Polish

A country that has long served as a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe, Poland is now home to the largest and most important economy among the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe. Its language is also the repository of one of the richest cultures in the world, with leading figures who range from Copernicus to the scientist who discovered radioactivity, Marie Curie; from the great Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz to boldly experimental modernist writers like Bruno Schulz and Witold Gombrowich, the absurdist Sławomir Mrożek, the avant-garde theatre director Tadeusz Kantor and 20th-century Nobel laureates Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska and Olga Tokarczuk — to name only a handful of figures whose work has found wide international resonance.

When the Kingdom of Poland was partitioned by its more powerful neighbors Russia, Austria and Prussia in the 18th century, it was the Polish language that preserved the nation’s sense of identity even when the country as such had vanished from the map (until it was resurrected at the end of World War I). In the second half of the 20th century under Communist rule, it was Polish culture that continued to sustain a sense of alternative national purpose.