Solidarity Citizens' Committee
The Solidarity Citizens' Committee (''Komitet Obywatelski "Solidarność"'', KO "S"), also known as Citizens' Electoral Committee (''Obywatelski Komitet Wyborczy'') and previously named the Citizens' Committee with Lech Wałęsa (''Komitet Obywatelski przy Lechu Wałęsie''), was an initially semi-legal political organisation of the democratic opposition in Communist Poland. Formed on 18 December 1988 in the premises of the Divine Mercy church in Warsaw, it spontaneously evolved into a nationwide movement attracting a vast majority of supporters of radical political change in the country after the conclusion of the Round Table talks (6 February–4 April 1989) and the announcement of semi-free general elections for 4 June that year. The relaunched union weekly ''Tygodnik Solidarność'', then edited by Tadeusz Mazowiecki; and the new ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (today Poland's largest daily paper), edited by Adam Michnik and launched on 8 May 1989, became influential organs for the mov ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bronisław Geremek
Bronisław Geremek (; born Benjamin Lewertow;"Mój polski brat (My Polish Brother)", interview with Jerry Lewart, by Waldemar Piasecki 6 March 1932 – 13 July 2008) was a Polish social historian and politician. He served as (1991–2001), Minister of Foreign Affairs ...
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Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Tadeusz Mazowiecki (; 18 April 1927 – 28 October 2013) was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and Christian-democratic politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist Polish prime minister since 1946.BBC (corporate author), p. 1 Biography Tadeusz Mazowiecki was born in Płock, Poland on 18 April 1927 to a Polish noble family, which uses the Dołęga coat of arms.Kopka & Żelichowski, p. 135Pszczółkowski, pp. 1-2 Both his parents worked at the local Holy Trinity Hospital: his father was a doctor there while his mother ran a charity for the poor.Pac, p. 1 His education was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. During the war he worked as a runner in the hospital his parents worked for. After the German forces had been expelled from Płock, Tadeusz Mazowiecki resumed his education and in 1946 he graduated from "Marshal Stanisław Małachowski" Lyceum, the oldest high school in Poland and one of the oldest cont ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Citizens' Movement For Democratic Action
The Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action (''Ruch Obywatelski Akcja Demokratyczna'', ROAD) was a market-socialist and political party in Poland. The party was centrist-socialist on economic issues and conservative to moderate-conservative on social issues. In early 1990, an open conflict erupted between the conservative and centrist wings within the Citizens' Parliamentary Party (''Obywatelski Klub Parlamentarny'') formed by Sejm members from the ranks of the oppositional, trade-unionist Solidarity Citizens' Committee (''Komitet Obywatelski Solidarność''); Lech Wałęsa dubbed this conflict, which he actively fomented, the "war at the top" (''wojna na górze''). On 12 May 1990, the conservative- socialist faction led by Jarosław Kaczyński formed a new party of their own, the Centre Agreement (''Porozumienie Centrum'', PC), which was going to support Wałęsa in the upcoming presidential election. In response to this, the centrist and Christian democratic faction, which f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lech Kaczyński
Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (; 18 June 194910 April 2010) was a Polish politician who served as the city mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005, and as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in 2010. Before his tenure as president, he previously served as President of the Supreme Audit Office from 1992 to 1995 and later Minister of Justice and Public Prosecutor General in Jerzy Buzek's cabinet from 2000 until his dismissal in July 2001. Born in Warsaw, he starred in a 1962 Polish film, '' The Two Who Stole the Moon'', with his identical twin brother Jarosław. Kaczyński was a graduate of law and administration of Warsaw University. In 1980, he was awarded his Ph.D. by Gdańsk University. In 1990, he completed his habilitation in labour and employment law. He later assumed professorial positions at Gdańsk University and Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. During the communist period, Kaczyński was an activist in the pro-democratic anti-communist moveme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West, its allies and neutral states. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union, while on the west side were the countries that were NATO members, or connected to or influenced by the United States; or nominally neutral. Separate international economic and military alliances were developed on each side of the Iron Curtain. It later became a term for the physical barrier of fences, walls, minefields, and watchtowers that divided the "east" and "west". The Berlin Wall was also part of this physical barrier. The nations to the east of the Iron Curtain were Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Prime Minister Of Poland
The President of the Council of Ministers ( pl, Prezes Rady Ministrów, lit=Chairman of the Council of Ministers), colloquially referred to as the prime minister (), is the head of the cabinet and the head of government of Poland. The responsibilities and traditions of the office stem from the creation of the contemporary Polish state, and the office is defined in the Constitution of 1997. According to the Constitution, the president nominates and appoints the prime minister, who will then propose the composition of the Cabinet. Fourteen days following their appointment, the prime minister must submit a programme outlining the government's agenda to the Sejm, requiring a vote of confidence.Article 154, para. 2 Conflicts stemming from both interest and powers have arisen between the offices of President and Prime Minister in the past. The incumbent and seventeenth prime minister is Mateusz Morawiecki of the Law and Justice party. Morawiecki replaced Prime Minister Beata Szydło, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Voter Turnout
In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford University political scientists Adam Bonica and Michael McFaul, there is a consensus among political scientists that "democracies perform better when more people vote." Institutional factors drive the vast majority of differences in turnout rates.Michael McDonald and Samuel Popkin"The Myth of the Vanishing Voter"in American Political Science Review. December 2001. p. 970. For example, simpler parliamentary democracies where voters get shorter ballots, fewer elections, and a multi-party system that makes accountability easier see much higher turnout than the systems of the United States, Japan, and Switzerland. Significance Some parts of society are more likely to vote than others. As turnout approaches 90%, significant differences between vot ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polish United Workers' Party
The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other legally permitted subordinate minor parties together as the Front of National Unity and later Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth. Ideologically, it was based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism, with a strong emphasis on left-wing nationalism. The Polish United Workers' Party had total control over public institutions in the country as well as the Polish People's Army, the UB-SB security agencies, the Citizens' Militia (MO) police force and the media. The falsified 1947 Polish legislative election granted the far-left complete political authority in post-war Poland. The PZPR was founded forthwith in December 1948 through the unification of two previous political entities, the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) and the Polish Socialist Party ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Samizdat
Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual reproduction was widespread, because most typewriters and printing devices required official registration and permission to access. This was a grassroots practice used to evade official Soviet censorship. Name origin and variations Etymologically, the word ''samizdat'' derives from ''sam'' (, "self, by oneself") and ''izdat'' (, an abbreviation of , , "publishing house"), and thus means "self-published". The Ukrainian language has a similar term: ''samvydav'' (самвидав), from ''sam'', "self", and ''vydavnytstvo'', "publishing house". A Russian poet Nikolay Glazkov coined a version of the term as a pun in the 1940s when he typed copies of his poems and included the note ''Samsebyaizd ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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W Samo Poludnie 4 6 89-Tomasz Sarnecki
W, or w, is the twenty-third and fourth-to-last letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. It represents a consonant, but in some languages it represents a vowel. Its name in English is ''double-u'',Pronounced in formal situations, but colloquially often , , or , with a silent ''l''. plural ''double-ues''. History The classical Latin alphabet, from which the modern European alphabets derived, did not have the "W' character. The "W" sounds were represented by the Latin letter " V" (at the time, not yet distinct from " U"). The sounds (spelled ) and (spelled ) of Classical Latin developed into a bilabial fricative between vowels in Early Medieval Latin. Therefore, no longer adequately represented the labial-velar approximant sound of Germanic phonology. The Germanic phoneme was therefore written as or ( and becoming distinct only by the Early Modern period) by ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Senate Of Poland
The Senate ( pl, Senat) is the upper house of the Parliament of Poland, Polish parliament, the lower house being the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, Sejm. The history of the Polish Senate stretches back over 500 years; it was one of the first constituent bodies of a bicameral parliament in Europe and existed without hiatus until the final Partitions of Poland, partition of the Polish state in 1795. The contemporary Senate is composed of 100 senators elected by a universal ballot and is headed by Marshal of the Senate (''Marszałek Senatu''). The incumbent Marshal of the Senate is Tomasz Grodzki. Following a brief period of existence under the Second Polish Republic, the Senate was again abolished by the authorities of the Polish People's Republic. It was not re-established until the collapse of the communist government and reinstatement of democracy in Poland in 1989. The Senate is based in Warsaw and is located in a building which forms part of the Sejm Complex on Wiejska Street ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Contract Sejm
Contract Sejm ( pl, Sejm kontraktowy) is a term commonly applied to the Sejm ("parliament") elected in the Polish parliamentary elections of 1989. The ''contract'' refers to an agreement reached by the Polish United Workers' Party and the Solidarność ("solidarity") movement during the Polish Round Table Agreement. The final agreement was signed on April 5, 1989. As a result, real political power was vested in a newly created bicameral legislature and in a president who would be the chief executive. Solidarność became a legitimate and legal political party. Perhaps the most important decision reached during the talks was to allow for partially free elections to be held in Poland. All seats to the newly created Senate of Poland were to be elected democratically, as were 161 seats (35 percent of the total) in Sejm. The remaining 65% of the seats were reserved for the Communist Party and its satellite parties. In addition, all 35 seats elected via the country-wide list were re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |