In discussing C. Iulius Caesar’s office of aedile held by him in 65 BC, the author of the present article included in his deliberations Caesar’s activity on two levels: his actions going beyond the powers of the curule aedile and the measures closely related to the duties thereof. The former ones were connected to the accusations that Caesar had taken part in the conspiracies organized at that time, whose participants aimed at seizing power in the Republic. These allegations concerned Caesar’s cooperation, also in this context, with Marcus Licinius Crassus. The latter ones, that is the activities closely related to the duties of the curule aedile, pertained to Caesar’s actions implemented within the prerogatives of these officials, that he took either independently or in cooperation with Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, his peer at the office. Discussing both abovementioned aspects, the author analyzes the grounds of Caesar’s specific initiatives, contemplates the course of their implementation as well as their circumstances and conditions. He pays special attention to the positive and negative outcomes of his moves, presenting them both on a personal and public level.

The Roman conquest of Gaul made in 58—51 BC abounded in heavy struggles which resulted in severe losses suffered by the army of Gaius Julius Caesar. Information about the course of the war reached Rome from various sources, including the accounts of soldiers. This put Caesar in a specific situation, as the narrative he was building could have been quickly verified by others. What is more, he had to assume the probability of facing various social emotions resulting from information about military defeats or a significant number of fallen soldiers. This leads to the question of how Caesar tried to present such episodes, and whether any conclusions can be drawn about the main audiences of his Commentarii.

This text focuses on the use of trophies (tropaions) in the politics of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. It first of all draws attention to the monuments built after the victorious Battle of Chaeronea and Orchomenos in 86 BC. What is analyzed and discussed are numerous controversies pertaining to the trophy remnants found on Turion Hill. Then the article focuses on coins bearing the image of trophies following the leader’s initiative, which was supposed to symbolize the continuity of his military successes in Greece and Italy. Yet, the said motifs do not only related to the numismatic material, since Sulla also used it in his signet rings. Particularly important in this case is the one presenting the captured Jugurtha, probably modeled on the monument on the Capitolium, which became the bone of contention between Sulla and Gaius Marius.

During the reign of Trebonianus Gallus the mint in Antioch issued coins with the legend ADVENTVS AVG. This announced the arrival of the emperor to the Roman East. Indeed, the war with Persia was approaching and the Roman forces were dispatched to the East. Notwithstanding this fact, the emperor did not come to Syria. In this article, I ponder the reasons for the emperor’s resignation from this eastward expedition.

The study deals with the development of Brušperk, which lies in northeastern Moravia. The town
was founded in 1267—1268 by the Bishop of Olomouc, Bruno of Schauenburg. Brušperk was located
in the territory that belonged to the Olomouc bishopric and since the 14th century was a part of the
Hukvaldy manor. The first written mention of Brušperk comes from the founding charter of the town, which is, however, the medieval forgery. On the basis of other documents, we came to the conclusion that the
dating of the founding document, namely 6 December 1269, is incorrect. The town was probably founded in prior to this date. Brušperk was founded as a town on the green land. Brušperk was the centre of jurisprudence for the surrounding villages: Fryčovice, Staříč, Paskov, and Stará Ves nad Ondřejnicí. This area is delimited by the so-called Brušperk vikbild to which these villages belonged. The town of Brušperk was endowed with important privileges, such as the privilege called in Czech odúmrť, the granting of which was very valuable to Brušperk. However, Brušperk was no exception; this privilege was granted by Bishop Mikuláš to most episcopal towns. The office of township reeve in Brušperk was most of the time hereditary and he was vassal of Bishop of Olomouc. The possibilities for where to conduct research in the future are still wide. In Brušperk itself, there is still a lack of detailed archaeological research in the city centre and its immediate surroundings, namely, the square, the cellars of old houses in the square, and the area around the church and the historic town centre. This archaeological research could bring new knowledge to the question of the fortifications of the town in the Middle Ages. Although the shape of the square has remained virtually unchanged since the Middle Ages, there is still the opportunity to learn, as no view or plan has been preserved from earlier times that the original appearance of the town would suggest (the oldest veduta Brušperka dates back to 1727).

The article concerns the history of the towns of Brzeźnica and Pajęczno, which belonged to the non-town starosty of Brzeźnica. The text aims to discuss research problems concerning the socio-economic life in small towns and the factors that influenced the changes in the situation of these urban centers. The text presents the origins of both towns, their administrative affiliation and the scope of power exercised by the starosts on behalf of the ruler. The issues of economy, population structure and topography were also discussed, as well as the economic situation of the inhabitants. The text was prepared with the use of the analytical and statistical method. The article was written mainly on the basis of archival materials stored in the Archives of the Pauline Order at Jasna Góra in Częstochowa and the Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw and on the basis of source literature.

As a result of the military failures of Dzikowianie and the growing economic crisis of 1735 caused by the destruction and numerous war contributions, the nobility of the Lublin Voivodeship, who had so far supported Stanisław Leszczyński, gradually began to move to the Sas side. In January 1735, some of the nobility of Lublin officially recognized August III as their king. Despite the success of pre-parliamentary sejmiks, including the Lublin ones, in 1735, the king did not reconcile with the opposition. The pacification Sejm of 1735 was broken. In fact, the country was to be fully pacified only in 1736 due to the second pacification parliament. However, deputies from the lubelskie voivodeship were not present at this Sejm, as the pre-parliamentary sejmik of Lublin was broken during the election of the marshal.

At the outbreak of the First Silesian War (1740—1742), Pszczyna was the seat of the Free State, ruled since the 16th century by the Promnitz family, which was a part of the Habsburg Monarchy. At the beginning of 1741, Erdmann II Promnitz together with other representatives of the local government in Upper Silesia tried to remain loyal to the Habsburgs. In the spring of 1741, the pro-Habsburg coalition quickly collapsed in the face of the Prussian army’s superiority. At the end of 1741, the Prussians organised military garrisons in Upper Silesia, including Pszczyna. During the Second Silesian War (1744—1745), the Habsburg troops counterattacked, and at the end of 1744, they retook almost the whole Upper Silesia. At that time, a battle took place in Pszczyna between Hungarian and Prussian troops. The consequence of the Silesian Wars was, among others, the reorganization of the administration, including the creation of the Pszczyna County.

The failures of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces, which took place in the first months of the Great War, led to the emergence of the phenomenon of a war refugee. Some of the refugees did not leave the crownland or they stayed at its western end for a longer time. At that time, many refugees arrived in Żywiec. The aim of this paper is to present the process of the influx of refugees to the city. The conducted research allowed to conclude that about 2300 refugees registered in Żywiec in the period  from August 1914 to May 1915. This number constituted over 40% of the pre-war inhabitants of the city. It is worth remembering that not all refugees entered the registration book kept by the local magistrate; therefore, this group was even larger in reality. The work focuses on the religious and professional structures of the refugees staying in Żywiec. The process of research of addresses that were provided by refugees who registered in Żywiec showed what kind of help was offered to them by the indigenous inhabitants of the city. The paper also attempts to analyse how Żywiec presented itself in comparison with other cities when it comes to the number of refugees staying in the city.

The article examines the specific features of the activities of German Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Parliament of the Second Polish Republic in the years 1928—1930 (second term of office), which were directed at defending the right to education for Germans, creation of legal grounds for the opening of German-language schools as a guarantee of the national identity preservation. German MPs defended their voters’ educational rights during parliamentary speeches, debates on education, and language-based conflicts, interpellations, and protests. German politicians tried to improve the situation of schooling for Germans by introducing legislative initiatives, inquiries, and interpellations, which raised such important issues as adoption of educational legislation in consultation with minorities, to expand the network of German-language schools, and to provide conditions for their unimpeded activities, stopping persecution of teachers. Their legislative initiative was often supported by Ukrainian and Jewish politicians, deputies from the leftwing Polish parties of the Sejm who advocated securement for children’s learning of their mother tongue. German deputies joined in providing Germans with fundamental rights guaranteed by domestic law and international agreements.

The articles discusses the attempts at recruiting Polish citizens to Waffen-SS during the first stage of the war (the years 1939—1941). According to the correspondence of the SS leaders, at the time Germans wanted to conscript only ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche). However, the said group of the pre-war Polish citizens was so negligibly small that it stood no change of having been organized as a separate armed formation. Another advanture that wounded up as a fiasco was the attempt to forma a Waffen-SS unit composed of the so-called racially mixed folk, which included the Gorals (Highlanders), the Kashubians, and the Silesians, who were yet to be granted German citizenship. From 1942 onwards, after the Volksliste had been introduced in the so-called Third Reich-annexed Polish lands and after the previously enforced racial restrictions had been lifted, the Waffen-SS draft was conducted as a part of compulsary enlistment. Being in the Waffen-SS, that was responsible for war crimes, genocide and extermination of civil population, for was by the Poles unequivocally meant collaboration and equalled with the active participation in the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi Germany.

In research on Wallachian settlements, the issue of their ethnic origin has always aroused numerous controversies and emotions, which can be summarized as a rivalry between the Romanian and the Slavic options. However, much has always depended on the degree of extremes in promoting one or the other view by researchers. The article is a review of historiography on the ethnic origin of the Wallachians in the historical Polish-Czech-Slovak borderland. In the first studies of the Wallachian migrations, the Romanian option was dominant, but at the end of the 19th century, views emerged that locating this group of nomads in the Balkans and even completely negating the Romanian aspect, and then also the extreme Slavic option, whose leading representative for the border area was D. Crânjală from 1938 . Many subsequent works, especially Polish ones, focused on the opposition to the negation of the Romanian or also the Balkan factor. In 1959, Josef Macůrek’s book, the most comprehensive publication to date on the Wallachian settlement in this borderland, was published, which indicates a strong Ruthenian influence. Generally, it is impossible to clearly define the ethnic origin of the gelding. Linguistic works, which indicate stronger Romanian and Balkan traditions than in Macurek’s conclusions, are now bringing more revival to the research on the origin of the
Wałachs. It can be said that the Walachian groups that came to Cieszyn Silesia, Moravia and Kysuce from the east (Żywiec) had many common features with the settled Polish population with whom they had contact before. Those who came from the side of Orava already had common features with the enicly Slovak population. For this reason, it can rather be concluded that an ethnically and culturally mixed Ruthenian-Polish-Slovak element migrated to the border of the Wallachian routes, but with a predominance of the ethnically Polish element — when he came from the Żywiec region, and the Slovak element - when he came from Orawa, and all these communities grew out of the traditional material culture of the Eastern, Southern Carpathians and the Balkans.

The subject of the article are Zbigniew Nienacki’s novels from the Pan Samochodzik series, concerning the protagonis’s foreign adventures: Pan Samochodzik i tajemnica tajemnic [Pan Samochodzik and the Secret of Secrets], Pan Samochodzik i Fantomas [Pan Samochodzik and Fantomas], Pierwsza przygoda Pana Samochodzika (Pozwolenie na przywóz lwa) [Pan Samochodzik’s First Adventure (Lion Import Permission)], Pan Samochodzik i człowiek z UFO [Pan Samochodzik and the Man from the UFO]. The research question concerns the value of these books from the point of view of historical, tourist and cultural education. The article also deals with the readership and film reception of Nienacki’s books and the issue of their digital availability. The author assumes that the educational value of these novels is high. The second thesis argued in the text is the belief that the readers are still interested in the writer’s books and that these are available in digital versions.

The issue of responding to human actions which had caused the environmental pollution and lowering of life quality is hardly alien to Polish rock musicians. Since the 1980s they have been addressing it in their songs, which is compounded with them leading pro-climate lifestyle. This article discusses both, some selected instances of the said musicians’ activism and the lyrical content they proposed to their audiences, tailored to instigate the readers to reflect upon contemporality and the future of the Earth.

This review article deals with Steele Brand’s monograph devoted to the motivation of the Republican Roman soldiers in the context of the idea of citizen soldiery and civic militarism. From the reviewer’s perspective it is a starting point to illustrate a broader tendency, manifested in the gradual relegation of military issues to the margins of academic life, which is reflected in re-linking them with military institutions. Military academies were not established to conduct classical or even historical studies, and their primary goal is to educate officers, so this may lead to historiographical deformations resulting from ignorance of socio-cultural conditions.

In their book entitled Nowe media w PRL (New Media in the People’s Republic of Poland), the authors discuss and comment on the origins of three technologies: VCRs, microcomputers, and satellite television, and the factors influencing their use and development in the 1980s socialist Poland’s system. In their analysis, they rely on extensive media theory and draw on social history.

The reviewed book is a collection which consists of twelve thematically diversified chapters. All of them are about the Senate in the Second Polish Republic. The authors present many little-known aspects of the shape and the functioning of the upper house of the parliament in Poland during years 1922—1939. The book discusses such issues as the legal conceptions of the Senate, its structure, functions, political background and composition. The publication is a valuable supplement to the previous research. It also brings new detailed findings to the image of the Senate in the interwar Poland.