Poland [antikvár]

There áré many publications of manifold forms and contents concerning Poland. There are the source publications, full of figures, facts and citations. And there are alsó the album items, the compilation of which can be treated in various ways. This album alsó presents Poland and shows, in a synthetic summary, its picture during the thirty years from the Second World War. The illustrations and texts take the reader for an unrestricted journey through the Polish regions, starting from the Baltic Coast and ending with the Bieszczady. The reader will alsó find in the text, which the author has tried to dress in a light narrative form, detailed information connected with particular regions or towns. In certain places this narrative encroaches on more comprehensive problems. When writing this text, I tried to interlace the past with the present and to enliven the information with allegories, curiosities and even anecdotes.However, with this type of composition to the content, it was difficidt to systematize certain basic information which, although scattered through the text, is worth particular emphasis. And such is the purpose of this introduction.Poland, which many inhabitants of West Europe consider ('lies somewhere far North and East", occupies a position precisely in the centre of the Old Continent. An equal distance separates Poland from Portugál and the Urals, or from the Greek Peloponnese and the northern fringes of Norway. Because of Poland's central position in Europe, its territory became the cross-roads of communication routes and the meeting-place of many cultures. At the dawn of history, Poland entered the circle of "Latin culture", Román by brith, but innumerable ties bound it with the East, with the centres of the Ruthenian-Byzantine culture. On Polish soil are met traces of infiltration by people not only from the Scandinavian and Baltic countries, but alsó even from lands on the Danube and Balkan Peninsula. Ali these factors, smelted dawn together in a century-long meltingpot, have been recast into the wealth and variety of the Polish culture and the national character of the Poles. One its most characteristic traits is the Poles' fondness for contacts with other nations their "interest in the world" but, simultaneously with an extremely profound respect for their own historical and cultural traditions.From the ethnical aspect, Poland is a uniform country for today only one hundreth part of its citizens