Polish soldier with a Browning wz automatic rifle. 28 in firing position Poland in the first half of the 20th century had an unenviable position: between Germany and the USSR, without reliable allies, with the threat of disappearing from the map of Europe. But when Hitler proposed a joint campaign against the USSR to Warsaw, the Poles said no. This refusal was a death sentence for the country and an insurance policy for the Soviet Union.

On the birthday of John Lennon, who would have turned 85 today, Republic is publishing an article about how The Beatles were heard in China. During the years of the “cultural revolution,” secret Beatlemaniacs were driven to suicide, imprisoned and exiled to the countryside, and the organizers of the apartments were even sentenced to death.

An interview with Alexei Arestovich, a futurologist and former adviser to the office of the President of Ukraine, was published on Ksenia Sobchak’s YouTube channel. Republic columnist Dmitry Bykov*, who always spoke warmly about the hero of the show, explains why changing shoes in the air is better than crawling on your knees.

A section of a proof print of German black and white film Agfa Isopan F Arthur Bondar discovered an archive of contact prints made by a German officer during the advance of the 1st Tank Army from Kyiv to Rostov-on-Don in 1942. In these images you can see the daily life of occupied Kyiv, the advance of Wehrmacht columns through Soviet settlements and the destruction of Rostov.