Ładna historia!

Do you know why Stanisław August was the most kidnapped king of Poland? Which Polish queen was crowned at just ten years old? Why Fryderyk Chopin was called a "wunderkind," and can history grow on trees? You'll learn all this and much, much more in this book!

The word "history" sounds very serious; it usually seems distant, something that doesn't entirely concern us. But is it really? After all, in a sense, what we experienced YESTERDAY, or even the past hour, has already become history. Our great-grandparents, great-grandmothers, grandfathers, and grandmothers—people we know well and are close to—survived World War II, and some even the first. Their drawers hold black-and-white photographs, which grandmothers sometimes pull out over tea and recount with emotion the stories of the past. In such photographs, we can see our own parents in strollers, great-aunts on carpet beating racks, and even a gap-toothed grandfather who has lost almost all his baby teeth.

In reality, history, including the kind we learn about in school textbooks, is created by people like you and their families. And the intertwined shared fates of many, many people and their families is precisely the history being studied.

In this book, you'll find stories about the families that inhabited Polish lands from the 10th century AD to the present day, along with their extensive family trees. Here, you'll find the families of kings, princes, great leaders, inventors, scholars, and artists, including Bolesław the Brave, Zawisza Czarny, Jadwiga of Anjou, Anna Jagiellon, Fryderyk Chopin, and Maria Skłodowska-Curie, along with a wealth of interesting facts about them and the times and places in which they lived.

Or maybe you'll draw your own family tree?