Freedom is also not an absolute thing. There are various degrees of freedom - not just full freedom and complete lack of freedom.
No state is fully democratic / free.
I don't disagree. But it's generally understood that "freedom", in this sort of general usage, describes an effective liberal democracy, in which their exists effective political accountability, strong civil rights, and effective free press, etc. What an optimist might call "the freedom to win freedom". These things didn't exist in Poland between 1926 and 1939, so it would commonly be regarded as unfree.
So the Bushmen in Africa have democracy ??? Original / interesting theory...
The Bushmen have complete absence of any political authroity. Yet I never saw anyone describing their society as democratic...
We tend not to talk about societies as simple as the San in terms of "democracy" because we prefer to thing of them as existing in some pre-historic state of savagery. However, if you read about more complex egalitarian societies, to whom authoritarian alternatives were clearly known, you'll tend to find the idea cropping up more and more often, to the point that in certain heavily-romanticised cases, such as the early cossacks or the Iroquois Confederacy, it's practically a cliché. Whatever democratic and egalitarian characteristics these societies wasn't based on any abstract theory, of which they had little, but on the absence of asymmetries of power great enough to support undemocratic or unaccountable authority. For them, "no man may hold another" was as much a statement of fact as one of principle.
And probably there is also some nostalgy for Russian Empire among many Russians.
They want to be citizens of an Empire and Putin gives them this false impression that they are part of it.
I think that any such nostalgia is for being taken seriously as a world power, rather than for the empire in particular. Orthodox and neo-Tsarist nationalists tend to distrust Putin as much as the Communists do, even if they may be more willing to work with him for pragmatic reasons. Most Russians to whom such sentiments appeal to them aren't all that picky about the details of the flag.
Ok, here I agree.
But let's add that the 1926 - 1939 unfreedom (or maybe lack of full freedom - but some degree of freedom was present) was not opposed by majority of the Polish society. Majority of the Polish society was quite content.
We should also distinguish between two periods - first one between 1926 and 1935 and second one between 1935 and 1939.
In 1935 died Pilsudski and Pilsudskite political camp broke into two camps, of which only one - Smigly's camp - won power.
After Pilsudski's death the degree of "unfreedom" became larger than before his death and the extent of freedom decreased.
Fair enough. I'm ready to accept that Pilduski's mixture of presidentialism and strongmanism was a unique one, and that the state of the Polish Republic immediately prior to the German invasion did not reflect the entire history of the Pilsudskite regime.
And we cannot allow ourselves to think this way - because if we do the tyrants have won already and we are all their slaves.
btw. Your brother in law - He will catch on in polish pretty quick I'm sure, You just need to drink more vodka with Him 
