This paper presents the inter-relationships between the Poles arriving at Padova for University studies or actively present in the Venetian Republic during the Renaissance and the representatives of the Serenissima intellectual elite. The author is particularly interested in the aspects of the contacts that touch upon the humanist culture developed in the suburban mansions, which constituted the characteristic feature of the culture at the turn of the 15th century. The paper examines the arguments in support of the thesis that the numerous presence of the incomers from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had a decisive influence on the cultural choices made by Polish and Lithuanian gentry in regards to construction of the suburban residences and their ambitions to introduce into those spaces some elements of art and literary culture adopted from the environment in which they had lived in Italy.

The recent revival of studies on the Hungarian War of Independence led by Francis Rákóczi II (1703-1711) since the last international conferences on this topic encouraged research on the most important events of European diplomacy in the period of the Spanish Succession War. The importance of the Hungarian War of Independence consists in its capacity of forcing the Habsburg Empire to open a secondary war in Hungary and thus improving France’s military dispositions. Prince Francis Rákóczi II, who is internationally by far the best-known member of his family, is one of the most popular national heroes.

The article is a biographical sketch devoted to the figure of Prince Józef Poniatowski (1763–1813). It was created on the occasion of the 210th anniversary of the battle of Raszyn, which took place on April 19, 1809. During this battle Józef Poniatowski impressed both his soldiers and Austrian opponents with extraordinary bravery and heroism. In the same year he received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, which was established by Napoleon Bonaparte. Poniatowski said without false modesty that “God has entrusted me with the honor of Poles, I will give him to God.” He was also prophetically saying that “You must die bravely”. He was born in Vienna and raised in a German-speaking environment. Pepi, as he was commonly called, became at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, along with Tadeusz Kościuszko, a hero of the Polish nation. In the presented article, especially the place deals with the issue of its extraordinary popularity in the history of the nation and the Polish state of the last two centuries. The symbol of this popularity is the fact that Prince Józef Poniatowski has long had a monument in Warsaw, and his uncle, King of Poland, Stanisław August Poniatowski, will probably never have one. The presented article was based on the most important scientific studies devoted to Poniatowski.

The purpose of the article is to recall the history of Polish families in Eastern Europe, and strictly in Ukraine at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. In a short article, however, it is difficult to tell their history in full. However, you can look at them from the perspective of individual stories, as in the case of Józefat Andrzejowski, who is active in economic and educational and educational grounds. He was born in 1849 in Kielce as the son of a November insurgent. After graduating from junior high school in Kielce, he went to Switzerland to study ceramics, where he was strongly influenced by Andrzej Towiański. In 1878 he moved to Kiev and founded a ceramics factory there. He got involved in the activities of the secret Society of Folk Education. In his factory he founded a school where secret lessons of Polish children and youth were held. In 1904 he was elected the president of the National Education Society, and from 1906 the chairman of the “Education” Society. In 1913 he was arrested, and a year later sent to Astrakhan for three years, where he worked for Polish deportees as part of the Society for Assistance to War Victims. In 1917 he returned to Kiev and was elected president of the Polish Motherland and head of the education department of the Polish Executive Committee in Russia. During the Polish-Bolshevik war, he was wanted by the Soviet authorities. In October 1921 he came to independent Poland. Thanks to Andrzejowski and other Polish activists, over 100 children were rescued and removed from Kiev. In the Second Polish Republic he became involved in social activities. Andrzejowski was, among others, a treasurer and a member of the board of the Polish Red Cross in Warsaw and a member of the board of the Towarzystwo Pomocy Dzieciom i Młodzieży z Kresów. Józefat Andrzejowski, whose history is explained by the article, died in Warsaw in 1939. His many years of educational activity indicate that his real Polish family in the East were thousands of Polish children who created the conditions for learning.

W latach 30. XX wieku zainteresowanie Polaków Krajem Kwitnącej Wiśni było duże. Świadczą o tym liczne notatki, które ukazywały się zarówno w czasopismach o charakterze naukowym, popularnonaukowym, krajoznawczym, jak i informacyjnym. Jednak o ile w latach 20. XX wieku obywateli II Rzeczpospolitej interesowały przede wszystkim zagadnienia związane z kulturą Japonii, to po wybuchu konfliktu na Dalekim Wschodzie i aneksji Mandżurii przez państwo Hirohito w prasie zaczęła dominować tematyka związana z gospodarką, polityką i sytuacją wewnętrzną w Kraju Wschodzącego Słońca. Jednym z czasopism, które najczęściej wspominały na swoich łamach o Japonii, było orientalne czasopismo popularnonaukowe „Wschód”, (1930–1939), krajoznawcze: „Z Daleka i Bliska” (1933–1939), a także program radiofoniczny: „Antena” (1934–1939).