I believe the fact that Polish uses the Latin alphabet (with a small Slavic twist to express the extra sounds) meant it was much easier for Poland to align itself westward. I think the average Pole is much closer culturally to the Western neighbours than to a Ukrainian or Russian (maybe apart from cuisine).

“Polish uses the English/Latin alphabet” - was it developed back when the US and Italy were allies in ancient Roman times?

As I am fond of saying: "The good news about Open Source is that you've got the source code; the bad news about Open Source is that _you've_ got the source code."

That is, you may well get sucked down a rabbit hole in order to accomplish a simple task.

The linguistic, historical, and cultural information is so fascinating, and really well explained.