In the account of the Third Samnite War (298–290 BC) Livy records a special commitment of the Samnite Linen Legion that faced the Romans at Aquilonia in 293 BC. The oath of this élite formation required discipline and sacrifice to a greater extent than the obligations of the other Samnite troops and the Roman military oath of these times. According to Livy, the Linen Legion’s soldiers swore not to flee the battlefield and to instantly kill anyone from among themselves who would try to run away. Threatening soldiers to kill them on the spot in case of desertion in the face of the enemy and issuing such an order during battle was a widespread practice in the Roman army as well as in other armies of different epochs. It appears that in the Samnite picked troops, it was the military oath itself that included the obligation to punish the fugientes immediately. Strengthening military discipline and soldiers ’sworn commitments was a systemic solution aimed at enhancing combat effectiveness of the army in situations of extreme danger. Analogies can be drawn between the Samnite case and examples of Greek and Roman military oaths reinforced in the face of an invader. The peculiar clause of the Linen Legion’s oath may be seen as one of such systemic measures. The article examines the reasons for its use by the Samnites and attempts to demonstrate the credibility of this detail given by Livy.

See: Członkowska-Naumiuk, M. (2022). Escape from the battlefield and its immediate punishment in the oath of the Samnite Linen Legion (Liv. 10.38). Part 1. Prace Historyczne, 2022, 1-23. doi:https://doi.org/10.4467/20844069PH.22.001.14614

Records of the Kievan Palatinate during the Exile

The article discusses the efforts of the Kievan nobility to secure castle records in the period when the palatinate’s dietines have been held in Włodzimierz, and analyzes the resolves of those dietines in this regard. It also discusses the activities of the commissioners appointed to revise old records, assess the extent of war damage to existing records, and oversee the proper keeping of new ones. The attention is also paid to the postulates put forward in the instructions for the palatinate deputies. The Kievans have sought to recover the records captured by the Muscovy, but this objective has not been attained. Other sources, such as manifestations and requisitions, have also been employed. Activities of the Kievan nobility have led to the revision of the castle records of Żytomierz and Owrucz. Żytomierz records have been kept at Łuck, remaining inaccessible to the Kievans until the record-keeping has been resumed in the 18th century. Old Owrucz records have been lost after the monastery fire, and the new ones have been reestablished in the late 1670s. Keeping of Kiev records has been resumed in 1684 in consequence of the reestablishment of the palatinate courts.

“London beauty”: Life and works of the British painter Laura Alma-Tadema (1852–1909)

The article is an attempt to reconstruct the biography of the British painter Laura Alma-Tadema (1852–1909) on the basis of archival materials from the British press and period memoirs. The main aim of the article is to present the life and work of Laura Alma-Tadema as an example of one of the career paths that a woman artist from a wealthy British middle-class home could have chosen in a period when women fought for equality in many areas of life, including art. The profile of the now-forgotten artist, the wife of the esteemed British painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) and the stepmother of Laurence Alma-Tadema (1865–1940) – a writer who was actively involved in helping Poland and Poles during the World War I. The synthesis of the gathered information constitutes the most accurate biographical sketch of Laura Alma-Tadema to date. In addition to the history of her life and the characteristics of her artistic work, the article deals with the themes of the artistic milieu of Great Britain at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the antisuffragism movement as well as the situation and social position of female artists from the perspective of an upper-middle-class woman.

German crimes committed against the Polish people during the first months of the Second World War 1939/1940

The aim of the article is to show the scale and extent of the extermination of Polish society, which was a component of the national policy of the Third Reich in the first months of the Second World War. It is a quantitative presentation of the phenomenon of a crime which included arrests, interrogations, the use of physical and mental coercion, shootings and executions. The extermination activities against the Polish nation continued throughout the entire period of the war. The Terror of the Third Reich covered the areas of Gdańsk Pomerania, Greater Poland, Upper Silesia, and central Poland. As part of the policy of exterminating the Polish nation, at the beginning of the war, the Third Reich began the so-called “Action Intelligentsia”(Intelligenzaktion) and AB (Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion) which was formally named Extraordinary Pacification Action. In the occupied areas, various German formations (Selbstschutz, Einsatzgruppen SS) committed mass, planned crimes against the Polish elite, intelligentsia, teachers, clergy, local government officials and state officials.

Together against the Bolsheviks: German attempts to collaborate with the Home Army in the second half of 1944 as illustrated by the Miechów Home Army Inspectorate

The tactics used by the German occupiers in the second half of 1944 to persuade the Home Army to join forces against the Soviets is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and still little-known episodes in the history of the Polish Underground State. These efforts, although clearly delayed and treated with great distrust by the majority of Home Army soldiers, were nevertheless a fairly common phenomenon. The German strategy, although inconsistent and full of contradictions, could in some situations be met with favorable attitudes of the underground army officers, especially if they were already involved in conflicts with the Soviet partisans and communist groups. The Home Army soldiers were undoubtedly tempted by the prospect of personal safety, limiting repressions against the civilian population or by the promise of weapon supplies. However, no one was under the illusion that the German proposals resulted from goodwill – it was understood that the only reason for seeking alliance with the Poles was the dramatic situation on the eastern front.

Military cooperation between Poland and Japan, including cooperation of intelligence officers, began after the two countries established diplomatic relations in March 1919 when Japan recognized Poland as an independent state. This cooperation thrived during the 1930s. Tokyo decided that Warsaw can be a valuable strategic point and a Japanese intelligence coordination centre for Europe, which would be oriented towards the East and the West (the USSR and Germany). In exchange for information, the Japanese allocated Polish intelligence liaison officers in their diplomatic posts in Germany, the Baltic states and Scandinavia. The Japanese enabled them to send reports in the Japanese diplomatic mail and issued suitable forged documents. The centre for this cooperation was Riga and Kaunas, later Berlin, Prague, Königsberg and Stockholm.

The political purge in occupied Japan: implementation and effects

The Allied forces in occupied Japan had two main tasks: to punish and eliminate from public life those found responsible for war crimes, and to democratise the country. One of the tools used to achieve these objectives was a large-scale political purge targeted against the pre-war military and political elite, members of nationalist organisations, employees of the state administration and media, educators and business leaders. The paper examines the rationale behind the purge organized between 1945 and 1952, the assumptions upon which it was based, procedures used and the effects that it had. The main focus is on the fate of political activists. It also presents the efforts to prepare the ground in parliament for a vote on a new, pacifist constitution and the way in which Cold War tensions changed the priorities of the US occupation and lead to the so-called red purge. Selected individual cases are analysed, including that of Hatoyama Ichirōwhose removal from politics and subsequent conflict with Yoshida Shigeru had far reaching implications for the post-war political scene in Japan.

“De artificio zuchari” – the chapter on confectionery art in Lumen apothecariorum by Quirico de Augustis from 1492

The Vasas’ letters to the writer and land judge from Zator – Jan Pisarzowski (1599–1679)

Jan Pisarzowski (1599–1679) was a writer and land judge of Zator, who did not belong to the elite of power of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, in the collection of his correspondence, among letters written by middle nobles, there are notes sent by representatives of the House of Vasa – Ladislaus IV, Carol Ferdinand and John II Casimir. Their themes centered around requests for support at proceedings before the Crown Tribunal, undertaking efforts for endorsement of royal propositions by the local nobility, or accepting the role of royal envoy to the Zator sejmiks. It appears that the Pisarzowski letters, which are currently held at the Jagiellonian Library, present the political status of a representative of the middle nobility in a new light: of someone who did not belong to the state elite, but aspired to this role.