Life / Famous / Iconic Polish Women [43]

Sorry, I haven't been around for a while. The text was a print-screen from an old online pdf source, and seems my software cropped too much from it. I like this poem too.

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History / Question on Poland's szlachta clan admission [26]


I have learnt that from the late 16th century the Sejm had to confirm nobilitations (a visible proof that the king had less power here than the parliament, actually.) In some cases, kings nobilitated individuals, mostly foreigners, even after that time, but they had to use certain diplomatic tricks to perform the task.


I do think that the perceived analogy with old Gaelic societies of Ireland or Scotland (clans) has some limits, I have never heart about formal structures of Polish or Lithuanian 'clans'.

The analogy has some sense especially when we think about large groups of people bearing the same name and the same coat of arms, but in fact not related. But it does not work if you think about 'chieftains' as such, especially that Celtic chieftains often were descendant of local kings, all of them subjected to high kings. No trace of something like Brehon law in Poland. Also hereditary historians and physicians, etc. Celtic clan structures. I think it might be interesting to see a comparison, for example between Poland and old Ireland, made by a professional historian, though.

Maybe someone correct me, but I think that local sejmiki used to choose local administrative or legal representatives (/)

Food / WHAT DID YOU EAT FOR POLISH EASTER TODAY? [45]


Our family's Easter breakfast has not changed very much since my childhood, only it has become much more easy to buy everything. As it was mentioned before, eggs are a must. We used to boil some of them in water with onion peels, to give them golden yellow colour.

Biala kielbasa (Polish white, raw sausage, made from pork, not smoked, seasoned with marjoram), various types of ham, baked or raw and heavily smoked, etc. A must-have addition for kielbasa was horseradish, made from the scratch - not from the shop. It grew in our garden, and had to be baked and smashed. Bland and awful. The only Easter thing that is gone from our menu now, well, because I am the lady of the house ;) Remember a moment of confusion back in the 80's, when we by accident, baked the precious kielbasa polska (heavily smoked, fatty, spicy sausage, difficult to buy in crisis times) together with the biala kielbasa. It was suposed to be eaten with reverence, slice by slice, during a week, and we just baked it and had to be eaten on breakfast. Well, it was a good breakfast! For dinner, we always eat pork roast. Hopefully no vegetarians are reading this, anyway.

Proceeding now tactfully to desserts, the babka is a must. Well, babka is a sweet spongy
(see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babka_%28cake%29)
though we never made yeast cake, always bisquit-cake with cocoa inside. We called this
babka z dżouem, well, if you are wondering what is this dżou, I am afraid that it probably came from the English name Joe, and in the tricky politically incorrect way denoted reference to an Afro-American. Dunno why. 'Joe babka' is, anyway, delicious, and my favourite. I think that in the shops now they selling it as 'marble cake' (marmurkowe'). We also eat cheese cake - made from semi-shortcrust pastry (I mean that the cake has less fat than typical shortcrust... maybe someone has a better English word for ciasto półkruche...) White cheese is there stuffed with raisins and nuts. I must end now, for I am gettting hungry, and there is nearly 23.00 here in Poland.. ;)

Life / Famous / Iconic Polish Women [43]

sylwia

I am pasting here the English translation of the poem by Mickiewicz (translated as To a Polish mother). It was one of the most popular Romantic poems here,and quotations from it entered the Polish everyday language for well (not only 'Polish mother' but also 'długie nocne rodaków rozmowy', here translated as 'fellow patriots' whispered words by night'. I might translate this 'compatriots' conversations up to the small hours' ;) because it is often used without political meaning, indicating Polish passion for long discussion, hopefully not entirely lost...

Kwiatkowska, with her great stamina and sense of humour, as a lady who survived it all (I mean Polish history..) and succeded, is a very positive version of the Polish Mother for me...

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History / The Celts in Poland. [71]

Ironside ethnically there is not such a thing as Celts:P
Technically there is only Celtic culture spread widely in the northern part of Europe.

Can you explain what did you mean by 'ethnically'? Did you mean genetics/blood that will be always tricky issue, because all Europeans are mixed?

There are DNA laboratories offering people tracing their ancestors backwards even to ancient Mongolia. I am not sure if they can assume how close the population of Poland is to the population of Scotland, for instance... Genes of the 17th century Scottish sales reps and Irish mercenaries in Poland could alter the image in favour of Celts...

I suspect that many people would disagree with the statement that there are no Celts as such ;) For me (am not an anthropologist) ethnos is about culture, too. The idea of Celts, for instance can be understood in different ways. Even the old legendary chronicles of Ireland say that the Irish are mixture. But what makes them Celts is for me their (native) language, and culture that has something in common with other Celts. But I am aware that many various theories of Celticity exist...

History / The Celts in Poland. [71]

Thanks for the suggestion! I need to go first through all they have produced already;)
And it seems at the moment they are more preoccupied with ancient Slavs, especially Sorbs, than Celts.. Personally, I can't believe that Celts were Slavs ;) My specialty is rather the 19th century than the ancient times.

History / The Celts in Poland. [71]

Well. there was an amateur linguist dr Feliks Michalowski (an emigree medic, had a G.P. practice in France, 19th century.) He published some articles and brochures about alleged affinities between Poles and Celts. Argued, for instance that the word Gaidheal had something in common with the Polish word gaduła ;) (gaduła: in Polish, a talkative guy) Sadly, as you Gaels know, the middle d is not pronounced here...

I am afraid, but the theories of the old doc are regarded as rather fantasy now. However, I would be happy, if anyone will proove at least that the talkative Gorale had genetically anything in common with the Gaels... (As for now, I am afraid that the only Gaelic Goral should be Colin Farrell's new son... ;)

History / The Celts in Poland. [71]

Below are some links I have found - there may be more of it,,

Irish Mission in Poland

As for the Irish Christianity in Poland, long time ago Alfons Parczewski published a book:

(Preliminaries of the Christianity in Poland, and the Irish mission). The book has been digitized and is available for free:

wbc.poznan.pl/publication/107604

In the more recent times the subject was taken by Jerzy Strzelczyk, as you probably know.

There is a webpage in Polish about the parish Tropie in Lesser Poland.

See the history section:

tropie.tarnow.opoka.org.pl/historia.htm

..where the author tries to argue that the Irish missionaries were responsible for establishing the local church, ca. 828! He believes the alleged Irish mission had came from Nitra, Slovakia) Polish only.

Archeology

The book cited below is undoubtedly academic, but in English:

Celts on the margin : studies in European cultural interaction 7th century BC - 1st century AD dedicated to Zenon Woźniak, Krakow 2005
should contain bibliography of the subject...

Sometimes Archeologia Zywa (a popular magazine about archeology) publishes articles and notes about Celtic excavations in Poland (in Polish...) There is a search option.

archeologia.com.pl

I have found a site of the Warsaw Univeristy project Ekspedycja Celtycka

ekspedycjaceltycka.uw.edu.pl

UK, Ireland / Question about Irish-Polish similarities [25]

As for the eating, when I went to Ireland, I found the Irish stew and Irish breakfast very much like Polish obiad (lunch/dinner) ;)

As for mentality, yes, but the cultures are changing. In the 19th century I can see a mutual attitude: searching for political similarities, comparing misfortunes, making an argument for our own/their own cause from the sister country example. There was a lot of it in the journalism on both sides, (though more from the Irish side), still in the years before the First World War. Young Ireland poets could write enormously long poems, with another oppressed land in each verse: Poland, Hungary, Italy, India, Red Indians. Mickiewicz mentioned Ireland across Belgium and Hungary in his Book of the Polish Nation and the Polish Pilgrimage, etc. The same pattern through the century. When a Polish journalist visited the old and blind De Valera in the 1960's perhaps, he (De Valera) recited a long 19th century poem to him, on the abovementioned kind.

Maybe something from it has left with the older educated generation, but I don't think that the young have it... on both sides... Well. what do you think?