Archives: Year 2021

Great contributions to the defense of Polishness in historically Polish territories, which after regaining independence did not become part of the Second Polish Republic, should be associated with Stanisław Sierakowski. Both he and his wife Helena connected their fates with the Borderlands, Warmia and Mazury, with political, educational and social activities in favor of Poland. Today, it is worth recalling the figures of these wonderful people, who are a bit unjustly forgotten.

The beginning of January is a good time to summarize the previous year. Of course, in early 2021, the key theme everywhere in such summaries is the coronavirus, the fight against it and the related social and economic perturbations that have been absorbing public attention since at least March. However, let us try to rise above this fog of more or less credible reports, denials, explanations and theories - including conspiracies - and look at the world from the point of view of the global situation.

The end of World War I in 1918 brought Europe and the world a whole new political and economic reality. Monarchies have fallen, many nations regained independence, but a new ideological threat has also arisen, which would bring a new war in the near future. That threat was communism and fascism. The borders between countries have shifted or were shaped anew, but the population in most cases stayed where they were. In the new demographic reality, the situation of national minorities, including the Polish minority in Germany and the German minority in Poland, was an important problem to be solved.

The Polish diaspora in America was very politically active, and so numerous Polish journalists, lawyers, politicians, doctors, Polish priests, nuns and Polish community activists created an efficient pro-Polish lobbying. It was in 1966 that the idea arose for the American Post Office to print a Millennium stamp. The idea was not to be limited only to the Polish circles, but it was probably the first global idea to issue an American postage stamp with the Polish emblem of the Second Polish Republic crowned with a Catholic cross. The graphic design was commissioned to the Polish artist Edmund Lewandowski, born in Milwaukee