Polish colonies

A problem of immigrants is common nowadays. Yesterday I read an article which presented why refugees don't choose Poland as theirs asylum. Of course it's because of the poverty of Poland, but also there are two main reasons of this decision: in this country there is only one religion; and Poland don't have any colonies. It's different for, i.e. France, whose government must grant full French citizenship for every habitant of old French colony.

That reminded me of Polish colonies (some time ago I've been interested in this issue), so I've decided to write something about it in this post.

Manifestation in Poznań, Święty Marcin Street, 1938

Of course, Poland doesn't have any colonies. However, it doen't mean that we didn't want them...

First I'd like to say something about the history. Poles manifested to have them during the interwar period, but then the IIww started, so they had to abandon this idea.

One of the manifestation:

The aspect of Polish colonies was described very well in a book "Aspiracje kolonialne w polityce zagranicznej Polski" by Zbigniew Bujkiewicz.

Sweets from Poznań!

Poznań is a place where you can choose between lots of sweets.
As you can see in one of the article:

I want to present you the most popular sweets from Poznań:

Rogal Świętomarciński

Absolutely the most popular baking from Poznań. It tastes the best when you eat it in 11 November, participating in St. Martin's Parade, on Święty Marcin Street ;)

Szneka z glancem

In the rest of Poland it's just "drożdżówka". The name came from Germany, the word "Schnecke" - a nail. In the top of it there is icing from caster sugar.


Faworki

It is very often baked by my grandmother ;) But she makes it using yeasts - this recipe was made up the first. Now you shouldn't use it. The name "faworki" came from bakery Fawor, because its workers did faworki accidentally. Nowadays they do them on purpose :P


Plyndze

In the other part of Poland you can hear "placki ziemniaczane", but it isn't the same. "Placki" is the general name of this dish from potatos ("pyry":D), but in Poznań it is eaten in a sweet version, with sugar or jam. I was quite suprised when I ordered it being at the seaside and getting it with salt and onion^^' (After all, it wasn't as bad as I supposed it to be ;). So "plyndze" are only with sweet additives, "placki" with sweet or salty additives.


Amerykany

It's similar to szneka, because there is also an icing on it. I was very suprised when I learnt that it is made only in Poznań... They are delicious, I love them ;)


Krówki

At last but not least! ;)
A small sweet which came popular in the whole Poland. You can see two version: "ciągutki" or "kruche". Krówki make a sensation in Japan and the rest of the world :D


I hope you'll have an opportunity to taste some sweets from Poznań! ;)

Interesting video clips - Polish and not only

Today I'm posting about some unusual video clips, mainly by Polish artists.

The first is by a band from Poznań, Strachy na Lachy. The video clip for the song "Piła Tango" was created in animation form.

The next song, also animated, is "Marchewkowe pole" by Lady Pank. It was used in the cartoon "O dwóch takich co Księżyc ukradli".

Very interesting is "We are the Mutants" from Kobiety, the band from Trójmiasto. Some various artists performed in this video clip, e.g. from group "Krecha", but also other dancers, fashion models, musicians, sailors. painters...

And now some English music.
"Mad World" - cover by Gary Jules. In the video clip there are children who make animated figures on the sidewalk below. I find both this music video and the music itself amazing. They're nostalgic and very emotional.

In the end another cover, this time of Pixies "Where is My Mind". For me, this version is better than the original. I've chosen it because the title is very connected with the last lesson^^
You can see here photos of fans of the band Trampled by Turtles who hold objects with the lyrics of this song.

MCS

Today I'm going to write a little off-topic (because it's not related with the topic of this blog), but it's a case very important for me.
My favourite band ever forever is breaking up :<
What is worse, I haven't had an occasion to be on their's concert. They were in the Europe only once (in London). Unfortunately, it was when I was doing my matura exams :/ I seriously considered passing it the following year :P

Motion City Soundtrack is a band from Minnesota, formed in 1997. It's hard to establish what kind of music they play, because they mix genres. Generally they play indie rock, but it depends on the song. They play also music which is punk, rock, positive, fast, sad, melancholic, pessisistic, romantic...

In my opinion, the strongest part of their music is lyrics. Very often they base on wordplay i.e. "I fell in love without you" or "Get inside out". Also when they sing about love, it isn't in the ordinary way - of happy or unfortunate one, but rather they touch on this problem from different way, for example in the emotional verse "I spent two years alone with you".
Frankly speaking, it's hard to put it into words - love in theirs songs is so original. It reminds me a little lyrics of Polish band Happysad.

Now Motion City Soundtrack is in a farewell tour in the USA. It's what they wrote in the official website:

The most popular song of MSC is "Always Running Out of Time", because it was used in the movie "Alice in Wonderland" in 2010.

Some optimistic and crazy songs: ;)

You never get used to it -
You just have to live with it.

You better open the door before I take a hammer to the walls around it!

Someday you'll understand that everything is A-OK! :)

A very romantic one:

You're the echoes of my everything, 
You're the emptiness the whole world sings at night...

"Everyone Will Die". Short and positive, but at the same time an outspoken song. I find it very thought-provoking.

Every single smile and every single tear
Reminders of the moments we shared in the instant we were here
If everyone will die and everyone will lose
Then who you gonna love in the meantime before it catches you?

[My story] Prologue & chapter 1

So I'm starting my story!
It'll be about historical events of Poland.
I hope you'll enjoy reading it^^

Prologue - The Diary of Poland
An old, thick book was lied on a bookshelf. The book was quite raddled, because it has over thousand years.
I took it and blew out the dust, then I looked inside.

You'll ask why do I have such an old book? Well, someone told me once I should guard my books, because they are a precious keepsake*.

I looked at the first page. There was my sign. Poland. I had done it when I was small, so my handwriting was quite clumsy.

I turned the page and started reading.

______
*Someone - it refers to Jacek Kaczmarski and his song 'Panna' ('Maiden'). One of the verse is: 'Try to be devoted to your ruins and guard the singed books. If they became lost, everything you know would disappear' ("Staraj się wierna być ruinom i nadpalonych kartek strzeż. Jeżeli one gdzieś zaginą, zaginie wszystko, o czym wiesz"). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KssVd4HRjig


Chapter 1 - 966, born of the Christianity
966 A.D.

It's hight time to throw away my toys.
I had a carefree childhood as a barbaric country. I remember wandering around with an axe in my hand, challenging everyone in my way. However, it has changed.

I raised my eyes to a group of people. They were tying up by a rope a wonderful, golden statue. My toy. After a while it fell on the ground, shattering into pieces. Right away it was replaced by a simple, unseasoned cross. Oh yeah. I’m an adult now. Objects without adornments are enough for me.

I turned myself. At the moment I could see the baptism of the duke Mieszko I. I smiled, feeling an incredibly lightness in my heart. I’m already an adult!!!, I wanted to cry. For now the Duchy of Poland and the patriarchal monarchy. Who knows, maybe later a kingdom? With estate monarchy? The whole life is before me! I can live as I want to!!!

Suddenly, followed by a hunch, I raised my head. Among the sunset, in a branch of the nearest tree there was a white-tailed eagle.

“Will you stay with me?” I asked.

In answer to my question, the eagle squawked in agree and flied up, presenting its strong, proudly wings.

The bright wings against a background of the red sky.

A few words about fanfictions

Fanfiction, according to Wikipedia, is fiction about characters or settings from an original work of fiction, created by fans of that work rather than by its creator. In the other words, it's a form of narrative story (pl.opowiadanie) that based on someone's book or movie. 

Polish version of fanfictions is very cute, because it is 'fanficzki' (or 'fanfiki'), but many people use only the English name.

Some people criticise fanfictions, but I don't share their opinion. I rather agree with persons like this:

The most popular page with fans' creativity is fanfiction.net. There are thousands of fanfiction (e.g. there are over 736K fanfictions of Harry Potter). The FF are nearly in every language - of course also in Polish, but even in Latin. An interesting is the fact that not every authors allow to write fanfictions based on their books, e.g. Nora Roberts. But it's rare - for the most part authors are enjoyed when their fans like their books so much that they create something about the authors' world. Thanks to that, a lot of people get to know of the plot and they want to read the original, so they buy the creator's book. And it's a profit for the writer :)

Writing fanfictions is a great idea, because it allows us to develop your language. What's more, writing them is much easier than original stories, because you don't need to create the fictional world, characters etc. Also reading is great, because fans develop a story of an author and they add some new information, which the writer omitted. 

Obviously, there are also stupid fanfictions that make you wonder if the author of was drunk while writing it :D The best strategy is just to ignore these creativity and to focus on normal stories.

My funny creativity^^

Personally I do love writing, but I don't want to be a writer. It's because I'm too much unorganized ;)
I write my stories only from time to time. When I find my old stories, especially from primary school, I read them and I'm embarrassed how poor my language was back then :P

Except for fanfictions, I write also 'normal' stories which I created from basics. But I don't publish it anywhere. I only send them to my friend who evaluates it (sometimes very strict, but it's the point of criticism). And she does the same thing, i.e. she sends me her stories and I evaluate.

When I'm away from home, I am used to writing in my favourite notebook

Some time ago I started writing fanfiction to "Hetalia". It is a Japanese comic which tells a story of countries showed as people. For example, Poland is the man named Feliks Łukasiewicz; he is on the right side of this blog. I wrote about him earlier.

The general concept of Hetalia is very intereting, but this comic is hated by everyone. It is because it shows history from Japanese point of view, so there are a lot of historical mistakes, such as IIww. Hidekazu Himaruya, the author, presents Japan as an aggrieved country and Poland was the worst country which caused this war. It's difficult to not be angry... And these mistakes concerned all the countries. That's why the readers catched on his conspect and they started to create their own Hetalia, with correct historical facts. I've decided to join them :)
I write in English, because it's a good opportunity to develop my language skills, but the main reason was that more people can read it ;) It's really, really nice to read comments from people who like my story... Every time I'm shocked and I ask myself 'Why do you like it? After all, I make a lot of mistakes... So why???' ^^'

I write the most often about Poland, so I think I'll publish parts of this story also in this blog. It is connected to Poland, so I guess it won't be a problem with a subject matter ;) It will be some kind of diversion of this blog, because there'll be also regular post about everything connected to Poland.

I haven't write my version of Hetalia from a long time and now I have motivation to do it more often ;)

In the next post there will be the first part of my story.

I hope you'll enjoy reading it ;)

Animation

I'm very interested in animated movies. Not only in USA production, e.g. by Disney or DreamWorks, but also our native movies.

Unfortunately, it is very hard to find these kind of movies. Since 1990, virtually there aren't any movies. I really wish there were more.

Anyway, I've found some examples that animation in Poland still exists ;) Very often they're co-production, but still there are some people from our country.

Piotruś i Wilk

This short movie was created in 2006 and won the Oscar award. A person responsibled for scenography was Marek Skrobecki. "Piotuś i Wilk" was made in Se-ma-for Studios in Łódź, the most known Polish animation studio.
This movie is quite strange but worth seeing.

Latająca maszyna - Projekt Chopin
The creators of "Piotruś i Wilk" in 2011 produced another animated movie - "The Flying Machine". In my opinion it is more interesting. It connects the real world with the animated one (like in the French movies "Arthur and the Invisibles"). It is especially good for Chopin's fans :)

I hope in Poland will be more animated movies like that!

The Polish legends

Poland is a country that has a lot of legends. Not only regional that know few people, but also very popular in all the country.

There are some optimistic legends, like legend of Wars and Sawa - a fisherman and a mermaid who fell in love. Because of their feeling she lost her tail and can start live as a normal girl. Also legend of Saint Kinga is very interesting, because it explains from where the salt of Wieliczka comes from.

But there are also pessimistic legends. In my opinion, the most depressing legend is The Fern Flower. It is about an unfortunate boy who seeks the magical fern which can bring wealth. Unfortunately, he losts his family and in the end he dies. It is said that until today he still looks for his parents.

Some of Polish legends are connected with the belief of Slaves, for example with monsters of mithology or the Feast of St. John the Baptist.

For me, my favourite Polish legend is about an army charmed in pigeons from Kraków Old Town. I think it's incredible when you see them and think about it ;)

Cardboard records & vinyl records

In PRL there were a lot of things that now don't exist. One of this stuff is a cardboard record - pocztówka dźwiękowa.

They were usually like the ordinary postcards, but sometimes they were very big. The surface of them was covered by round plastic-coated. Thanks to that it looks like a vinyl record... And it becomes a vinyl record ;) When you put it on a gramophone or in a record player, it can play.

Cardboard records could be sent like a normal postcard by post. Instead of this, they were very often given personally, for example as a present of birthday. 

Nowadays vinyl records aren't very popular, because people prefer buying music on CDs or online - by iTunes. Fortunately, more and more record studios come back to vinyl record. I think it's great :) A sound of it is impressive. My parents have a small collection of these records and sometimes we listen to it together. 

My favourite song of their cardboard records is "Nim wstanie dzień" by Edmund Fetting.
In my opinion this song is simple, but beautiful...

How to say 'no' in Polish?

Negation in Polish is much easier than in English. But it also causes some problem to foreigners with the world "no"...

Let's start with the beginning:
"No" is obviously nie in Poland. But Polish word no means "yeah". Also there are some problems with linking negation with words.

When we are not talking about the lonely word, it is easy. Yeah, it's rare that a language aspect is easier in Polish than in English ;) I mean, when you want to deny a word, you simply add "no" in the beginning and you can get a new word. So: zrozumienie - niezrozumienie (noun), łatwo - niełatwo (adjective), mile - niemile (adverb)... In English it is more complicated. For example: a negation for "understanding" is not "nounderstanding" but "misunderstanding". The other words: impatient, underestimating, distrustful, incorrect. 

In this domain Polish language is more simply. But there is also linking negations with words. The other rules are for adjectives, another for adverbs. Even a lot of Poles have problems with this. 

With nouns and adjectives you don't link negation, but you have to do it with verbs. What about numbers? When you wrire 'not one, but two', you write separately (nie jeden, a dwóch), but when you think of 'a lot', you write together (niejeden). Similar with adverbes - normally they're separated (e.g. nietrudno), but with comparative and superlative form they are together (nie lepiej, nie najlepiej).

What's why we love Polish grammar so much:P

Volcanos in Poland

In the Middle Europe, where the Poland is, there definitely aren't any volcanos. At least, at a glance... ;)

In south part of Poland there are some volcanos. Obviously, none of them are active - they are extincted for 27 millions years. 

There is The Land of Extincted Volcanos (Kraina Wygasłych Wulkanów) in Kaczawskie Mountains. This mountain range is the oldest in Poland (and one of the oldest in the world), because it was created half billion years ago. Nowadays, there isn't any lava there, but because of the tectonic plates, on which the volcanos were created, there still can be earthquakes. On the other hand, it isn't very probable.

It is considered that the most beautiful Polish volcano is Ostrzyca Proboszczowicka, which is near the city Złotoryja. Inhabitants call it 'Śląska Fudżijama'. 

I agree with that opinion - this volcano is very picturesque :)

I saw Polish volcanos by the car's window, but I haven't sightseen them yet. I think I really need to do it, because they're incredible and definitely worth seeing.

Popular stereotypes about Polish habitants

Poznań
I was born here, so obviously I know the most about this city.
Habitants of Poznań are considered to spend the money too fruggle. In my mind,  it's an opinion of jealously habitants of Warsaw, who are too profligacy ;)
In fact, a very popular habit in Poznań that a lot of people have a special money box. Every Friday they put in a small amound of money, e.g. a coin 5zł. After some time you have quite a nice amound of money which you can spend as you want :) A lot of my friends and members of my family do it, but it isn't very popular in the rest of the country.

Warsaw

The "Pots" ("Słoiki") spoil the opinion of the city. It is a pejorative name of someone who moved to a capital and then lends a flat. These people don't want to be a part of society, they don't want to feel the atmosphere of a city. They only sleep and work there. Very ofter they are arrogant and look down on others. But in my opinion, most of people from Warsaw are very nice and helpful :)
Anyway, there aren't true habitant in Warsaw who live from generation to generation. During IIww the city was tore down, so people were killed or forced to run away. I really wish I had had a chance to live among these people and see what kind of people they were.
Maybe some time machine? ;)

Sosnowiec
It is a city with definitely bad fame. It is in Silesia, but residents of Sosnowiec don't speak in local dialect. The two cities, Katowice and Sosnowiec, competed themselves for hundreds years. This aversion is still visible, for example on the Internet.
Sosnowiec is simply the object of jokes in the whole Poland.

To sum up, every city is magic and you shouldn't pay attention to the stereotypes, but visit cities and see it on your own :)

Polish songs by foreign artists

One more time about Polish music :)
When you hear 'cover', you'll likely think about popular English songs. However, there are also Polish covers which were sang very well.

Maria Burmaka
This pretty Ukrainian composed the whole album in Polish. In lyrics there are some mistakes, e.g. 'wino przebrodziło' or 'kluczem swym krętnołam' ;)
But the music... I can listen to it all the day :3
A lot of her songs are covers of her own Ukrainian songs, for example  'Kto taka jestem' is a cover of 'Хто я така є' ('Chto ja taka je').

Laibach 

It is a band from Slovenia. They sang a song 'Warszawskie dzieci', which is a popular song of soldiers. The album which included this song was produced thanks to money of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego), for 70. anniversary of Warsaw Uprising.

Joryj Kłoc

The last song is much more positive ;) Or I'd rather say - crazy. This song of Ukrainian band Joryj Kłoc is about traditional wedding. The end of the video clip is quite unexpected, so you should see it to the end.
This is a cover of folk Polish song from Tarnobrzeg, which is sing before a bride goes to a groom's house.

Joryj Kłoc is band which usually sings old Ukrainian songs, but in a modern way - they use electric guitars, drums etc. Unfortunately, they aren't very popular, so it's difficult to find more information about this band.

Some interesting Polish songs

Lao Che - Wojenka ('War')

It's not that I like this song - frankly speaking, it's difficult to 'like' a song like this. It is simply very shocking. This song says about war, but shows it as a little, cruel girl. She is a weird child, because, instead of ice creams she wants bones.  One of the line says: 'Who will bring her bones? Maybe I, maybe you'...
In the beginning of 'Wojenka' there is a childish counting-out rhyme, but it's about serious problems.
There is also astory of a soldier - he have also feelings and he doesn't want to participe in this inhuman conflict. Especially he has just started a family and he needs to survive to assure its existence.

The next song is Bóg ('God') by T.Love.
It's very interesting, because nowhere in the lyrics is the title of this song. What's more, the refrain is 'I want to be your frind'. Because of that, we think it's a song of a human. Only the title tells us that the truth is different.
This song doesn't show the God as someone old and strict with long beard, but as a buddy who we can confess of every our problems. It's very interesting and rare seen point of view.

The last song is Piosenka z praniem w tle ('The song with laundry in a background', I guess).
I listened to it a lot of times, but still I can't establish if it's sad or happy. The music is very cheerful, but lyrics are about unhappy love. It is about a couple that don't want to be together anymore and courage one another to leave the house... But they can't do it, because they love themselves.
Anyway, the voices of vocalists are amazing :)