Mini-series
Richard the Lionheart and Austria
The mini-series of articles Richard the Lionheart and Austria introduces the subject of the probable roots of the creation of the red-white-red flag of Austria in the dispute between Leopold V Babenberg and Richard the Lionheart at Acre, describes the circumstances of the capture of the King of England at Vienna and gives examples of the amount of silver that was paid for his release, mentioned in popular science literature.
In the near future, I would like to supplement the examples of the given ransom size with other sources that I have come across, and end the series with the fourth part, devoted to the investments made by Leopold V thanks to the acquired silver, in particular the subject of the transfer of the mint from Krems an der Donau to Vienna and the beginning of the minting of the famous Viennese pfennigs (German: Wiener Pfennig) there.
In the capital of Saxony
When in the autumn of 2022 I bought the book Drezno 1945. Ogień i mrok (McKay, Sinclair. Kraków: ZNAK, Kraków.), which had just been published, in one of Warsaw’s bookstores. I did not expect how deeply I would be moved by the story of the destruction of the capital of Dresden at the end of World War II. The author poignantly described the fate of the well-known people who died then and those who survived the hell of the carpet bombing.
The images of the everyday life of the people of Dresden, shown in a stylistically neat retrospective, have become vivid for me – especially since I went to this city at the beginning of 2023, still absorbed in reading.