In March 1968, students protested against the authorities' policies toward culture, science and education. The action initiated in Warsaw embraced almost all the academic centers and some smaller cities, going beyond the student milieu. The 'Zwiazek Mlodziezy Socjalistycznej', ZMS, (Union of Socialist Youth) was surprised by its outbreak, although the ferment had grown before its very eyes and within the framework of its structure. The attitudes of the Union's members towards the events of March were very diverse. Generally, the activists stood behind the authorities; the ordinary members, however, distanced themselves from the dispute or from identifying with the students who lent their support in various forms to the independent movement. In official pronouncements, the union condemned the protest actions, which organized groups of members attempted to hinder. The official youth-oriented press joined in the anti-Semitic propaganda. The fact that ZMS turned its back on the students finally compromised it in their eyes and many people resigned their membership. Also disappointed was the ruling of the Polish United Workers Party, which realized that the Union had no real influence on the younger generation. The March 1968 events thus both demonstrated ZMS' weakness and further compounded it, which led, in the course of a few years, to changes within the youth movement in Poland.
(Title in Polish - 'To, czego nie ma. Relacje i wspomnienia kobiet z Powstania Warszawskiego jako gotowe, a niezrealizowane scenariusze filmowe'). In the Polish feature films about Warsaw Uprising there are no women. They of course appear as nurses, civilians or message runners. But they are always part of the background, seen, but not looking, symbolic in their presence, and never the active heroines; always serving, and never independent or autonomous. If they are the heroines of the drama, then they are part of someone else's drama, and are not given a voice of their own. Their narratives and accounts of life, even everyday life, are left unsaid, hidden behind grand and epic narratives of the heroes. The article is about women's 'micro-narratives', the memories of women who lived in Warsaw and participated in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The memories give us a chance to see the Uprising in a different light, one that includes the women's perspective and experience of the Uprising. Women's accounts, due to their graphic nature and their uniqueness appear to be ready made film scripts, that have yet to be filmed.
Vladimir Toporov's article was written as a contribution to the jubilee book published to celebrate Professor Viktor Khoryev's seventieth anniversary (Studia Polonica. K 70-letiyu V. A. Khoryeva, Moscow, 2001). According to the book's title, the author, perceiving the partitions of Poland as a great political crime of 19th century, one which burdened the conscience of Russia and Russians, attempts at replying the question of how Russian literature responded to those dramatic events marking the end of the First Commonwealth. There were not so many compassioning reactions on the part of Russian literature. Attention is drawn, among those few, by 'Boleslav', a tragedy (unfinished) by Mikhail Muravev (1757-1817), one of the first Russian sentimentalist writers. The article reconstructs the play's creative history, along with discussing various depictions of the same theme (being a motif from the history of Poland) and outlining its ideological significance.
Illustrating the recent exhibition Estranged / Obcy w domu, the author wonders if, and how, contemporary Polish visual art has contributed to integrating the shame of the anti-Semitic campaign into the collective memory of the nation. She focuses in particular on the works of three artists: Krystyna Piotrowska, Erna Rosenstein, and Krzysztof Wodiczko, and on how the exhibition represents some currents in visual studies linked to historical narrative.
The article describes the institution of the Professors' General Meeting which constituted the highest collegial self-government body at universities in the Second Polish Republic. The basic formal and legal conditions for the functioning of the institution are described. The body of the article is divided into six parts. The introduction points to the unique nature of the General Meeting in the context of Polish academic legislation of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century as well as the grounds for commencing the research from the date of 15 September 1920. Subsequently, the system of public academic education is described, including the classification of universities within the scope relevant for the subject of the research, and academic privileges considered unique in comparison with other research and education units are specified. The second chapter discusses the institution of the Professors' General Meeting and its three stages of development that can be identified in the interwar period. The author also analyzes the member roster and its changes in time as well as the impact that the academic groups (teachers, administrative employees and students, including all ranks and categories) exercised upon the functioning of the university, comparing the 1920-1939 period and the Third Polish Republic. The next chapter describes the basic procedures of the Professors' General Meeting. The further deliberations concern the detailed competences of the body with special emphasis put on the reduction of these competences and their classification in terms of dependence on or independence from the approval of the Minister of Religious Denominations and Public Education. Additionally, the specific character of the Professors' General Meeting in one-faculty universities in 1933-1937 is also discussed since the rights of that body in such cases were extended by the responsibilities of the faculty council and the university senate. The article is concluded with a summary of basic facts from the history of the institution of the Professors' General Meeting at public universities in the interwar Poland and an attempt to explain the conspicuous tendencies in its development and the reasons for this development.
(Polish title: Królestwo Cypru jako obiekt zainteresowan panstw sródziemnomorskich w latach 1192-1489. Próba zarysowania). Under the rule of the French Lusignan dynasty, Cyprus quickly became the focus of interest to other countries: Sicily under the reign of the Hohenstaufen, Anjou and Aragon houses, Italian countries of Genoa, Venice and Duchy of Savoy, England and African Mamluk Sultanate. Initially the interest was based on political reasons, however, with the arrival of the Crusaders to the Holy Land and then the development of trade with Muslims there were economic reasons for seizing power over the island. What is more, the above deliberation clearly reveals the declining political position of the Lusignan dynasty who starting from the end of the 14thcentury could only observe how Mediterranean countries fought for control over Cyprus. After the death of Peter I of Cyprus (1359-1369), the most prominent king and the conqueror of Alexandria, the period of glory, when the island infl uenced international policy mostly - though not only - in the eastern region of the Mediterranean Sea, came to an end. From then on Cyprus was merely a subject of diplomatic, economic as well as military efforts and conflicts undertaken by Mediterranean countries. The present paper does not assume to exhaust the subject. However, it is an introduction to a broader research on the matter in question which is immensely relevant for depicting the medieval political and economic situation in the Mediterranean Sea region.
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