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Please join us for this event with Stanley Bill (@MMLL_Cambridge) and Vira Tsypuk (@TheCourtauld) to hear more about Bruno Schulz and the complex ways in which he is viewed in Poland, Ukraine and beyond.

🗓️ 06 March at 6pm
📍 UCL SSEES
➡️ buff.ly/3Uu3v4E

As PiS falls in polling, there may be a hard baseline of support below which it can't drop. But with current radical tactics, Kaczyński seems intent on testing where this low might be. Many PiS-adjacent voices criticizing his approach, but will cracks open in the party itself?

Donald Tusk's KO grouping is ahead of PiS in combined polling for first time since May 2015 (says Politico, with other pooled polls showing same trend).

After golden period from 2018 to pandemic, PiS saw big fall in support in Oct. 2020 amid abortion protests and other crises.

President Duda suggests neither Kaczyński nor Tusk like him - partly because they both failed to become president while he has won twice. He also describes them both as 'dictatorial' leaders of their parties. A moment from tonight's widely-watched interview on new YT channel.

Morning, Kraków.

A different side of Kraków.

Today in 1573, the Warsaw Confederation was signed to affirm religious toleration in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In a religiously diverse state, nobles agreed to keep peace and respect each other's rights to avoid the extreme religious conflict of other parts of Europe.

Some of my thoughts on Poland's political crisis quoted in report CNN by Rob Picheta, including critique of Tusk's approach, but recognizing challenge of undoing PiS's state capture. Oddly, the article sparked online clash between Tusk and President Duda. edition.cnn.com/2024/01/27/eur…

PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński told journalists today that Poland needs fresh elections, preceded by a 'transition period with a new government', because the country is in an 'exceptional situation' in which 'the Constitution has practically ceased to apply'.

Many congratulations to Juliette Bretan on this fine publication. Juliette is doing great work at Cambridge on both British and Polish modernism, including on representations of Poland and 'Polishness' in Anglophone literature of the early twentieth century.

Congratulations again to Chels Michta, who wrote a brilliant doctoral thesis at Cambridge on the memory of the Warsaw Uprising and now becomes the first officer to receive a direct commission in the US Army’s Military Intelligence Corps. army.mil/article/273115…

A sign in Kraków.

President Duda has (re)pardoned two PiS politicians convicted and imprisoned for abuse of power offences. His earlier 2015 pardon was ruled invalid by Supreme Court as it came before binding conviction (a ruling he previously rejected). He now demands their immediate release.

Polish PM Donald Tusk in Kyiv: 'We must - and will - confirm full mutual support in confrontation with evil. There is no more important thing than supporting Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression... We will also talk about how to mobilise the West to more energetic action.'

Winter train travel, southeastern Poland.

Small anti-government protest now in Kraków. Decidedly older crowd, mix of slogans: Tusk to prison, defend imprisoned PiS MPs, anti-communism, anti-LGBT, Poland not Brussels, Bodnar is a Banderite (because of Ukrainian name), Duda should call out the army to surround parliament.

The Camel and the Polish question:
The Polish word for 'camel' - 'wielbłąd' - is a corruption via Latin of the Greek for 'elephant': 'elephas'.
And the Polish for 'elephant' - 'słoń' - is probably a garbled borrowing of Turkic word for 'lion': 'aslan'. (Also see Aslan of Narnia).