TVP Weekly

18/12/2023

Selected, “trusted” journalists were allowed to work in the editorial offices. Others were put on leave, over 100 journalists and other media workers were interned.

Only “trusted people” were allowed to work; over 100 employees were interned.

17/12/2023

Tomasz Świątek and Iga Świątek. Relay races between generations.

The kid is not a racehorse.

16/12/2023

More than a dozen patriotic demonstrations were banned in various French cities, as if solidarity with the victim of the racist murder were a greater threat to the Republic than the hordes of immigrants terrorising the country. Repressive measures against patriotic reactions went as far as to arrest people for simply putting up posters with the victim’s likeness. When the police searched the home of a young woman accused of putting up posters, they confiscated a national flag… as evidence.

Today we are living next to each other but soon we will be facing each other – warned Macron’s first minister of the interior.

16/12/2023

How do we know what Latin sounded like in Caesar’s mouth? Did Caesar pronounce /c/ or /k/? The traditional pronunciation was developed and handed down over many centuries of teaching Latin. It is most similar to the mediaeval pronunciation, based on the Frankish variant of Latin from the 9th century. But wasn’t Cicero actually pronounced “Kikero”? – asks prof. Kinga Paraskiewicz, director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Jagiellonian University.

Did there exist one proto-language for all of us, like one primaeval father Adam?

12/12/2023

13 December marks the anniversary of introduction of Martial Law in Poland. An authoritarian government, led by General Wojciech Jaruzelski and the Military Council of National Salvation (WRON), introduced severe political oppression in an attempt to crush political opposition in 1981.

In the second week of martial law, news circulated in the Communist Poland that two ambassadors had asked for political asylum in the USA.

11/12/2023

Finland faces a hybrid migratory attack from Russia. It is a vivid reminder of what has been happening on the borders of Belarus with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia since 2021, even though for the time being the scale of events seems much smaller.

The Kremlin's bicycle offensive

10/12/2023

In the Polish language, instead of "vivandierka", the concept of "markietanka" (a female sutler or victualer) has survived. It appears, for example, in "Pan Tadeusz" - in the original version of the epic poem by Adam Mickiewicz and in the film adaptation by Andrzej Wajda. Here is young Tadeusz Soplica - trying to cool Telimena's matrimonial zeal and ready to follow him "everywhere; every corner of the world" – and saying the line: "How come? […] Have you lost your mind? Where? Why?/Follow me? I am a simple soldier myself, / Should I be a tramp or drag a female sutler/"markietanka"? This statement is significant as it shows that although going to war in the company of one's wife was not unthinkable at that time, it was a rather unusual phenomenon. The vast majority of men - voluntarily or as part of conscription – performed their military services alone. Sometimes, they could be accompanied by servants – only if finances allowed it – and again, they were of the same gender.

Maria Walewska wrote to Napoleon about the battle. He replied: "You can be proud."

09/12/2023

Valuable books have gone missing from university libraries in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Some of the stolen ones were found in a prestigious Russian antiquarian bookshop. Is this merely a criminal matter?

Valuable books have disappeared from university libraries in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.

08/12/2023

In Moscow restaurants are full, real estate prices are rising, the construction market is booming, and the elites, who a year ago were convinced that Putin was on the verge of collapse, have recognized that he has won and will stay.

https://weekly.tvp.pl/74562048/is-putin-winning-in-ukraine

02/12/2023

The ancient Olęder customs have survived in villages many thousands of kilometres to the east of Poland rather than in our country.

Their German surnames became a problem after 1941 – they were treated as slaves.

02/12/2023

The scope and effects of the French Emperor's wars were much more significant than previously thought. The Little Corporal ploughed through the economy, international trade, human consciousness and mentality. Bonapartism became a constant temptation for politicians. The legacy of that turbulent era was also the codification of law and faith in science, a course towards modernisation and meritocracy.

He contributed to the spreading of nationalist ideas in Germany and Italy.

29/11/2023

"It was here that the fate of Warsaw was decided; that the message came stating there were no more bullets for the further Massacre of Wola; here was where the orders to liquidate the ghettos, blockade Leningrad and starve its inhabitants were given. From here, Hi**er managed his empire and waged war, yet he did not like this place, because it was also here that he experienced the defeats of his troops on the Eastern Front," says Wojciech Kozioł, a tourism and education expert at the Srokowo Forest District of the State Forests Regional Directorate in Olsztyn.

Adolf Hi**er spent 836 days in the Wolf's Lair. Two thousand five hundred people faithfully served him in its 200 reinforced concreto buildings.