Academic literature on the topic 'Poland (Voivodeship) Sejm'

The main category in this article is electoral presidentialization, understood as a tendency of voters’ behavior to mirror the decisions typical for presidential elections. Here, the category under consideration is analyzed in two dimensions: leader effect and social approval for the organization of television debates of the leaders of two most important parties. The author explains the process in question on the basis of quantitative and percentage distribution of answers to two questions to be found in three editions of the nation-wide electorate study “Political Preferences”. This article concerns voters’ preferences in a survey that was conducted just after the self-government election in 2018. In order to grasp the specificity of electoral behavior in this particular voting, the analysis was conducted in a comparative manner, and the subject of comparison was the 2015 election to the Sejm. The results of studies organized in 2012 and 2013, when no election was organized in Poland, were also referred to in a necessary scope.

This article pursues an analysis seeking to explain how political borders and administrative boundaries took shape in the Polish state that came back into being at the end of the First World War. This was a continuing period of instability from a military point of view, given the ongoing war with Bolshevik Russia (which continued through to 1920). The further investigation of this subject matter is assisted by the presentation here of cartography in the form of 8 original maps coming into being at that historic time. The first map dates from early 1919 – as first elections to the Legislative Sejm were pending. It thus shows constituencies (electoral districts) which at that time coincided with the country’s (county-level) units of administration. The presentation of this little-known (in essence now-forgotten) cartographic configuration offers a starting point for the further consideration of the political borders and administrative division that took shape in the newly-reborn Poland. Further historical maps included in the text thus show the Polish state with borders as variously construed, in what were a mixture of both authors’ concepts as to how these ought to look and borders actually existing at the given time and adjusted to the political situation of the given moment. These were thus limits set by military action, in the context of the armed conflicts that broke out with the polities neighbouring with Poland. The map included last in the text came out in 1921. It presents Poland’s political and administrative layout in the wake of the entry into force of the Treaty of Versailles, as well as in line with the provisions of the Treaty of Riga definitively setting the course of Poland’s eastern border. Also marked out on it is the internal division of the country into units at voivodeship level, as had been decided upon by the authorities of the independent Polish state. In essence, it was the political and administrative borders and boundaries established at that time that would persist unchanged through to 1938.

Utworzenie autonomicznego województwa śląskiego w ramach polskiego państwa narodowego oraz diecezji katowickiej wiązało się z reorganizacją systemu władzy, w którym poczesne miejsce zajęły grupy polsko-śląskich duchownych oraz urzędników i świeckiej inteligencji. Ich wzajemna rywalizacja oraz wspólne dążenie do nacjonalizacji Górnoślązaków w duchu polskim inspirowały dwa odmienne, choć spokrewnione dyskursy, w których wykorzystywano środki obrazowe. Wśród nich znaczącą rolę odgrywały alegoryczne wizualizacje Polski, zakorzenione w tradycjach sztuki polskiej przełomu XIX/XX wieku. W wystrojach gmachów Sejmu Śląskiego i Śląskiego Urzędu Wojewódzkiego oraz starostwa powiatowego w Katowicach zastosowano motyw Polonia Triumphans. W pierwszym z przypadków rzeźbiarz Jan Raszka nadał personifikacji wczesnośredniowieczną stylizację, nawiązującą do piastowskiego „złotego wieku”, a u jej tronu umieścił asystę w osobach hutnika i górnika, stylizowanych na kresowych rycerzy. Inna z płaskorzeźb przedstawia Polonię jako Nike i Wolność prowadzącą do boju powstańca śląskiego, zobrazowanego jako hutnik z młotem, oraz żołnierza walczącego z Czechami o Śląsk Cieszyński. Wątek zbrojnej walki o granice pojawia się także w malowidłach Felicjana Szczęsnego Kowarskiego w budynku starostwa, gdzie ukazaną w postaci greckiej heroiny Polonię z mieczem i tarczą flankują postaci śląskich herosów – całość programu ma jawnie rewizjonistyczną wymowę. Wyraźnie większe bogactwo wątków prezentuje zespół trzech obrazów Józefa Unierzyskiego, zamówionych do kościoła mariackiego w Katowicach. Ich centralną postacią jest Maria Królowa Korony Polskiej, przybierająca cechy Polonii Triumphans. Fundamentem łączności Górnego Śląska z Polską jest tu wspólna katolicka wiara. Górnośląski lud pod przywództwem bliskich mu kapłanów włącza się u stóp Madonny w nurt polskiej historii, określony dziejową misją przedmurza chrześcijaństwa, wnosząc jako wiano żywą religijność i pracowitość. Na zlecenie proboszcza ks. Emila Szramka malarz zaprezentował zrastanie się z polskością jako naturalny i obustronnie korzystny proces. The creation of the autonomous Silesian voivodeship within the borders of the Polish nation state and of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Katowice meant a profound change in the distribution of power, the groups of Polish-Silesian clergy and Polish bureaucrats, as well as secular intelligentsia gaining increasingly in importance. Their rivalry and common effort to polonize Upper Silesians inspired two different, although interrelated discourses, visual means being involved in both of them. Among the motives, implemented in the propaganda, allegorical depictions of Poland - rooted in the traditions of the Polish art of the turn of the twentieth century – played a significant role. In the decorations of the edifices of Silesian Sejm and Silesian Voivodeship Office and of the county authorities they were shaped as the personification of Polonia Triumphans. In the former case the sculptor Jan Raszka represented the allegory as an early medieval figure, reminding of a „golden age” of the Piast dynasty, seated on the throne and accompanied by a coal miner and a foundry-worker, stylized as borderland knights. In another bas-relief Polonia was depicted as Victory and Liberty leading into battle a Polish-Silesian insurgent, rendered as a foundry-worker with a hammer in his hands, and a soldier, fighting against Czechs for Teschen Silesia. The strand of military fighting over disputed territories occurs also in the paintings by Felicjan Szczęsny Kowarski in the Katowice County Hall, where Polonia, depicted as a Greek heroine with a sword and a shield, is accompanied by Silesian heroes and the meaning of the decoration is manifestly revisionist, advocating moving Polish border westwards. A conspicuosly wider range of contents is reflected in a series of three paintings by Józef Unierzyski, ordered for St. Mary’s Church in Katowice. Their central figure is Mary the „Queen of the Polish Crown”, assuming the features of Polonia Triumphans. The connection between Upper Silesia and Poland is founded here on the common catholic faith. At the feet of Madonna Upper Silesian folk, led by clergy, that remains faithfull to its popular roots, and bringing its vivid religiosity and dilligence, joins the stream of the Polish history, determined by the historical mission of antemurale christianitatis,. Commissioned by the parson Emil Szramek, the painter represented the growing together of Upper Silesia and Poland as a natural and mutually profitable process.

This article presents the results of analyzes carried out on all provincial (voivodeship) outbreak action plans in the event of an epidemic in Poland. Voivodeships are obliged to prepare such documents by the law, however, its provisions are imprecise, therefore the content of the plans is diversified. The analytical parts of the documents do not contain basic information (like demographics). The entries are often based on the opinions of the authors and not the data, so the plans are not evidence-based. Although the plans were usually updated before or during the COVID-19 outbreak in Poland, references to the coronavirus are fragmentary. The differences between the plans and their (mostly) poor quality seem to be the result of a mixture of imprecise legislation, lack of ability to write plans, and risk avoidance. This makes the existing documents of little implementation value in the face of the emerging coronavirus threat.

In order to support the development of Polish and Slovak border regions, after the accession of both countries to the EU, the “Interreg Poland – Slovakia” Program was implemented. One of the priorities of the Program is the protection and use of the common Polish-Slovak cultural and natural heritage for the development of cross-border cooperation. As part of Interreg since 2004, EU-Structural Funds have co-financed joint Polish-Slovak projects implemented in selected counties/poviat located in the following voivodeships/provinces: Śląskie, Małopolskie, Podkarpackie (on the Polish side) and Žilinskom kraji, Prešovskom kraji and Košickým kraji (on the Slovak side). The next editions of Interreg are becoming increasingly popular in Poland and Slovakia including its recognition by experts as well as the implementation of a cross-border effect.

The provision of the conditions for continued socio-economic development is one of the fundamental objectives for regions. In an age of intensive changes in the global economy, demographic determinants seem to play a heightened role, as the quality and supply of human resources in regions largely determine their capabilities and paths of development. This paper aims to provide a forecast of the long-term demographic changes expected to arise in the Lower Silesia region of Poland, along with their projected effects upon the development potential of the region as a whole. This study was prepared on the basis of publicly available statistical and prognostic data for the period between 2010 and 2050. For research purposes, the region of Lower Silesia was assumed to correspond with the administrative area of the Lower Silesia voivodeship. The study employs the following research methods: literature studies, simple statistical methods, and ratiocination from statistical data

Abstract The Rybnik conurbation is an example of a traditional industrial area, where, due to economic restructuring, social and economic transformations are taking place. It is located in the Silesian voivodeship (southern Poland) and its development is mostly based on intensive coal mining after the Second World War. The article presents selected aspects of social and economic transformation happening in the area of the Rybnik conurbation after 1945 and connected with its rapid economic development in the 1960s and 70s, as well as with the systematic and economic transformation in Poland after 1989. The article was prepared on the base of subject literature, statistics and own studies. Population transformations have been analysed for the period 1980-2010, in each case, in relation to selected administrative units and three zones of the conurbation - the core, the inner and the outer areas. In order to evaluate and compare the demographic situation in the Rybnik conurbation in the years 1988 and 2008, a rank method has been applied. Community classification has been based on the total value of ranks for particular communities for the following variables: birth rate, population growth, net migration rate and the participation of the population in the pre-working and post-working age. The results of population transformation indicate that until 1991, the population of the Rybnik conurbation had been increasing (up to 197.7 thousand people). In the period 1991-2012, it decreased by 26.4 thousand (i.e. by 3.8%). In the same period of time, depopulation took place in the largest mining cities of the conurbation core (Wodzisław Śląski, 56.1%, connected with its administrative division into 4 towns and 1 rural community; Jastrzębie-Zdrój - 12.3%, Żory - 7.8% and Rybnik, to a lesser degree - 2.7%). The rank method that was applied has revealed the worsened demographic condition in the western communes of the conurbation (a shift from weak to bad). Simultaneously, in the period 1990-2012, the population gradually increased in the outer zone of the conurbation, by 6.8%. This indicates the process of suburbanisation taking place in the area. Demographic and economic changes in the Rybnik conurbation after 1989, in comparison to other mining areas in Poland and in Europe, seem to be less intensive.