Introduction

In the beliefs of Celtic tribes, a boar played an extremely important role. Due to its special position, it was a part of many religious traditions. What was extremely popular constituted, among other things, burials of these animals. In the case of Celts, there are two kinds of boar graves, i.e. single burials of these animals in separate graves, and human graves involving boar bones. There exist many interpretations of this type of finds. They may be connected with the composed of animals, but also zoolatry understood as a conviction that some animals are the incarnation of gods. In such a case, a single burial would be a reflection of the position animals have in their life. It is also probable that the burials of boars were connected with a curad-mir tradition, described by Ancient authors. A suggestion was that a boar constituted an object of a magic ritual, serving the purpose of an equivalent of man. Some other views say that the burials of boars are related to funeral traditions as such, where the animal accompanied man as his/her guide on his/her way to the beyond. In view of the nature of the existing sources it is difficult to unanimously predict the aim of burying boars, however, it goes beyond doubt that the very actions were purposeful and significant for the society practising them.

One of the most characteristic phenomena in a political situation in Rome at the end of a republic is the usage of religion, prophecies in particular, in internal battles. An interesting example of this type of actions includes the ones of Mark Tullius Cicero against Catiline. He interpreted numerously appearing prodigia as predicting unhappiness for Rome the Catiline’s plot was supposed to be. The article is devoted to the analysis of symbols and events Cicero considered helpful in unmasking the plans of Catiline. They also involved astronomic (sun eclipse, comets, sun torch), as well as natural (storms, thunders, thunderbolts of earthquakes) phenomena. Much more important in his battle with Catilinaires were the events and prophecies to which he ascribed symbolic and religious meaning. It concerned, among others, the issues of statues, Jupiter and a she-wolf with Romulus. Cicero used them, presenting himself as a sender of Jupiter and a new Romulus, a refounder of Rome. What was also significant constituted the prophecies of an augur Appius Claudius (augurium Salutis) and a symbol (a bursting flame) which was seen by the vestals during celebrations in honour of a Good Goddess. At the same time, it is characteristic that 20 years later Cicero, in the course of De divinatione, was skeptical towards the symbols described, questioning their “divine” nature.

Investigating the role of Caesarians in the attempt on the life of G. Julius Caesar on 15th March 44 BC, the author of the article makes an attempt to explain several issues connected with this subject-matter. First of all, he establishes the criteria serving the purpose of distinguishing Caesarians. He defines them analysing the ways of presenting politicians connected with who participated in his murder typical of the authors of Ancient source texts and contemporary historians. He also brings the profiles of assassinators closer and clarifies motives which could make the senators befriended with Caesar act against their protector and leader. Having presented the very issues, the author discusses the role of Caesarians in the attempt on the life of G. Julius Caesar. He considers it relatively thoroughly, examining the activity of the best-known Caesarians in the conspiracy organized against Caesar and in the course of the assassination which ended in his death on a day of the Ides of March in 44.

The article concerns the image of gods as a motive used in the propaganda programme of the empresses of the Sewer dynasty. The author concentrates on the interpretation of the numismatic material belonging to empresses, i.e. Julia Domna, Julia Meza, Julia Soemias and Julia Mamea. Their Syrian origin and influential position at the imperial court could influence the innovativeness and originality of propaganda slogans promoted by means of numismats in a particular way. That is why the author wonders which gods were used, examines the frequency of their occurrence and confronts numismats signed by the Senate with imperial ones. A thorough analysis of numismats allows for drawing a conclusion that the mint system of the empresses made use of traditional and commonly-known Roman gods. The exceptions that appeared were rather connected with the politics of particular rulers than the promotion of new trends or unconventional performances. The same refers to the differences between editions signed by the Senate and an emperor. On the basis of the material analysed, one can assume that the Senate fully supported propaganda slogans appearing in the mint system of empresses.

The Ancient tradition consolidated the image of Aurelian as a strict and fierce ruler, caring for the army and aiming to re-establish discipline in it. He could be called paedagogus militum. Aurelian addressed intensive propaganda to the soldiers, which is reflected in the contents of the imperial coins. In the collection of 19,820 Aurelian’s coins as much as 29.1% of the items involve military threads. In that selected group of coins two themes made up the core of the propaganda: concordia militum (68%) and virtus militum (19.5%). The remaining slogans, promoted less intensively, were: concordia legi, conco exer, fides exerciti, fides militum, genius exerciti, genius Illur, restitutor exerciti, virtus Illurici, virtus equit. There are two main streams in Aurelian’s propaganda. The first referred to the army as a real power, securing the rule as well as supporting and strengthening the ruler. It depended, however, on the loyalty, unanimity and faithfulness of the soldiers towards the emperor. That stream manifested itself in the contents of the coins, which recalled the values of concordia and fides or flattered the soldiers, glorifying their virtus. It also revealed a more sublime idea, deriving from the search for divine protection and supernatural sources of imperial power. The iconography of a few series of coins, propagating concordia militum, fides militum, virtus militum, placing the emperor side by side with Mars and Jupiter, proved the emperor’s right to rule, deriving from gods’ will. Its objective was to build a stronger ideological foundation for the emperor’s rule and to raise Aurelian above the milieu he came from.

The article presents the ways of presenting the king Jan Olbracht in Old-Polish chronicles, literary works created in the period of Positivism and the Young Poland Movement, as well as in selected works of historians. The considerations centre around three topics. The first one is connected with the period starting from Jan Olbracht’s ruling to an excursion to Bukowina, the second covers his ruling after a defeat in Moldavia, an emphasis being put on its consequences, especially for an internal politics, whereas the third concerns the evaluation of Olbracht’s ruling made by the literary writers and historians. When characterizing the king, the attention was paid to his looks and personality features. The most important events from the period of his ruling were presented. These included Olbracht’s election (27 VIII 1492) which was influenced by, among others, the attempts of the queen mother and the position of Lithuania, the convention of Jagiellonians in Lewocza, few documents of which have been scarcely preserved, the Sejm in Piotrków in 1496 during which the king approved of the new privileges for the gentry, and king’s meeting with his brother Aleksander in Parczew. Subsequently, the article describes Jan Olbracht’s excursion to Moldavia, preceded by mysterious symbols interpreted as the harbinger of defeat. A description of war struggles involved the king’s actions and evaluation of the extent of defeat in Bukowina. A discussion of its importance, both for the ruler himself, and the country constitutes yet another subject of reflection. The final part of the work brings the evaluation of the monarch’s profile.

The subject-matter of this article constitutes second and subsequent marriages and are examined from a demographic point of view on the basis of register books, last wills and pre-marriage contracts. The author concentrates on a demographic significance, as well as the reasons of repeat marriages in the case of the city dwellers of Frýdek and Místek. According to the pre-marriage contracts, the widows often got remarried because their economic and social position did not allow for independence. Also the widowers searched for women because in general they could not cope with economy. Thus, repeat marriages of widows and widowers constituted about 25—35% of general relationships in both cities. There were a few more of such marriages in Místek in the 18th century. It could be connected with a high indicator of mortality caused by the plague epidemic between 1713 and 1715. A lower number of second and subsequent marriages in Frýdek in the 18th century, on the other hand, could also be caused by invalid data in register books. The number of repeat marriages decreased in the 19th century.

One of the most bishop keys was partly an industrialized key in Sławków (a small town and about 12 villages). One of the parish villages in this key was Jaworzno in 1581. It was a big village at that time: 19 peasant cornfields (which could correspond to the population of more or less 300 people), 7 homesteaders without land (about 30 people), 3 landless tenants with cattle (about 15 people), 6 landless tenants without cattle (about 20 people), and 8 burnt-down peasants of 1579 (about 40 heads), 2 craftsmen (i.e. about 15 people) and 1 village leader cornfield (over 10 people). Average villages at that time covered fewer than 100 inhabitants in Poland, from 100 to 200 in Małopolska, whereas Jaworzno as such inhabited about 450 people, excluding a parson, curates, their service and subjects. Jan Leżeński accused the inhabitants of Jaworzno of an armata manu, i.e. an opposition “with an armed hand” when his deputy, starost Zbożyński, wanted to take cattle and swine for unpaid rents. Peasants who were in Kraków because of an occasion of tree floating, complained in their response that Zbożyński, having sequenced the cattle in an unequal way, harmed heavily 2 of them and hurt others. An example of an opposition of the inhabitants of Jaworzno towards Jan Leżeński, a bishop starost, constituted one of the few cases of the victory of peasants over gentry in economic conflicts in the former Republic of Poland.

The author of the article deals with the issue of corruption in the Republic of Poland between the 17th and 18th centuries. He starts with a definition of the notion of corruption and the spheres of life it covered. Subsequently, he makes an attempt to counteract corruption aiming at eliminating it from a social and political life. Despite all these attempts, it turned out to be impossible to eliminate corruption so tightly connected especially with a political life of the Polish-Lithuanian country. The issues of committed abuses during the parliamentary session and actions taken by the city, the representatives of which used corruption to realize their postulates in the Parliament are described. It also presents the examples of corrupting the rulers of the Republic of Poland, as well as its closest co-workers. One should notice that both the kings and the court used the same methods in their realization of political conceptions. Corruption actions taken by the foreign governments aiming at paralysing the Polish-Lithuanian politics and weakening the position of the country were regarded as especially dangerous for the Republic of Poland. The actions of corrupting the clerks making the foreign diplomats know many secrets of the Republic of Poland were alarming. The dissolution of the Parliament, paid by the foreign governments aiming at a political and military weakening of the Republic of Poland, and, thus, making it impossible to conduct the reform of the country had a tragic influence on the political history. Finally, the article also presents the issue of a political corruption functioning in during the interregnum when the associates in the battle for the Polish crown were being recruited by means of money.

The article makes an attempt to present the attitude Józef Szujski had towards the January Raising. It is an interesting issue mainly because Szujski was a conservative Galitia politician, and, above all, a leader of stańczycy who were against a Romantic tradition of independence battles. However, in the case of Szujski, fairly superficial and general opinions do not reflect the whole intricacy of his views, especially historio-philosophical ones which undoubtedly had an influence on his political behaviours. On the one hand, Szujski is a large format figure, one of the most outstanding Polish historians, but also a writer, columnist, co-founder of a historical school in Kraków. At first a liberal and later on (after 1863) a conservative politician who became a leader of a conciliatory politics and the Stańczyk party, a co-author of Teka Stańczyka, a well-known political pamphlet on the Polish nation and its democratic and raising endeavours. On the other hand, he was also the professor of the Polish history at the Jagiellonian University (starting from 1869), and its president between 1878 and 1879, the Member of Parliament and, finally, only to mention the most important areas of his activity, a general secretary of Akademia Umiejętności. It is beyond all doubt that he was influential, not only on the environment in Kraków. Thanks to that, it is much more interesting to have a closer look at different forms of his engagement into the January Raising and his evaluation of this military action. It is so because, on the one hand, he often expressed his reluctance to revolutionary actions, whereas, on the other hand, he actively participated in it, both in person and in writing texts about the Raising. His analyses, aiming at emphasizing the reasons of the collapse of the Republic of Poland which, at least to a certain extent, explain his later attitude to the January Raising.

A split that took place in a Galitia peasant movement in 1913 created a sensation in a political life and eventually buried a system of powers existing on the political scene already for several years. A creation and, an ultimate structure of the opposition in Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe in 1913 towards Jan Stapiński, a PSL political leader, led to the election of the organizing committee of the future Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe “Piast” headed by Wincenty Witos in Tarnów on 20th December 1913. The reasons of the split in a Galitia peasant movement were diversified and complex. They derived from the fact that PSL, after a democratization of the elections after the 1907 election, introduced a large group of its own MPs to the Austrian State Council who dominated in the Polish Circle. The success caused the influx of numerous new members of different peasant groups to the party, but also the ones who did not necessarily represented the peasants’ interests. It also had an influence on the lack of stability of the policy of the party management and Stapiński himself who, has aimed to move to the radical opposition and agreement, among other things, with the peasant Ukraine groups in 1913 since his alliance with conservatists in the Austrian parliament. The very alliance shaped the so called Lviv frond (Bolesław Wysłouch, Jan Dąbski and others), a group who left PSL in 1911 (in 1914 was to enter into a new PSL Piast). In 1913 Stapiński announced changes of the party policy and movement into a radical opposition in the parliament. His lack of decisiveness in many important issues increased the criticism towards him on the part of some of the activists, Zygmunt Lasocki, among others. The criticism did not concern only the programming, but also financial issues. Among other things, Stapiński was accused of gaining funds on the activity from “illegal sources”, also from one of the colonizational-marine committees. A sharp press campaign, among other things, in a new magazine “Piast”, as well as an address against the president of PSL on the parliament forum which happened in autumn 1913 in connection with financial abuses, undoubtedly, weakened his already seriously-undermined authority in the party and laid the ground for, as it appeared, the non-distant split.

Adam Piwowar, an independent activist, the first democratically selected president of Dąbrowa Górnicza (1917–1923), a long-standing teacher of “Sztygarka” in Dąbrowa, a community worker and patriot, one of the outstanding figures playing an important role in the history of the city. The most important element of his point of view was deep humanitarism deriving from the assumption that man is a social being and therefore all his/her actions should directly or indirectly serve the society and other people. Throughout his life, Piwowar believed in “the chastity of thoughts, words and actions”. A pro-social and patriotic attitude of his life shaped in the last quarter of the 19th century. It was a time of progressive industrialization of Zagłębie, but, at the same time, large social contrasts, the lack of basic citizen freedom, as well as a quick national development. In spite of connections to a socialistic movement, Piwowar was never a socialist in an ideological-political sense. His later political choices were always subordinate to those considered to be the higher ones, i.e. aims, namely the best and disinterested service to the society. A big influence on shaping such a point of view had Albert Heim, an outstanding cartographer and pedagogue from Swiss whom Adam Piwowar met during his geological studies in Switzerland.

In the first half of the 1920s, father August Hlond worked in the Polish part of Upper Silesia, performing the function of an apostolic administrator and, subsequently, a bishop in Katowice. Both nominations were decided upon by Pius XI the Pope, taking into consideration different virtues of the priest’s character. The most valuable among them were the abilities to resolve conflicts appearing inside the Catholic camp. A national antagonism, dividing the Catholic environment into the Polish and German group was the strongest in Upper Silesia. Poles dominated in numbers, but the group of German Catholics also demanded a guarantee of their linguistic rights in pastoral work. Additionally, the situation was complicated by their engagement in an argument of political, Polish and German organizations, increasing the temperature of a national conflict. In the light of this complicated internal situation, father A. Hlond used mediation methods and tried to provide the feuding sides with the highest standard of pastoral care on the part of the church. It is how, for instance, the politics of tolerance towards German rights of the congregation could be explained. It brought positive results expressed in a substantial decrease of the intensity of social conflicts. It became especially evident after A. Hlond the bishop had already left Upper Silesia and taken on the function of the primate of Poland.

A Silesian Branch of the Air Prevention League founded on January 24th 1924 (the Air and Gas Prevention League since 1927), likewise the remaining AGPL organizational units, was to propagate the development of civil aviation, as well as air and gas prevention. In spite of the specificity deriving from different socio-economic and political conditions of the area of the Silesian voivodship, the branch has reached impressive results throughout 15 years of its creation. It was possible thanks to unusual ambition and solidarity of a multinational society, as well as dedication to social purposes rarely observed at that time. The authority of people managing the AGPL committees and their big engagement in all spheres of League work were an additional attribute of a thriving development of organization. To the most important all Poland achievements of the association belonged the construction of four academic institutions training the pilots to be of two airports, including one of a sports-touristic type, a participation in the money collection in order to buy the aviation transportation or the construction of the greatest parachute tower in Poland. A Silesian AGPL was known for its perfect organization within the field of air and gas prevention of civils. It conducted numerous trainings for the society in the very area. It built exemplary gas prevention shelters and organized the first Poland-wide exhibition of air-gas prevention in line with all AGPL voivodship regions. An outbreak of the World War II destroyed long-standing achievements of the League. However, the staff of an aviation personnel trained by the organization and numerous AGPL activists made themselves visible during the war actions, fighting with the enemy.

The main Polish parties in the Silesian Voivodship, among other things, the Christian Democracy centred around Wojciech Korfanty and, after 1926, a sanation, an ideological leader of which was a voivode Michał Grażyński, despite being at variance with each other, undoubtedly shared their reluctance to Germans. It was clearly visible after Adolf Hitler’s access to power in 1933 and German expansion in Europe, the beginning of which was a remilitarization of Nadreny in 1936. Obviously, particular parties, to a different degree and in a different way, depending on the attitude to the foreign politics of the Polish government, expressed their fears of a potential conflict with the third Reich. The very fears connected with German’s occupation of Austria, Kłajpeda, and the split of Czechoslovakia increased after April 1939 after the announcement of the Polish-German declaration from 1934 on the non-usage of force in mutual relations. The press body of “Polska Zachodnia” sanation, took a position identical with guidelines coming from Warsaw. An exception was the attitude to the problems of German minority. In such a case, the magazine, according to the opinions of Grażyński, represented a hostile attitude to any reflections of Hitlerism, aimed at limiting German influences on the economic and social life in Upper Silesia. An attitude to the above-mentioned issues was divergent from an official course of the Polish foreign policy. “Polonia” by Korfanty discerned danger threatening Poland on the part of Germany. It strongly criticized the foreign policy of the Polish government, however after the inclusion of Austria by the third Reich, weakened its criticism within the scope of among other things the defence government policy. A socialistic “Gazeta Robotnicza” warned against danger threatening Poland on the part of Germany since the occupation of Nadreny in 1936. However, in the beginning, it did not support the action in favour of the National Defence Fund, strongly criticizing the foreign policy of the Polish country conducted by Józef Beck. Its support for a collection for NDF conditioned with changes in an internal and foreign politics and it was not earlier than in spring 1939, after the inclusion of Czech and Lithuanian Kłajpeda that socialists stopped criticizing the government and supported the actions of subscription in favour of The National Defence Loan and NDF. A national-radical “Kuźnia” expressed its attitude towards Polish-German relations by means of taking on the resolution of the second convention of the Delegates of the National-Radical Movement which took place in Katowice on 11 June 1939. The editorial board rather did not delude themselves with the inevitability of the armed conflict with the third Reich. Thus, it postulated to strengthen the Polish element in all spheres of a social life, reduce the significance of the German minority in an economic life, join the parcelling of large German landed estate, provide the unemployed on the border with a special care, and act more energetically in order to decrease the German agitation, as well as abandon political conflicts.

Polish claims towards Czechoslovakia concerning Zaolzie, strengthening at the end of the 1930s and the occupation of this territory aroused a big interest among the city dwellers of Kraków. It was historically justified because the strengthening Polishness in Cieszyn Silesia from the end of 19th century was supported by the activities of Poles from Galitia, especially from Kraków. After World War I, the city dwellers of Kraków took part in a Polish-Czech battle for the nationality of Zaolzie. After a division of this territory in 1920 which was disadvantageous for Poland, they were disappointed. That is why the possibility of including Zaolzie into the boundaries of the Republic of Poland, in connection to the weakening of Czechoslovakia after Munich, was interesting. Kraków, unlike any other city in Poland, aroused interest because of a “return of Zaolzie to the motherland” in October 1938. It was reflected in press, in mass manifestations, resolutions, creating organizations supporting Polish actions and collecting money. The level of engagement differed as to a political option the city dwellers of Kraków were connected with. The advocates of the reform expressed their support for the policy of the Polish government much stronger, the opponents less fervently. The opposition, apart from an approval of the inclusion of Zaolzie, warned against the consequences of this fact for the international politics, meaning a cooperation with Germans.

In hope of a democratization of the political system in Poland, especially after the 7th Plenum of PZPR Central Committee in October 1956, it was expected that the slackening of bureaucratic and overcentralised management methods would happen also in economy. The ideas of democracy from 1945 revived, when it seemed that it was their staff that would be real hosts in socialized work institutions. However, a mass and grass-roots movement of creating and developing labour self-governments in 1956 threatened the already existing system of central planning, position of party and trade organizations of labour councils in the units of the state economy. Thus the PZPR bodies at the central and territory level tried to monitor the grass-roots movement of creating self-government labour councils in factories in Katowice voivodship from the very beginning. In consequence, the Resolution on Labour Councils enacted by the Sejm on 19th November 1956 restricted the activity of this new form of labour self-government to slightly significant and productive actions, namely to decisions within the scope of work organization. In Katowice voivodship, till the beginning of August 1957, 368 Labour Councils were created, involved 2.5 hundred activists, however the practical importance of the staff representatives, although their activity (within particular frames defined by PZPR) was positively evaluated by central and voivodship government — was insignificant. Finally, the Act on the Conference of Labour self-government in 1958 included the labour committees into the system of various and seemingly independent socio-economic institutions undergoing a total supervision of PZPR and state administration.

The article pays attention to the issue of legal functioning of a primary (common) school and the job of the teacher between 1945 and 1972. The analyses included the assumptions of the system and school obligation, duties of the pedagogic staff and its professional responsibility, as well as work evaluation and other teacher rights. The author of the article made an attempt to show that after 1945 the legislation concerning the very subject-matter was based on pre-war legal acts. Primary schools (referred to as common till mid-50s) were first 7-year and, starting from 1962, 8-year institutions. The school obligation covered those children who were 7 years old in a very school year and was being prolonged to the age of 17. The position of a teacher was devoted for people with appropriate professional qualifications (the very condition was only partly resigned from as a result of war loss of the teacher staff, finally taking on the form of an indispensable condition of higher education in 1972) and moral ones. There existed a division into permanent and contemporary teachers and appointed and contract ones according to the form of employment. All of them, for many reasons, could be automatically moved to other schools (with or without their permission). The teacher was obliged to impart knowledge to students and shape an appropriate ideological attitude. The regulations precisely defined the conditions of employment contraction and movement into the unofficial state, professional responsibility (order and discipline penalties) as well as means of work evaluation (very good, good, satisfactory and unsatisfactory). Due to the very profession, the teachers had a right for special privileges (a longer leave, paid leave for recuperation, train concessions and, for some, a free flat, among other things).

Silesian and Basin industrial factories joined strike and protest actions in summer 1980. On 21st August the strike in FAZOS in Tarnowskie Góry started, and, a few days later it comprised coal mines and a metallurgic conglomerate “Katowice” Steelwork, and the biggest and basic economic companies in the country. The agreements signed with the government fulfilled many demands and strike postulates, including the most important right to create one’s own and self-governed representation — free trade unions. The newly-created NSZZ “Solidarność” of the Silesian-Dąbrowa region was the most numerous on a scale of all Poland wide structure of “Solidarność”. It comprised over a million of members centred in a few main centres, the most important of which were MKR Jastrzębie and MKR with its seat in “Katowice” Steelwork. The new trade unions have dealt with immense problems and obstacles in everyday work, the most difficult of which included the mutual organizational agreement and any attempts of unification from the very beginning. In relations with the government it was a mutual indifference and reluctance, with time becoming an impassable barrier in common businesses that started to dominate. The very issues, apart from basic organizational works and union structure creation, will thoroughly fill in the first months of the activity of NSZZ “Solidarność” of the Silesian-Dąbrowa region.