The Sarmatian Review Data

Russian self-image
Percentage of Russians who do not consider themselves Europeans: 71 percent.
Percentage of Russians who consider the European Union a threat to Russia: 45 percent
Percentage of Russians who consider Russianness to be sui generis, and are convinced that Russia must go its own separate way: 75 percent.

Source: A 2007 opinion poll conducted by the Levada Analytical Center, as reported by the Times (timesofmalta.com), 6 February 2007.

Language situation in Ukraine
Percentage of inhabitants of Ukraine who speak only Ukrainian: 40 percent.
Percentage of inhabitants of Ukraine who speak only Russian: 40 percent.
Percentage of those who speak both languages: 20 percent.

Source: Taras Kuzio in Eurasia Daily Monitor, vol. 4, no. 28 (8 February 2007).

Money and German pride
Number of local currencies that are circulating in various regions of Germany: 16.
Number of businesses that accept local currency (called Urstromtaler) in the city of Magdeburg (Saxony -Anhalt province): 200.
Official status of local currencies in EU: illegal.

Source: Tristana Moore, “Germans take pride in local money,” BBC News, 6 February 2007.

German attitudes toward the Polish state
Percentage of Germans who consider Silesia and the Polish part of former East Prussia (Warmia and Masuria) to be German: 24 percent.
Percentage of Germans who disagree with the decision of the German government to abandon claims to Warmia, Masuria, and Silesia: 25 percent.

Source: Der Spiegel poll, as reported by Rzeczpospolita, 20 February 2007.

Polish Catholic clergy and the Soviet-imposed secret police
Names of prominent bishops and cardinals who refused to collaborate with the secret police in spite of threats: Cardinal Franciszek Macharski of Kraków; Cardinal Andrzej Maria Deskur of Rome; Bishop Tadeusz Rakoczy of Bielsko-Žywiec; retired Bishop Wacław Świerzawski of Sandomierz; Bishop Jan Szkodoń of Kraków; Bishop Kazimierz Nycz of Kołobrzeg-Koszalin.
Names of bishops and priests who allegedly collaborated with the secret police: Archbishop Juliusz Paetz (previously accused of sexual molestation of clerics); Bishop Wiktor Skworc of Tarnów; Bishop Kazimierz Górny of Rzeszów; Rev. Wacław Cedro; Rev. Saduś (no first name available); Rev. Janusz Bielański, former pastor of the Wawel Cathedral; Rev. Mieczysław Maliński, longtime collaborator of Tygodnik Powszechny; Rev. Mirosław Drozdek of the Krzeptówki parish near Zakopane; Rev. Mieczysłw Łukaszczyk; Rev. O. Stoch.

Source: Dziennik (Warsaw), 26 February 2007.

Women under communism
Number of biographies of women who were political prisoners in Soviet-occupied Poland between 1945-1958, assembled by Professor Barbara Otwinowska in her two-volume study of the subject: 750.
Number of names of female political prisoners she collected from various sources: 3,000.
Estimated total number of female political prisoners in Soviet-occupied Poland from 1945 to 1958: 5,000-6,000.
Typical fate of pregnant women who were political prisoners: Stefania Zarzycka, arrested in 1945 while pregnant and tortured in the Lublin prison, died after giving birth to a daughter. The daughter spent the first two years of her life in prison and was then sent to a state-run “children's home.” In 1956, after many years of claiming parenthood, her father managed to get her out of the “children's home.”

Source: Barbara Otwinowska, Zawołać po imieniu: Księga kobiet-więźniów politycznych, 1945-1958, 2 vols. (Warsaw: Vipart, 2003, ISBN 8387124419), as reported by Agnieszka Rybak, “Macierzyństwo w czasach zarazy,” Rzeczpospolita,26 May 2007.

Poles in Ireland
The estimated number of Poles living in Ireland in 2007: 150,000 to 300,000.

Source: “Polnische Jugend,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ.NET), 18 July 2007.

Are terms of donors' bequests to American universities honored?
Amount of money Charles and Marie Robertson gave Princeton University in 1961: 35 million dollars.
Terms of donation: to fund programs at the Woodrow Wilson School that would train students to serve in the federal government, particularly in foreign relations.
Value of the original gift in 2007: 850 million dollars, or 7 percent of Princeton University's endowment.
Ways to siphon off the money from the Wilson School, suggested in a 1999 memo by political science professor Larry Bartels to Princeton President Harold Shapiro: “Joint appointments. . . to subsidize the recruitment and retention of . . . faculty in the Politics Department.”
Amount of money Princeton spent outside the Wilson School (as stated by a former Harvard finance official): 100 million dollars.
Stated intention of Mr. and Mrs. Robertson's son Bill, upon learning of these and other details on the use of his parents' money: “We want the money removed from Princeton.”
Amount of money Texas billionnaire Lee Bass withdrew from Yale University when the university refused to honor his request for approving professors hired for a Western civilization curriculum he helped endow: 20 million dollars.

Source: Froma Harrop, “Misusing donors' dollars: unprincipled at Princeton,” Houston Chronicle, 26 May 2007.

Earnings of American men in their thirties go down in comparison to their fathers
Median amount of money men in their thirties made in 2005: 35,000 dollars, or 12 percent less than men in 1974, adjusted for inflation.

Source: Molly Selvin, “Men in their 30s making less than dads did,” Houston Chronicle, 26 May 2007.

Poles and the European Union
Percentage of Poles pleased by Poland's membership in EU in 2004 and 2007, respectively: 51 percent and 73 percent (an increase of 22 percent).
Percentage of Poles dissatisfied with EU membership: 5 percent.
Percentage of Poles indifferent regarding EU membership: 17 percent.

Source: OBOP opinion poll, as reported by Michał Jankowski in Donosy, no. 4446 (31 May 2007).

Germans continue to emigrate
Number of Germans who emigrated from Germany in 2006: 155,290.

Source: Federal Statistics Office in Germany, as reported by UPI (Berlin), 1 June 2007.

German emigration to Poland
Number of German citizens who emigrated to Poland in 2000-2006: 71,711.
Presumed reasons for emigration: desire to regain property lost after the Second World War or during emigration to Germany in the 1970s and '80s.

Source: Rzeczpospolita, 9 July 2007.

A new cold war/arms race with Russia?
Location where the Russian government intends to build a new port for nuclear submarines: the village of Vilyuchinsk on the Kamchatka Penninsula.
Names of the first three submarines (the first already completed): Yurii Dolgorukii, Vladimir Monomakh, and Aleksandr Nevskii.
Significance of these names: semilegendary leaders of Russian and Ukrainian history dating back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Number and size of nuclear submarines to be stationed at Vilyuchinsk by 2017: eight; each of them 170 meters long.
Equipment: each submarine will have 12 ballistic missiles of the Bulava type, 10 nuclear warheads per missile, with a range of 5,000 miles.
Russian military expert Vadim Solovyov's opinion expressed to Justyna Prus:'“We shall have new rockets with nuclear warheads, new ports, new submarines. Soon the United States will be surrounded by them.”

Source: Justyna Prus, “Rosjanie chcą rządzić na morzu” [Russians wish to rule the seas], Dziennik (Warsaw), 11 July 2007; John Daly in Eurasia Daily Monitor, vol. 4, no. 136 (13 July 2007).

Political opinion polls in Poland in July 2007
Platforma Obywatelska [opposition party offering no clear alternatives] 31 percent, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [the ruling party] 30 percent, LiD [a new leftist group] 18 percent, Samoobrona 8 percent, Liga Polskich Rodzin and Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, 5 percent each.

Source: Michał Jankowski in Donosy, no. 4474 (11 July 2007).