Blog Masonry

“People train and prove that the impossible doesn’t exist,” says Karolina Kucharczyk-Urbańska, a multi-time Paralympic champion whose remarkable athletic achievements demonstrate that determination and passion can overcome any obstacle. With three gold and one silver Paralympic medals and a world record in the long jump for athletes with disabilities, she inspires both on and off […]

2023 marks the 160th anniversary of the January Uprising. Despite the passage of years, the echoes of this uprising are still present in public debate. An important, albeit challenging, question ‘to fight (for one’s country’s freedom) or not to fight?’ is still being asked in Central Europe. To understand the meaning and significance of the […]

‘Kids tell their parents that they love the activities we offer. For us, this is the best proof that such events are worth organising’, Family News Service was told by Deputy Director of the Study Centre for the Polish Community and Poles Abroad of the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) Dr Wojciech Wciseł. In the […]

Poles have always refused to their fate being decided by others. The nineteenth-century January Uprising – a heroic guerrilla war against the Russian occupier – fits in this attitude. On Thursday evening, August 4, 1864, the churches in Warsaw’s Old Town were bursting at the seams. It wasn’t a holiday, and the heedful tsarist police […]

“[…] there are no more occupiers. We’re our own masters and hosts,” rejoiced Warsaw politician and columnist Ignacy Baliński in November 1918. But Poland’s newly regained freedom still had to be defended against Russia – just as Ukraine does today. “Life goes on with astonishing haste. […] Something is happening every hour,” noted Maria Dąbrowska […]

Freedom and independence seem synonymous, except that the former is more readily associated with personal freedom, the latter with states or nations. The fundamental question we are faced with today is whether the two represent a good in itself or a means to an end. But to understand freedom correctly, we must first differentiate between […]

On the 3rd of May each year the Poles celebrate the anniversary of the passing of their 1791 constitution, the first such document of its kind in Europe and only the second in the world. An enthusiastic crowd thronged Świętojańska Street in Warsaw’s Old Town that day. A whole cross-section of Polish society was present […]

“You have your principles, we have structural funds” – whose words are these? They were uttered by the French president François Hollande in 2017. From his perspective, the “you” referred to the new EU members states from Central and Eastern Europe, whereas the “we” stood for the countries of the so-called Old Europe. Fateful words […]

The world must seek out-of-the-box solutions. Only in this way will we be able to head off the dangers of a domino effect. By changing the geometry of geopolitics, Ukraine has given us hope today. The war in Ukraine calls for a re-examination of the values of the modern world. Over the past six weeks, […]