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, letters, among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible also differ amongst Christian groups and this concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching. With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the book of all time. It has estimated sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West. The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin. Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra holy book, while biblia in Greek and it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra holy books translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, the word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of paper or scroll and came to be used as the ordinary word for book. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, Egyptian papyrus, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece, the Greek ta biblia was an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books. Christian use of the term can be traced to c.223 CE, bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus and he states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that, Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, the period of transmission is short, less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Marks Gospel. This means that there was time for oral traditions to assume fixed form
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Greek mythology
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It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
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Symbolism (arts)
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Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s, in the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The name symbolist itself was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, distinct from, but related to, the style of literature, symbolism in art is related to the gothic component of Romanticism and Impressionism. In ancient Greece, the symbolon was a shard of pottery which was inscribed, Symbolism was a reaction in favour of spirituality, the imagination, and dreams. Some writers, such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, began as naturalists before becoming symbolists, for Huysmans, the Symbolist poets have a more complex relationship with Parnassianism, a French literary style that immediately preceded it. The Symbolists continued to admire Théophile Gautiers motto of art for arts sake, many Symbolist poets, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, published early works in Le Parnasse contemporain, the poetry anthologies that gave Parnassianism its name. One of Symbolisms most colourful promoters in Paris was art and literary critic Joséphin Péladan, a number of Symbolists were associated with the Salon. Symbolists believed that art should represent absolute truths that could only be described indirectly, thus, they wrote in a very metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. Jean Moréas published the Symbolist Manifesto in Le Figaro on 18 September 1886, the Symbolist Manifesto names Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Paul Verlaine as the three leading poets of the movement. In a nutshell, as Mallarmé writes in a letter to his friend Cazalis, to not the thing. Symbolist poems were attempts to evoke, rather than primarily to describe, – both poets seek to identify one sense experience with another. The earlier Romanticism of poetry used symbols, but these symbols were unique, the symbolists were more extreme, investing all things, even vowels and perfumes, with potential symbolic value. The physical universe, then, is a kind of language that invites a privileged spectator to decipher it, Symbolist symbols are not allegories, intended to represent, they are instead intended to evoke particular states of mind. The nominal subject of Mallarmés Le cygne is of a trapped in a frozen lake. Significantly, in French, cygne is a homophone of signe, un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre. They were also portrayed as at odds with society, having tragic lives and these traits were not hindrances but consequences of their literary gifts. Schopenhauers aesthetics represented shared concerns with the symbolist programme, they tended to consider Art as a contemplative refuge from the world of strife and will
