Nie wiem dla kogo pani to napisala, ale napewno nie dla mnie. Dlaczego tak
ciezko cos napisac normalnie po polsku?
SB
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dana Alvi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Multiple recipients of list prawica" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2000 5:17 AM
Subject: Prawica: Polski Orzel
> Ponizej dany artykul napewno jest po polsku w Panoramie Historii Polski,
> Interpress, Warszawa, 1992.
>
> 15go lutego 1955 r. artykul ukazal sie po angielsku w gazecie Warsaw
> Voice pod tytulem "The White Eagle's Flight of Fancy". Przedrukowany
> byl w 1995 r. w Polish-American Journal, dokladna data nie znana.
> Tutejszy przepis jest z Polish American Journal. Orzel jest pokazany w
> pierwszej rubryce z szesciokatna gwiazda w skrzydlach. Nie wiadomo, w
> ktorej publikacji gwiazda zostala dodana.
>
> POLAND'S WHITE EAGLE TURNS 700
>
> The national symbols of Poland - its emblem, flag and anthem - have a
> long history. Like the country they represent, their history is rich in
> both grand and tragic moments.
>
> The oldest of all Poland's symbols is its emblem, her coat of arms. The
> famed Polish eagle design is 700 years old this month.
>
> The icon is the effigy of a white eagle on a red field. The origins of
> this emblem date back to the Piast era, the formative period of Polish
> statehood. Scholars are unable to explain with absolute certainty the
> reasons for this choice of emblem. The prevailing opinion is that the
> heraldic effigy of the eagle, appearing as early as the first quarter of
> the 13th century on the seals of provincial princes of the Piast
> dynasty, was their personal sign. It was a sign chosen independently,
> although within the broader framework of heraldic customs that had
> earlier taken shape in Western Europe.
>
> According to the political and legal doctrine of the Middle Ages, the
> monarch symbolized the state. Consequently, the personal sign of the
> ruler became the symbol of the lands and people under his authority.
> The attempts to reunify Poland's territories made by the Piast
> Przemyslaw II, Prince of Great Poland, secured his personal sign - the
> white eagle - the symbol of state unity. When Prince Przemyslaw II was
> crowned on June 26, 1295, he introduced a crowned eagle to the royal
> seal as an emblem of the united Kingdom of Poland. It was in this sense
> that the kings who unified Poland - Przemyslaw II and those after him,
> Ladislaus the Short and Casimir the Great - placed their seals on a
> crowned eagle as a symbol of royal dignity. The feeling of national
> consciouncess which was then taking shape helped to strengthen the role
> of that symbol.
>
> How great a moral force was already at the time associated with the
> emblem of the Kingdom can be seen from the description of Poland's most
> eminent chronicler, Jan Dlugosz, of the fight to defend the grand banner
> bearing the eagle during the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.
>
> The shape of the Polish official eagle was finally fixed around the
> middle of the 14th century. The eagle of those days - its silhouette
> dramatically outlined - is impressive: its crowned head proudly raised,
> the beak sharply delineated and the wings adorned by a bandeau. It
> breathed strength and majesty.
>
> Later on, the Polish eagle changed its shape more than once as tastes
> varied in different periods. The Gothic form of the emblem of the
> Piasts and first Jagiellonians was replaced by the Renaissance design of
> the eagles of Sigismund I and Sigismund Augustus. In the 18th century,
> the eagle assumed the classicist form which proved to be the most
> durable. Yet, in spite of its changing forms, the symbol always
> remained the same.
>
> Under the Jagiellonians and in the later period as well, the Polish
> eagle used to appear on the same escutcheon together with Lithuania's
> emblem - the Pogon (Pursuit) - as a sign of the dynastic union binding
> the two countries. Apart from the officially adopted state emblem, the
> effigy of the eagle also appeared with the cipher or coat of arms of the
> current king on its breast. The white-feathered eagle with a crown
> became fixed in the national consciousness as the Pole's own sign, the
> symbol of the Polish State and of the continuity of its independent
> political existance. No wonder, therefore, that when Poland lost her
> political independence as a result of partitions, the foreign
> authorities banned the use of the eagle. It was replaced by
> artificially created signs - first, the emblem of the Duchy of Warsaw
> created by Napoleon (the coat of arms of the Saxon dynasty on a shield
> combined with the Polish eagle), and, later on, the emblem of the
> Kingdom of Poland (Russia's double-headed black eagle with the Polish
> eagle on its breast).
>
> After the defeat of the January Uprising of 1863-64, even that
> substitute for the country's ancient emblem was removed and the Polish
> eagle was placed on the wings of the Tsar's eagle, among the coats of
> arms of other provinces. In the Prussian- and Austrian-riled parts of
> Poland, the eagle of the Republic was supplanted by the symbols of
> foreign monarchies.
>
> The partitions of Poland and the loss of independence at the same time
> stimulated and accelerated the development of Polish national thought.
> The white eagle as an officially banned sign became a greater symbol of
> the highest patriotic feeling, a reminder of the former glory of the
> Polish State, the embodiment of dreams of freedom.
>
> The image of the eagle played an important role in each insurrectionary
> outburst in Polish liberation movements. During the November Uprising
> of 1830-31, the official emblem of the Kingdom of Poland was
> spontaneously rejected and the Eagle-and-Pursuit was restored. The
> Pursuit was meant to symbolize the rebirth of the Polish State in its
> former boundaries. Similar intentions motivated the insurrectionary
> government of 1863 when it placed on its seals the Eagle and the Pursuit
> as well as the Archangel, symbolizing Poland's former Ruthenian
> territory.
>
> Besides the idea of independence, the liberation movements of the 19th
> century also advanced a program of social reforms and democratic
> freedoms. As a result, some questioned the role of the crown on the
> eagle.
>
> A crownless eagle appeared on the flag of the Polish Democratic Society
> formed in 1832 in exile. In 1848, it appeared on the standards of
> Polish troops fighting in defiance of the Hungarian revolution. It was
> also the emblem of the Legion formed in Italy by Adam Mickiewicz. In
> Poland, the crownless eagle was adopted in the days of the 1846 Krakow
> Insurrection. It also adorned the flags of some insurgent units in 1863
> and 1864.
>
> The symbol of the crownless eagle was used by Polish military units
> formed in various countries of Europe and the United States during the
> First World War. At that time, some military units formed in Poland
> used - at first - the eagle without a crown. The Polish State, reborn
> in 1981, adopted as its emblem the crowned eagle, although the
> short-lived socialist government tried to adopt the crownless eagle.
>
> In 1919, the official design of the state emblem was approved; it was a
> white eagle with its crown, beak and claws in gold, on a field of red.
> In 1927, a new model was introduced, designed by Professor Zygmunt
> Kaminski. Still a white eagle on a red field, it is undoubtedly the
> most recognized version of the symbol of Poland to this day.
>
> The emblem and Poland's other national symbols were brutally trampled
> underfoot by Nazi invaders. The Polish people lifted them as signs of
> struggle. The eagle, banned under the occupation, became a visible
> symbol of the underground front and of the Polish forces organized
> abroad. The tradition of the crownless eagle were revived in the
> leftist independence movement - in the units of the People's Guard and
> later of the People's Army, and in the Polish Army formed in the Soviet
> Union.
>
> The Polish People's Republic adopted as its emblem the eagle without a
> crown. The decree of December 7, 1955 approved Kaminski's 1927 version
> but without the crown. The design was confirmed in a law passed January
> 31, 1980, ironically the year the Solidarity movement in Poland began to
> gain greater international attention. The subsequent events which led
> to the end of a Communist-controlled Poland saw the restoration of the
> crown.
>
> SOURCES: A Panorama of Polish History, Interpress, Warsaw 1992. "The
> White Eagle's Flight of Fancy", Warsaw Voice, Feb. 15, 1995.
>
> Polish-American Journal
>
> * * * * * *
>
>
>
