Regaining independence by each country (Tunisia, Morocco 1956, Algeria 1962) and the publication of relevant documents (codes of family law, constitutions) created opportunities to speak more widely about social and economic rights, or about political rights for women. However, the rights granted to women were characterized by the principle of inequality, especially in Algeria and Morocco. In this difficult and complex situation, the emancipation movement of women went through various phases. In Algeria, its strength began to appear at the turn of the seventies and eighties of the twentieth century and has been constantly increased. In Morocco, in principle, the awakening took place in the early nineties of the twentieth century. Women themselves played a significant role in the activities for emancipation, engaging in various undertakings, organizations and associations, and in activating Non Profit Organizations (Organisation Non-Gouvernementale -ONG) with women participation from the end of the 80s of the twentieth century, which, in its turn, created opportunities for legal reforms, which would not exist without activities carried out by various associations, including women’s associations. The Jasmine Revolution, also known as the Arabic spring, was initiated in Tunisia, and has had a significant impact on the contemporary activities of women.

Urban social movements present themselves as an answer to de3 ciencies of local politics. In this way, they situate themselves in agreement with popular diagnoses of crisis of democracy, and propose their own model of involvement in politics. However, is this model a chance for renewal of democracy, or is it just another version of politics understood as an enlightened management? Does it have the potential for broadening the political, or does it stop halfway? Presented article is an attempt in rethinking those questions. First part compares different political languages, in which critiques of contemporary democracy are formulated. Subsequently, Jacques Rancière’s conception is presented, as emphasising egalitarian and emancipatory dimensions of democracy. Examples of rhetorics and actions of urban social movements are considered in this double context of different political languages and radical character of democracy. The problem of ‘deficient political articulation’, which makes urban social movements unable to fully keep the promises they make, is stressed.

The author champions the belief that Karl Marx offered a theory of capitalism, and not a theory of socialism. This explains, she argues, why we cannot find a detailed and well-constructed conception of human society that will exist in the future. Marx continued, however, to draw prognostic conclusions from his diagnosis of the capitalist status quo, and his numerous manuscripts are replete with social predictions. They were different at different times, and as the capitalist system tended to change in his lifetime, so changed Marx’s expectations about the future course of events. One thing remained unchanged, however. He always proclaimed the coming of a classless community based on the principle that a free development of each is a necessary prerequisite of a free development of all.

This article examines the analogies, and more specifically the historical 'theatre of the imagination', between Tytus Czyżewski's Robespierre/Rhapsody (1927) and Stanisław Wyspiański's poetic dramas Rhapsodies (Kazimierz the Great and Bolesław the Bold). Each of those poems foregrounds its principal historical character. Wyspiański's dramatic poems, commonly known as Rhapsodies, focus on Kazimierz the Great, Bolesław the Bold, and Piast. kings of pivotal significance in his vision of Poland's historical destiny. Twenty years later Tytus Czyżewski, an acclaimed avant-garde painter and poet, composed a poetic-essayistic salmagundi, in which he sought to render in a similarly elevated style and condensed dialogue the drama of the leaders of the French Revolution, Robespierre and Danton. While Robespierre has to face, apart from some common people, God, the Spirit and Judges that sit in judgment on him, the final section of Rhapsody evokes Juliusz Słowacki. A monologue, mimicking his lofty verse, establishes a metaphorical common thread in Polish history – from the days of mail-clad knights to the wretched everyday life in the trenches – set against a broad background of wars, destruction and the French Revolution. For Czyżewski the French Revolution was a ground-breaking event, the first act of a great historical process that ushered in the Modern Age with its ideas of progress, reason, freedom, social justice, the elimination of poverty. It continues to inspire mankind with the hope that even a most ambitious change is possible. For Wyspiański, on the other hand, the grand project of human emancipation does give rise to doubts whether a wholesale obliteration of the Old is justified and to questions about God, free will, theodicy and destiny, and the 'tyranny of reason'. The differences between the two philosophies of history – Wyspiański's, from the turn of the 19th century, and Czyżewski's, representative of the artistic and intellectual climate of the late 1920s – are no doubt profound, and yet, what both of them seem to share is a deep concern with the relevance of history for the present and for designing the future.