Poland
A necessary evil
Of the two dictators who began the second world war as allied partners in crime but ended it in combat…
Poles apart
Why the Polish community doesn’t want the vaccine
Central Europe’s vaccine scepticism problem
Countries around the world are in a race against time to vaccinate their populations against Covid-19. But there is one…
The Visegrád bloc are threatening to tear apart the EU
The bad boys of Europe are at it again. The EU has been attempting to tie budget funds to members…
High life
Gstaad It snowed on the last two days of August up here, and why not? We’ve traded freedom of speech…
Two faces of Polish rebellion
The narrowness of President Andrzej Duda’s victory in this weekend’s Polish presidential elections, where he defeated Rafał Trzaskowski, the Mayor…
Yalta was a carve-up — and the Poles are understandably still bitter about it
‘The strong do what they can. The weak suffer what they must.’ Thucydides’ principle expresses an uncomfortable truth. The eight-day…
Hero or double agent? An encounter with Lech Walesa
Lech Walesa is probably the most famous of all the thousands — actually millions — who struggled against the oppression…
Whatever happened to glasnost and perestroika?
This is a timely book. It addresses the challenges of a fractious and fractured Europe. The first word of the…
Letters: why Rose Hudson-Wilkin is the right choice for Bishop of Dover
Rose is the right choice Sir: Every Wednesday for the past nine years, it has been my privilege to attend…
Why are there so few Polish people on British TV?
Have you ever seen a Pole on British television? Poles are the biggest immigrant group in Britain, numbering between 900,000…
In the face of strongmen, conservatives are letting their principles vanish
In 1989, the year Soviet communism collapsed, John O’Sullivan, Margaret Thatcher’s former speechwriter, gave the world O’Sullivan’s First Law of…
Poles apart
Poland is furiously divided – but it’s not in the grip of ‘hyper-nationalism’
Death metal
We in the West may snigger at heavy metal, but in some parts of the world its practitioners face the death penalty. Karen Yossman reports
Filming the Final Solution
Amid the abundant cinema of Nazi atrocity, Son of Saul is exemplary. Ian Thomson explains why
Sixty years on
The book of the year has long been a favoured genre in popular history, and is a commonplace today. While…
Between the woods and the water
Timothy Snyder traces Ukraine’s complex history from its classical heritage to the present day
Sins of the fathers
This is a documentary in which three men travel across Europe together, but they’re not pleasurably interrailing, even though there…
Portrait of the week
Home After it was twice defeated in the Lords on its plans to reduce working tax credits, the government announced…
The brutal mask of anarchy
In September 1939 Britain went to war against Germany, ostensibly in defence of Poland. One big secret that the British…
‘It’s always wrong to starve’
‘My mother and father named me Aron, but my father said they should have named me What Have You Done,…
Ways of hearing
‘What gives your lies such power?’ asks the bewildered Sicilian leader in Szymanowski’s opera Krol Roger. The question is addressed…
Putin’s grand strategy
The Russian President has been trying to draw a new Iron Curtain across Europe
Gaudy notebook
As the BA flight from Warsaw landed at Heathrow, I felt a little tremor of anxiety, though it wasn’t anything…
Diary
I made a welcome escape from sweltering Warsaw to the cloudy cool of Bodø, halfway up the coast of Norway,…
