Juliette Bretan

Juliette Bretan is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Cambridge.

In her freelance work, she has written regularly for Notes from Poland and Culture.pl, and been published in The Public Domain Review, The Sunday Times, The New Statesman’s CityMetric, The Independent, Euronews (Living), World Politics Review, Ozy, The European Literature Network, Politics.co.uk, OneZero, Glimmer by Glitch, Hromadske, New Eastern Europe, The Calvert Journal, Xtra Magazine, CultureTrip and Global Comment, among others.


Her poetry has been published in Too Well Away Literary Journal. She has also contributed to the BBC World Service, been interviewed for BBC Radio Lincolnshire and Australia's 'Nightlife' programme on ABC Radio, and lectured at the Polish Heritage Society of the UK, the College of Europe in Natolin and for the Polish Society in Cambridge. She has appeared on the Notes from Poland, History Hack, and Stories from the Space Between podcasts.


Engelsberg Ideas •

An unlikely artistic alliance: the wartime Britons who saved and celebrated German art

February 1944 was a period of cautious optimism about the outcome of the Second World War. The Allies were gradually progressing on the Eastern Front, as well as into the Italian mainland, beginning their assaults on German and Italian fortifications around western Italy. Plans to create a second front in western Europe later that year — the Normandy landings, or D-Day — were in place.
The Calvert Journal •

Tracing the trailblazing lives of Poland’s first feminist activists

“Women believe blindly, love, devote themselves to others, raise children, amuse themselves… hence they live up to everything the world demands of them. Yet the world looks at them awry and responds to them now and then with reproaches or admonitions: ‘Things are not well with you!’ The more knowing, intelligent, or unhappy women look inside themselves or at the world around them and repeat: ‘Things are not well with us!’”
The Calvert Journal •

How one high schooler’s Facebook beauty brand is saving survivors of domestic abuse in Poland

All pastel pink backgrounds and pen-and-ink flowers, the Facebook page for Rumianki i bratki (“Chamomiles and Pansies”) is a shrine to soft-toned beauty brand aesthetics. “We are a newly-established company dealing in the creation and sale of natural cosmetics”, the first, sunflower emoji-studded post reads. On sale are a plethora of immaculately packaged cleansing masks, make-up removers, soaps, and balms. But appearances can be deceiving.
Notes From Poland •

Polish brewer turns beer left unsold during pandemic into green energy

One of Poland’s largest beer producers, Żywiec, is collecting unsold beer from restaurants and bars to produce biogas to power its breweries. Before the pandemic, Poles drank 4.5 billion zloty (€1 billion) worth of beer in restaurants and bars annually. However, with the hospitality sector closed for much of the last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, consumption has fallen by over 40%, reports Rzeczpospolita.
Notes From Poland •

The glittering nightlife and thriving culture of interwar Warsaw

With its illustrious theatres, revolving dance floors, and cutting-edge cinemas, the social world of interwar Warsaw was as glitzy as it gets. Already nicknamed the “Paris of the North”, Poland’s capital in the interwar period saw its traditional architecture complemented by the city’s first skyscrapers – including the Art Deco style Prudential building – neon lights, film studios, and expanding transport networks.
Culture.pl •

The Forgotten Polish-French Couple at the Heart of the European Tango Craze

There are several stories about the origins of tango in Europe – and the true tale of its arrival on the continent remains unclear. But the activities of one Polish tenor and opera star who lived in Paris, Jan Reszke, and his French wife Marie de Mailly-Nesle, proved instrumental in the initial popularity of tango across the stages, ballrooms and dance halls of the French city, and then across Europe and beyond…
Notes From Poland •

First dog adoption app in Poland launched by high school students

A group of high-school students from the Polish city of Wrocław have created an app to match dogs needing adoption with prospective owners. The “Befriend” app, whose interface is modelled on Tinder, is the first of its kind in Poland and has already been met with an enthusiastic response. After downloading Befriend, which is available for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play, users indicate their location and how far they are willing to travel to an animal shelter. They can also specify
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