Originally published in 1941, this book presents a comprehensive history of Poland from 1697 to 1935. The text was begun on the initiative of the renowned Cambridge historian Harold Temperley (1879-1939), who arranged numerous meetings with Polish and British historians in relation to the project, and was completed following his death. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Poland and European history.
This is an account of the evolution of Poland from conditions of subjection to its reconstruction in 1918, development in the years between the two World Wars, and reorganisation after 1945. It begins at a time when Poland was still suffering from the legacy of the eighteenth-century Partitions and burdened with problems of sizeable ethnic minorities, inadequate agrarian reforms and sluggish industrial development sustained by foreign capital. It traces the history through to independence and then to the transformation of the country in the last thirty years. Although many of the problems of the past have now disappeared, industrialisation, the structure of peasant agriculture, and political association with the Soviet Union present the Polish People's Republic with difficulties that have yet to be resolved. Substantial achievements in an ethnically homogeneous state must be set against substantial discontents. This history provides the English-speaking reader with a scholarly synthesis based mainly on literature in Polish and other East European languages. It will be essential reading for historians of Eastern Europe and for those interested in modern Polish society.
Poland is celebrated internationally for its rich and varied performance traditions and theatre histories. This groundbreaking volume is the first in English to engage with these topics across an ambitious scope, incorporating Staropolska, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Enlightenment and Romanticism within its broad ambit. The book also discusses theatre cultures under socialism, the emergence of canonical practitioners and training methods, the development of dramaturgical forms and stage aesthetics and the political transformations attending the ends of the First and Second World Wars. Subjects of far-reaching transnational attention such as Jerzy Grotowski and Tadeusz Kantor are contextualised alongside theatre makers and practices that have gone largely unrecognized by international readers, while the participation of ethnic minorities in the production of national culture is given fresh attention. The essays in this collection theorise broad historical trends, movements, and case studies that extend the discursive limits of Polish national and cultural identity.
Poland was a problematic issue for the Big Powers throughout the Second World War. For Britain, Poland was a major stumbling block in British-Soviet relations as Polish-Soviet territorial disputes clashed with the needs of the British-Soviet-United States alliance. As the Polish government-in-exile attempted to obtain a guarantee of British support, and many thousands of Polish troops fought for the British cause, the perception grew that the Churchill government had a debt to pay. Ultimately, however, it was a debt which Britain could not discharge because of its dependence on Soviet participation in the war. In this book Anita Prazmowska looks at British policies from the point of view of wartime strategy, relating this to Polish government expectations and policies. She describes a tragic situation where Polish soldiers were trapped between the grandiose and unrealistic plans of their government and the harsh realities of a war which they fought with no prospect of a satisfactory outcome for them or their country.
This book was the first English-language history of Poland from the Second World War until the fall of Communism. Using a wide range of Polish archives and unpublished sources in Moscow and Washington, Tony Kemp-Welch integrates the Cold War history of diplomacy and inter-state relations with the study of domestic opposition and social movements. His key themes encompass political, social and economic history; the Communist movement and its relations with the Soviet Union; and the broader East-West context with particular attention to US policies. The book concludes with a first-hand account of how Solidarity formed the world's first post-Communist government in 1989 as the Polish people demonstrated what can be achieved by civic courage against apparently insuperable geo-strategic obstacles. This compelling new account will be essential reading for anyone interested in Polish history, the Communist movement and the course of the Cold War.
A very readable and comprehensive overview that examines the realities of Jewish life while setting them in their political, economic, and social contexts.
Józef Piłsudski (1868-1935) is the heroic and controversial leader of the reconstituted Poland that emerged out of World War I. He was a revolutionary who defeated the Red Armies outside of Warsaw and although he never held an elected office, he placed his personal stamp on the development of the Pre-War Polish Republic. In some ways he was a visionary for the era (A Federation of Eastern States, free education, woman’s suffrage) he also was responsible for a dominant military presence and a coup against the elected government. Dr. Lenkiewicz examines the life of this hero of Poland based on original documentation and people who knew him.