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Language and religious features The official language in Poland is Polish. English, German and Russian are also used in the country. Poland ‘s main religion: Roman Catholic. Poland is the most Catholic country in Eastern Europe, the church occupies one of the important places in the life of the country and takes an active part in economic and socio-political activities. When visiting a church at the entrance, you must kneel with your head bowed and cross yourself, entering the interior,…

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Art in Poland began to develop at the end of the century. X and in the first half of the century. XI under the influence of Western art. The first architects came with the clergy from Germany and especially from the banks of the Rhine. The most important monuments of that time are the churches in Krakow, those in Łęgczyca, Czerwińsk, Opatów, Płock, Strzelno, Kościelec and numerous other smaller ones that approach to the German Romanesque. The Byzantine churches of…

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The center-right and center-left governments that had alternated after the first free elections, held in 1989, had failed to give political and economic stability to the country, which at the turn of the century still appeared shaken by profound social conflicts and pervaded by a widespread sense of uncertainty and mistrust towards the ruling elites, as evidenced by the low turnout that characterized the legislative elections of the nineties (43.2 % of those entitled in 1991, 52.1 % in 1993, 47.9…

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State of Europe, bordering N. with Latvia, Lithuania, Germany (East Prussia) and the territory of Gdansk, to the west of which it flows briefly into the Baltic Sea; to O., also with Germany; to S., with Czechoslovakia and Romania; to E., with the USSR (Ukraine and White Russia). According to indexdotcom, Poland essentially includes the extreme eastern edge of the lowland belt that surrounds central Europe to the north and the northern side of the northern Carpathians. The strip of…

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During the Sixties Cybulski, Munk, Kobiela and the musician Krzysztof Komeda disappeared: with them, as well as an era, also a style ended. Munk was leaving, leaving a masterpiece unfinished, Pasażerka (1963; The Passenger), which describes life in concentration camps without illusions, as a sadistic game between tormentor and victim. As the years passed (and it was very clear at the time of Solidarity), Nazism became the great metaphor used to refer to the authoritarianism of the regime. The nouvelles…

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Main characteristics of contemporary Polish art are the extreme versatility, and the sensitivity towards avant-garde trends. Although at the beginning of the 1950s, similarly to what happens in other socialist countries, the academic-naturalistic approach is also present in the art of Poland (W. Zakrzewski, W. Fangor, F. Sz. Kowarski, H. Krajewska, J. Krajewski), deriving from the erroneous interpretation of the theory of “socialist realism”, however the best of figurative painters do not completely detach themselves from the achievements of modern…

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Unlike the Balkan Slavs and the Russians, the Poles, as well as the other Western Slavs, do not possess epic-narrative songs. Therefore, the Poles lack a popular-poetic interpretation of their past. Rather numerous in the Polish countryside, and still vital, are the ritual songs (pie ś ni obrz ę dowe), some of which, namely the wedding songs (weselne), the Christmas and New Year songs (kol ę dy from the Latin calendae), the Easter songs (wielkanocne) and the harvest songs (do…

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After Piłsudski’s death, Polish foreign policy continues to follow the path, marked by the marshal, of rigorous independence and autonomy. It retains its realistic spirit, its opposition to all doctrinalism, its firm pacifism. In relations with Germany, the fundamental act of Minister Beck’s policy remains the declaration of January 26, 1934, reinforced by the assurances given by Hitler in his speech of May 21, 1935, in which he paid homage to the memory of Piłsudski, and by the visit that…

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Even the new Poland has an essentially agricultural character, as shown, among other things, by the percentage of the rural population (69%), but this character is less accentuated than in pre-war Poland, following the loss of exclusively agricultural-forestry territories, like the oriental ones and the purchase of all Silesia where, on the other hand, alongside agriculture, industries are also of primary importance. However, agriculture remains, for now, the basic activity of the Polish population. Still very little is known about…

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Over the past thirty years, the Polish contribution to contemporary art has become quite remarkable. The development of modern art in Poland begins with Alexander Gierymski, forerunner of Polish Impressionism, and with his disciples W. Podkowiński and J. Pankiewicz (born 1867-died 1941). The latter, as professor of the Krakow Academy, became the mentor and teacher of a number of generations of Polish artists. Rubczak, Kisling and Zawadowski are among the most eminent first pupils. We will speak later of his…

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The first postwar period At the end of the First World War, Poland rose again as an independent state led by Piłsudski. In the years immediately following territorial disputes pitted it against Germany and Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and especially Russia, following the Polish invasion of parts of Ukraine and Belarus, which was followed by a conflict, concluded in 1921 by the Peace of Riga, which recognized Polish sovereignty over the western regions of the two republics. Internally, in 1926 there was a military…

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From 35 million residents (evaluation of January 1939) Poland has passed (census of February 16, 1946) to 23,929,800 residents, including 2,288,000 Germans and 399,600 Ukrainians, Russians-Whites and Lithuanians (which according to the Potsdam and Moscow agreements had to abandon the Polish territory) in addition to 417,400 residents of nationality not ascertained. On the other hand, the Poles who were outside the borders at the time of the census were estimated to be around 3 million. Both the expulsion of the…

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The first census carried out in the Polish Republic was that of 30 September 1921, and on that date there were 27,176,700 residents, 70 per sq. Km. The second census took place on December 9, 1931 and gave a population of 32,120,000 residents, 82.2 per sq. Km.; an evaluation as of January 1934 gave 33,024,000 residents. In the decade 1921-1931, therefore, the population of Poland increased on average by 18.2 ‰ per year (in the territory already under Russian rule…

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Division. – In 1950 the administrative division of Poland was changed: the new voivodships of Koszalin, Opole and Źielona Góra were created. Furthermore, the denomination of some voivodships has been changed; that of Silesia has taken the name of its capital Katowice (which, formerly Stalinograd, has taken the old name) and that of Pomorze now has the name of Bydgoszcz. In 1951 a territorial exchange with the USSR took place: Poland ceded a territory of 480 km 2of the Lublin voivodeship…

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