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Solidarity, full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity", is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state. The union's membership peaked at 10 million in September 1981, representing one-third of the country's working-age population. Solidarity's leader Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and the union is widely recognised as having played a central role in the end of Communist rule in Poland.
Jacek Jan Kuroń was one of the democratic leaders of opposition in the People's Republic of Poland. He was widely known as the "godfather of the Polish opposition," not unlike Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia. Kuroń was a prominent Polish social and political figure known for his efforts at reforming societies under the control of the Soviet Union. As an educator and historian, he first postulated the concept of a de-centered movement that would question the totalitarian system and its personality cult. Kuroń started out as an activist of the Polish Scouting Association trying to educate young people that would take charge of the future; he later co-founded with Antoni Macierewicz the Workers' Defence Committee or KOR, a major dissident organization that was superseded by Solidarity in August 1980. After the changes in independent Poland, he ran for president supported by the likes of Jan Karski and served twice as Minister of Labour and Social Policy. Kuroń was the father of chef Maciej Kuroń.
Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier was a British historian of Polish-Jewish background. His best-known works were The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (1929), England in the Age of the American Revolution (1930) and the History of Parliament series he edited later in his life with John Brooke.
Timothy Garton Ash is a British historian, author and commentator. He is Professor of European Studies at Oxford University. Most of his work has been concerned with the contemporary history of Europe, with a special focus on Central and Eastern Europe.
Leszek Kołakowski was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, such as in his three-volume history of Marxist philosophy Main Currents of Marxism (1976). In his later work, Kołakowski increasingly focused on religious questions. In his 1986 Jefferson Lecture, he asserted that "we learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are".
The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of Marxist–Leninist regime in Poland after the end of World War II. These years, while featuring general industrialization, urbanization and many improvements in the standard of living, were marred by early Stalinist repressions, social unrest, political strife and severe economic difficulties. Near the end of World War II, the advancing Soviet Red Army, along with the Polish Armed Forces in the East, pushed out the Nazi German forces from occupied Poland. In February 1945, the Yalta Conference sanctioned the formation of a provisional government of Poland from a compromise coalition, until postwar elections. Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, manipulated the implementation of that ruling. A practically communist-controlled Provisional Government of National Unity was formed in Warsaw by ignoring the Polish government-in-exile based in London since 1940.
Gustaw Herling-Grudziński was a Polish writer, journalist, essayist, World War II underground fighter, and political dissident abroad during the communist system in Poland. He is best known for writing a personal account of life in the Soviet Gulag entitled A World Apart, first published in 1951 in London.
Solidarity, a Polish non-governmental trade union, was founded on August 14, 1980, at the Lenin Shipyards by Lech Wałęsa and others. In the early 1980s, it became the first independent labor union in a Soviet-bloc country. Solidarity gave rise to a broad, non-violent, anti-Communist social movement that, at its height, claimed some 9.4 million members. It is considered to have contributed greatly to the Fall of Communism.
Karol Cyryl Modzelewski was a Polish historian, writer, politician and academic of Russian origin, one of the leading figures of the democratic opposition in the Polish People's Republic from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Fighting Solidarity was a Polish anti-Soviet and anti-communist organization. It was founded in June 1982 by Kornel Morawiecki in the Polish city of Wrocław. Its creation was in response to the de-legalization of the Solidarity movement and associated communist government repression of the opposition symbolized by the imposition of martial law in 1981. Many consider this faction as one of the most radical and uncompromising splinters of the wider Solidarity movement.
The battle for trade was an element of the state politics in the early period of communist takeover of Poland (1946–49) according to which new laws and regulations succeeded in significantly decreasing the size of the private sector in Polish trade, in order to facilitate the transformation of Polish economy from capitalism to Soviet communism's planned economy.
The Republic of Poland and Czechoslovakia established relations early in the interwar period, after both countries gained independence. Those relations were somewhat strained by the Polish–Czechoslovak border conflicts over Trans-Olza and Cieszyn in the early 1920s and late 1930s. Both countries joined the Allies during World War II. After the war they both fell into the Soviet sphere of influence. Poland, together with other Eastern Bloc countries, participated in the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Relations between the two countries were nonetheless rather amicable, but became somewhat strained in the aftermath of the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland in 1980 and 1981, improving again afterwards.
Jerzy Borejsza was a Polish communist activist and writer. During the Stalinist period of communist Poland, he was chief of a state press and publishing syndicate.
The 1988 Polish strikes were a massive wave of workers' strikes which broke out from 21 April 1988 in the Polish People's Republic. The strikes, as well as street demonstrations, continued throughout spring and summer, ending in early September 1988. These actions shook the Communist regime of the country to such an extent that it was forced to begin talking about recognising Solidarity. As a result, later that year, the regime decided to negotiate with the opposition, which opened way for the 1989 Round Table Agreement. The second, much bigger wave of strikes surprised both the government, and top leaders of Solidarity, who were not expecting actions of such intensity. These strikes were mostly organized by local activists, who had no idea that their leaders from Warsaw had already started secret negotiations with the Communists.
Andrzej Stanisław Walicki was a Polish historian. He was a professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States. He specialized in philosophy of sociopolitics, history of Polish and Russian philosophy, Marxism and liberal thought. He was one of the scholars who formed the "Warsaw School of the History of Ideas".
Karolina Wigura is a sociologist, historian of ideas and journalist. She is Member of the Board of Kultura Liberalna Foundation, which publishes Kultura Liberalna, one of Poland's leading weekly magazines. She is also a Senior Fellow of the Zentrum Liberale Moderne (LibMod), an assistant professor at Warsaw University's Institute of Sociology and a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Jacek Krzysztof Czaputowicz is a Polish politician and academic who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland from 9 January 2018 to 20 August 2020.
Political prisoners in Poland and Polish territories have existed throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 19th century, some Polish political prisoners started using their situation of imprisonment to act politically. This phenomenon became visible as early as in the aftermath of the Greater Poland Uprising of 1848.
This is a select bibliography of English language books and journal articles about the history of Poland. A brief selection of English translations of primary sources is included. Book entries have references to journal articles and reviews about them when helpful. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below; see Further Reading for several book and chapter-length bibliographies. The External Links section contains entries for publicly available select bibliographies from universities and national libraries. This bibliography specifically excludes non-history related works and self-published books.
This is a select bibliography of English language books and journal articles about the history of Belarus and Byelorussia. A brief selection of English translations of primary sources is included. Book entries have references to journal articles and reviews about them when helpful. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below; see Further Reading for several book and chapter-length bibliographies. The External links section contains entries for publicly available select bibliographies from universities.
References
- ↑ "Padraic Jeremiah Kenney". Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors (Collection). Gale. 2018. ISBN 9780787639952 . Retrieved 27 January 2023.
- ↑ "Faculty and Research: Padraic Kenney". Indiana University Bloomington. Retrieved 24 April 2011.
- ↑ "Leadership & Administration".
- ↑ "History".
- ↑ "Padraic Kenney Archives". Kultura Liberalna.
- ↑ Kenney, Padraic (March 9, 2014). "Opinion | Why Poland Cares So Much About Ukraine". The New York Times.
- ↑ "The heroes of 1989 - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com.
- ↑ "Padraic Kenney: Abu Ghraib Similar to Worst of Historical Precedents | History News Network". historynewsnetwork.org.
- ↑ "FY 2005 Grantees by World Area for the Faculty Research Abroad Program (Excel)". U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved 24 April 2011.
