History / Recommended Poland's history books [191]

@jon357
I'm so glad you mentioned that.I'm fascinated by the topic but it's so confusing to me. How a bunch of rich people actually ran the country. Wow!

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [440]

What is amazing about these massacres is that they are relatively still unknown to the world. I never knew anything about them until about three years ago.

My new hobby is studying Polish history. I started reading the histories about a year ago. That's all I read now. Naturally you start at the beginning and I've been making my way up till 1795 as a start.

There are a lot of topics covering periods of Polish history. The 1863 insurrection for example. This event affected my families. You can't help studying Poland and WW II. The topic is everywhere.

The more I studied Poland and WW II the more complicated it became. Two points stand out:
1.I found out that there were "wars with wars" in Poland.
2.Also WW II did not end in Poland in 1945.
These points were also shocking to me.

According to the 2013 original post the term "genocide" came into question. If you read what historians say in the ten years since the original post, the "genocide" term is still disputed.. Even articles appearing in the English language SLAVIC REVIEW still debate it.

Since this is pretty new info for me, I believe my view is pretty objective. "Ethnic cleansing" versus "genocide" ??? Most Ukrainian, some Polish, and many English speaking Eastern European historians continually play "word games" and say, in effect, that the massacres were "ethnic cleansing that looks like genocide". Word play!

Give me a break! It's genocide and the UN definition of genocide best fits the terminology.
"...to destroy, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group..."

Also, this is an historical topic that needs to be constantly brought to the public's attention. That's the job of Polish historians and English speaking Polish people, societies, groups, associations, etc. throughout the world. The way the Final Solution is taught. The way Native American massacres are taught. The way Pol Pot's Killing Fields are taught. The way the Armenian genocide is taught. And yes, the way Stalin's Ukrainian Holodomor is taught.

BUT THE TIMING IS NO GOOD! Ukraine is the "Western World's" hero and could do no wrong. The country is literally combatting EVIL. That's pretty much the American view.

In the "dice roll "of history, it's typical Polish luck. The choice is between the historically evil Ukrainians and the perpetually evil Russian. You make a choice of the lesser of two evils.

Poland"s done the right thing currently but Poland has to "never forget" the massacres and continually remind the world always.

History / Recommended Poland's history books [191]

@Laxask
RE: Poland's last king.
Bought the book years ago. Have it on bookshelf. I'm going to tackle it as soon as I finish Robert Frost's book listed above. That book is INTENSE!!!

History / Cursed soldiers controvercy - not all Poles respect them [282]

@Kashub1410
Your statement really caught my interest. You're saying that many of the Stalinists were Polish but not from Poland. That's interesting. That's something I'm going to look into.

History / Cursed soldiers controvercy - not all Poles respect them [282]

I am slowly learning about the "cursed soldiers." Sad story indeed !!! My question is: what happened to the Polish "Stalinists" who operated the UB (Ministry of Public Security) and the lawyers and judges who prosecuted & persecuted the cursed soldiers? Did any of them survive and pay for their criminal activities during the post-war period? Did these criminals retire on government pensions and spend their days in bliss or did they face justice?

History / Recommended Poland's history books [191]

THE OXFORD HISTORY OF POLAND-LITHUANIA, Vol I: The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385-1569, Robert Frost, 2018.

I am making my way through this history book. INTENSE !!! Two major themes keep rising to the forefront. These themes are issues that arise ALL THE TIME - EVERY TIME.

In today's world, in 2023, one can say that these issues I list below are normal. They are part of what a country does for its people today.But I'm at the year 1500. The first issue is that Poland and Lithuania NEVER really seemed to agree on what the "union" should be. The "union" was always a problem. In retrospect Lithuania should have sought some sort of ALLIANCE with Poland --- not a union. From the late 14th c. to 1500 the idea of a "union" was always causing problems. The concept of "incorporation" was always in contention.

To keep the union alive there was always deals and oftentimes there were concessions that further weakened the authority of the government a century or more later on. Yet Lithuania needed Poland. Muscovy always pushed Lithuania into Polish arms.

Secondly is religions. In Western European history by 1500 the countries were usually one religion PERIOD. Examples: France was Catholic, Muscovy was Orthodox, etc. Poland-Lithuania were EVERYTHING. I'm just waiting until I get to 1530, 1550. They'll be Protestantism, Islam, heresies of all types, etc., etc. And this caused problems that NEVER seemed to be rectified.

So these seem to be the problems that I keep reading page after page: 1.) what exactly does the union mean to both and 2.) religions and religions and religions..........

The Polish political system seems to have developed at a very sophisticated, very early level in world history. From a modern viewpoint many countries in today's world don't have the rights, the privileges, the freedoms, the legal mechanisms that Poland had in 1500. One hears how "enlightened" Poland was in 1500. Compared to the rest of Europe, maybe so, but you can see that she never managed to solve these problems and they contributed to her downfall. The author states that, overall, "It's (Poland's) failure to confront the problem of statehood was a weakness."

Genealogy / Easy way to find out which Polish coat of arm/Clan you belong to. [105]

@jon357
Thanks for the info on this post. It was very helpful.

History / Recommended Poland's history books [191]

THE OXFORD HISTORY OF POLAND-LITHUANIA, Vol I: The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385-1569, Robert Frost, 2018.
I am finally reading this history book. Warning! It is highly detailed to the highest degree. The book is 494 pages long. Plus TWENTY-NINE pages of bibliography alone; plus 41 pages of a glossary and index. The footnotes are within the body of the book.

Anyone who knows anything about Polish history knows about the marriage of Jagiello and Jadwiga and the beginning of the Commonwealth. This book covers the union, how it happened, why, the backgrounds of peoples and individuals, the repercussions of the union both vertically and horizontally. Vertically through the various estates or classes which were also undergoing changes. Horizontally it covers the lands of Poland moving eastwards and south-eastwards across the map to other peoples. In depth it covers how this union was viewed, reviewed, modified, challenged over the period Jagiello was alive. ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-ONE PAGES just dealing with his life during this union!!! Wow!

This is definitely not a book for the casual reader. You had better have a good outline understanding of the period from Jagiello to the Union of Lublin. Go back to Norman Davies, GOD'S PLAYGROUND, Vol I. That's easy reading compared to this.

A critic for the TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT said this work "...will define the contours of this field (history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) for the next generation...a comprehensive history, but is, in fact, much more than that: a fiercely argued and superbly developed study of what is meant for Poland and Lithuania to join their political fortunes in the late Middle Ages."

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History / Ghetto Uprising better known than Warsaw Uprising? [111]

This thread has brought up an interesting point.
This is an observation I've made. For about a year I've been intently reading Polish history. A lot of books about Polish history are now available in English.

I've noticed that when I search for Polish history on-line oftentimes Jewish history comes up. Jewish history in Poland, Jewish history in general, modern Jewish history, etc., etc.

When I look up Czarist or Soviet Russian, Ottoman Turkish history, Ukrainian history, Lithuanians history, only their histories come up. It's only when I type in Polish history that Jewish history comes up.

To find out what I'm looking for in Poland's history timeline I need to be very specific, e.g. Polish Commonwealth, Casmir the Great, Piasts, etc., etc.

I do know that Jewish history is intricately tied to Polish history over the centuries. But aren't there way far more Jews in Russia ( back then and today) then there ever was in Poland? Why is it when I "google" Russian History I don't get diverted to pages of Jewish history?

Just curious about that.

History / Recommended Poland's history books [191]

HISTORY OF POLAND, A CAPTIVATING GUIDE TO POLISH HISTORY, 2022. This book is what you would consider a summarized history. It summarizes 1000+ years into 150 pages. This book is part of the "Captivating History" series. No author is listed. A table of contents and a reference bibliography are listed. There is no index.

For those who want to study the gamut of Polish history but don't have the time,I recommend this book. It's a "bare bones" outline type of book. To me I find the section on the beginnings of Poland, the Piasts and Jagiellonians pretty good. It has a nice explanation of the szlachta. It has a decent summary of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth up to the partitions. After that it becomes very summarized. There's just too much to cover. But this is not a bad thing. I think it does a good job. It "captivates" your attention.

The world wars, the birth of the 2nd Republic and communism are good summaries. Like I said this is good for those who have no real overview of Polish history at all. It's short. You can take it from there.

For anyone who wants to get involved with genealogy, I think an overview of Polish history should be a requirement. Many questions I read on other threads show me that many have no idea about Polish history. This would definitely help when dealing with regions, cities, towns, villages that Polish people came from but no longer even contain Polish culture, oftentimes being in other countries.

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History / Recommended Poland's history books [191]

POLAND, AN HISTORICAL SKETCH, Helmuth von Moltke, 2020. This book was originally published in Berlin in 1832, fifty-seven years after the last partition of Poland. It was written by a young Prussian officer who would become the architect of German military strategy over the next century. His plans came to fruition in the wars against Denmark, Austria and France. In the end Prussia became an empire.

I read this book to see how bigoted Moltke would be in his summation of Polish history. Surprise, he wasn't!!! He just states historical facts. It's a chronicle laid out in a nice readable narrative. He points out the positives and negatives of the Commonwealth. You need to realize that he's writing during the rise of the great nation-states (empires) after Napoleon, e.g. United Kingdom, Russia, Austria. I have to admit that his explanations of some of the Commonwealth's faults were better explained than in some of the histories I've been reading. A simpler explanation. The taxation system for example.

I think his viewpoint could be summed up in a speech he gave to the German "parliament" in 1874.
"EXISTENCE is the first necessity of a state, but in order to exist it must secure itself externally. THE GREATEST CRIME A GOVERNMENT CAN COMMIT IS TO LEAVE A COUNTRY DEFENSELESS." (my capitalizations for emphasis)

Get it! Read it!!

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History / Recommended Poland's history books [191]

POLAND, A BRIEG OUTLINE OF ITS HISTORY, Ladislas Konopczynski, 2017. This is an interesting book because it was originally published in Warsaw in 1919 as A BRIEF OUTLINE OF POLISH HISTORY. For those who don't know, 1919 was the beginning times of the Second Republic. You would think that this history would be an ultra-nationalistic narrative but it's not. It's a level-headed outline of Poland's history up to the start of the 20th century. A nice quick narrative read. Clear, concise and to the point. Maybe that's why a 100+ year old book is still published. It has historical worth.

Poland's history is super-complicated. There are a lot of "outline histories" of Poland. I recommend this one for starters, especially those who are Polish but English speaking and know little or nothing about Poland's one thousand fifty-six years of history. Wow!!! That's a lot!

Like I mentioned in another thread, you can get books through your library most of the time. This is for USA readers. If you belong to a library, go there and ask them how to use the lending-library system. If another library in your region has these books then you can get them for free usage.

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History / Recommended Poland's history books [191]

UNDER A COMMON SKY, ETHNIC GROUPS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF POLAND AND LITHUANIA, 2017. Published in the English language by Muzeum Historii Polski in Warsaw. Translated into English by William F. Hoffman.

Fantastic book! Looking at all the threads on this forum you get the idea that many people want to know about different ethnic groups as they relate to Poland. This book does a great job of covering the ethnicities that made up the Commonwealth. Twelve contributing experts cover Lithuanians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, naturally of course.

But Jews, Tartars, Karaites, Gypsies and Scotsmen, among others, are well covered. Best part of history books like this is that you don't have to read it in order. You can go to the chapters you're interested in. Highly recommended. Well researched, Great reference bibliography.

Like I mentioned in another thread, you can get books through your library most of the time. This is for USA readers. If you belong to a library, go there and ask them how to use the lending-library system. If another library in your region has these books then you can get them for free usage.

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Language / "Poles" or "Polish people" - which is better to use? [200]


I agree with you. That is an offensive term. To call a Polish person a "pollock" is offensive. If someone calls me that, I immediately correct them. Whether they like it or not.

Unfortunately most of the people who call me that are usually people of Polish descent. This only highlights the usage of the phase "dumb pollock" as was used in "All in the Family" TV series of a few decades ago.

Language / "Poles" or "Polish people" - which is better to use? [200]


I meant the word "pollock". I misspelled it.

Language / "Poles" or "Polish people" - which is better to use? [200]

I just say Polish.
It is my understanding that when Pole is written in English there should be some kind of accent on the "e". Thus Pole should be pronounced "POL-lay". That would also be the plural. But it became so anglicized over time that Pole/Poles are common usage.

"Pollack", to me at least, is a derogatory term that belittles the Polish.

History / Recommended Poland's history books [191]

Getting back to Polish history books.....................

Reading Zamoyski's THE POLISH WAY. So far I like it. I like his style of historical narrative. It flows quite well.
I was finishing up the chapter dealing with cultural history (literature, poetry, music, architecture, religion, etc.).As the 16th century was closing the vernacular speech was starting to be used all over Europe.

Up until the mid-16th c. lots of Polish literature daling with politics, philosophy, religion, government, science, medicine, etc., etc. was written in Latin and oftentimes this literature made its way throughout Europe. By the 1550s Polish became the official language of the state, the language of politics and of literature. It was then that Polish thought stopped filtering into Western Europe. More and more Polish culture was becoming fenced off because of the vernacular language. This shocked me a little but it's understandable.

UK, Ireland / How do the Polish and People with Polish Ancestry feel about British Royality [61]

"Bonified" (bona fide) is not an archaic term as described when Googled. It's a common term misspelled as "bonified". I don't care what anyone says. It's a common word. It means genuine whether referencing a good thing or a bad thing.

UK, Ireland / How do the Polish and People with Polish Ancestry feel about British Royality [61]

It never ceases to amaze me how much Americans are enamored by British Royalty.
I'm an American. The very concept of "royalty" is anathema to me. Any kind of royalty. That's why I'm here writing this. My ancestors saw the autocratic idiocy of royal ruling. They knew, deep down, that there had to be a better way. God bless them!

Genealogy / What does my Polish name mean? [401]

I've skimmed through this thread.
A good reference is William F. Hoffman's POLISH SURNAMES: ORIGINS & MAEANINGS. As of 2012 it's up to the third edition, VOL. I only. There's a revised Second edition and the original edition from 1993. All of them are now ridiculously expensive or unavailable.

What you can do is request a copy through your inter-library loan system if you belong to your library (USA only). They will search for a copy that another library might have. If it comes, you take it out like a regular library book. When finished your return it. No charge.

This book will give you the English meaning of your last name.
To find out something more about the last name (like in my case a place) you can Google it.. The results will be Polish sometimes. My searches brought up Polish Wikipedia. The menu gives you options to translate the page into English.

My last name is derived from a place --- it's called a "place surname". Doing further Google searches I found out my surname came from the 1500s. That's the period of time when the churches started to require last names (Council of Trent). People were Catholic or Protestant of Orthodox or Jewish. All types of records had to be kept and a surname was starting to become a necessity.

Genealogy / Easy way to find out which Polish coat of arm/Clan you belong to. [105]

Just a little note. Bilgoraj is a little town/city. Lubelskie is Lublin, the "district" where the town was located. I don't know the Polish word for the name of the title "district".

(My mother's side of the family came from a little village outside of Bilgoraj).

Language / Busha and JaJa [140]

My aunt, who was Polish, settled in Baltimore. Her husband was also Polish. His family always called his mother "busha".
As an endearment, We always called both our grandmothers "BAH-chee". Dziadzi was always dziadzi.

History / Not proud of my Polish heritage [110]

I am still thinking about the OP. I'm pondering over it, so to speak. I don't know if I have a response to it.

I will say that at the moment (for the last couple of months) I have been intently reading Polish history up to 1795. I know very little about Polish history so I'm determined to know as much as possible now. There's a lot of comments that could be made based on this earlier history.

History / Not proud of my Polish heritage [110]

There's a lot of different reasons for not going back. Each one is individual. Oftentimes it's complicated. One part of the family came from a part of Russian Poland that is not even Poland today. They were going to return but their relatives wrote to them and said not to return. The political situation didn't look too good. War was going on in the Balkans. My relative brought his girl friend over and five months later Europe exploded into WW I.

The area they came from was only made up of about 8% Polish (based on the 1897 Czarist Russian Census) so there wasn't much of anything to go back to. When both sides of my family settled in America, they settled in Polish neighborhoods. Everyone from the butcher to the baker and everyone in between was Polish Catholic or Polish Jew. Even if you were illiterate you could comfortably make your way. Life was good.

History / Not proud of my Polish heritage [110]

Never go back!

Just a comment. That's why I'm here in the USA. My ancestors came from Russian Poland to the USA. They NEVER, NEVER intended to stay in the USA. They were only going to make money and go back to the "Old Country".

Within one week of being in the USA they made up their minds to stay and sent for their wives, kids, girlfriends, etc. That was it. They never went back.

History / Not proud of my Polish heritage [110]


When I read this I laughed and cried at the same time. OK everyone. I've been warned. I should stay away from these off-topic threads. I will do that.


Attacks on the person (ad hominem) rather than their position is not free speech but rather just plain rudeness.

History / Not proud of my Polish heritage [110]

Hello all. I'm new to the POLISH FORUM. I've been looking around and decided to read this thread.
Naturally this thread caught my eye. It took me a while to read the entire thread and one thing shocked me.
I belong to a couple other forums. A couple deal with history. I was shocked in reading the thread because it allowed NAME CALLING, i.e. personal attacks on a poster. Rather than counter point an opinion/view point of a person, certain posters will call the person a name. This leaves a bad impression.

For someone new it sounds "childish". Worse is that the moderators don't do anything about it.
If you play these games on other forums the poster is warned. Oftentimes their comments are removed. If they keep it up they could get banned from the thread, maybe suspended from the forum. If they persist then they're totally banned forever.

I'm debating if I should re-read this thread to make better sense out of it or should I move on to another thread.

Genealogy / Where is Lazon? [7]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.!!! That has got to be the place. It's 20 km (12.5 miles) from where my grandmother was born and my grandfather & grandmother were married. On modern roads it's only a 20 minute drive.

I need to go back on line to read the documents. Was I reading "Lazow" as "Lazon"? Maybe. But I'm now 99.9% sure that this is the place where my grandfather came from. Again, thank you.

Genealogy / Where is Lazon? [7]

Thank you. I'll investigate it.

Genealogy / Where is Lazon? [7]


Thank you for your help.
I did research and found out that there are two places with the name Lazany. One pronounced WA-zhani and the other pronounced WA-zani.
Unfortunately neither was part of Russian Poland in 1885. The first one was located in German Poland, 44 km SW of Wroclow; the other was 20 KM SE of Krakow.

Again, many thanks.