The article is an attempt to reconstruct the biography of Stanisław Strumph- Wojtkiewicz – a publicist, poet, journalist, translator – one of the most widely read writers of the Polish People’s Republic. Based on extensive archival materials, the author analyzes the life and work of Strumph-Wojtkiewicz, restoring the memory of a figure who is now almost completely forgotten, but who was once recognizable and appreciated both in the interwar period and during World War II, as well as in the post-war years.
In the countries of Western Europe, honours and awards have a long-established tradition going back centuries. The picture is different in Eastern Europe, where national decorations of merit are much younger. In most countries of the region, the birth of their own systems of honours and awards dates to the period of 1918–1920 and is directly related to the course and outcomes of the First World War. This process had similarities and differences across countries. The political results of the First World War were extremely significant. The largest empires ceased to exist. On their ruins, new independent states emerged, mostly in Eastern Europe. Literally from the first days of their existence, the young states were involved in a series of armed conflicts, both internal and external. In the course of these wars, national armies with their own symbols and insignia emerged. In this regard, it is not surprising that military decorations were the first to appear in all countries of Eastern Europe, and it was with them that the formation of national systems of honours and awards began. For a long time, military awards remained the only decorations of merit. They were occasionally granted to civilians, as well as used for diplomatic purposes, being conferred on foreign statesmen and military leaders. Some countries (Poland, Estonia) tried to overcome the deficit of awards by dividing them into many classes and degrees. All countries in the region, except Poland, lacked their own distinct traditions of awards and decorations. As they wished to avoid copying already known patterns, and even more so imitating former empires, the new states turned to their own mythology, history, and heraldry in search of originality. So, the swastika appeared in the phaleristics of Latvia, the cross of the Jagiellonians in Lithuania, the cross of the Master of the Teutonic Order in Estonia, and linden leaves, branches, and wreaths in Czechoslovakia.
Piotr Kordel, Marcin Rządeczka, Marcin Rządeczka
et al.
IntroductionFleeing from war can be terrifying and result in Acute Stress Disorder (ASD), a mental health condition that can occur in the first month after a traumatic event. The study aimed to identify the prevalence of ASD among Ukrainian refugees and identify its risk factors to create a profile of the most vulnerable refugees.MethodsThis cross-sectional study of 637 Ukrainian war-displaced persons and refugees in 2022 used the Acute Stress Disorder Scale.ResultsThe prevalence of ASD among participants was high (93.5%). Several factors increasing the risk of developing ASD in the sample were identified, e.g., witnessing Russian attacks (OR 2.92, 95% CI 1.26–6.78), insufficient financial resources (OR 3.56, 95% CI 1.61–7.91), and feeling of loneliness in the host country (OR 3.07, 95% CI 1.58–8.69). Pre-existing depression and the death of a close person, among others, were found to significantly (p < 0.05) exacerbate the ASD symptoms. At the same time, neither age, the distance traveled, time spent on fleeing the country, nor the type of companionship during refuge (escaping alone, with children, pets or the older adults) correlate with the severity of symptoms.ConclusionThe study shows extreme levels of trauma among Ukrainian war refugees and displaced persons. Knowledge regarding ASD vulnerabilities in the present conflict may facilitate prompt and adequate psychological help. Since ASD can be an antecedent of PTSD and several autoimmune disorders, these results may also serve as a predictor of future challenges for Ukrainian society.
Background. The federal organization of the state has its pros and cons, which largely allow us to analyze the history of the formation of federations. Among the latter, the experience of the formation of the USSR, whose 100th anniversary is celebrated in Decem-ber 2022, is of great interest. Materials and methods. An analytical review of the events that took place on the western borders and in the central European part of the former Rus-sian Empire is presented. The article examines the materials not only in the historical and factual plane, but also through the prism of numerous factors – foreign and domestic, socio-economic, ethno-cultural and others. The authors proceed from the assumption of the tradi-tional excessive concentration of the Russian elites in the western direction. Results. The article states the lack of desire and incentives for a deep territorial and organizational re-form of autocratic Russia. At the same time, the obvious weakness and instability of the Provisional Government prevented it from moving forward along the path of optimizing domestic relations. As a result, after the October Revolution of 1917, the former Russian Empire got rid of its most problematic or ethnically alien units – Poland, the Baltic states. At the same time, the new government had to enter into a sharp struggle for Ukraine, an ethnically close territory with a complex national composition and a thin aggressive nation-alist stratum. The temporary German occupation and the regime of Hetman Skoropadsky complicated the alignment of political forces, and the inglorious retreat of the German troops saturated Ukraine with weapons and additionally dragged out the Civil War, as well as the successes of the White movement. The offensive of the White Poles and the right-wing nationalist S. Petlyura became the final chord of the confrontation in 1920. The dura-tion of the struggle for Ukraine prompted the Bolsheviks to make unnecessary concessions to the nationalist forces, which became a strategic mistake. This was not allowed in Belarus because of its great compactness and unambiguous internal political situation, the weakness of local nationalism. Conclusions. The authors come to the conclusion that the western lands remaining in association with Soviet Russia – Ukraine and Belarus, closely adjoined (economically, socially and culturally) to the original Russian lands, from which Muscovite Rus was formed in the 14th–16th centuries. The core of the RSFSR, and later the USSR, was made up of areas with unconditional Russian dominance. The first phase of proto-federalization (1917–1920), highlighted in the article, became a necessary launching pad for the subsequent phase (1921–1922), during which the spontaneously formed allied rela-tions were subjected to streamlining, and subsequently to constitutional consolidation.
The summer 2019 drought in Poland, i.e., the warmest year in observation history, was characterized. Meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, and hydrogeological aspects were taken into account. Meteorological drought in the light of regionally differentiated days of low precipitation frequency lasted the longest, i.e., over 3 months in central-western Poland. In the period between June–August 2019, in the belt of South Baltic Lakes and Central Polish Lowlands, the lowest precipitation sums of 30–60% of the norm were recorded. The values of the climatic water balance (CWB) calculated by the Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation (IUNG) method for individual months of June–August for the Polish area were −129, −64, and −53 mm, respectively. The most threatened were fruit bushes, spring cereals, maize for grain and silage, and leguminous plants. In central-western and south-western Poland, the drought accelerated the date of the lowest flows by two months on average from the turn of September and October to the turn of July and August. In the lowland belt, where the drought was the most intensive, the average monthly groundwater level, both of free and tight groundwater table, was lower than the monthly averages for the whole hydrological year.
Work represents a particular economical, social and psychological relevance to the worker. Because of a personal dimension of work, that involves human beings, it cannot be separated from workers. The approach to human labour as not a market product, but as a human being, is contained in the statement that ‘labour is not a commodity’, firstly expressed in the International Labour Organization’s 1944 Declaration of Philadelphia. The reference to this assumption more recently on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of ILO activities clearly evidence that the history of labour has come full circle and the idea of decent work for workers has returned to being the centre of labour law regulations. The concerns relating to the inadequate protection of workers coincided in time with the transformative change in the world of work. With this in mind, it is then worth considering more deeply whether a decent job is an ‘exclusive’ and ‘luxurious’ ideal, and leave outside its scope a number of workers who are in need of protection because of their unique situation. The position of Poland in this picture will be analysed.
The Theoretical Status of the Emblem in Polish Decorative Art
This paper argues that the theoretical status of the emblem in decorative art has methodological significance in emblem studies and art history, comparable to its status in the so-called book’s editorial frame. This claim is justified in the historical and theoretical tradition of defining emblems in the sources. The departure point for the author’s considerations comes from the findings of applied emblematics, and its foundation is provided by the theoretical sources describing symbolic genres (scil. emblema, symbolum, hierogliphicum) published in Poland from the 16th to the 18th century, including books of poetics, rhetoric, dictionaries and compendia. The first part of the article presents an overview of research on decorative emblems in Poland, together with factors responsible for the scarcity of such studies, including the lack of symbolic typology of the decorations, and the division into literary and non-literary studies, motivated by the philological roots of emblem studies. It is noted that the emblemata in the so-called book’s editorial frame and those in decorations should be studied separately, as the latter are of ornamental nature, and require a distinct order of perception, explication, and the recipient’s role. Besides, it is pointed out that the anachronism of the 16th-century formulae of emblema raises problems for the genological classification of Polish decorations, and so does the inter-genre, compendiumtype pattern of symbolism dominant in the 18th century. The second part of the article discusses the definition of the emblema, focusing on its details relevant for the artistic practice and present-day genre classification, such as technique, composition, the content of the image, which is confronted with Polish historical materials. The analysis carried out in the paper supports the claim that providing a genelogical definition of a work of art sheds light on its artistic rendition and aesthetic value. It also enhances the perspective on emblem studies, the workshop of an emblem artist and the reception of the emblem. Additionally, it enables the verification of synthetic accounts and research practice, offering a profound reflection on the chronology and previous conceptions of the emblem. Finally, it helps to formulate postulates, which can be useful for the methodology of literary emblem studies.
Slavic languages. Baltic languages. Albanian languages, Literature (General)
A search for non-resonant Higgs boson pair production, as predicted by the Standard Model, is presented, where one of the Higgs bosons decays via the H→bb channel and the other via one of the H→WW⁎/ZZ⁎/ττ channels. The analysis selection requires events to have at least two b-tagged jets and exactly two leptons (electrons or muons) with opposite electric charge in the final state. Candidate events consistent with Higgs boson pair production are selected using a multi-class neural network discriminant. The analysis uses 139 fb−1 of pp collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. An observed (expected) upper limit of 1.2 (0.9−0.3+0.4) pb is set on the non-resonant Higgs boson pair production cross-section at 95% confidence level, which is equivalent to 40 (29−9+14) times the value predicted in the Standard Model.
Ewa Błaszczyk-Bębenek, B. Piórecka, M. Płonka
et al.
Inadequate eating habits, as well as a low level of physical activity, influence adipose tissue deposition. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of central obesity in upper-secondary students and to determine the factors related to its occurrence. The survey included 309 participants, aged 16 to 18 years from Krakow (Poland). Anthropometric measurements were taken during the periodic assessment of students’ health status. An anonymous questionnaire was used to assess the nutritional and non-nutritional risk factors of participants. According to different methods of measurement, abdominal obesity (AO) was observed in 15.5% (WC—waist circumference), 10.7% (WHtR—waist to height ratio) or 21.7% (WHR—waist to hip ratio) participants. Abdominal obesity (WC) was significantly associated with family history of excess body weight and higher economic status of the family. The risk of AO (WC) was significantly lower among adolescents who declared higher physical activity. Boys who eat first breakfasts have lower AO risk according to WHtR interpretation. Abdominal obesity in gender group was related to the self-esteem of one’s own appearance according to WHtR and WC. Abdominal obesity was associated with the family environment and modifiable lifestyle factors and was dependent on gender.
The Great War had come to an end in Europe in November 1918, but Central Europe did not come to a rest. The demise of the German, Austrian, and Russian Empires had left a geographical void, a theatre of armed conflicts between the imperial heirs for years to come: the Central European nation states. The Second Republic of Poland was one of them. Historiography has described these postwar struggles as rather unrelated conflicts. This book argues that they were much more part of one Central European Civil War. Since re-erected Poland was at the center of events, it provides a perfect case study and tells the story of this civil war in a nutshell. It challenged its neighbors on all frontiers: Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Soviets to the northeast, Germans to the west, and Czechs to the south. A concise history of these related conflicts questions their common perception as moments of national bravado. In the embattled borderlands, nationality was not a constant, and national independence therefore not a matter of course. The people living there experienced the Central European Civil War rather as a tragedy, when brothers had to fight against brothers. Clearly defined nations did not exist in late 1918 Central Europe, they were rather forged in the fires of a civil war which shook the area for almost three years. Furthermore, in the leeway of these conflicts, Poland—like many other parts of Europe—witnessed a wave of paramilitary violence, with its own soldiers running wild beyond the battlefields.
Introduction Recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) is a common oral mucosal disease without a clearly defined etiology. Aim To analyze the influence of systemic diseases, medications, smoking and a family history of RAS on the prevalence and the course of the condition in Polish patients with RAS. Material and methods Seventy-eight patients with RAS and 72 subjects without a history of RAS were enrolled in the study. All participants underwent a detailed oral examination and a full blood count. The results were statistically analyzed with Statistica 10 (StatSoft, Krakow, Poland) with Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, χ2 and Fisher tests, with p < 0.05 considered as the significance level. Results The most common systemic conditions observed in patients with RAS were hypertension, allergies and anemia. Both HT and anemia were prevalent in the RAS group. A positive RAS family history occurred more frequently in the study group than in controls. However, no association was found between smoking and RAS prevalence, although a higher percentage of smokers was observed in the RAS subgroup with a low frequency of RAS episodes. Conclusions The potential role of hypertension and anemia as modifiers of the immune reaction in RAS has been implied in this study but confirmation of this association requires further studies on a larger sample of patients. However, there appears to be no correlation between smoking and the occurrence of RAS. The positive family history observed in this study in the majority of RAS patients confirms the genetic background of the condition.