Polish, Poles, and Poland
What you should know about...
Poland, Poles and Polish
Geography
Poland is located in the central area of the European continent. The country's area is 312,683 square kilometres which means Poland is the ninth largest country in Europe and sixty-third largest in the world. 91.3% of the area is occupied by lowlands (below 300 metres asl). The highest peak is Rysy in the High Tatra at 2,499m. There are three major mountain ranges - the Carpathians, the Sudetes and the ¦więtokrzyskie Mountains.
The country stretches from the mountains in the south to the Baltic coast in the north, with Szczecin, Gdańsk and Gdynia being the main seaports. The longest river is the Vistula [Wisła] at 1,047 km, and the second longest is the Oder, marking a border with Germany along its downstream course. In Poland there are about 9,300 lakes over 1 ha in area, together comprising 1% of the country's land mass.
Borders
On a map, Poland's shape resembles a circle, with a characteristic stub - that is the Hel Peninsula (34km long, 500m wide on average). In the west, Poland borders Germany (467km of border), in the south she borders the Czech Republic (790km) and Slovakia (541km), and in the east the Ukraine (529km), Belarus (416km), Lithuania (103km) and Russia (210km).
Capital
Warsaw - with a population of about 1,618,500 (spread over 494 km2)
Official language
Polish
Currency
1 Polish złoty (PLN) = 100 grosz
Political System
Poland is a multi-party republic with a bi-cameral Parliament (the lower house sitting in Sejm with 460 seats, the upper one in Senat with 100 seats). Parliamentary elections are held every 4 years.
Sejm deputies are elected by means of a universal, equal, direct and proportional secret ballot. Senators are elected by the same means. A joint session of Sejm and Senat, presided over by the Sejm Marshall, comprises the National Assembly. The Head of the State is the President, elected by a popular vote and serving a five-year term of office.
Famous Poles
John Paul II
John Paul II (aka Karol Józef Wojtyła) (1920 - 2005) was born on 18 May 1920, in Wadowice. He was the first and only Pole elected as Pope to head the Roman Catholic Church from inside the Vatican. During his long and successful life, he spent 27 years within the Papacy. His Pontificate was the third longest in the history of Roman Catholic Church (after those of St. Peter and Pius IX). It lasted 9,665 days, something of an eternity when compared to the mere 33 days his predecessor served. During those 27 years, he made numerous visits worldwide to countries with significant Roman Catholic communities.
Maria Skłodowska-Curie
Maria Skłodowska-Curie (aka Madame Curie) (1867-1934) was an eminent Polish physicist and chemist who lived and worked in France. She was the first ever woman in France to complete a doctorate and subsequently became the first female professor to teach at the Sorbonne University.
Working in co-operation with her husband, Pierre Curie, in 1898 she discovered two chemical elements - polonium and radium. She was also the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, and remains the only woman in the world to be awarded a double Nobel Prize Laureate - in 1903 in physics (jointly award with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel) for the discovery of radioactivity, and 1911 in chemistry for the isolation of pure radium.
Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa (1943 - present) is a trade union leader, politician, and laureate of the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize. In 1980 he headed the workers' strike at the Gdansk Shipyard and between 1980 and 1981 was the Chairman of the National Co-ordination Committee of Solidarity Free Trade Union. He took part in the negotiations with the communist authorities that resulted in the Round-Table Agreements of 1989. In 1990 he was elected President of the Solidarity Trade Union and from 1990-1995 he served as President of Poland. He is the author of several books, including Droga Nadziei [A Way of Hope] (1987), and Droga Wolno¶ci [A Way of Freedom] (1991).
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska (1923 - ) is a poet and literary critic. She won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the fourth Polish laureate of the award after Henryk Sienkiewicz, Władysław Rejmont and Czesław Miłosz. In 2001 she was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Fine Arts and Literature, the most important American distinction awarded to renowned artists.
Polish Cuisine
Polish cuisine has incorporated different elements of the traditional cuisines of the numerous nations who for centuries have cohabited with Poles, e.g. Jews, Ukrainians, Belorussians and Lithuanians consequently giving its food a multi-ethnic dimension.
A delectable Polish speciality is the cured meat product, especially Polish sausages, prized all over the world for the traditional manner in which they are made. Other much-loved meat products include Polish hams with their delicate flavour, smoked pork butt roasts, cured pork fillets and bacons, not to mention marvellous terrines made from a number of meat types, including venison.
A standard Polish dinner will invariably include a soup. A Polish soup of centuries-old is the beetroot soup. However, the sour soup is a close contender for popularity.
Meats are cooked in various ways: roast, stewed, fried or grilled. They are served either hot - with various mouth-watering sauces - or cold.
Polish Festivities and Customs
Poles have a reputation for their love of festivities, and adherence to age-old customs. The observance of tradition is felt most during the major church feasts, including Christmas, Easter, Corpus Christi (celebrated with huge processions) and All Saints' Day.
Poles celebrate also non-church occasions, including: Women's Day (8 March), Mother's Day (26 May), Grandma's Day (21 January) or Children's Day (1 June) - the latter festival being the date of innumerable children's events.
Another well-liked and continued tradition is St. Andrew's Day - the last occasion for merrymaking before Advent, including lots of fortune-telling for the coming year.
Christmas
Christmas is the festive season most important to all Poles and, at the same timem the festival richest in folk tradition. It is preceded by Advent, which is a period of merry waiting for the advent of Christ. A tradition observed during Advent is the offering of gifts to children on the date of St. Nicholas' Feast (6 December). Gifts are usually hidden under a child's pillow or in a shoe.
The largest number of folk customs are related to the last day of Advent, i.e. Christmas Eve. This is the day you can most easily observe folk ritual, customs and traditional beliefs. Christmas Eve is an important family-oriented Polish tradition. Following a wafer-sharing family ceremony at the start of a rich twelve-dish dinner (traditionally excluding any meat), families choral-sing traditional Christmas carols. The evening of Christmas Eve usually ends with the whole family attending a Midnight Mass called Pasterka (Shepherds' Mass).
Name-Day
Beside their birthdays, Poles celebrate their name-days, i.e. the feasts of their namesake patron saints. This is a tradition which continues to be popular in Poland. The person celebrating his/her name-day will receive good wishes and gifts from family and friends. Wherever there is more than one namesake feast in the calendar, it is traditional is to select just one of them for life. This is usually the one most closely following the birthday or the feast of the personal patron saint, or the date most generally accepted for the given name.
All Saints' Day
Celebrated on November 1, this feast commemorates many saints and martyrs. In contrast to the high-spirited American tradition of Halloween, for Poles this is a day is full of contemplative recollection and prayer. In Polish tradition, no grave should be forgotten on this day, and a large majority of graves are beautifully decorated with a sea of flowers and candles. These candle-lit cemeteries make an unforgettable scene as family and friends reunite over the graves of their significant ones.
All Souls' Day
This is a more modern equivalent of the pagan Slavic Dziady feast and the generally-applied name of the Roman Catholic Feast of Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed. Zaduszki falls on November 2, the day following All Saints' Day. The faithful pray for the souls of their beloved ones, at present in Purgatory.
Carnival
New Year's Day, preceded by the New Year Ball, marks the onset of the Carnival - the period of frequent and sometimes huge dancing parties. Amongst carnival entertainment traditions - gladly kept up whenever possible - there are sleigh rides that for centuries were popular with the nobility. Fat Thursday, the last Thursday before Lent, is the day when everybody enjoys deep-fried sweet doughnuts - fluffy balls of various sizes, made of yeast dough and filled with fruit preserves, and cienci - thin ribbons of dough with one end twisted through a slit down the middle.
Carnival ends with a huge dancing party, held on the night preceding Ash Wednesday and known as the "herring party." The dish of the day - herring, served in all imaginable forms - is a foretaste of the coming Lent.
Easter
The most spectacular religious feast preceding Easter is Palm Sunday, solemnised at churches throughout the country to commemorate the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The chief attribute of the feast is the palm, though now is a far cry from the palm leaves that were used to welcome Jesus to the Holy City. Usually it is a decorative bouquet of box leaves, dried flowers and willow twigs with catkins.
On Holy Saturday, people bring to church small decorative baskets filled with samples of the food they have prepared for Easter to have them blessed - after all, this is the last day of Lent fasting. The blessed food will then be shared at the start of a celebrated Easter breakfast.
Easter eggs.
The decoration of Easter eggs is a Polish tradition stretching back many centuries. In Polish culture it became an element of folk art, with ornaments and techniques varying from region to region.
Easter Monday is the day of migus-dyngus, with boys pouring water over girls and spanking them with willow twigs. It is hard to say how this custom - still widely in existence - originated. Possibly it was an act of purification and enhancement of reproductive ability. Historically, in many regions water was poured not only on females, but also on the ground (to ensure a good harvest) and on the cows (to ensure good milking).
Religious feasts
Easter (Easter Sunday and Monday) and Corpus Christi (one Thursday in June) - changing with the calender
15 August - Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
1 November - All Saints' Day
25 and 26 December - Christmas
Public holidays
1 January - New Year's Day
1 May - Labour Day
3 May - National holiday, commermorating the anniversary of the passing the Constitution of 3 May 1791
11 November - National holiday, commemorating the regaining of national independence in 1918
Polish Alphabet
The Polish alphabet is used for writing of the Polish language and, colloquially, is called "abecadło". It consists of 32 letters and is based on the Latin alphabet, with the addition of certain diacritic marks. The letter order is:
AˇBCĆDEĘFGHIJKLŁMNŃOÓPRS¦TUWYZŻ¬
Useful linguistic links:
- edu.info.pl - educational portal
- KMK - KMK Online Linguistic Bookshop. Over 2,000 dictionaries
- jezykiobce.pl - Language learning software (English, German, Russian, Spanish)
- Slowka.pl - e-mailed vocabulary items with pronunciation recorded (English, German, French)
- Ling.pl - Free online dictionary (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish), translation machine, dictionaries
Useful Contacts
EMBASSY OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND IN THE UK
47 Portland Place
London W1B 1JH
Tel.: 0 044 870 774 2700
Fax: 0 044 207 291 35 75 or 0 044 207 291 35 76
E-mail: polishembassy@polishembassy.org.uk
MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND
Al. J. Ch. Szucha 23,
00-580 Warsaw
tel. (+4822) 523 9000
www. www.mfa.gov.pl
e-mail: dsi@msz.gov.pl
CHANCELLERY OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND
ul.Wiejska 10
00-902 Warszawa,
tel. (+4822) 695-29-00
e-mail: listy@prezydent.pl
THE CHANCELLERY OF THE PRIME MINISTER
Al. Ujazdowskie 1/3
00-583 Warszawa
tel. (0-22) 841-38-32 (0-22) 694-69-83
fax. (0-22) 628-48-21
e-mail: cirinfo@kprm.gov.pl
www: www.kprm.gov.pl/english/index.html
Polish Social and Cultural Association Ltd. (POSK)
238-246 King Street,
London W6 0RF
Phone/fax numbers
- front desk: 020 8741 1940
- secretarial office: 020 8742 6411, Fax: 020 8746 3798,
- accounts: 020 8742 6413
- theatre box office: 020 8741 0398/1887
- gallery: 020 8742 6430
- restaurant & cafe: 020 8741 3225
- tourist information: 020 8741 5541
- Polish library: 020 8741 0474
- POSKlub: 020 8741 4271
- bookshop: 020 8748 5522,
- information desk: 020 8748 1203
