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Poland to celebrate heroes of 1920 campaign against Soviets

03.01.2020 08:25
A host of events will be held in Poland this year to celebrate some of the heroes of the country’s victorious war with Soviet Russia a century ago.
Jan Kowalewski. Photo: Public domain
Jan Kowalewski. Photo: Public domainvia Wikimedia Commons

Poland will this year be marking the 100th anniversary of its victory over the Russian Bolsheviks in the 1920 Battle of Warsaw.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said in a New Year's address that the landmark battle, part of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921, “decided … the fate of the world 100 years ago."

The upper house of the country’s parliament, the Senate, in October adopted a resolution to declare 2020 the Year of Jan Kowalewski, a Polish cryptologist who is credited with deciphering Soviet military codes during the Polish-Soviet War.

Kowalewski was a mathematician, cryptologist and linguist as well as a military officer.

Poland is this year also set to commemorate Fr. Józef Maria Bocheński, a Dominican friar and pioneering philosopher who contributed to the country’s victory over the Russian Bolsheviks a century ago.

Józef Maria Bocheński (1902-1995). Photo: Dominican Archives Kraków Józef Maria Bocheński (1902-1995). Photo: Dominican Archives Kraków

A resolution passed by Polish senators last year honoured Bocheński as an “outstanding researcher, priest and patriot."

Bocheński took part in Poland’s 1920 campaign against Soviet Russia and he also fought as a soldier against the Germans during World War II.

The resolution hailed him as a foremost exponent of an approach in philosophy known as analytic philosophy.

It also said that Bocheński’s works have sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

February 8, 2020 will mark the 25th anniversary of Bocheński’s death.

(gs)

Source: PAP