Poland

Robert Pearce introduces the man who has been called ‘the George Washington of Poland’.

Richard Monte presents the forthcoming Polish film adaptation of Quo Vadis.

What did Hitler mean by Lebensraum? Did he attempt to translate theory into reality? Martyn Housden 'unpacks' the term and puts it into historical context.

Cressida Trew, winner of this year's Julia Wood Essay Prize, shows that Polish historians under political duress and with the need to forge a positive national identity have denied rather than confronted the Holocaust. 

Mikhail Gorbachev's period as President of the Soviet Union, 1985-91, was truly revolutionary. But Steven Morewood argues that he failed to understand or control the forces he unleashed.

Robert Frost reveals a neglected influence on his reforms.

How did Britain come to make the promises to Poland that resulted in a declaration of war against Germany in September 1939? Sir Nicholas Henderson unravels a curious story.

The elaborate funeral portraits of Poland's 17th-century nobility are a window on their self-image and lifestyle, as Bozena Grabowska discusses here. (Translated from the Polish by George Lambor).

The first modern constitution in Europe? On the occasion of its bicentenary, Robert Frost looks at the background to a landmark in Polish history which, though it triggered the final disaster of partition by the country's greedy neighbours, was a work of enlightened reform, not revolution. 

Michael Burleigh investigates how academia was pressed into service to legitimise Nazi imperialism in the conquered East.