What is patriotism as opposed to nationalism? And which of these is what sometimes surfaces in contemporary rock music?

The author defends the thesis that language is an attribute of a nation and as such it is offi cially protected by the international legal system irrespective of the number of its speakers; thus, there is no such phenomenon as a “little language”. Linguistic minorities speak their mother languages or some dialectal variants of those languages

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct Roger Scruton’s views on patriotism and the attitudes of nationalism and oikophobia that endanger proper love of homeland. According to Scruton, patriotism is identical with loyalty to the people who inhabited a certain territory and share common culture, customs and history. The feeling of national loyalty so understood is peaceful by its nature and stabilizes the democratic system. Besides patriotism, Scruton distinguishes two attitudes, of worship of one’s nation and of hostility towards it. The first attitude may transform into nationalism, and then deifies nation and leads to wars and conflicts in history. Unlike the former, the attitude of hostility towards own nation (oikophobia) justifies development of transnational institutions that limited sovereignty of the democratic nation-states and – indirectly – undermine the sovereignty of one’s people. In the final part of the paper I paraphrase the concepts of nation presupposed in the attitudes of patriotism, nationalism and oikophobia, as they are discussed in the theoretical apparatus used by Leszek Nowak in his deformative conception of culture.

The subject matter dealt with in this article fits into a broader discussion on sovereignty and patriotism, which has intensified since Poland’s accession to the European Union. It is also associated with the topical issue of patriotic education of children and adolescents, in which the Church engages along with the family and the school (e.g. as part of religion lessons, parochial catechesis, specialist pastoral work). When taking up the subject matter described in the title, the author first focused on whether now, in a changed historical context, speaking about patriotism and patriotic attitudes is still sensible and whether a Christian can (should) be a patriot. When seeking an answer to this question, a reference was made mainly to the Letter of the Polish Episcopate On Christian Patriotism, issued on the 200th anniversary of the first partition of Poland, and to the document of the Conference of the Polish Episcopate prepared by the Council for Social Matters, entitled The Christian Shape of Patriotism. It was against this background that an answer was sought to the question about patriotic content in homilies and catechesis. Homilies delivered by St. John Paul II during his pilgrimages to his homeland were used as a model in this regard. The basic assumptions of the religion teaching syllabus for schools and parochial catechesis, which refer at multiple points to patriotism as a value, emphasising the importance of developing an attitude of respect and love for one’s homeland and its cultural heritage, as well as a motivation to actively participate in social life, were also discussed.

The Arab Republic of Egypt – the most important Middle Eastern Arabic country, is one of the oldest countries in the world, believed by some to be the cradle of civilization. Patriotic songs are very popular in it. They can be heard in times of peace and when the country may be facing some difficulties. They are shown on television, played on the radio, broadcast during official ceremonies, and used in social media, coffee shops, and weddings. In recent years, there has been something of a phenomenon around songs titled Taḥyā Maṣr. Notwithstanding the main messages – for Egypt to “live long” and show the artist’s love for their country – other messages and differences in how the singer expresses their love can be found. An analysis of six songs released in the years 2013–2018 under the same title, Taḥyā Maṣr, will be presented in this article. Any clear distinctions between them and the reasons for their being made under the same title will be shown.

Wawrzyniec Engeström (altern. Lars Benzelstierna von Engeström) was a 19th-century Polish aristocrat with Swedish roots, a historian, writer and political activist who made it his life's mission to build bridges between Polish and Swedish culture. The rapprochement he sought was based on anti-German and anti-Russian sentiments. In his poems A Song about Our Stars (Pieśń o gwiazdach naszych, 1874, 1883) and The Vistula: A National Fantasy (Wisła – Fantazja narodowa, 1883) he drew on Wincenty Pol's Songs of Our Land (Pieśni o ziemi naszej). They all celebrated the idea of national unity based on historical memory, religion and custom. His inspiration came from Swedish Romantic literature, whose main works he translated into Polish.

Recent years have witnessed the publication of a number of research papers and books seeking to assess threats of electoral victories of anti-establishment politicians and political parties, described as authoritarian populists. This essay focuses on three books directly addressing the origins and threats of authoritarian populism to democracy. It consists of six sections and the conclusion. The first section presents findings (Norris and Inglehart) based on surveys of values of voters of various age cohorts concluding that authoritarian populism is a temporary backlash provoked by the post-materialist perspective. The second section examines the contention, spelled out in Levitsky and Ziblatt, that increase in openness of American political system produced, unintentionally, a degradation of the American political system. The third section continues brief presentations focusing on to the causes and implications of “illiberal democracy,” and “undemocratic liberalism” (Mounk). The fourth section examines developments in the quality of democracy in the world showing that despite the decline in Democracy Indices, overall there was no slide towards non-democratic forms of government in 2006–2019. The next two sections deal with dimensions missing in reviewed books; the notion of nation-state, international environment, civic culture and, in particular, dangers of radical egalitarianism to democracy. The last section concludes with regrets that the authors ignored rich literature on fragility of democracy and failed to incorporate in their analyses deeper structural factors eroding democracy: by the same token, return to the pre-populist shock trajectory is unlikely to assure survival of liberal democracy.