Czech historian Jaroslav Bidlo and his involvement in the neo-slav movement before World War I The Czech historian Jaroslav Bidlo (1868–1937) was one of the few Austro-Hungarian scholars who possessed vast and critical knowledge in the field of history of Slavic nations. His knowledge was based on his own experience gathered in Polish and Russian academic circles before World War I. As a professor of the Czech Charles-Ferdinand University he was involved in the so-called Neo-Slav movement, which culminated in the “Slavic Congress” in Prague in July 1908, and in the edition of a collective monograph about the Slavic nations (Slovanstvo, Prague 1912). Bidlo used these opportunities to create his own synthetic concept of Slavic history, which he later successfully developed during the interwar period.

Social policy of the Independent Polish Republic: The construction and the evolution of the system Twenty years of independence turned out not to be long enough for the process of the construction of a coherent system of social policy to be finished. A complicated opening balance sheet, unfavourable economic and social structure of the state and, last but not least, a permanent lack of resources made it impossible to create a system which would satisfy existing needs. It remained in its construction phase and, though it was becoming more and more comprehensive, it was still extremely underfunded and flawed. This is confirmed by its limited coverage, which resulted from structural barriers. It was impossible to remedy this in the short interwar period, although the scale of problems and shortages was known. With time, social policy in Poland became a mature sphere of state activity, which is confirmed by the new objectives that currently lay before it, and by the regulatory and practical activities undertaken at the end of the 1930s.

Parting with a villain? Yuan Shikai in light of new research Yuan Shikai, the military strongman of late Qing Empire, talented administrator and reformer, crucial figure during the 1911 (Xinhai) Republican Revolution, president with dictatorial power and, finally, a self-proclaimed emperor, is the most controversial figure of 20th-century China. After his death during the civil war that his actions provoked, historiography (communist and non-communist) portrayed Yuan as traitor and chief villain. In following years Yuan was almost unanimously denounced by Soviet (S.L. Tikhvinsky, O. Nepomnin) and Western (L. Sharman, E. Hummel) historiography. His first biography, written by Jerome Ch’en in 1960, fully upheld this portrait. Significant studies (1968 and 1977) of Ernest P. Young, based on important primary sources, went unnoticed at the time. It was also the case with Stephen McKinnon’s volume on Yuan as brilliant Qing official in Tianjin and Beijing between 1901 and 1908. During the two last decades of the 20th century some smaller studies changed this unfavorable portrait. In the eyes of Marie-Claire Bergère, Madleine Ch’i, Luke Kwong and Henerietta Harrison, Yuan appears as a far-sighted statesman and defender of Chinese raison d’état. The last biography written by Patrick Fuliang Shan portrays Yuan as an extremely power-hungry and astute politician and as a conservative reformer and modernizer, at the same time. His political failure was both his personal tragedy and a catastrophe of the Chinese nation.

Economic achievements of Interwar Poland: Traditions and challenges The economic policy of Interwar Poland was shaped by two outstanding personalities –Władysław Grabski and Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski. Grabski represented the tradition of liberal economic policy, macroeconomic balance and openness. Kwiatkowski has become a symbol of economic self-sufficiency, independence from outside world and of statism. Interwar Poland faced four big challenges: unification, macroeconomic stabilisation, capitalisation and modernisation, and it succeeded in all those fields. However, the problem of social and national integrity remained unsolved.

In the spring of 1917 the Admiralty established a historical section whose main duty was to provide the British delegates to the Peace Conference with geographical, economic, historical, social, religious and political information regarding diff erent parts of the world. The section prepared 174 handbooks which, due to a great interest from the British public, were issued for general and public use in 1920. One of the subjects discussed in the handbooks was the history of Poland from 1569 to the outbreak of the First World War. This subject was of great signifi cance as the authors of the handbooks adopted historical reasoning, i.e. they believed that the origins of present-day problems and their solutions could be found through studying history. The aim of the article is to assess the knowledge of Poland's history as presented in the handbooks and to learn to what extent this knowledge infl uenced British policy towards Poland during the Peace Conference.

Rola Marii Kazimiery w stosunkach polsko-francuskich w czasach panowania Jana III Sobieskiego

In the early 1930's, the Polish codebreakers succeeded while all the others failed: they broke the Enigma. Three young and brilliant mathematicians, Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rycki managed to read the German cyphertexts from 1933 to as late as 1939. But this huge success remained a secret for a long time, unknown in France and England. After the fall of Poland in September 1939, the three mathematicians linked their fate with the French secret service and kept breaking the Enigma code. Again, following the French defeat of June 1940, they experienced exile and irremediably sank into oblivion. Today, the story of the Polish codebreakers and the French secret service remains very little known in France, although their work proved decisive in the Allied victory during the Second World War.

Prace Historyczne » 2019 » Numer 146 (3) » Polish Veterans of the Polish Armed Forces in the West: Who Decided to Emigrate to the USA and Canada after World War II – an Oral History Perspective A A A

Prace Historyczne » 2019 » Numer 146 (4) » Zapis Antoniego Dydyńskiego z 2 lutego 1808 roku – przyczynek do badań nad FundacjÄ StypendialnÄ im. Antoniego Dydyńskiego w Godowej A A A

Prace Historyczne » 2018 » Numer 145 (4) » The besieged: Role and place of civilian population during a siege as presented in military treatises of Late Antiquity A A A