The Spatial Evolution of the Polish Biotech Industry: A Path-Dependent Process?

In Poland, similarly to other Central and Eastern European countries, the development of the biotech industry dates back to the late 1980s, when the first private companies were established. The political and economic transformation of 1989 enabled mass development of private enterprises, but over the course of 20 years of development, only a couple of dozens biotech firms have emerged in Poland. The spatial evolution of the industry shows a strong concentration in Poland's six largest urban centres, which are characterized by the best scientific base, access to financial capital, and a well-developed local entrepreneurial culture. Given that all biotech clusters are also important centres of the pharmaceutical industry, despite the fact that there are no strong direct relationships between Poland's biotech and pharmaceutical companies, the authors of this paper put forward the thesis that the institutional environment of the pharmaceutical sector also affects the development of the biotech industry.     

The transformative potential of migration: Polish migrants’ everyday life experiences in Belfast,Northern Ireland

In this article, we analyse the processes of migration from the perspective of agency-structure debate. In particular, we focus on the reflexive and emotional aspects of geographical movement and the complex relations between the settlement context, Belfast, Northern Ireland, and migrating people, with their biographies, gender positioning, resources and agency. The movement across space is biographically significant, as it is often meant to resolve economic, family or personal difficulties. However, the geographical movement in itself is not necessarily empowering. We bring the notion of migration as potentially transformative but only when it is accompanied by structural enablements and agential powers of reflexivity. The reflection on one’s life course and the relations between self and the changing context of action shapes the migration experiences profoundly, which may further lead to shifts in gender positioning. The dynamics of shaping and being shaped is constantly present between migrants and the new context: the place influences everyday practices and, at the same time, the place is influenced by everyday actions and their reflexive elaboration. This article sheds light on these reflexive processes through the lens of gender.     

The Polish Nobility’s “Golden Freedom”: On the Ancient Roots of a Political Idea

This essay traces the Greek and Roman roots of Polish sixteenth- to eighteenth-century political thought by discussing the Polish nobility’s concept of the “Golden Freedom” (L. aurea libertas). By focusing on the Roman and the Greek concepts of liberty and the mixed constitution, it argues that the Golden Freedom, a notion central to the Polish-Lithuanian nobility’s self-identification, was based on Roman political ideals and practices that were incompatible with the political reality of the Commonwealth.     

Shaping Public Perception: Polish Illustrated Press and the Image of Polish Naturalists Working in Latin America, 1844–1885

This article will investigate the ways in which Polish illustrated press contributed to communicating and reporting the work of Polish émigré naturalists working in Latin America to the Polish general public living in the Prussian, Russian and Austrian partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1844–1885. It examines the ways in which illustrations were used to shape the public's opinion about the significance of these migrants’ scientific achievements. The Polish illustrated press, its authors and editors were instrumental in shaping the public's perceptions of the reach of Polish scientists, and exploring their impact on broader scientific debates, thereby situating Polish people and their work in a global context. The didactic and opinion-making role of the illustrated press was highly influential among Polish audiences during this period, at a time when the survival of Polish identity, culture, language, and education was uncertain. Illustrated weeklies were one of the vectors through which high science was made accessible to the Polish public. A study of pictures in Polish illustrated press will help to explain how they contributed towards shaping the images in the public eye of naturalists’ scientific work, and discourses about science and its actors more broadly.     

Seeking labour's aristocracy? The ‘Westphalian incident’ and Polish nationality policy in the immediate aftermath of war*

ABSTRACT. In the immediate aftermath of World War II the Polish state placed a high value on national homogeneity. The Polish Committee of National Liberation signed population exchange agreements with its socialist neighbours in September 1944 and expelled the German population who remained within the new Polish borders. Far less frequently discussed are the Polish state's efforts to persuade ‘Poles’ in Western Europe to move to Poland. This paper analyses how Polish policy towards ‘Westphalian Poles’ and the British reaction to Polish claims offer insight into both Polish and British nationality and citizenship policy in the immediate post‐war period. I argue that the quality of potential labour played an important role in both British and Polish thinking. The paper also contends that the ‘Westphalian incident’ gives useful insights into the emergence of the Cold War.     

'Pomorze' or 'Preussen'? Polish Perspectives on Early Modern Prussian History

The attitudes of Polish historical scholarship towards the historyof early modern Prussia has been deeply marked by the partitionsof Poland and the anti-Polish coalition between Prussia, Russiaand Austria, which denied Poland its own statehood for wellover a century. In contrast to nineteenth-century German ‘Landesgeschichte’,which focused on local research and archival resources, historiansfrom Poland have usually opted to stay more within patternsof national history-writing. When the Polish state was reconstitutedafter the First World War, hostilities built up between Germanand Polish historical schools on Prussia, expressed in the NationalDemocratic-influenced myl zachodnia (Western thought) on thePolish side, and a not less expansionist Ostforschung on theother side of the border. It was only after the catastropheof the Second World War, the redrawing of national borders ineast central Europe, and under the influence of Marxist historicalconcepts in the People's Republic of Poland that nationalistapproaches as well as the ‘black legend’ of thePrussia's past were temporarily suppressed and finally replacedby a more research-led scholarship. During the second half ofthe twentieth century, Polish historiography was in fact muchquicker and more thorough than its German counterpart to forgethe history of Prussia into a major academic subject. Sincethe 1980s, if not earlier, an extremely fruitful dialogue hasdeveloped between scholars—a dialogue which does not alwayspenetrate journalistic and public awareness, as recent polemicssurrounding the controversially planned ‘Centre for Expulsions’in Berlin have shown.     

GPS-based measurement of geographic spillovers in tourism – example of Polish districts

The agglomeration phenomenon in tourism often spreads beyond the borders of territorial units what is referred to as geographic spillovers. However, the measurement of spatial concentration of tourism demand and economic activity is usually based on statistics collected within regional administrative boundaries and omits the spatial interdependency between neighboring regions. Recognition of such spatial interdependency in the standard procedure to define neighborhood relies on the distance between geometric means (centroids) of territorial units which, however, rarely reflects real ‘centers’ of tourism agglomerations and leads to errors and biased results. Hence, we propose to modify the measures of the neighborhood with the use of GPS coordinates of tourism firms and attractions in order to designate their regional central tendencies and thus to correct (shift in space) localization of centroids of territorial units. We test the usefulness of the new approach to obtain a more precise measurement of spatial concentration when tourism spills over beyond the boundaries of territorial units using the example of Polish districts. We employ the exploratory spatial data analysis (spatial statistics) and spatial regression models – to assess the difference between using traditional centroids and GPS coordinates in defining neighborhood and determining spillover effects in regional analysis. Furthermore we apply the new method into the model of tourism potential in order to identify spillover effects in Polish regions. We use the data collected by Central Statistical Office (tourists staying overnight in 379 districts in 2014) and by Polish Tourist Organization (14,390 GPS coordinates of individual entities: tourism firms and attractions). The neighborhood determined with the use of GPS coordinates to measure the distance between centers of tourism agglomerations eliminates the dependence of the results on the administrative boundaries – but only to some degree. The challenge is to identify tourism agglomeration phenomenon as such, based on the mobility of tourists in space.     

Russia and the Re-opening of the Polish Question, 1801–1814

At the end of the eighteenth century, the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople was a religious leader of global stature, exercising direct authority over millions of Christians in the Ottoman Empire and a primacy of honor in the wider Orthodox ecumene. By the 1830s, however, the Patriarchate confronted a new international order that was broadly hostile to its claims. Tensions became particularly bad between the Patriarchate and the British government as both sides asserted their right to control religious affairs on the Ionian Islands, a British-administered protectorate lying off the western coast of Greece. A dispute over who had the power to regulate family law in Ionia escalated in the late 1830s into a minor international incident, with the British government demanding that the Ottoman government depose the reigning patriarch, Grigorios VI. These demands sparked a broader discussion among all the Great Powers as to what the legitimate bounds of the Patriarchate's authority might be. One of the more striking aspects of the incident was the determination of the Powers not to recognize any ‘Orthodox Pope’ in international affairs, illustrating the impact of the modern state system on transnational religious organizations beyond the borders of Europe.     

A place called ‘Bielany’: negotiating a diasporic Polish place in Sydney

This paper examines the creation of a distinctly Polish place by Polish migrants and their children, in Sydney, Australia. I explore the use of place as a means of maintaining distinct ethno-cultural identity in diaspora by evaluating how different groups of Polish people contextualise their diasporic identity, attribute meaning to place, and how these meanings change through time. Differing generational cohorts and waves of migration within Sydney's Polish diaspora (re)create Bielany as a place for maintaining Polish identity by reproducing a familiar and homely place and by centring Bielany as a main venue for recreation and social functions. Notions of place attachment, expressed through participation in activities, ownership and maintenance of a communal Polish place, and emotional linkages to that place, evince their preference for and their connection to a shared and distinctly Polish place.     

Polish economic policy at the time of détente, 1966–78

This article focuses on Polish economic policy during the détente era to explore Poland's growing connection with the West as well as assesses the importance of domestic and external factors in influencing the choices of the Polish ruling elite. The two party first secretaries of the period, Gomu?ka and Gierek, were often opposed to each other, and the merit of Poland's opening up to the West is usually attributed to the second. By analysing Gomu?ka's and Gierek's leadership respectively, the author appraises the different ideas that characterised their economic policy, as well as the domestic and external constraints they faced, in order to assess the limits and flaws of their attempts at integrating the country into the world economy. This article offers a double reappraisal of the Polish leaderships' policies. First, it demonstrates that the economic opening up to the West had already started in the 1960s under Gomu?ka, despite limited East–West contacts at the time, and was driven by a proactive Polish government. Second, it downsizes the success of Gierek's economic policy and shows that it was mostly merely reactive to domestic pressure and foreign trends; its shortsightedness got Poland into the trap of spiralling indebtedness and irremediable social discontent with the regime.     

Polish migrant women’s narratives about language,racialised and gendered difference in Barcelona

The European Union expansion in 2004 resulted in significant changes in migration in Europe. For Spain, which did not open its labour market to the new accession countries until 2006, the extent of Polish migration has been substantially smaller than in countries like Britain. Hence, little scholarly attention has been paid to the experiences of Polish migrants in the Iberian Peninsula. Compared to other European cities, the case of Barcelona is significant, especially in terms of cultural diversity, Catalan identity and bilingual status, something that the newcomers are often unaware of. By drawing on the conceptual framework of conviviality and on data gathered through participant observation, narrative interviews and a focus group conducted with Polish women in Barcelona, this article concentrates on various forms of encounters with the local population. It argues that race, ethnicity, gender, language and spatiality are important factors influencing convivial relations. It contributes to the existing literature by exploring various forms and degrees of conviviality discussed as situated, not necessarily free from tensions and racialised and gendered perceptions of the Other.     

How to deal with migrants and the State’s backlash – Polish cities’ experience

Over the last decades, Poland has witnessed a relatively dynamic increase in the number of immigrants. At the same time, current Polish central authorities, politicians of the ruling party and the majority of the population perceive migrants mostly as a threat and a challenge. Municipal authorities lack complex support from central authorities. However, the situation is slowly changing. Some Polish cities are adopting migration policies or including migration issues in the local development strategies. Considering this, the article aims to examine migrants’ integration policies in selected Polish cites considered leaders in this field: Lublin, Gdańsk, Kraków and Wroc?aw. The main research question is: how do Polish cities deal with the backlash from the national government and absence of clear legal regulations on their role and competences in the area of migrant integration? The research method is that of a legal-institutional analysis and case study. The former is used to interpret the legal acts and other documents. Its application is justified by the fact that this paper examines strategic documents adopted at the level of urban governments regarding the integration of migrants. Case study methods made it possible to examine the migrants’ integration policy in four Polish cities.     

“Dying out”: conversion and the complexity of neighbourliness on the Polish Belarussian border

This paper addresses the way that religious affiliation and conversion shape ongoing tensions over historical periods of exile, resettlement, exodus and elimination in a small town on the Eastern Polish border. I explore how local Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian’s negotiations of a troubled past are materialized and managed through narrating family histories of conversion, In particular, this paper focuses on the compromises that enable mixed faith marriages and the conflicts that emerge over the burial of religious converts. In these negotiations, members of both congregations deploy the local model of “neighbourliness” and the ideal of the borderlander, to greater and lesser success. Day-to-day the practice of considered neighbourliness helps local people to acknowledge and minimize religious and ethnic difference. However, conversion brings the realms of religion and relatedness into conjunction in a risky manner: marriage may offer an opportunity to enhance neighbourly connections, but burial is an event where the tensions over histories of conflict become apparent disrupting neighbourly relations and practices.     

The 2000 inter-Korean summit: The road to reconciliation?

The inter-Korean summit held in Pyongyang between 13 and 15 June 2000 was an unprecedented event. It was the first time the leaders of North and South have met face to face since the formal partitioning of Korea in 1948. This article examines the main reasons why the 2000 summit occurred, what the summit produced, and its implications for inter-Korean relations in the early part of the 21st century. Although the summit could well be an important step towards breaking down the long-standing barriers of suspicion and mistrust between Pyongyang and Seoul, it is premature to conclude (as some observers have) that the summit has heightened the prospects for reunification on the Korean peninsula. Instead of grandly portraying the 2000 summit as heralding a transition to reunification, it is far more accurate to view it as a positive step towards the more modest objective of longer-term reconciliation between the two Koreas.