Browse Primary Sources
Locate primary sources, including images, objects, media, and texts. Annotations by scholars contextualize sources.
Excerpts from the sermon given by Pope John Paul II in Warsaw in 1987
This is the sermon that Pope John Paul II delivered at the open-air mass described in the previous section, and it is typical of both his rhetorical style and the substance of the sermons he delivered during his trips to Poland. The formal occasion for the mass was the conclusion of a national Eucharistic Congress that had been held over the preceding days in various sites around Poland.
Anonymous sermon from 1982
This sermon was delivered in Podkowa Leśna, a small town in central Poland near Warsaw, on October 13, 1982. An émigré publishing house in the United States published a transcript in a collection of sermons that purported to present the views of the rank-and-file clergy during the period of martial law.
Excerpt from a letter from the Episcopate to the parish clergy of Poland in 1981
This pastoral letter was issued on March 11, 1981, and sent to every priest in Poland. It summarizes the message that the bishops wanted the parish clergy to transmit to their flocks during their Sunday sermons. While not every priest faithfully replicated the tone of this letter, very few openly defied the instructions of the Church hierarchy.
Prayer for the Fatherland
This prayer was composed by the Polish Episcopate shortly after Solidarity was legalized for the first time, in 1980. The bishops instructed that henceforth it be recited during every mass.
Excerpts from a sermon given by Primate Stefan Wyszyński in 1976
This sermon was delivered by Cardinal Stefan Wsyzyński, the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, on January 25, 1976, in Warsaw's Holy Cross Church. Here we see the conservative political convictions shared by most members of the Polish clergy at the time (and today), according to which the Church, the nation, and the state must be tightly intertwined.
The Pledge of Jasna Góra
This text was written by Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński in 1956 and used that year for a ceremony at the Marian shrine of Jasna Góra in the town of Częstochowa. Promoted heavily by the Polish Episcopate, the pledge became a mainstay of organized pilgrimages and remains popular to this day.
Margaret Thatcher's Views on Mikhail Gorbachev
In 1984, British journalist John Cole interviewed Great Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after her meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev. The interview took place shortly before Thatcher met with current U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Soviet observers had raised the possibility that Gorbachev might become the next head of the Communist Party and Premiere of the Soviet Union.
Reacting to German Reunification
On October 3, 1990, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) were reunified as one single state, recreating a country that had not existed since the end of World War II. The divide between East Germany and West Germany had been both a political event and also a symbolic one, between Western democracies and Eastern Communist countries.
President Bush's Remarks in Warsaw, July 9, 1989
President George H. W. Bush visited Poland and Hungary in July 1989 after June elections in which Solidarity candidates won 160 of the 161 seats in the Sejm that were available to them and 92 of the 100 seats of the Polish Senate. In addition, many leaders of the Communist Party failed to secure enough votes to be elected to the parliament they had controlled for four decades.
Gender and Health in Latin America: Official Document, Women’s Status (Latin America)
The right to life is a basic prerequisite to definitions of the right to live a healthy life. However, because of violence against women and various other stringent challenges to their daily lives, neither women’s health nor their daily lives are fully secure.
Southeast Asian Politics: Speech, Burmese Democracy
This speech, given in 1988 by Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, marked the beginning of her staunch campaign against the Burmese military regime. Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Burmese nationalist hero Aung San. She spent much of her adult life overseas and married an English academic named Michael Aris.
Southeast Asian Politics: Speech, Philippine State of The Nation
When opposition Senator Benigno (“Ninoy”) Aquino was assassinated in August 1983, Filipinos rallied around the widow Corazon Aquino who symbolized all those who were victimized by the Marcos dictatorship. The housewife with no political experience found herself elected president of the Philippines after the overthrow of Marcoses’ authoritarian rule.
Southeast Asian Politics: Newspaper, Unofficial Power
Unofficial power is often exercised in private, far from public view. This newspaper exposé discusses the power (real and perceived) of Rosemarie Arenas, an alleged former mistress of Philippine President Fidel Ramos, during a democratic regime (1992-1998). The basis of Arenas’s power was the fact that she was a major fundraiser in the presidential campaign of Fidel Ramos.
Southeast Asian Politics: Court Records, Imelda Marcos
Unofficial power is difficult to document, yet the martial law years in the Philippines were often described in the media as the “conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos” (1972-1986). This epithet articulates succinctly the perception of the First Lady’s power behind the scenes. Assistant U.S.
Southeast Asian Politics: Nonfiction, Philippine Suffrage
This is an essay written by suffragist Trinidad Fernandez Legarda, editor of The Woman’s Outlook and President of the National Federation of Women’s Clubs (NFWC). NFWC led the campaign for suffrage in the Philippines in 1921. The essay presents a summary of the Filipino suffragists’ argument for the vote.
Southeast Asian Politics: Nonfiction, Javanese Education
Raden Ajeng Kartini is hailed in Indonesia as that country’s first feminist. She was born in April 21, 1879, in North Central Java, the daughter of a Javanese official serving the Dutch colonial government. During this time, women were secluded from the age of 14 until marriage. This did not stop Kartini from aspiring for higher education.
Sati: Petition, Orthodox Hindus
The debates that led to the Company’s prohibition of sati stimulated elite orthodox Hindus to form organizations, such as the Dharma Society, to protect what they deemed traditional Hindu practices. Orthodox Hindus staunchly argued that custom as well as Hindu scriptures supported self-immolation by Hindu widows as their sacred duty.
Sati: Official Documents, Lord William Cavendish Bentinck
After having lost most of their first empire in north America, the British stabilized the basis for their second empire by expanding their territorial control in India through the instrument of their East India Company. Lord William Cavendish Bentinck (1774-1839), the second son in an aristocratic, landed family, had entered the British army.
Louis XVI’s Reply to the Parlement of Paris (1788)
The fiscal and administrative reforms issued as royal decrees in the autumn of 1787 were opposed vociferously by the Parlements. To force their registration, the King held a "royal session" on 19 November 1787. Ordinarily at such a session, the magistrates of the Parlement of Paris would be allowed to vote on a royal decree.
Jean–Jacques Rousseau, Emile (1762)
Rousseau was the most controversial and paradoxical of the writers of the Enlightenment. Born in Switzerland, he published important works on politics, music, and in Emile, education. He also wrote one of the most widely read novels of the century, Julie or the New Heloise.