Panorama of Old Town Square, Rynek Starego Miasta (Warsaw, Poland)
About this Module
Witamy! Welcome to our introductory online learning module about Poland. Here readers will be able to learn more about Polish history, culture, language, and much more. While this site is designed to give you a brief overview of the topics covered below, we hope that you will utilize the additional resources we have curated so that you can further your learning about Poland and its rich culture and history
Module Sections
History
The first section of this module is divided into four historical periods and introduces learners to the long and rich history of Poland. This section can be used for fulfilling Social Studies learning standards pertaining to Global History, World Geography, Modern World History and others.
Arts and Culture
The second section in this module covers topics within arts and culture. Here readers can learn more about Polish art and architecture, film and TV, literature, and music as well as how crucial these forms of expression were in maintaining Polish identity and culture throughout the country’s history.
Food
How can we talk about Poland and not cover all the delicious meals and treats that you can find there! In this section we discuss Polish culinary traditions old and new. Readers will also learn about traditional ingredients as well as food that is served during holidays.
Language
Want to learn more about the Polish language and its history? We’ve got you covered. In this section readers will learn the Polish alphabet as well as some basic words in phrases. Included are more resources in case you would like to learn more of the language going forward.
Multicultural Poland
In this section we discuss some of the diverse cultures and peoples that can be found in Poland. Additionally, we will cover a handful of the regions across the globe that the Polish diaspora now calls home.
Travel and Tourism
In this section we cover all of the different places that you can explore in Poland. From museums, cathedrals, hiking trails, breathtaking forests, and historic UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Poland has something to offer everyone who visits.
About the Authors
Alicia Baca serves as the K-14 outreach coordinator at the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (CSEEES) and the program coordinator for its Polish Studies Initiative (PSI). Though her BA and MA are in Nordic and Russian studies, she began studying Polish in 2022 in an effort to fill in the gaps in her knowledge so that she could better connect with the Polish-American communities that CSEEES works with. While not currently involved in scholarly research, she maintains an ongoing interest in LGBTQ+ and women’s rights issues in Eastern Europe, music and politics, Nordic and Slavic traditional music and folklore, and the use of Nordic and Slavic folk metal music as a recruitment tool for extremist groups.
Julia Keblinska joined Ohio State’s Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies as a postdoc with a joint appointment at the Center for Historical Studies and the East Asian Studies Center in 2021. In 2022, she received a Polish Studies Initiative grant to further her research on understanding the transition from late socialism to early postsocialism in Poland and China through the “pulpy archive,” informal collections of cheap texts and obsolete media objects. Now an independent scholar, she remains affiliated with the East Asian Studies Center at Ohio State as she completes her monograph on the Chinese 1980s. Trained in Chinese studies and film and media studies (PhD in Chinese, University of California, Berkeley, 2021), Julia has expanded the scope of her research to include comparative socialist media cultures and is drafting a second book on new media in late socialist Poland.
Diana Sacilowski is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at The Ohio State University, where she teaches Polish language and various Slavic culture courses. She received her Ph.D. in Slavic Languages & Literatures at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2021. Her primary interests include 19th-21st century Polish literature and culture, Central and East European Jewish culture, Holocaust and memory studies, and postmodernism. Diana was a recipient of a 2024 Polish Studies Initiative grant to support her project that explores how various literary texts intersect with sites of memory in order to better understand the key ideas and methods underpinning Poland’s so-called Jewish “return,” a period, beginning in the early 1980s, that has witnessed a great revival in interest in Jewish culture and history.
Funding for creation of this module comes from the Title VI Comprehensive National Resource Center grant from the International and Foreign Language Education division of the U.S. Department of Education, awarded to The Ohio State University’s Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (CSEEES).
Funding for travel and research was made possible by the Polish Studies Initiative, the Critical Difference for Professional Development Grants from The Women’s Place at Ohio State, and the Luczkowski-Habash Fund for Polish Studies from the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures.