The article presents the image of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Catholic press of the Second Polish Republic. Attention was paid to both his socio‑political and military achievements, as well as a general assessment of the character. The source basis is mainly the texts that appeared on this subject in periodicals dealing most often with socio‑political and historical‑political issues. They were compared with the findings of both contemporaneous and contemporary historians. The aspect of the then political propaganda in Poland, emphasising the importance of the Polish-‑French alliance, as well as the former importance of Napoleonic policy for the “Polish cause” was taken into account. The power of the solemn celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Napoleon's death, together with its patriotic connotations, as well as the issue of his religiosity, influencing the nature of the then state‑Church relations, are particularly exposed. The text is intended by the author to fit into the categories of the history of historiography and have a comparative character in relation to the historiography of the Napoleonic era in interwar Poland.

W niniejszym artykule omówione zostały dwa obszerne zespoły reprodukcji graficznych dzieł dawnych mistrzów europejskiego malarstwa, pochodzące z wydawnictw albumowych z początku XIX w. Pierwsze z nich to kompendium Annales du Musée Napoleon, z ilustracjami Charles’a Normanda, drugie zaś to album „Kupferstiche von John” zawierający zbiór miedziorytów Friedricha Johna. Artykuł stanowi próbę charakterystyki obu zespołów grafiki reprodukcyjnej w powiązaniu z ówczesnymi poglądami na temat ważnych szkół malarskich oraz środowisk artystycznych i samych twórców, których dzieła były chętnie wykorzystywane w publikacjach na temat europejskiej sztuki lub też stanowiących dokumentację danych kolekcji dawnego malarstwa bądź zbiorów muzealnych.

In this close reading of the poem ‘Z La Manczy’ ( From La Mancha) by Jan Lechoń, written and published in exile in 1953, its historical and political contexts are examined in the light of the poet’s diaries. Lechoń, it seems, thought much of Charles de Gaulle and gave him, cast as a latter-day Quixote on horseback, a prominent place in the poem. This article explains and analyses the role of each of the historical and fictional characters (Don Quixote and Sancho Pansa, Joan d’Arc, the French kings and Napoleon) in the mythical structure of the poem and, last not least, addresses the issue of representing historical processes, politics and politicians in poetry.

The Author undertakes an analysis of role of the Napoleonic legend in the Polish historical studies of the I 9th and 20th centuries.