Maria is a 70 year-old retired engineer. Following the Transformation of 1989, she worked for over a decade outside of Poland, then returned home to retire. Maria and her family enjoy a decent standard of…

EVALUATING POLAND’S POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION Both the Left and the Right wings of Poland’s political divide see the post-1989 Transformation in a singularly negative light. For the Right, the Round Table…

The time has come to change the story we tell about contemporary Poland. The 25th anniversary of the first free elections in its modern history appears to be a celebration which has Polish citizens smiling, but…

My hypothesis is as follows: in order to sum up the past 25 years of Polish history, we must take into account the sense of frustration which comes with being offered endless possibilities. The map of Polish…

On the subject of Paulina Wilk’s book “Special characters”   They can remember Poland under communism, yet they have been raised and educated in a new reality. Not yet old, but no longer young. Who…

They aren’t just responsible for hail, earthquakes and whooping-cough –this is the impression one might have reading ongoing attacks unleashed a full 25 years after the Transformation against liberals and…

Interest in the concept of collective memory tends to grow during extraordinary moments, in times of crisis or change. More “round” dates allow us to reinterpret the past. At times, this is merely a…

Disputes over the Round Table are also disputes over our present-day democracy. Tomasz Sawczuk presents his commentary on the debate which took place in the Presidential Palace as part of the celebrations of…

Edward Gierek, former First Secretary of the Polish Communist Party, had energetic dreams about power. Back in the days of General Jaruzelski, work had begun on building an atomic power station in Żarnowiec….

Many people believe the events which took place in Poland 25 years ago should today be reviewed with sobriety, leaving aside all unnecessary emotions or nostalgic tendencies. The problem with this apprach is…

In the spring and summer of 1989, the people of Poland had no energy and no desire to celebrate their revolution. Does it make sense, however, to now regret this and to try to “make up” for lost time? How…

The debate about the recently ended 25-year period of Polish history is becoming enlivened by the voices of critics of modernity. This simple story of historical triumph is now contrasted with apocalyptic…

Listening to media commentary covering the 25th anniversary of the first partially free elections in Poland, I couldn’t shake off the impression that older generations – the initiators and participants of…

Why has Poland’s turning point of 1989 not earned its own visual symbol yet? How are the times of the transformation perceived by both younger and older generations? Grzegorz Brzozowski in conversation with…

American political philosopher explains why in her view a ban on wearing burqas is a sign of islamophobia, how can we address the question of violence against women and why she believes a man has an inherent tendency towards evil.

French philosopher rebuts arguments of Martha Nussbaum, which are criticizing French immigration policy. According to Alain Finkielkraut, covering face by a woman means taking away her personality.

Instead of stigmatizing immigrants, we should double efforts leading to awake their feeling of membership. Otherwise their frustration and the feeling of exclusion will deepen, creating social gaps, the Canadian philosopher claims.

Does the burqa ban amount to discrimination? According to French Islamic Studies scholar Oliver Roy, not at all. Wearing the burqa, Roy argues, is an individual decision, made by a small group of well-educated and by no means submissive women. That the ban threatens multiculturalism as an European project, he says, is an equally misguided assertion.

We can ban the veil but we cannot ban the emotions it symbolises. And the fear of political emotions might be the cause of the European project’s crisis

Karolina Wigura: Liberal rhetoric is in retreat everywhere. Hilary Clinton declared herself as being “more progressive than liberal”. In Poland, Donald Tusk wrote about abando- ning the idea of…

Karolina Wigura: ‘A total disaster,’ ‘a complete disgrace,’ ‘a serious mistake.’ These are a few of the opinions recently expressed about multiculturalism. Anti-immigrant rhetoric is…

What are the weak and strong sides of Western migration policies? What can Poland learn from these experiences? Timothy Garton Ash, Jarosław Kuisz, Wiktor Osiatyński and Monika Płatek discussed these issues at ‘Kultura Liberalna’.

Freedom of speech should serve higher aims and shouldn’t only be the right to ridicule others, yet we use it in order to protect the strong, rather than the weak, as claimed by the American political scientist Benjamin Barber.

Pierre Buhler talks to ‘Kultura Liberalna’ about the postmo- dern character of international relations, war in Ukraine, the Islamic State, challenges facing Europe and about his new book ‘On the Power in the 21st Century’.

What motivates various groups supporting or criticising the editors of the French magazine and what dangers does the Paris attack pose for liberal democracy?

Most of the drawings published by ‘Charlie Hebdo’ are simply repulsive and idiotic. Why is it worth fighting for someone’s right to be a disgusting moron? Why is it worth declaring ‘je suis Charlie’?

Murder is never justified and an attack on a satyrical ma- gazine is a violation of basic freedoms. It does not, however, make said magazine an embodiment of such freedoms.

Secular, tolerant Europe is shaking in its foundations. It is being attacked from different directions by the Muslim and Christian radicals. The anti-European right is adding its own bit. Although they are in the minority, they set the tone. It’s time to act against it.

The shootings in Paris and the massive reaction of the French people reached unknown dimensions in a European post-1945 context. But the targets were not only French. And the answers cannot be limited to one country.

Radosław Markowski, Katarzyna Szymielewicz and Jan Zielonka discuss the quality of Polish politicians and citizens, the negative impact of Facebook on democracy, and why it is still worth engaging in politics.

The financial crisis is also a crisis of young Europeans. How many young Poles are concerned with the problems of unemployment and lack of perspectives? And how to help them? Katarzyna Kasia, Jacek Męcina, Piotr Szumlewicz, Joanna Tyrowicz and Karolina Wigura discussed these issues at “Kultura Liberalna”.

Poles, just like the citizens of many other European coun- tries, do not trust the state, but they also don’t really know what to expect of it. Do we really need the state in the era of growing international organizations? And if so, does it really have to be… a democratic state?

Poland has become a part of Western Europe – for better or for worse. In the face of the escalating Ukrainian conflict it definitely seems for worse. The Poles have become wealthy enough to forget where they were 25 years ago. The memories of our own poor condition are so faded that we can no longer empathize with the Ukrainians’ violent struggle. And yet it seems so easy to keep convincing everyone in Brussels that Poland will teach its European partners to think in terms of solidarity.

My friends in Ukraine want to know what Poles are like, since they know I lived in Poland for two years. Poles, on the other hand, ask what we Ukrainians are like. I never know what to tell either group. Each new story I come across is different – the more I learn, the more I am afraid of getting things wrong.

During a conference organized five years ago in London to celebrate Europe Day one of the major issues raised by Austrian ambassador to the United Kingdom (Austria was at that time president of the EU) was… the lack of jokes on European Union. At the time being, only British historian, Timothy Garton Ash, replied with the one-liner: “If the EU applied to join the EU it would not be admitted”. Over the next few years this became more of a reality than anecdote and I am pretty sure that…

Gernot Erler talks about European politics and war on Ukraine.

Litvinov’s Glasses On the 6th of October 1944, a secret meeting between Maxim Litvinov (1876-1951), the Soviet Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, and a certain American journalist took place. One to one, they…

The Ukrainian revolution, the annexing of Crimea by Russia and subsequent attempts at destabilising south-eastern Ukraine have led to the most severe crisis between the Russian Federation and the West for a…

On the initiative of professor Timothy Snyder (Yale University, IWM) and Leon Wieseltier (“The New Republic”) a conference “Ukraine: Thinking Together” will be held in Kiev from 16th May to 19th May. Before it begins we ask prof. Snyder to briefly explain the idea and aim of the meeting.

How to express the experience of collective violence and trauma without falling into excessive compassion or patterns of propaganda? Sergey Loznitsa, director of „Maidan” calls for filmmakers facing such moments to remain a bit disengaged.

“If Putin decides on his way down that the only way to remain in power is to create a real crisis, he’ll do it”, claims an American journalist and author.

Viktor Yanukovych’s fall from power means Svoboda has lost its most important means of negatively influencing voters, while also still lacking any tools of motivating them positively. The national colours of Ukraine were also the colours of the revolution – its society today, however, displays civic-republican rather than nationalistic tendencies.

Fears of Ukrainian nationalism and of Russian imperialism have some historical grounding. But, as in all fears, these two contain traces of insecurity, delusion and only partly formulated arguments about national security being threatened.

Questions regarding forgiveness following the bloodshed in Maidan are for Ukraine just as vital as those of its economy or politics. But what points of reference can it make use of today?

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is dominated by imperial rather than ethnic nationalism, according to our expert in Russian politics. If in the language used by the ruling elite we come across a certain type of syncretism, this is because the said rulers, having abandoned European ways of communicating, are looking for a new narration, and in doing so borrow from the likes of the far-right Dugin and the anti-semitic Kiselyov.

“Twenty three years of having the worst political class in Europe can’t leave no mark on the society”, claims a British historian, expert on Ukraine.

An interview with Srdja Popovic, Serbian democratic activist, recognized by “Foreign Policy” magazine as one of the top 10 intellectuals in the world in 2011