Volumes 1 thru 11

Wielka Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN (Great Universal Encyclopedia) is the largest Polish encyclopedia ever written. It was published between 1962 and 1970 by Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe (State Scientific Publishers, PWN) in Warsaw. The WEP contains about 82,000 entries, 12,000 illustrations, 200 color and 650 black-and-white inserted illustrations, and 120 color maps in thirteen volumes (including the Supplement). Many entries are signed, and many contain bibliographic material. The encyclopedia shows severe censorship. As is stated in the foreword, the encyclopedia is "based on rationalist and materialist assumptions" and reflects the worldview of the "socialist ideology". Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon, 1902 An encyclopedia (alternatively encyclopaedia) is a written compendium of knowledge. ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... Warsaw (Polish Warszawa, (?), in full The Capital City of Warsaw, Polish: Miasto StoÅ‚eczne Warszawa) is the capital of Poland and its largest city. ... Bibliography is the study of books. ... Censorship is the control of speech and other forms of human expression, often by government intervention. ... Rationalism, also known as the rationalist movement, is a philosophical doctrine that asserts that the truth can best be discovered by reason and factual analysis, rather than faith, dogma or religious teaching. ... Materialism is the philosophical view that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. ... The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ...

About 2000 authors, 1000 reviewers, and almost 100 editors were supervised by the Scientific Board appointed by the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and the Ministry of Higher Education, and headed by Professor Tadeusz Kotarbiński. The initiative to write the WEP was taken by PWN in July 1957 when it was decided that an 8-volume (lated expanded to 12 volumes) universal encyclopedia would be published. Preparations began in 1957 and the actual writing started in April 1959. It took 14 months to prepare the list of entries, about 16 months to write the first volume, and then about 9 months for each next volume. Right after the twelfth volume had been published, the work on the Supplement (about 5 thousand updated, revised or completely new articles) began. Categories: PAN | PAU | Scientific societies | Polish scientific societies | Stub | Education in Poland | Polish institutions | National academies ... Tadeusz KotarbiÅ„ski (b. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Volumes

An open volume of the encyclopedia

with dates of publishing:

1. A – Ble, 1962
2. Bli – Deo, 1963
3. Dep – Franc, 1964
4. Frang – Im, 1964
5. In – Kons, 1965
6. Kont – Mam, 1965
7. Man – Nomi, 1966
8. Nomo – Polsc, 1966
9. Polska – Robe, 1967; begins with an extensive 224-page long article about Poland, subdivided into 35 sections.
10. Robi – Step, 1967
11. Ster – Urz, 1968
12. Usa – Ż, 1969
13. Supplement, 1970

Controversy

Volume 8 includes an article entitled "Hitlerite concentration camps" (Obozy koncentracyjne hitlerowskie) which caused much controversy. The major objections were that: Concentration camp in Nazi Germany. ...

• it did not show that concentration camps were not the only tool of extermination used by the Nazis (along with penal camps, prisons, ghettos, labor camps, POW camps, etc.);
• it did not show the difference in the role of concentration camps prior to and after the German invasion on Poland;
• it distorted the image of the martyrdom of the Polish and other nations;
• it ignored the existence of German death camps localized outside Poland, ie. in Germany, Austria, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and other German-occupied countries.

As the result, the editorial team was "renewed" and a new, revised article, this time entitled "Hitlerite camps" (Obozy hitlerowskie), was added as an inset to Volume 11, and later included in the Supplement. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Nazism. ... A ghetto is an area where people from a specific ethnic background or united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. ... A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are engaged in penal labor. ... Part of Lists of Prisoner-of-War Camps section in the Prisoner-of-war camp article. ... The Polish September Campaign — also known as Polish-German War of 1939, in Poland often as Wojna obronna 1939 roku (Defensive War of 1939), in Germany as Polish Campaign (Polenfeldzug), codenamed Fall Weiss (Case White) in the German General Staff — was the invasion of Poland by the armies... Yugoslavia (Jugoslavija in all south Slavic languages, in Cyrillic Југославија or Югославия) is a term used for three separate but successive political entities that existed during most of the 20th century on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe. ...

See also

• Wielka Encyklopedia PWN (its successor)