Post Tagged with: "Poland"

The Battle of Vienna: Myth and Reality

The Battle of Vienna: Myth and Reality

If we examine the battle closely, we can understand it rather differently: as a battle based on inter-ethnic cooperation. After all, John III Sobieski (1629-96), the king of the multilingual and multi-religious Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, might not have won the battle were it not for the help of his country’s Sunni Muslim Tatars, known as the Lipka Tatars. ‘Tatar’ was the[Read More…]

July 31, 2018 0 comments Society
‘Witaj Szkoło!’ Welcome to school! Every child in Poland is greeted by this sentence in early September when school commences after the summer holidays. Although religious education is not compulsory in Poland, a vast majority of school children attend classes of religion, usually run by a Catholic priest/nun (sometimes, if enough parents/students request it, lessons of ethics are taught). Muslim pupils usually aren’t as lucky as the kids in Białystok, where the local Muslim Religious Association in co-operation with Białystok’s education board and the Muftiate office organises Islam classes. The children who attend are a mix of Polish and Crimean Tatars and Chechen refugees. Pictured is Mirza, a local imam, who is leading a prayer class to a mixed group of boys and girls.

Polish Muslim Community in the Heart of Europe

The Podlasie region of north-eastern Poland is home to a small Sunni Muslim community called Polish Tatars or Lipka Tatars, who have settled there for over 300 years. Photographer Selim Korycki is one of the 3000 Poles with Tatar heritage.  For centuries, the Tatar relatives on his father’s side resided in what is known today as the Grodno Region of Belarus. Like[Read More…]

June 3, 2018 0 comments History & Culture