The story of Maria Skłodowska-Curie High School No. 1 in Szczecin This statement will be in the form of a capsule summary. The point was to capture the history of Szczecin since 1945 in a kaleidoscopic abridgement. For this abridgement, it was necessary to find a certain key that would make it possible to…
a festival with a long tradition and a transformative turn According to the festival’s main initiator and long-time organizer, Bogdan Kowalski, Ińsko—situated by a beautiful lake and equipped with a cinema—was an ideal place for summer film gatherings. The inspiration came from Łagów and the Lubuskie Film Summer held there since 1969, while…
When talking about Szczecin, it is very quickly associated with the post-war name “Wały Chrobrego” (Chrobry Embankment). It is one of the most recognizable places in the city. It constitutes a beautiful complex of public utility buildings, especially the current West Pomeranian Voivodeship Office. This building, along with its surroundings in the past and present,…
The shifting of Poland’s borders far to the west, and along with it, the division of Pomerania by a state border, was among the most significant and unexpected geopolitical consequences of World War II. Even before 1939, there was little indication that West Pomerania, and particularly Szczecin (Stettin) and the mouth of the Oder River,…
Museums of West Pomerania after World War II In the spring of 1945, West Pomerania found itself in a state of deep social and material crisis. The fighting at the end of the war had led to the destruction of many towns, and a significant portion of the former public institutions ceased to function. The…
On July 13, 1988, Szczecin was visited by the top leader of the USSR: Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At that time, he was one of the most recognizable and widely discussed world leaders. The reasons for Gorbachev’s popularity lay in his…
On June 11, 1987, Szczecin was on the route of John Paul II’s third pilgrimage to Poland. The pope’s only visit to the city was a major religious celebration and at the same time a massive organizational undertaking. The election of Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyła as pope in 1978 was met in Poland with…
The phenomenon of escapes from communist Poland accompanied the regime almost from its inception. In this context, the years 1945–1949 constituted a particular period in Western Pomerania. It was a time of mass migrations within the newly demarcated state borders and the construction of the structures of the new authorities. The specific chaos accompanying these…
The conflict in the Pomeranian Bay in the years 1985–1989 and after 1990 On January 1, 1985, the decree issued by the government of the German Democratic Republic on the extension of territorial waters to 12 nautical miles (M) entered into force. This document, dated December 20, 1984, implemented the 1982 GDR State…
The time has come to face the legend of the Junak. This is a dangerous task, because for many people it is a practically mythically perfect vehicle, simply because it is Polish. As if we were marked by God to invent and produce perfect things, in this case motorcycles. […] Every word of criticism…
