Suchergebnisse

Travellers' discourses thrive on anecdotes. According to Stephen Greenblatt, they interpose between a series of similar, narrow experiences and a wider pattern they may indicate. This analysis deciphers how an anecdote from Passenger to Teheran (1926), the travelogue written by Vita Sackville-West, is not just an isolated flash but can indicate larger representational strategies. In her epic journey Vita Sackville-West travelled from London to Egypt, India, Persia, and then back to England, through Russia, Poland and Prussia; by boat, train and car. In the episode which is subject to a detailed analysis, the travellers were stopped at the Polish–East Prussian border and forced to leave the train. The consequences of what could be just an anecdote about an "unwelcome incident", reverberate – as it turns out – far beyond the incidental because what is at stake at almost every border incident is a socio–political, geo–political, military and ideological reality. No matter whether such events are presented as adventures or in all seriousness, each border trouble has consequences beyond any "local moment". To disclose some of the less obvious implications of the Polish–Prussian passage in Vita Sackville-West's book is the aim of this essay.

MACHIAVELLI'S SUBVERSION The article features a short recapitulation of intellectual achievements in the sphere of politics of Niccolò Machiavelli. On many points he broke with the established way of thinking about politics and steered it in new directions. His revolution was expressed, among other things, in the positioning of politics as a central human activity, in the development of a new methodology for penetrating political matter, in the development of a new perspective on the tasks of political power and on relations between states, in the re-drawing of the relationship between morality and politics, and in an innovative view of the nature of man.

The May Coup of 1926 was one of the most important events in the history of the Second Polish Republic. The several-day armed coup led to significant changes in the positions of the chief state authorities. This article, based mostly on previously unknown archival materials, describes the several-month period preceding the so-called May events. This is possible thanks to the investigation conducted by the military prosecutor's office in Warsaw into Col. Bolesław Wieniawa- -Długoszowski and Lt. Col. Roman Abraham, who discussed various issues in confidential conversations with other officers, including the takeover of power in the state.