The Canadian immigration representative seemed perplexed. What was he think of this Polish matriarchy living in mud huts surrounded by lovely gardens with trimmed hedges and a view of the great mountain in the distance? The children in their smart uniforms didn’t help. He was looking for labour in Canada’s mines and forests.
“I should have been a true Pole rather than a make-believe Scot” writes Witold Rybczynski in his latest book, the beautifully written My Two Polish Grandfathers. Anna Kisielewska reviews Rybczynski’s latest chef d’oeuvre.
Those of us who read John Bukowczyk’s And My Children Did Not Know Me are delighted to see the 2008 edition by Transaction Press, A History of the Polish Americans.
I was charmed by it, and wiped away more than one tear. I want to describe the film and what I liked about it, but also to place it in its Polish context.
“We created Europe, now we have to create Europeans.”
CR once again welcomes an article by Vince Chesney in which he writes about a new book and about Slavic hospitality. Pennsylvania coal country, a rural enclave dotted by small towns is distant enough from major centres — two hours from Philadelpia and Baltimore, three hours from DC, and four hours from Pittsburgh – to have retained its own identity. Says the author: “I am pleased to share this area’s heritage with you…”
![From 1683 to 2009: the [Secret] Link Between the Battle of Vienna & Poland’s “Lack of Positive Spirit”](http://cosmopolitanreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/PowrotZWiednia2-250x250.jpg)
Poles have been accused of “selling their soul to the devil” to join the EU and then of making no efforts while finally in. Is this accurate? The author probes Marc Maresceau, a lawyer and Gorbachev-era specialist.
When in Rome, drink like a Roman. Eat and visit like one too, with Justine Jablonska’s trips for solo travel in Italy’s vibrant capital.
Baku, if one believes the locals and the foreign oil investors, has seen an unprecedented economic boom in the last four years transforming Azerbaijan’s capital into a construction field, with apartment building skeletons waiting to be dressed and filled with life lining up on every piece of free land.
The smell of the wet football pitch and the taste of homemade żurek take Krzysztof Rutkowski back to his Polish childhood in Germany.
Professor Norman Davies presents a living history lesson – about compensation for properties lost during World War II in Eastern Europe.
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