Hungarian Princess Jadwiga (Yahd VEE gah) has been prepared from birth to put the peace and prosperity of nations above her own desires. Betrothed in 1378 at the age of five to Prince William of Austria, their education has included spending time in each other’s court for careful training as future rulers. When the balance of power in Central Europe unexpectedly shifts, the Council from faraway Poland demands that Jadwiga become their monarch. The eleven-year-old girl is soon traveling north to Krakow where she is crowned queen in Wawel Cathedral, swearing “to keep and maintain the rights and liberties granted by the righteous Christian kings of Poland.” And she means to do it. However, when Poland’s Council insists upon her marrying the fierce pagan Prince Jagiello of Lithuania instead of William, Jadwiga passionately resists. The intense struggle in which this young queen lays down her personal hopes and gives her entire life to the fulfillment of a peaceful union between Poland and Lithuania—long referred to as “The wedding ring of Jadwiga”—will have far-reaching consequences in her own time and in the years to come. Jadwiga, “White Dove of Poland,” was canonized a saint in 1997 by Pope John Paul II. Includes an Author’s Note Historical Insight article by Daria Sockey Revised edition

HERE is the story of a great love and a great sacrifice and of a queen’s work built on that sacrifice. It takes us back five hundred years, to the brilliant court of that King Louis of Hungary who ruled the half of Europe—the court where his gifted youngest daughter, Jadwiga, grew up. It takes us to Vienna, for Jadwiga was betrothed to the young Crown Prince of Austria. Then to Krakow, early capital of Poland, where Jadwiga was called as queen and where she made her supreme renunciation. Through it and her marriage with the Lithuanian Grand Duke, Jagiello, she brought the last pagan people of Europe into the fold of the Western Church, and raised a barrier against the eastern push of the German soldiers of the Cross, which made possible a Poland stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Thenceforth the union of Poland and Lithuania was known as the “Wedding ring of Jadwiga.” Through darkest days she kept her faith, until she was reverenced throughout Europe for her holiness and admired for her wisdom. Like Joan of Arc in France, she has been in Poland a symbol of national aspiration and a source of national idealism. This book represents years of travel and research and has already been accepted by the Polish historical congress. It is important as history and interesting also as the love story of a great woman.

This study explores the representation of international migration on screen and how it has gained prominence and salience in European filmmaking over the past 100 years. Using Polish migration as a key example due to its long-standing cultural resonance across the continent, this book moves beyond a director-oriented approach and beyond the dominant focus on postcolonial migrant cinemas. It succeeds in being both transnational and longitudinal by including a diverse corpus of more than 150 films from some twenty different countries, of which Roman Polański’s The Tenant, Jean-Luc Godard’s Passion and Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Trois couleurs: Blanc are the best-known examples. Engaging with contemporary debates on modernisation and Europeanisation, the author proposes the notion of “close Otherness” to delineate the liminal position of fictional characters with a Polish background. Polish Migrants in European Film 1918-2017 takes the reader through a wide range of genres, from interwar musicals to Cold War defection films; from communist-era exile right up to the contemporary moment. It is suitable for scholars interested in European or Slavic studies, as well as anyone who is interested in topics such as identity construction, ethnic representation, East-West cultural exchanges and transnationalism.

'An important and timely book.' - Philippa Gregory Joan of Navarre was the richest woman in the land, at a time when war-torn England was penniless. Eleanor Cobham was the wife of a weak king's uncle – and her husband was about to fall from grace. Jacquetta Woodville was a personal enemy of Warwick the Kingmaker, who was about to take his revenge. Elizabeth Woodville was the widowed mother of a child king, fighting Richard III for her children's lives. In Royal Witches, Gemma Hollman explores the lives of these four unique women, looking at how rumours of witchcraft brought them to their knees in a time when superstition and suspicion was rife.

The history of eastern European is dominated by the story of the rise of the Russian empire, yet Russia only emerged as a major power after 1700. For 300 years the greatest power in Eastern Europe was the union between the kingdom of Poland and the grand duchy of Lithuania, one of the longest-lasting political unions in European history. Yet because it ended in the late-eighteenth century in what are misleadingly termed the Partitions of Poland, it barely features in standard accounts of European history. The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union 1385-1569 tells the story of the formation of a consensual, decentralised, multinational, and religiously plural state built from below as much as above, that was founded by peaceful negotiation, not war and conquest. From its inception in 1385-6, a vision of political union was developed that proved attractive to Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, and Germans, a union which was extended to include Prussia in the 1450s and Livonia in the 1560s. Despite the often bitter disagreements over the nature of the union, these were nevertheless overcome by a republican vision of a union of peoples in one political community of citizens under an elected monarch. Robert Frost challenges interpretations of the union informed by the idea that the emergence of the sovereign nation state represents the essence of political modernity, and presents the Polish-Lithuanian union as a case study of a composite state. The modern history of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus cannot be understood without an understanding of the legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian union. This volume is the first detailed study of the making of that union ever published in English.

Ignace Jan Paderewski was born in Poland in November, 1860. At his death in 1940, he was honored by burial in the Arlington Cemetery. As a boy, young Ignace saw repeated Polish rebellions against the controlling foreign powers fail. He determines that the way to help Poland become free and united is for him to become a person of renown-somehow! His vast natural instinct for music unexpectedly opens a door. Though he excels in musical theory and composition, his dream of becoming a concert pianist is continually thwarted by poor advice and instruction. Then, in 1884, displaying the exceptional gift that recurs throughout his lifetime-of meeting the right person at the right time-Ignace starts on the path to becoming a virtuoso pianist at the unheard of age of 24! By 1910, after taking the world by storm through his brilliance as a performer and popularity as a man of humility, warmth and appeal, Ignace begins his incredible career as statesman. It is now that his lifetime of meeting, winning and helping others comes to the fore, granting him vital influence among political figures and situations of his day. Here is an absorbing portrait, full of lively and illuminating incident, observations from contemporaries and matter for reflection, of a man who was aptly called "a genius who happens to play the piano." Historical Insight article by Daria SockeyLocation: Poland and the U.S.Time Period: Modern Era, WW1