💌 Details of the painting of Poland’s first female monarch, Jadwiga of Anjou (1384–1399), by Italian-Polish painter, Marcello Bacciarelli, circa 1768–1771.

Meanwhile in Poland....

It is possible for a country to be destroyed and then rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Poland has done it more than once....

Poland officially came into existence in the year 966, but at the end of the 18th century the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was destroyed by its neighbours - Austria, Prussia and Russia - who wiped it off the map.

The first attempt to resurrect a Polish state was the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807 by Napoleon, which only lasted a few years before disappearing from the map again after Napoleon's defeat in the east.

Uprisings in 1830 and 1863 were also brutally suppressed.

But Poland was eventually resurrected after the First World War and became an independent state once more on 11th November 1918.

In 1939 the Nazis and Soviets removed Poland from the map again, and after the Second World War it remained under Soviet rule until 1989, when Poland succeeded in peacefully overthrowing Moscow's puppet regime and finally regaining its independence....

Polish armoured trains in Britain

On 13 of December 1981 communist regime of People's Republic of Poland introduced martial law and delegalised Solidarity movement. Harsh repressions and abuses followed. Wroniec (Crowsman) by Jacek Dukaj is a contemporary book about these events told like an absurd fairy tale from the perspective of a child. Unfortunately there's no English translation but if your level of Polish is good enough to read, i wholeheartedly recommend this book.

Insurgent fighters - almost all in posed pictures - from the Second Silesian Uprising / II powstanie śląskie, September 1920. Grabbed from sundry Polish news websites. 

A ROKOSZ ORIGINALLY WAS A GATHERING OF ALL THE POLISH SZLACHTA (NOBILITY), NOT MERELY OF DEPUTIES, FOR A SEJM. THE TERM WAS INTRODUCED TO THE POLISH LANGUAGE FROM HUNGARY, WHERE ANALOGOUS GATHERINGS TOOK PLACE AT A FIELD CALLED RÁKOS. WITH TIME, "ROKOSZ" CAME TO SIGNIFY AN ARMED, SEMI-LEGAL, REBELLION BY THE SZLACHTA OF THE POLISH–LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH AGAINST THE KING, IN THE NAME OF DEFENDING THREATENED LIBERTIES.THE NOBLES WHO GATHERED FOR A ROKOSZ FORMED A "CONFEDERATION".

XIII-wieczny zamek i XX-wieczna kapliczka w Chęcinach

"Old Town Square at Night" by Józef Pankiewicz (1892) vs the same place on November 28th 2023 (Warsaw)

Medieval Toy Unearthed in Poland

A 800-year-old horse figurine was found during an excavation conducted as part of the construction of a new fire station in Toruń, a medieval town on the Vistula River in north-central Poland. The small clay horse was glazed and has a hole in its underside. Researchers think a stick may have fit into the hole so that playing children could pretend to make the horse gallop or use it as a puppet.

Zamek Królewski w Warszawie, Poland

September the 17th marks the 83 anniversary of Russian invasion on Poland in 1939, just two weeks after German invasion occured and while Poland was still defending itself from the Nazi agression. On 23 September 1939 Germany and Russia signed a secret treaty by the force of which Nazis and Soviets divided Europe between themselves. Russian invasion and followed occupation brought terror, atrocities and mass deportations to Siberia.

And now, 83 years later, Russia is still carrying imperialistic, genocidal wars against free and independent ccountries - Ukraine.

Commemorative article on the topic by Andrzej Duda.

Scene from the most famous Yiddish play The Dybbuk by the Vilner Trupe. 1910s.